"I realize that," Mugabi replied. "But are you actually saying that the `man in the street' is so pissed off that he'd prefer to see himself—and his wife and his children—killed rather than give in to the Galactics' demands? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
"I didn't say that. On the other hand, I don't know if most people really believe just how ruthless the Federation truly is, or the degree to which their technology and resources outstrip anything we could imagine," Stevenson said. "I tend to doubt that even those who recognize the hopelessness of any open resistance intellectually have really grasped it on an emotional basis. You and I," he waved a hand in the air between them, "are a hell of a lot better informed than any civilian, including, I sometimes think, the members of the Senate. But I have to tell you, Quentin, that there've been times when my own emotions have flatly refused to let me really accept that we're looking straight down the barrel of racial extinction. I don't know. Maybe it's just something that we're genetically incapable of accepting. A survival imperative designed to keep us on our feet and trying even when our brains know that there's no point in it. After all, maybe the horse will learn to sing."
Mugabi surprised himself with a harsh bark of laughter in response to the last sentence, and Stevenson flashed him a small smile.
"What I'm trying to say isn't that the electorate wouldn't understand the circumstances forcing the President's hand if she turned the Romans back over to the Galactics. But even if the voters understood, they wouldn't like it, so the President and her supporters would undoubtedly pay a certain political price for it in the next election cycle... assuming that there was a next election cycle.
"At the same time, however, I know the President well enough—and I suspect you do, too, although I realize that you haven't dealt with her directly as much as I have—to feel confident that she'd go right ahead and choose whatever she believed was the right and proper course of action, even if that's complete submission to their ultimatum. Unfortunately, everything ONI has been able to turn up suggests that it won't be possible for her to give them what they want, however hard she tries."
"What?" Mugabi's expression was confused. "I thought you said they were going to demand the return of the ship and its crew, so—"
"That's exactly what I said," Stevenson agreed. "The problem is that, according to our sources, the Council members have decided among themselves, whatever the public record may show, that whatever we agree to give up won't be enough." He sighed when Mugabi stared at him. "Come on, Quentin! You and I are in a far better position than almost anyone else to know what's really going on here. This whole demand is nothing but a cover for what they intend to do all along. If we accede to it in its original form, they'll simply sit back and keep tacking other demands onto it until they find something we physically can't give them. And when we can't, they'll send in their navy."
"I see." Mugabi squeezed the bridge of his nose, and his shoulders sagged. "I hate to say it, Alex," he said after a moment in a voice of inexpressible weariness, "but maybe it's time to pull the flag down. I don't know if I want to survive to see it, but maybe it's time to consider officially applying for protectorate status. At least there'd still be human beings somewhere in the universe, even if they were slaves."
"Do you really believe you're the first person to consider that?" Stevenson asked very quietly, and shook his head. "We'd all prefer to be a Churchill and not a Petain, Quentin. But a head of state has responsibilities. The President swore an oath to defend the Solarian Union against all enemies, foreign or domestic, but when the only alternatives are total surrender or total destruction, her responsibility to preserve the existence of life on this planet has to take precedence over any grand gesture of defiance.
"Except that in this case no surrenders are being accepted."
"They're that determined?" Mugabi's voice was equally quiet, and he winced when Stevenson nodded. "I knew they wanted to smash the threat they think we represent. And I knew they wouldn't turn a hair at wiping us out to do that. But I guess it's part of that emotional inability to accept that there's no alternative to extinction that you're talking about. Somehow a part of me has always believed, even in the middle of the war games that proved we don't stand a chance militarily, that if we just bit the bullet and crawled on our bellies to them, they'd at least let us survive as their slaves."
" 'Fraid not," Stevenson sighed. "Apparently we've scared them even more than we'd realized. I think it's not just us, anymore. I think they're afraid that our example might be contagious. We could be a valuable asset to them, I suppose, but as far as they're concerned, our very existence is an eternal threat to their stability, and they've decided to eliminate it once and for all. Especially since eliminating it will also be a pointed warning to any of the other protected races whose attitudes we may already have contaminated."
"So there's no way out," Mugabi said softly.
"No way at all," Stevenson agreed.
"How long?"
"It's hard to say. Our information arrived with an Ostowii courier."
Stevenson paused, and Mugabi nodded impatiently. The Ostowii were one of the senior slave races of the Federation, often acting as overseers and supervisors for the races who held seats on the Council. But despite the special privileges their position brought them, the Ostowii's hatred for their masters was every bit as deep as any other slave's. They'd become one of humanity's best sources very early on.
"The courier was one of their transgenders, and it wasn't in the military or diplomatic service. It's a merchant factor, and it was simply passing through on its way to another assignment. One of its clan superiors decided that we needed the information and used it to pass the warning to us, but its ship can't be more than a month or two ahead of the official instructions to Lach'heranu. And you and I both know how she'll react to them when she gets them."
Mugabi nodded again, this time grimly. Fleet Commander Lach'heranu was a Saernai, and the Saernai had been pressing for a more... proactive response to the human threat to galactic stability from the very beginning. Her assignment to command the Federation's "observation squadron" in the Solar System had been a bad sign when it was announced. Given what Stevenson had just finished telling him, it looked as if it had been an even worse sign than the admiral had allowed himself to fear.
"So," Stevenson went on levelly, "it looks like we're screwed whatever we do. I don't know whether or not the President will go ahead and offer our formal surrender, but I wouldn't really be very surprised if she doesn't. If there's no point in surrendering, and if the bastards are going to wipe us out—except perhaps for a little breeding stock on some primitive planet somewhere where it can be massaged into proper docility—then we might as well go down swinging."
"I can't say I disagree," Mugabi said. "But I hope she realizes that all we'll be doing is kicking and scratching on the way to the gallows. My people will do everything humanly possible, but I doubt we'll manage to do any more damage than inflicting a few scratches on their paint. Assuming we manage even that much."
"Oh, she understands," Stevenson told him with a sad smile. "But if we're dead anyway, then let's go out on our feet, not our knees. Who knows? We might get lucky and scratch that paint. And even if we don't," he shrugged, "maybe, just maybe, we'll be the example that somewhere, sometime, provides the spark to push some other poor bunch of slaves into standing up on their hind legs and going for the Council's throat."