Q. But is it not true that the current restrictions on Earth’s interstellar trade have cut our grain and cattle exports to almost nothing? And far from harming Earth, isn’t this really a boon to our own hungry people?
A. This is another serious fallacy. That Earth’s good food supply is tragically inadequate is true. The government would be the last to deny it. But our food exports do not represent any serious drain upon this supply. Less than one fifth of one percent of Earth’s food is exported, and in return we obtain, for instance, fertilizers and farm machinery which more than make up for that small loss by increasing agricultural efficiency. Therefore, by buying less food from us, the Outer Worlds are engaged, in effect, in cutting our already inadequate food supply.
Q. Are you ready to admit, then, Secretary Moreno, that at least part of the blame for this situation should rest with Earth itself? In other words, we come to my next question: Was it not a diplomatic blunder of the first magnitude for the government to issue its inflammatory note denouncing the intentions of the Outer Worlds before those intentions had been made clear at the Interplanetary Conference?
A. I think those intentions were quite clear at the time.
Q. I beg pardon, sir, but I was at the conference. At the time the note was issued, there was almost a stalemate among the Outer World delegates. Those of Rhea and Tethys strongly opposed economic action against Earth, and there was considerable chance that Aurora and its block might have been defeated. Earth’s note ended that possibility instantly.
A. Well, what is your question, Mr. Keilin?
Q. In view of my statements, do you or do you not think Earth’s note to have been a criminal error of diplomacy which can now be made up only by a policy of intelligent conciliation?
A. You use strong language. However, I cannot answer the question directly, since I do not agree with your major premise. I cannot believe that the delegates of the Outer Worlds could behave in the manner you describe. In the first place, it is well known that the Outer Worlds are proud of their boast that the percentage of insanity, psychoses, and even relatively minor maladjustments of personality are almost at the vanishing point in their society. It is one of their strongest arguments against Earth, that we have more psychiatrists than plumbers and yet are more pinched for want of the former. The delegates to the conference represented the best of this so-stable society. And now you would have me believe that these demigods would, in a moment of pique, have reversed their opinions and instituted a major change in the economic policy of fifty worlds. I cannot believe them capable of such childish and perverse activity, and must therefore insist that any action they took was based not upon any note from Earth, but upon motivations that go deeper.
Q. But I saw the effect upon them with my own eyes, sir. Remember, they were being scolded in what they considered to be insolent language from an inferior people. There can be no doubt, sir, that as a whole, the men of the Outer Worlds are a remarkably stable people, despite your sarcasm, but their attitude toward Earth represents a weak point in this stability.
A. Are you asking me questions, or are you defending the racist views and policies of the Outer Worlds?
Q. Well, accepting your viewpoint that Earth’s note did no harm, what good could it have done? Why should it have been sent?
A. I think we were justified in presenting our side of the question before the bar of Galactic public opinion. I believe we have exhausted the subject. What is your next question, please? It is the last, isn’t it?
Q. It is. It has recently been reported that the Terrestrian government will take stern measures against those dealing in smuggling operations. Is this consistent with the government’s view that lowered trade relations are detrimental to Earth’s welfare?
A. Our primary concern is peace, and not our own immediate welfare. The Outer Worlds have adopted certain trade restrictions. We disapprove of them, and consider them a great injustice. Nevertheless, we shall adhere to them, so that no planet may say that we have given the slightest pretext for hostilities. For instance, I am privileged to announce here for the first time that in the past month, five ships, traveling under false Earth registry, were stopped while being engaged in the smuggling of Outer World materiel into Earth. Their goods were confiscated and their personnel imprisoned. This is an earnest of our good intentions.
Q. Outer World ships?
A. Yes. But traveling under false Earth registry, remember.
Q. And the men imprisoned are citizens of the Outer Worlds? A. I believe so. However, they were breaking not only our laws, but those of the Outer Worlds as well, and therefore doubly forfeited their interplanetary rights. I think the interview had better close, now.
