The Councillors gasped, and all Four Lords smiled knowingly. “But—that would leave the entire human race totally and completely at the mercy of a race and culture of which we know nothing, having to trust all your promises at face valuel” Senator Luge exclaimed. “Surely you can’t be serious!”
“You proposed to cut loose unilaterally fifty million plus people who are Confederacy citizens under law and put them under these people, you know,” Talant Ypsir snapped. “If it’s good enough for us, it should be good enough for you!”
Morah let the outburst pass, and the Councillors ignored it. “These are negotiations in progress,” he reminded them all. “Let us keep our decorum. Manager Soog?”
“Can the Senator or his advisors suggest any other way we can guarantee our security?” the alien asked.
“Our word is—” the Senator started, but the alien cut him off.
“Your word is valueless. Even you know this. Even as these proceedings begin, a vast and powerful war fleet is within range of the Warden system. On the very eve of negotiations it launched four military probes of advanced design against us. We know what your word is worth, Senator.”
There was consternation and frantic whispering on the Council’s side. Finally Luge seemed to calm everyone down and turned back to the camera. “May we have a recess to discuss a counteroffer?”
Morah looked around. “Is there any objection? No? For how long, then, Senator?”
“One—uh, sorry, two hours.”
“Agents? Manager? Lords? No objection?”
“Let them have their meeting,” Laroo snarled. “It’ll probably be hilarious.”
“Very well, then. This meeting is in recess for two hours and will reconvene at twelve thirty standard.”
Both screens winked out, and everybody seemed to relax. Both Ypsir and Laroo seemed extremely pleased by the way things had gone; Kobe was as impassive as Morah, who looked over at the two opposite him and asked, “Well? Do you think it’s still possible to reach any sort of agreement?”
“I doubt it. Not until we’ve gone through the bloody motions. How about it, Morah? Will they understand a show of force and resistance, or will they simply go all-out?”
“They understand the game, if that’s what you mean. How they will play is anybody’s guess and is certainly beyond my ability to predict. However, they have gone along with it this far, and that is an achievement.”
The agent rose from the table. “I have to call my people.”
He gave it to them straight, but they didn’t really believe him. Not all of it. He was surprised at the start that they had accepted most of his report as gospel—certainly the computer had backed him up, and their own analysis of the same data seemed to have reinforced it. What they could not accept was the concept that the Altavar were in any sense militarily superior to the Confederacy. In weaponry, yes, but not in total weapons systems or firepower.
“But what kind of a solution can you have?” he asked, frustrated. “Nothing less than their offer will give them the security they want, and we can’t possibly accept it.”
“We think we were more than fair in our initial offer,” Luge replied, “and it is still the only offer we can live with. Ypsir certainly has a nerve suggesting we can’t turn over the Diamond to the Altavar—by their own admission now they are in a state of open rebellion. But these squishy, tentacled things give me the creeps. We all wish we had something other than the Diamond to hold over them, but we don’t. We don’t know their power or their forces. In one respect, old squirmy had us pegged. Power and fear of power is the only thing that really counts in situations like this. I know you think they can beat us, but we can’t see any way that’s possible. The only way to get us the information we need, and to learn the true situation once and for all, the Council feels, is a demonstration attack.”
He sighed. “I thought as much, but I’m against it. I don’t know what it is, but I have this crazy feeling that the Altavar, and Morah, are laughing at us.”
“Bluff. They have no place to even hide a fleet, and even if the Diamond is extremely well defended, as we think, they are entirely on the defensive there. Any fleet of theirs capable of menacing the Diamond would be weeks, perhaps months away. Since the Diamond is all-important to them, we must put it in jeopardy. This will force their fleet, if in fact they have one, out into the open to counter us, or it will reveal their bluff. Either way, we’ll know what we’re facing.”
“But if you attack the Diamond you lose the only card we have,” he pointed out.
“Not the Diamond. Not entirely. Just one. One of the four worlds. A demonstration of power—for both sides. If they can keep us from doing it, then we’ll know something. If they cannot, they risk losing the other three, one at a time, unless they agree to our original terms. This way we destroy a quarter of their eggs or whatever, but leave them three quarters. Unless they choose not to call us, in which case the bluff is revealed and we are in complete control. We still feel that if they could have destroyed us, they would have done so at the outset The fact that they are talking at all indicates our original hypothesis is correct.”
He shook his head sadly. “I was afraid it would come to this, but I hoped not. You will have to give the ultimatum yourself—I simply cannot bring myself to do it.” He hesitated a moment. “You intend to target Medusa, is that correct?”
Luge looked slightly surprised, then nodded. “Yes. It has the smallest population, is the system’s industrial base, and is also, in fact, the only world where hard evidence of an Altavar colony exists. Eliminate Medusa and you eliminate the technological base of the Diamond. None of the others could support the needed factories.”
“I’ll need details,” he said softly.
“What you suggest will cost you far more than it will cost us,” the Altavar told the Council. “Perhaps it was destined to be this way. But there will be no limited, demonstration wars. If a Diamond world is destroyed, then we will take appropriate action to bring this matter to a conclusion.”
“You ask us to take your word for your honesty and trustworthiness with nothing whatever to support it,” the agent interjected, trying to avoid what he Was beginning to believe could not be avoided. “You say that our racial histories are not as different as they are similar. You surely must appreciate, then, that a civilization with over nine hundred worlds cannot totally capitulate on the word, the promise, the threat of one opponent whose entire race and history are a blank to us.”
“We know,” Soog responded, and there seemed genuine sadness and regret in that electronic voice. “We have known that all along. That is why generally we simply make an all-out comprehensive attack. It is far less costly to our side, yet comes down to the same thing.”
“But if you felt this way all along, why didn’t you do it here?” Luge responded sharply, thinking he had scored a point.
“If you were faced with this prospect, and there was but a five-percent chance this could all be avoided, would you not try?” the Altavar asked him. “We saw that one chance, and allowed ourselves to be convinced of it. It was a mistake, and many more will die because of that mistake, yet we are not sorry we made it. To have not taken the opportunity would have always left the question begging—did we wipe out so many countless intelligent beings for nothing?”