“I do not know what sort of research the Big Uglies do, or what sort of archives they have,” Herrep said. “But I do know I have an answer for you, or the beginnings of an answer.”
“Do you?” Atvar said eagerly. “Tell me, please!”
“However little I care to admit it, your wild Big Ugly of an aspirant appears to be correct,” the protocol master replied. “The imperial laver and imperial limner are not involved in the ceremony when the representative from an independent empire greets the Emperor. In ancientest days, before Home was unified, the Emperor sometimes sent out ambassadors of his own to other emperors. Their lavers and limners-for they too had such officials-were not involved, either.”
“I thank you,” Atvar said. “So independence is what matters? I do not suppose that Sam Yeager’s coming from a not-empire would affect the situation?”
“A not-empire?” Herrep said. “Please forgive me, Exalted Fleetlord, but I am unfamiliar with the term.” As best he could, Atvar explained the American Tosevite penchant for snoutcounting. The protocol master’s eye turrets moved in a way that said the idea revolted him. It revolted Atvar, too, but the Big Uglies seemed to thrive on it. Herrep asked, “On Tosev 3, such a temporary, snoutcounted sovereign is considered the equal of any other?”
“That is a truth. You need have no doubt of it whatever.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “Not-empires are more common than empires there. The United States is one of the oldest ones; it has used this system for more than five hundred of our years.”
Herrep hissed scornfully. “And this is supposed to be a long time?”
“By our standards, no. By the standards Big Uglies use, Protocol Master, it is a fairly long time,” Atvar answered.
“You realize I would have to stretch a point, and stretch it a long way, to consider the representative of such a sovereign equal to an ambassador from a true empire,” Herrep said. “There is no precedent for such a thing.”
“There may not be any precedent on Home, but there is a great deal of it on Tosev 3,” Atvar said.
The protocol master made the negative gesture. “On Tosev 3, there is precedent for fleetlords treating with such individuals. There is none for the Emperor to do so.”
“If you refuse-and especially if you refuse at this stage-you offer the American Big Uglies a deadly insult. This is the sort of insult that could prove deadly in the most literal sense of the word,” Atvar said. “As for stretching a point-there is all the Tosevite precedent for empires dealing with not-empires. If we recognize the United States as independent-and what choice do we have, when it is? — we have to recognize that precedent, too. And remember, the American Big Uglies are here. They are also as formidable as that implies.”
“I do not want to do what is expedient,” Herrep said. “I want to do what is right.”
Alarm coursed through Atvar. He wished he’d never uttered the word not-empire in the protocol master’s hearing. By the nature of his job, Herrep cared more for punctilio than for the real world. The real world hadn’t impinged on the imperial court for more than a hundred thousand years. But it was here again. One way or another, Herrep was going to have to see that.
Carefully, the fleetlord said, “If helping to ensure peace not just between two independent entities”-that took care of empires and not-empires-“is not right, what is? And if you consult with his Majesty himself, I think you will find he has a lively interest in meeting the ambassador from the United States.”
On the monitor, Herrep stirred uncomfortably. “I am aware of that. I had, for a moment, forgotten that you were as well.” Atvar almost laughed, but at the last moment kept his amusement from showing. That struck him as a particularly revealing comment. The protocol master went on, “Very well, Exalted Fleetlord. I have no good reason to accept Tosevite precedents, but you remind me I have no good reason to reject them, either. We shall go forward as if this wild Big Ugly represented a proper empire.”
“I thank you,” Atvar said. “By the spirits of Emperors past, I think you are doing that which is best for the Empire.”
“I hope so,” Herrep said dubiously. “But I wonder about the sort of precedent I am setting. Will other wild Big Uglies from different not-empires come to Home seeking audience with his Majesty? Should they have it if they do?”
“It is possible that they may,” replied Atvar, who thought it was probable that they would. A starship from the SSSR was supposed to be on the way, in fact-but then, the SSSR’s rulers had killed off their emperor, something the fleetlord did not intend to tell Herrep. “If they succeed in coming here, they will have earned it, will they not? One group of independent Big Uglies, the Nipponese, have an emperor whose line of descent, they claim, runs back over five thousand of our years.”
“Still a parvenu next to the Emperor,” Herrep said. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. The protocol master sighed. “Still, I could wish they had got here first. We shall just have to endure these others.”
“They are all nuisances, whether they come from empires or not-empires,” Atvar said. With a sigh of his own that came from years of experience, much of which he would rather not have had, he went on, “It may almost be just as well that many of them have kept their independence. They are too different from us. We had little trouble assimilating the Rabotevs and Hallessi, and we thought building the Empire would always be easy. Even if we do eventually succeed with the Big Uglies, they have taught us otherwise.”
“You would know better than I,” Herrep said. “Aside from the obvious fact that snoutcounting is ridiculous, everything I have seen of these Big Uglies-the ones who have come to Home-suggests they are at least moderately civilized.”
Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “Oh, yes. I would agree with you. The American Tosevites sent the best they had. I was not worried about their lack of civilization, especially not here on Home. I was worried about how fast they progress in science and technology, and about how different from us they are sexually and socially. I do wonder if those two difficulties are related.”
“What could we do if they are?”
“As of now, nothing has occurred to me-or, so far as I know, to anyone else.”
“Then why waste time wondering?”
“You are a sensible male, Protocol Master. Of course this is what you would say,” Atvar replied. “The trouble is, the Big Uglies make me wonder about the good sense of good sense, if that makes any sense to you.” By Herrep’s negative gesture, it didn’t. Atvar wasn’t surprised. Nothing about Tosev 3 really made sense to the Race. Trouble? Oh, yes. Tosev 3 made plenty of trouble.
Dr. Melanie Blanchard and Mickey Flynn were floating in the Admiral Peary ’s control room when Glen Johnson pulled himself up there. Johnson felt a small twinge of jealousy listening to them talk as he came up the access tube. He knew that was idiotic, which didn’t prevent the twinge. Yes, Dr. Blanchard was a nice-looking woman-one of the nicer-looking women for more than ten light-years in any direction-but it wasn’t as if she were his. And she would be going down to the surface of Home before long, a journey on which neither he nor Flynn could hope to follow.
“It’s too bad,” she was saying when Johnson emerged. “That is really too bad.”
“What is?” Johnson asked.
“News from Earth,” Mickey Flynn said.
Johnson waited. Flynn said no more. Johnson hadn’t really expected that he would. With such patience as the junior pilot could muster, he asked, “What news from Earth?”
“An Arab bomb in Jerusalem killed Dr. Chaim Russie,” Melanie Blanchard said. “He was the grandson of Dr. Moishe Russie, the man for whom the Lizards’ medical college for people is named.”