“That didn’t work for New Europe,” Twyman said. He was getting angry.
“No, of course not. New Europe didn’t have any space fortresses or home fleet. Nothing but a few lancers and pursuers that happened to be in the vicinity—when Alerion’s armada came.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gunnar. The affair was simply another clash, one that got out of hand.”
“So the Aleriona say,” Heim murmured. “If that’s the truth, how come none, not one, of our vessels escaped?”
Twyman ignored him. “We’ll never be sure who fired the first shot. But we can be sure the Aleriona wouldn’t have missiled New Europe if our commander hadn’t tried to pull his ships down into atmosphere for a toadhole maneuver. What other conceivable reason was there?”
If New Europe really was missiled, Heim thought. But it wasn’t.
The senator checked indignation, sat silent for a bit, and went on almost mildly. “The whole episode illustrates how intolerable the situation has become, how matters are bound to escalate if we don’t halt while we still can. And what do we want to fight for? A few wretched planets? We need only let Alerion’s traditional sphere alone, and the rest of the galaxy is open to us. Fight for revenge? Well, you can’t laugh off half a million dead human beings, but the fact remains that they are dead. I don’t want to send any more lives after theirs.”
“Okay,” Heim said with equal quietness. “What do, you figure to do?”
Twyman studied him before answering: “You’re my friend as well as a political backstop. I can trust you to keep your mouth shut. And to support me, I think, once you know. Do I have your promise?”
“Of secrecy… well… yes. Support? That depends. Say on.”
“The details are still being threshed out. But in general, Alerion offers us an indemnity for New Europe. A very sizable one. They’ll also buy out our other interests in the Phoenix. The exact terms have yet to be settled—obviously they can’t pay in one lump—but the prospect looks good. With us out of their sphere, they’ll recognize a similar one for humans around Sol, and keep away. But we aren’t building any walls, you understand. We’ll exchange ambassadors and cultural missions. A trade treaty will be negotiated in due time.
“There. Does that satisfy you?”
Heim looked into the eyes of a man he had once believed honest with himself, and said:
“No.”
“Why not?” Twyman asked most softly.
“From a long-range viewpoint, your scheme ignores the nature of Alerion. They aren’t going to respect our sphere any longer than it takes them to consolidate the one you want to make them a present of. And I do mean a present—because until a trade treaty is agreed on, which I predict will be never, how can we spend any of that valuta they so generously pay over?”
“Gunnar, I know friends of yours have died at Aleriona hands. But it’s given you a persecution complex.”
“Trouble is, Harry,” Heim stole from Vadász, “the persecution happens to be real. You’re the one living in a dream. You’re so obsessed with avoiding war that you’ve forgotten every other consideration. Including honor.”
“What do you mean by that?” Twyman demanded.
“New Europe was not missiled. The colonists are not dead. They’ve taken to the hills and are waiting for us to come help them.”
“That isn’t so!”
“I have the proof right here on my desk.”
“You mean the documents that—that tramp forged?”
“They aren’t forgeries. It can be proved. Signatures, fingerprints, photographs, the very isotope ratios in film made on New Europe. Harry, I never thought you’d sell out half a million human beings.”
“I deny that I am doing so,” Twyman said glacially. “You’re a fanatic, Mister Heim, that’s all. Even if it were true what you say… how do you propose to rescue anyone from a planet occupied and space-guarded? But it isn’t true. I’ve spoken to survivors whom the Aleriona brought here. You must have seen them yourself on 3V. They witnessed the bombardment.”
“Hm. You recall where they were from?”
“The Coeur d’Yvonne area. Everything else was wiped clean.”
“So the Aleriona say,” Heim retorted. “And doubtless the survivors believe it too. Any who didn’t would’ve been weeded out during interrogation. I say that Coeur d’Yvonne was the only place hit by a nuke. I say further that we can fight if we must, and win. A space war only; I’m not talking the nonsense about ‘attacking impregnable Alerion’ which your tame commentators keep putting into the mouths of us ‘extremists,’ and Earth is every bit as impregnable. I say further that if we move fast, with our full strength, we probably won’t have to fight. Alerion will crawfish.
She isn’t strong enough to take us on… yet. I say further and finally that if we let down those people out there who’re trusting us, we’ll deserve everything that Alerion will eventually do to us.” He tamped his smoldering pipe. “That’s my word, Senator.”
Twyman said, trembling: “Then my word, Heim, is that we’ve outgrown your kind of sabertooth militarism and I’m not going to let us be dragged back to that level. If you’re blaze enough to quote what I’ve told you here in confidence, I’ll destroy you. You’ll be in the Welfare district, or correction, within a year.”
“Oh, no,” Heim said. “I keep my oaths. The public facts can speak for themselves. I need only point them out.”
“Go ahead, if you want to waste your money and reputation. You’ll be as big a laughingstock as the rest of the warhawk crowd.”
Taken aback, Heim grimaced. In the past weeks, after the news of New Europe, he had seen what mass media did to those who spoke as he was now speaking. Those who were influential, that is, and therefore worth tearing down. Ordinary unpolitical people didn’t matter. The pundits simply announced that World Opinion Demanded Peace. Having listened to a good many men, from engineers and physicists to spacehands and mechanics, voice their personal feelings, Heim doubted if world opinion was being correctly reported. But he couldn’t see any way to prove that.
Conduct a poll, maybe? No. At best, the result would frighten some professors, who would be quick to assert that it was based on faulty statistics, and a number of their students, who would organize parades to denounce Heim the Monster.
Propaganda? Politicking? A Paul Revere Society?… Heim shook his head, blindly, and slumped.
Twyman’s face softened. “I’m sorry about this, Gunnar,” he said. “I’m still your friend, you know. Regardless of where your next campaign donation goes. Call on me any time.” He hesitated, decided merely to add “Good-by,” and switched off.
Heim reached into his desk for a bottle he kept there. As he took it forth, his gaze crossed the model of Star Fox which his crew had given him when he retired. It was cast in steel, retrieved from that Aleriona battlewagon into which the lancer put an atomic torpedo at Achernar.
I wonder if the Aleriona make trophies of our wrecks. Hm. Odd. I never thought about it before. We know so little of them. Heim put his feet on the desk and tilted the bottle to his lips. Why don’t I corner one of their delegation and ask?
And then he choked on his drink and spluttered; his feet thumped to the floor, and he never noticed. The thought had been too startling. Why not?
III
The ceiling glowed with the simulated light of a red dwarf sun, which lay like blood on leaves and vines and slowly writhing flowers. A bank of Terrestrial room instruments—phone, 3V, computer, vocascribe, infotrieve, service cubicle, environmental control board—stood in one corner of the jungle with a harsh incongruity. The silence was as deep as the purple shadows.