Q. But this-
It was at this point that the broadcast came to a sudden end. The conclusion of Keilin’s last sentence was never heard by anyone but Moreno. It ended like this:
“-means war.”
But Luiz Moreno was no longer on the air. So as he drew on his gloves, he smiled and, with infinite meaning, shrugged his shoulders in a little gesture of indifference.
There were no witnesses to that shrug.
The Gathering at Aurora was still in session. Franklin Maynard had dropped out for the moment in utter weariness. He faced his son, whom he now saw for the first time in naval uniform.
“At least you’re sure of what will happen, aren’t you?”
In the young man’s response, there was no weariness at all, no apprehension; nothing but utter satisfaction. “This is it, dad!”
“Nothing bothers you, then? You don’t think we’ve been maneuvered into this.”
“Who cares if we have? It’s Earth’s funeral.”
Maynard shook his head: “But you realize that we’ve been put in the wrong. The Outer World citizens they hold are law-breakers. Earth is within its rights.”
His son frowned: “I hope you’re not going to make statements like that to the Gathering, dad I don’t see that Earth is justified at all. All right, what if smuggling was going on? It was just because some Outer Worlders are willing to pay black market prices for Terrestrial food. If Earth had any sense, she could look the other way, and everyone would benefit. She makes enough noise about how she needs our trade, so why doesn’t she do something about it? Anyway, I don’t see that we ought to leave any good Aurorans or other Outer Worlders in the hands of those apemen. Since they won’t give them up, we’ll make them. Otherwise, none of us will be safe next time.”
“I see that you’ve adopted the popular opinions, anyway.”
“The opinions are my own. If they’re popular opinion also, it’s because they make sense. Earth wants a war. Well, they’ll get it.”
“But why do they want a war, eh? Why do they force our hands? Our entire economic policy of the past months was only intended to force a change in their attitude without war.”
He was talking to himself, but his son answered with the final argument: “I don’t care why they wanted war. They’ve got it now, and we’re going to smash them.”
Maynard returned to the Gathering, but even as the drone of debate re-filled the room, he thought, with a twinge, that there would be no Terrestrian alfalfa that year. He regretted the milk. In fact, even the beef seemed, somehow, to be just a little less savory
The vote came in the early hours of the morning. Aurora declared war. Most of the worlds of the Aurora bloc joined it by dawn.
In the history books, the war was later known as the Three Weeks’ War. In the first week, Auroran forces occupied several of the trans-Plutonian asteroids, and at the beginning of the third week, the bulk of Earth’s home fleet was all but completely destroyed in a battle within the orbit of Saturn by an Aurora fleet not one-quarter its size, numerically.
Declarations of war from the Outer Worlds yet neutral followed like the pop-pop of a string of firecrackers.
On the twenty-first day of the war, lacking two hours, Earth surrendered.
The negotiations of peace terms took place among the Outer Worlds. Earth’s activities were concerned with signing only. The conditions of peace were unusual, perhaps unique, and under the force of an unprecedented humiliation, all the hordes of Earth seemed suddenly struck with a silence that came from a shamed anger too strong for words.
The terms mentioned were perhaps best commented upon by a voice on the Auroran video two days after they were made public. It can be quoted in part:
“…There is nothing in or on Earth that we of the Outer Worlds can need or want. All that was ever worthwhile on Earth left it centuries ago in the persons of our ancestors.
“They call us the children of Mother Earth, but that is not so, for we are the descendants of a Mother Earth that no longer exists, a Mother that we brought with us. The Earth of today bears us at best a cousinly relation. No more.
“Do we want their resources? Why, they have none for themselves. Can we use their industry or science? They are almost dead for lack of ours. Can we use their man power? Ten of them are not worth a single robot. Do we even want the dubious glory of ruling them? There is no such glory. As our helpless and incompetent inferiors, they would be only a drag upon us. They would divert from our own use food, labor, and administrative ability.
“So they have nothing to give us but the space they occupy in our thought. They have nothing to free us from but themselves. They cannot benefit us in any way other than in their absence.