“Yes,” the small alien replied.
“We have been exceedingly patient with your invasion of our world. You did not inquire whether this was a reasonable thing to do, nor negotiate ahead of time a suitable program for doing so, and when it did not prove to be reasonable, and we took steps to isolate the disturbance in as minimal a way as possible, you killed two of our people.
“Yes, we have been patient beyond any reasonable translation of that word, and now I'm going to ask that you be as patient with us today as we have been with you these many days past. Your patience will be tried, not by violence and death-as ours has been-but by boredom and ennui as we carry out, as we must, the rituals of our government as they were set up uncounted millennia ago.
“At that time an ancient Cerebronian philosopher by the name of Petero observed that all of our levels of government were filled by incompetents, that indeed government officials rose to their ultimate level of competence and then one level beyond, where they then remained, incompetent, for lack of ability to advance further.
“The observation was so striking and so self -evident that it became known as Petero's Principle, and all government was immediately reorganized to include the strike factor, whereby any official may be declared incompetent and displaced merely by a subordinate showing greater competence at that higher level.
“That, by definition, proves that the former official was incompetent, that is, not as competent as he could have been; and the process of proof, whatever form it takes, is known as striking for the higher position.
“So I now turn responsibility for these proceedings over to my subordinate, Neuronius, so that he may evaluate and respond to your proposal.”
As he made the last statement, Synapo graciously gestured in Neuronius's direction and carefully watched his subordinate for involuntary reflexes, the body language, the telepathy that would tell him what was going through his subordinate's mind.
And if Axonius were competent for command, he would also be studying the mindset that Neuronius would be bodycasting-broadcasting with his body. And Axonius would take that into consideration when he finally rendered his detailed analysis and final judgment of Neuronius in a caucus of the Cerebron elite.
So in a sense, not only Neuronius and Synapo, but Axonius as well, was on trial, for it would be the Cerebron elite, in caucus, who would render the final judgment that would restructure the government of the Cerebrons, if this immediate negotiation proved to be a decisive node in their history.
And in that negotiation with the aliens, Axonius must be the tie splitter-on the spot-if Synapo and Neuronius disagreed. Axonius could be placed in a quite delicate position. He could literally be dumped from the elite if he made a wrong decision, no matter how the contest between Synapo and Neuronius came out.
However, Axonius did have one factor going for him: he had nine votes in a caucus that would exclude Synapo and Neuronius. Each member of the elite had votes corresponding in number to his position in the hierarchy.
So now, all of this was surely going through the minds of the other two Cerebrons as Synapo turned to Neuronius to obtain his response.
The bodycast was not good. Neuronius radiated confidence, and that must surely have an effect on Axonius, which could make things difficult for Synapo if Neuronius took a contrary course.
“Miss Ariel Welsh, you plead a good case for the cause of your people,” Neuronius said. “Perhaps I do not fully understand all that you said, but my mentor is an excellent instructor who has never failed me thus far, so I'm reasonably sure I understood the gist of your remarks.
“You radiate confidence and sincerity and all the other aspects essential to the execution of leadership, so you can surely not be found at fault in that regard
“And your proposed change to the labor-intensive mode of agriculture seems-on the surface-benign, as you so eloquently describe it.
“The node compensator is operating at ninety-nine-point-two percent efficiency, and that has proved acceptable in Cerebron caucus, so that certainly is a point in your favor.
“And neither you nor your servant, taken individually, nor the small collection represented by one of your loaded vehicles-all small thermal emitters-constitute a weather node, as my mentor has concluded.
“Those are all positive arguments that weigh in your favor, but we must counterpose on the scale the few negative things which argue against your proposal before we can assess which way the scale finally tips.
“And surely weighing in against your proposal are the deaths of our two colleagues, and in the particular case of the last fatality, the passive state of our colleague before his death-in tether, a grim way to die without being able to defend one's self. How many more deaths of Ceremyons lie in the future?
“Yet those deaths-which can be largely attributed to misunderstandings by incompetent servants-and the small likelihood of more deaths in the future, do not tip the scale against you.
“Now we must weigh the true nature of the agricultural mode and the supporting, partially compensated, city nodes, and there is where we stumble.
“We know nothing about the agricultural mode except your reassurances of its serene harmlessness, nor do we know what additional emanations may find their way out of the opening in the city compensator.
“You term our fears irrational, when any rational being, considering your past performance, must judge your actions to be frightening and such fears to be well founded.
“We mourn our dead colleagues, and we are ever so uncertain concerning the nature of your proposal, so we have no choice but to vehemently oppose your further occupation of our planet. We do not consider your intentions benign, Miss Ariel Welsh, not by a hooked eye.”
Neuronius hunched his wings and fell silent.
The fool,Synapo thought. He has just cast himself from the elite. There is little doubt of that. And just as I suspected. he reacted to the small alien's haughty disparagement when she used the term “irrational.” It weighed in heavily with the fool's own irrationality. his basic paranoia. which I have long suspected.
Thank god for the level-headed Axonius.
Now it was time for Synapo to cast his own vote.
If he agreed with Neuronius, he would only have to say so, and Axonius would be off the hook. For Synapo to register his opposition, he had only to ask Axonius for his opinion.
Which he did.
“And how say you, Axonius?”
For the second time that morning, Synapo felt some misgivings. Axonius's body language showed fear and irresolution when he should have been exuding confidence and decisiveness.
“Clearly,” Axonius said, “Neuronius has properly assessed the situation and has come to a remarkably astute conclusion.”
Synapo was stunned. His clever strategy had backfired completely. His attention this past year had been too much on the paranoia of Neuronius, and he had failed to properly assess Axonius, who had always seemed such a reliable lieutenant. That was where Synapo had gone wrong, perhaps: the difficulty of properly assessing someone you basically like and who invariably agrees with you.
It was a mere formality now. Synapo was foremost a statesman and a loyal Ceremyon; and a politician only when it wouldn't hurt the tribes.
He could have opposed his two subordinates, and the elite might grudgingly have supported him, but then he would have presented to the aliens the picture of a race and a government in disarray. It was more the position of the elite to acknowledge that disarray after the fact and to show magnanimity toward the aliens and flexibility in government by reversing the decision of their agents.