He gestured. “A hundred thousand planets, gentlemen, more or less,” he said. “Each with its millions or billions of inhabitants, its complexities and mysteries, its geographies and civilizations, their pasts and presents and conflicting aims for the future, therefore each with its own complicated, ever-changing, unique set of relationships to the Imperium. We can’t control that, can we? We can’t even hope to comprehend it. At most, we can try to maintain the Pax. At most, gentlemen.
“What’s right in one place may be wrong in another. One species may be combative and anarchic by nature, another peaceful and antlike, a third peaceful and anarchic, a fourth a bunch of aggressive totalitarian hives. I know a planet where murder and cannibalism are necessary to race survivaclass="underline" high radiation background, you see, making for high mutation rate coupled with chronic food shortage. The unfit must be eaten. I know of intelligent hermaphrodites, and sophonts with more than two sexes, and a few that regularly change sex. They all tend to look on our reproductive pattern as obscene. I could go on for hours. Not to mention the variations imposed by culture. Just think about Terran history.
“And then the sheer number of individuals and interests; the sheer distance; the time needed to get a message across our territory — No, we can’t direct everything. We haven’t the manpower. And if we did, it’d remain physically impossible to coordinate that many data.
“We’ve got to give our proconsuls wide discretion. We’ve got to let them recruit auxiliaries, and hope those auxiliaries will know the local scene better than Imperial regulars. Above all, gentlemen, for survival if nothing else, we’ve got to preserve solidarity.”
He waved a hand at the forward viewscreen. Alpha Crucis blazed lurid among the constellations; but beyond it — “If we don’t stick together, we Terrans and our non-human allies,” he said, “I assure you, either the Merseians or the wild races will be delighted to stick us separately.”
He got no reply: not that he expected one. Was that a sufficiently stuffy speech? he wondered. And was it sufficiently truthful? I don’t know about that last. Nor do I know if I have any right to inquire.
His ship swam into sight. The tiny spindle, well-nigh lost beside the vast glowing bulk of the planet and circled, grew to a steel barracuda, guns rakish across the star clouds. She was no more than an escort destroyer, she had speed but was lightly armed, her crew numbered a bare fifty. Nevertheless, she was Flandry’s first official command and his blood ran a little faster each time he saw her — even now, even now.
The gig made a ragged approach. Willig probably didn’t feel well yet. Flandry refrained from commenting. The last part of the curve, under computer choreography, was better. When the boat housing had closed and repressurized, he dismissed his guards and went alone to the bridge.
Halls, companionways, and shafts were narrow. They were painted gray and white. With the interior grav generators set for full Terran weight, thin deckplates resounded under boots, thin bulkheads cast the noise back and forth, voices rang, machinery droned and thumped. The air that gusted from ventilator grilles came fresh out of the renewers, but somehow it collected a faint smell of oil on the way. The officers’ cabins were cubbyholes, the forecastle could be packed tighter only if the Pauli exclusion principle were repealed, the recreation facilities were valuable chiefly as a subject for jokes, and the less said about the galley the wiser. But she was Flandry’s first command.
He had spent many hours en route reading her official history and playing back tapes of former logbooks. She was a few years older than him. Her name derived from a land mass on Ardèche, which was apparently a human-settled planet though not one he had ever chanced upon mention of. (He knew the designation Asieneuve in different versions on at least four worlds; and he speculated on how many other Continent-class vessels bore it. A name was a mere flourish when computers must deal with millions of craft by their numbers.) She had gone on occasional troopship convoy when trouble broke loose on a surface somewhere. Once she had been engaged in a border incident; her captain claimed a probable hit but lacked adequate proof. Otherwise her existence had been routine patrols … which were essential, were they not?
You didn’t salute under these conditions. Men squeezed themselves aside to make way for Flandry. He entered the bridge. His executive officer had it.
Rovian of Ferra was slightly more than human size. His fur was velvet at midnight. His ponderous tail, the claws on his feet and fingers, the saber teeth in his jaws, could deal murderous blows; he was also an expert marksman. The lower pair of his four arms could assist his legs at need. Then his silent undulant gait turned into lightning. He habitually went nude except for guns and insignia. His nature and nurture were such that he would never become a captain and did not want to be. But he was capable and well liked, and Terran citizenship had been conferred on him.
“S-s-so?” he greeted. His fangs handicapped him a little in speaking Anglic.
Alone, he and Flandry didn’t bother to be formal. Mankind’s rituals amused him. “Bad,” the master said, and explained.
“Why bad?” Rovian asked. “Unless it provokes revolt.”
“Never mind the morals of it. You wouldn’t understand. Consider the implications, however.”
Flandry inhaled a cigaret to lighting. His gaze sought Shalmu’s disc, where it floated unutterably peaceful in its day and night. “Why should Snelund do this?” he said. “It’s considerable trouble, and not without hazard. Ordinary corruption would earn him more than he could live to spend on himself. He must have a larger purpose, one that requires moonsful of money. What is it?”
Rovian erected the chemosensor antennae that flanked the bony ridge on his skull. His muzzle twitched, his eyes glowed yellow. “To finance an insurrection? He may hope to become an independent overlord.”
“M-m-m … no … doesn’t make sense, and I gather he’s not stupid. The Empire can’t conceivably tolerate breakaways. He’d have to be crushed. If necessary, Josip would be deposed to clear the track for that operation. No, something else—” Flandry brought his attention back. “Get patrol clearance for us to go in half an hour. Next rendezvous, Llynathawr.”
Hyperdrive vibrations are instantaneous, though the philosophers of science have never agreed on the meaning of that adjective. Unfortunately, they damp out fast. No matter how powerful, a signal cannot be received beyond a distance of about one light-year. Thus spaceships traveling at quasivelocity are not detectable by their “wakes” at any farther remove than that. Neither are the modulations that carry messages quicker than light; and the uncertainty principle makes it impossible to relay them with any hope that they will not soon degenerate into gibberish.
Accordingly Asieneuve was within two hours of her goal before she got the news. Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac had escaped to the Virgilian System. There he had raised the standard of rebellion and proclaimed himself Emperor. An unspecified number of planets had declared for him. So had an unspecified proportion of the ships and men he formerly commanded. Armed clashes had taken place and full civil war looked inevitable.
IV
When the Empire purchased Llynathawr from its Cynthian discoverers, the aim had been to strengthen this frontier by attracting settlers. Most of the world was delightful in climate and scenery, rich in natural resources, wide in unclaimed lands. Navy sector headquarters were close enough, on Ifri, and housed enough power to give ample protection. Not all the barbarians were hostile; there existed excellent possibilities of trade with a number of races — especially those that had not acquired spacecraft — as well as with Imperial planets.