“You see, the intermat only works inside the big feetol bubble that encloses the fleet when it’s flying in what we call feetol formation. And it isn’t really permanent. You have to return to your point of origin before the bubble disappears, otherwise you’ll transpose back there spontaneously, in a horribly mangled state because there’s no intermat kiosk to regulate the process. That’s what happened when Ragshok dispersed the fleet and burst the bubble. Remember, his people had spread themselves around the fleet by intermat in the first place. I don’t like to think what it must look like on the Claire de Lune right now.”
He wasn’t sure Hesper took in what he had said about the feetol bubble, but she was bright enough to grasp the bottom line.
“You mean all Ragshok’s people have been killed?” she said. “All of them?”
“All except the handful who stayed aboard Claire de Lune from the beginning. Some of my own people must have got caught, too,” he brooded. “Not everybody managed to get back to their own vessels after the takeover.”
He sighed. “Better get on to Seventeen, I suppose, before they blast us out of the galaxy.”
Using his Admiral’s throne codes to override the crewless space torsion room, he succeeded in sending a leader tone burst to the flagship of the approaching fleet. Once contact was made the signal was good; they were only minutes away from gunnery range.
In the other’s torsion room, he found himself looking into the mild face of a koala. “This is Admiral Archier,” he announced. “Would you please put me through to Admiral Tirexier.”
“Admiral Brusspert now has command, sir. I will try to get him for you.”
Brusspert? Archier frowned. He knew no such admiral. Very likely he or she was a promotion… but surely Tirexier was not suspected of disloyalty? He could no more believe it of him than he would of himself.
He thought the koala had made a mistake when a grinning pig face confronted him. The pig wore something on its head: it was with a shock that he recognised it, after a moment, as an adaptation of the ceremonial admiral’s hat, with its peaked, bell-shaped dome.
“Ah, there you are, Archier. Now then, what the Simplex do you think you’re doing?”
“Do I address Admiral Brusspert?” Archier asked after a pause.
“Indeed, indeed. Now come to it! Our gunners are raring to go! You saw Crane and Oblescu, I suppose?”
Archier swallowed. As concisely as he could, he related everything that had taken place. When he had finished, Brusspert sniffed dubiously.
“A pretty unlikely tale in the circumstances, I must say… Still, we’ll confirm the truth, or otherwise, of it sharp enough.” The pig’s eyes flickered to something in his range of vision. “Your ships don’t behave as though they have anyone at the helm, at that. Zipping about like a bunch of pesky swamp flies. We’ll chase them down and board. Meantime, make ready to receive our gig. We’re coming over.”
“First,” Archier said, “may I ask how a second class citizen comes to have the rank of admiral? Yours is an acting rank, I take it?”
Brusspert stared at him. Then he broke into squealing laughter. “You haven’t heard, then? Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough!”
The picture vanished. The new admiral had cut him off.
In the short interval before the gig from Seventeen Fleet arrived Archier made some attempt to put his flagship back in order. He called the living quarters and informed the vessel’s denizens that it was safe to come out. Slowly the ship began to fill with sounds of life, and he was surprised once again to see his Fire Command Officer, whom he had presumed killed along with so many other animals. It transpired that Gruwert had spent the last few days hiding in a locker, and had ventured forth only when he heard voices he recognised. Thinner, and somewhat bad-tempered, he gulped down an enormous quantity of his favourite mash, and then reported for duty.
Archier was not sure what it would be like to confront a pig admiral. There was an ingrained protocol for dealing with animals. He did not go to the boarding bay to meet the gig, as he might have normally have done, but waited in his office for the party to come to him.
It was larger than he had expected: about twenty animals and humans, though few of the latter. Half a dozen of them trotted into his office, and all of them were four-footed.
He had not realised earlier that Admiral Brusspert was a sow. Her plump dangling udders were evidence that she had littered recently. Archier noted the fact only in passing. It was swallowed up in his general shock.
“Admiral,” she announced with a toss of her snout, “permit me to introduce Imperial Council Member Hiroshamak.”
Standing beside her was indeed someone in a Council Member’s robe, but instead of hanging with loose dignity from a pair of shoulders, it had been cut and shaped so as to drape upon the broad shoulders of a quadruped.
Imperial Council Member Hiroshamak, also, was a pig.
Archier swayed, then fell back into his chair. “So the Council has been overthrown,” he gasped softly. “Revolution!”
“Do not distress yourself, Admiral,” Hiroshamak said in gruff but resonant tones. “The Council still rules: there has been no revolution, at least not of the kind you mean. If you are truly loyal to the Empire, you should be pleased by the turn of events.”
He started to pace up and down. Archier could not help but notice the personal charisma of the animal, the sense of purpose and restless energy. “Let me put this to you, Admiral. For a long time now it has mainly been we pigs who have been propping up the Empire. To put it bluntly, we are more capable than other animals—just as capable as humans, in fact. Implanted intelligence works particularly well with us. But unlike humans, we have not lost interest in the well-being of the Empire. We have not become, if you don’t mind me saying so, effete, incompetent and short-sighted. In addition, we breed at a healthy rate and so there are plenty of us! You will grant that all this is so.”
“Oh yes,” Archier said faintly. “My pigs have always been most efficient. And resourceful.”
“I’m glad you agree. The truth is that again and again the senior pig administrators in the civil service have had to rescue the Imperial Council from the consequences of its own bungling. Left to its own devices, it would have wrecked the Empire on a dozen occasions over the past few years. Well, things have simply been going from bad to worse. The present crisis finally convinced us that matters can no longer be left to human ineptness. We have found it necessary to act—with a small measure of illegality, regrettably, but that has been kept to a minimum… Not to put to fine a point on it, the entire membership of the Imperial Council has been ‘persuaded’ to resign. A new Council has been appointed, consisting entirely of pigs. Like myself, they are mostly drawn from the higher ranks of the civil service.”
“Second class,” Archier muttered in bewilderment. “You are second-class citizens. It isn’t possible…”
“Not any longer. We have introduced a second innovation. Since the pigs are now to play such a prominent part in the affairs of the Empire, they have been elevated to first-class citizenship alongside humans. We are now equals in law.”
“If you think about it,” the pig continued as Archier struggled to absorb what he was being said to him, “I’m sure you’ll realise it’s the only way. Only forthright measures will restore the Empire’s fortunes, and the simple fact is that humans have become too accustomed to hesitancy and weakness. Let me give you some idea of the programme we pigs have adopted.”
Hiroshamak raised a trotter in the air and counted off points with it. “One: recalcitrant or tax-defaulting worlds to be destroyed promptly and without warning as an example to others. Two: all striking robots to be exterminated and a new class, with lower intelligence and no political aspirations, to be manufactured. These will begin work immediately on replacement war fleets to bring Star Force up to strength. Three: human immigration into Diadem to be forcibly increased for work in laboratories or where creative effort is required, also to supplement the robot labour force if the new brand of robot proves too low-grade for skilled work. These new immigrants will have no citizenship rights at all to begin with. They will have to earn them. That way they can be stopped from running out on us.”