He mounted the ramp of the capital and brushed past the rigid guards. The other officers were already assembled in the presidential suite: the five supreme individuals of the planet, gathered about the giant semicircular table. The Monarch, the Prime Minister, the Fleet Admiral, the Chief of Intelligence and the Chancellor of the Exchequer — all waiting somberly for the meeting to begin.
Schön took his place. Not one of the others was particularly pleased at his presence, but they did not dare to make a key decision without him. They knew he was clever enough to foil anything arranged without his consent.
The Prime Minister elevated himself, lifting his venerable thorax above the table. “Gentlemen — we have received an ultimatum from the Hegemony of Lion. We are met here to consider our response.”
The Monarch turned to him. “A précis, if you please.”
“Surrender of all military equipment together with attached personnel. Deportation of hostages to Lion, as itemized. Indemnities. Reconstruction.”
“Standard contract,” the Chief observed.
“All present of this council appear on the hostage list?” the Monarch inquired.
The Minister rattled agreement. “All but the Captain. Together with households.”
The Chancellor coughed. “Households! That means our daughters get dinked.”
“Good for them, I’m sure,” the Chief muttered.
The Chancellor inflated angrily, but the Monarch cut him off by speaking again. “How strict are the indemnities?”
“Standard. Ten percent of Gross Planetary Product for Ram and environs, fifteen percent for subsidiary worlds. Exploitation of subsequently developed offworld resources, fifty percent.”
“Too high,” the Admiral said. “They should not get more than twenty percent of windfall acquisitions.”
“Academic, since we won’t have our navy,” the Chief pointed out. “No ships, no loot — unless you plan to refit merchant vessels for your piracy.”
“Piracy!”
“Gentlemen, let’s not quibble over terminology in this time of crisis,” the Monarch said. “The question is, do we acquiesce?”
“No!” the Admiral exclaimed. “We have the space fold coordinates of their main system updated to the second. We have the missiles for an inundation strike. Act now, and we can wipe them out. Solve the problem once and for all.”
“Very neat,” the Chief said dryly. “Except for their second-strike capability. What use mutual destruction?”
“Better that than slavery!”
“A standard contract is hardly slavery, even with fifty percent windfall appropriation. We have issued similar contracts to lesser species in the past.”
“What makes you think they’ll honor those terms, once our fleet has been dismantled?”
“Haven’t you heard of the Gemini Convention?”
“That’s passé. We never bothered with it. Not for fifty thousand years—”
“Gentlemen,” the Monarch repeated, and the argument subsided fretfully.
“It seems our various opinions are fairly set,” the Minister remarked. “Some are amenable to compromise, some feel we would be foolish to allow ourselves to be read out of power by such means.”
“Better read than dead,” the Chief murmured.
“Treason!” the Admiral exclaimed.
“However,” the Minister continued loudly, “we must agree on some recommendation before this session ends. The Monarch, of course, will make the decision.”
There was a silence.
“I am, as you know, from a far system,” Schön said after an interval. “Possibly my perspective differs from yours.”
They waited noncommittally, grudgingly allowing him to make his case.
“As I understand it, Ram has historically had good relations with Lion. Both hegemonies rose to sapience about a million years before the Traveler appeared, and because of their proximity — within a hundred light-years of each other — an intense dialogue was feasible. The development of spacefold transport was hailed as the beginning of an era of splendor, now that these longtime and compatible correspondents could meet physically and without a time delay of centuries.”
“Ancient history,” snorted the Admiral.
“Yet instead of a mutually beneficial interchange — trade — you developed antipathy. You were at war within a thousand years, and have fought intermittently and inconclusively ever since, just as Tyre fought with Sidon.”
“Tyre? Sidon?” the Admiral inquired. “Where in the galaxy are they? What kind of fleets do they have?”
“Mixed fleets: war galleys and merchanters,” Schön replied straight-faced. “The point is, they depleted their resources and discommoded their navies by striving senselessly against each other, instead of mobilizing against their mutual enemies.”
“That’s an oversimplification,” the Minister said. “We have had numerous encounters with other systems—”
“Three wars with Centaur, two with Swan, altercations with Eagle, Horse, Dog, Hare—” Schön put in.
“Alliances with Bear, Beaver, Dragon—” the Minister interposed in turn, retaining his equanimity.
“All of which were violently sundered. Why? What happened to the mighty era of knowledge and prosperity heralded by the availability of interstellar travel?”
“Our neighbors disappointed us.”
“They all were unworthy. Sure. And now Lion has issued an ultimatum demanding your conditional surrender. Surely they had provocation?”
The Admiral and the Minister rustled their scales discordantly.
“There was a border incident,” the Chief admitted after a small delay.
“Of what nature. Practically speaking, you don’t have a border with Lion. You have to use spacefold — and you can’t just rub up against your neighbor by accident. Not when you have to compress an object of near-planetary mass into its gravitational radius in order to poke through. For that matter, spacefold transport and accurate coordinates make the entire galaxy your neighbor. Light velocity limitation means nothing anymore.”
“It was a reconnaissance mission,” the Admiral said.
“A two-thousand-mile diameter moon on reconnaissance? Equipped to service several thousand warships, each potentially armed with planet-busters? Your euphemism hardly becomes the situation. And I’ll bet you planted it within five light-seconds of their homeworld.”
“Three light-seconds,” the Admiral said almost inaudibly.
“And you didn’t bother with any ultimatum, did you? Just a nice, neat fait accompli. You thought. Sneak your battlemoon right within range of their capital-planet, while their own ships were elsewhere. So what happened?”
“They were ready for us,” the Minister said. “They had complete information.”
“Incredible bungling,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer muttered. “Have you any idea what a battlemoon costs?”
“Obviously there was a leak,” Schön said. He was beginning to get bored.
“Obviously.” The Admiral glared at the Chief, who averted his facets.
“So now Lion has your, er, expedition, and the balance of power has shifted in its favor. Thus the ultimatum.”
None of them replied.
“I have,” Schön continued after a pause, “been doing a little research. I find that this entire question is unimportant.”
Their eyes appraised him stonily.
“Ram and Lion are two principalities amid a galaxy of kingdoms, federations and empires. The only reason neither has been gobbled up yet is that there is insufficient wealth between you to warrant the trouble. However, the flux of major powers is at the state where it has become economically feasible to absorb you both, rather than tolerate your petty raids on civilized installations any longer. You Phoenicians and Greeks are ripe for Egypt or Assyria — or even Alexander.”
The Monarch contemplated him sadly through a golden facet. “Are you ready now to inform us whom you represent? This Alexander, perhaps?”
“I represent no one but myself. I am merely stating facts that should be obvious to any objective party. Your shortsightedness is destroying you. You are wasting each other’s resources while the wolves look on, and they are only waiting until you are at your weakest stage before snapping you up. You would be far better off to make an honest alliance with Lion — even to the extent of accepting that so-called contract — and thus perhaps postpone a more final loss of identity.”