“Spitting is out of the question. If we try to drive through, we expose ourselves to attack from all sides. The splitting procedure gives rise to the same objections. This leaves slicing or whittling—and since a whittle is only a small slice, or a slice a large whittle, let us discuss them simultaneously.”
Miranid looked steadily at Henlo.
“I will not whittle if I can slice, but I cannot slice, and for the same reason, I cannot whittle. For this is not a clay sphere, Henlo, but a steel ball—and red-hot, to boot. With every stroke I make, I will lose a greater percentage of my available ships than the enemy will.
“His supply lines are short—I’ve shortened them for him. His ships can land, be repaired, refueled, and re-armed, their crews replaced by fresh men, and sent back into battle a hundred times for each new ship that can reach me from Farla. I have a limited supply of men, equipment, and food. With every stroke, I wear down my sharpness a little more.”
He paused an instant, then went on, “Until, finally, I attack the sphere for one last time and my dull, worn knife slips off the surface without leaving an impression. So, again, stalemate, eventual disgust, and no true peace—that is, no peace which will not leave conditions immediately ripe for another useless war.
“I would say, as a matter of fact, that this same theory makes true peace impossible so long as any wars are attempted.”
Miranid grinned at Henlo, his professorial mood abruptly ended. “Fortunately, in this special case, we can do the impossible on both counts.”
Henlo granted that it all seemed to make sense—and that Miranid was holding some effective strategy between his ears. It was less easy, however, to understand why the lecture had been launched in the first place. After all, if Miranid had his strategy carefully planned, all the situation required was for him to simply lay that strategy out, and have Henlo execute it.
It could only mean that Miranid’s purposes extended far beyond the mere winning of a war—a fact which Henlo naturally assumed in connection with anyone engaged in any sort of activity. But this was the first time that Miranid had ever revealed his thoughts so candidly.
Was Miranid, too, conscious that things might come to an unexpectedly large head at that last battle?
Henlo noticed with a start that Miranid had deliberately been giving him time to arrive at his conclusions. The admiral grinned again, but now resumed the thread of the discussion without making any comment.
“Our barbarian friends have another weakness, which we have up to this point not been able to utilize without compromising its existence. I’ve carefully saved it until now, and they have considerately not discovered it within themselves.
“The Vilks, of course, were able to make war quite successfully. Since they were operating as a horde of mobile independent principalities, and since they were after loot and glory only, they were never forced to gain what civilized nations would term ‘victory,’ or ‘conquest.’
“They were reapers, harvesting the same field again and again, and gradually extending their borders. They had no time for the re-education of subject peoples to their own ideals or patriotic causes—a fact further implemented by their total lack of such civilized appurtenances. They merely informed their vassals that they had become the property of whatever Vilk it happened to be, and levied tribute accordingly. They left it to the natural fertility of the Vilk soldier to gradually erase all traces of independent nationality among such nations as could interbreed, and to the natural inertia of generations of slavery among such as could not.
“The result has been the gradual accumulation, in Vilk ranks, of a number of Vilks who are not Vilks.”
Miranid seemed anxious to stress the point.
“And these Vilks may be good, barbarian Vilks like all the rest of them. But some of them inevitably feel that their particular kind of Vilk is better fitted to rule the communal roost.
“A situation, you will agree, which does not apply among such civilized communities as Farla, which may have its internal dissensions, but no special uniforms of hide-color, limb-distribution, or digital anomalies around which infra-nationalistic sentiments may be rallied.”
Miranid stabbed the chart with his dividers. “We will slice here, here, and here, with most of our lighter units supported by some heavier groups. You and I, Henlo, will take the remainder of the main fleet and spit right through to Vilkai, where we will crown some highly un-Vilkish Vilk king of the Vilks, and then leave him to perish.
“The entire sorry mess will slash itself to suicide in the petty nationalistic squabbles which are sure to follow the precedent we set them. We will be enabled to do so quite easily by the allies which our housewifely intelligence corps has neatly suborned for us.”
Miranid stared down at the chart, his weight on his spread arms.
“Henlo,” he said thoughtfully, “I think we may have come, finally, to our last battle.”
VII
The deceleration of apparent time had begun for Henlo a few moments before, when he had reached that same conclusion. He realized, on the level of cold reason, that it was not time which was slowing. It was his own thoughts which were speeding, driving through his brain so fast that they tricked the time-sense geared to his normal thinking pace. But, nevertheless, it seemed to him that the world was drowned in glue through which only he moved with ease and fluidity.
It was a phenomenon of mind that came to him in battles and conspiracies, and he enjoyed it, in one special part of his mind, whenever it came. And it was a paradox of the situation that he thereby enjoyed it less, for he arrived at his inevitable conclusion sooner, and thus ended the moment stolen from mortality.
“It would certainly seem so,” he said calmly, in agreement with Miranid’s conviction. “But we can still lose the war. Something can go wrong. And if it does, every other battle will have been wasted.”
Miranid nodded. “You’re quite right. But I don’t think anything disastrous will happen. So plan this battle as though it were the last, definitely.”
He grinned. The lopsided expression was known throughout the fleet, and the men—officers and crew—had long ago nicknamed him “The Laughing Genius.”
“Because,” he said, “even if it isn’t, we’ll never plan another.”
No, thought Henlo, we never will. Even if it is.
“Your permission?”
“Granted.”
Henlo turned to go, and was at the door when Miranid called him back. The admiral was looking at him cautiously, as if trying to decide how far he might go. Finally he seemed to come to a conclusion, for he spoke abruptly.
“Henlo,” he said, “you’re a first-class phenomenon, for Farla. Somehow, you got by the System, probably by being infinitely superior in your special kind of politics to the people who administer it. But are you phenomenon enough to have figured out what your rapid promotions are leading up to?”
“Admiral?” Henlo looked puzzled. He was not, but he looked it, which, among Farlans, amounted to the same thing for conversational purposes.
Miranid looked at him shrewdly. “I thought so.” He shook his head, his eyes enigmatical with an emotional shading which just might have been admiration.
“One favor, Henlo.”
“Surely, sir. What is it?”
“Would you repeat, for what you may classify as my whimsical amusement, the standard Farlan textbook definition of paranoia?”
“Paranoia, sir? Why, I believe paranoia is that form of psychosis which is characterized by delusions in the subject of benevolence toward the world in general and of his almost certain inferiority to all other individuals. It’s accompanied by an irrational persistence in believing only good of others.