“I’ll think of something.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you will.”
The sound of the cab’s wheels on pavement changed as they reached the bridge. The glistening tower of the Science Museum passed on their left. A few minutes later, they were in the quaint streets of Cambridge, and minutes after that, at the entrance to Harvard Yard.
As the door rotated up and away, Lisa lifted her stole around her shoulders. Mark held her hand as she stepped down onto pavement, being careful not to ruin her new shoes by stepping in an errant puddle. The cab’s sensors detected that its passengers were clear, and quietly disappeared into the thickening fog. They watched it out of sight before turning for the short hike to the Broan Institute. Lisa was shivering by the time they reached their goal, despite Mark’s attempts to fold her into his body to keep her warm.
Once inside, a visit to the cloakroom rid them of the stole and allowed Lisa’s full beauty to be revealed. Mark noted more than one appreciative stare as they made their way toward the ballroom where the reception was underway.
He was happy to see full security at the door, and after a minute or so spent passing through various detectors and being scanned by the hard eyes of security men, they entered the chandelier-lit ballroom.
“Showtime!” Mark muttered as they stepped into the light.
Lisa’s response was a reassuring squeeze of his hand.
#
Chapter Twelve
“Hello, Lisa. It has been a long time since we have seen one another,” Sar-Say said. The Broa bowed in a passable imitation of the sort of courtliness one only sees in holomovies.
Unlike the human guests, Sar-Say did not wear a suit. He did, however, have a red sash draped diagonally across the brown fur of his chest. His only other attire was a pair of shorts cut from some dark, expensive-looking material. It was the first time Lisa had seen him wear any clothing at all other than an equipment belt.
“Hello, Sar-Say. My, aren’t you dashing this evening!”
The Broa acknowledged the compliment by saying, “I understand your meaning. Professor Fernandez thought this arrangement had the proper solemnity for the occasion without interfering with my body’s cooling system.”
“Your command of Standard has improved since last we spoke.”
“Yes. My conversations with those here at the institute have given me a great deal of practice. I am still working on my idioms, however. May I say that you look very lovely tonight?”
She smiled. “Thank you for the compliment.”
Sar-Say turned his attention to Mark and extended his six-fingered hand. “It is good to see you again, Mark.”
“And you,” Mark replied, shaking the proffered hand. As he did so, he wondered if Sar-Say was truly glad to see him. After all, he was the one who had discovered the pseudo-simian’s true identity and thwarted his scheme for escaping humanity’s clutches.
“What are you doing now?” Sar-Say asked.
“We are working in Colorado Springs.”
“Ah, the so-called ‘Gibraltar Institute.’ It is my understanding that you are planning an attack against Civilization… excuse me, the Sovereignty?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“On the news.”
“We are evaluating our options,” Mark replied cryptically.
“I hope you will not take offense when I tell you that what you are planning is madness.”
“No offense taken,” Mark lied. “If it’s madness, it is a peculiarly human form of the disease.”
“Yes, I am beginning to understand that. If I may say so, the psychology of your species is quite fascinating. Your arrogance … is that the right word, Lisa?”
“It is if you intend to make a negative point.”
“Thank you. Your arrogance is a result of your long isolation. For all of your history, you have been masters of this one small world and you project this feeling of mastery out into the larger universe. The truth is that you are not a significant factor in the grand scheme of things. Once you understand the scope of the Sovereignty, you will come to realize this.”
“I think we understand the scope already. You told us the Sovereignty controls a million suns.”
“Mere words,” Sar-Say replied. “The reality behind the words has yet to… is ‘sink in’ the proper idiom, Lisa?”
She nodded.
“The reality has yet to sink in,” Sar-Say continued. “When it does, you will come to understand that your goal is impossible to achieve.”
“I seem to remember you offering to let us live out our lives in comfort if we would help you become the master of this planet,” Mark said. “Is the offer still open?”
“It is,” Sar-Say replied, either not recognizing the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “You should be studying how to best integrate your species into Civilization rather than pursue a course which can only end in your extermination.”
It was basically the same pitch Sar-Say had made to them as they were fleeing Klys’kra’t. It had irritated Mark then and irritated him now. Of course, it had been his stubborn refusal to accept Sar-Say’s brazenness that had led to the Gibraltar Earth Plan, so he guessed he should be grateful.
Their exchange with the Broa had gathered a crowd of onlookers. Generally, such weighty matters were not discussed at academic receptions.
“There is always the Vasloff Alternative,” Mark said. “If we can’t fight, we hide.”
Sar-Say signified his disagreement using a Broan gesture rather than the learned human one. “The Paris Institute’s studies are merely the other side of the same coin. Your planet radiates too brightly across the communications bands to remain hidden forever. Sooner or later, one of our observatories will detect you. It would be better to voluntarily submit to our rule. I wish I could make you understand that.”
“Come a cold day in hell,” Mark muttered.
“Yes, that is one of the idioms I have recently learned. An interesting formulation…”
Sar-Say’s comment was interrupted by the approach of Director Fernandez, who had noted the crowd gathering and Mark’s increasingly heated words. As for Sar-Say, he might as well have been discussing the weather. His matter-of-fact delivery reminded Lisa of how alien Sar-Say truly was.
“Come, come,” Fernandez said as he pushed through the surrounding listeners. “You mustn’t monopolize our guest of honor. What have you two been talking about, anyway?”
“Just rehashing old times,” Lisa replied.
“Well, the mayor would like to meet Sar-Say, so if you will excuse us.”
Without waiting for a reply, he ushered the Broa through the crowd toward a clump of faculty clustered around a rotund man with a red face. Mark watched them go. Despite what he was, he still looked like a comical monkey. Perhaps, Mark mused, that was the great danger the little Broa represented.
“Still an arrogant little prick, isn’t he?”
Lisa snuggled close and shivered. This time it was not from the cold. “What if he’s right, Mark? What if we have set ourselves an impossible task?”
He shrugged. “Then I guess we go down fighting like men. It’s not what I would call an optimum solution, but it beats the alternative.”
#
“Sar-Say,” Director Fernandez said, “I would like to introduce the Honorable Douglas Harrigan, the Mayor of our fair city.”
Sar-Say bowed. “Mayor Harrigan, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“And you,” the politician boomed out in his best speaking voice, having spotted a guest with a small holocamera a dozen meters from him. The guest was a reporter for one of the worldwide news nets. “I would like to welcome you to our fair city. Have you seen much of it yet?”
Sar-Say shook his head. “Only my quarters at the Institute. I would be interested in a tour.”
“Then we must arrange one,” the Mayor replied before turning to a second man. “I would also like to introduce Gustavus Adolphus Heinz, one of our leading citizens. He is in the same business you are, Sar-Say: interstellar import/export.”
“Good evening, Mr. Heinz,” Sar-Say said formally. “You are named after the great Swedish warrior?”
“Very perceptive,” the businessman replied. “How did you know that?”
“I have made the study of human history my avocation these last few years… of necessity.” His attempt at human humor was met by polite laughter. “Of late, it has become my passion.”
“So you were in the import/export business, were you?” Heinz asked.
“In a way. I was what you would call an accountant. It was my task to visit my clan’s holdings and ensure that we were receiving proper value from our various enterprises.”
“I know how that goes,” Heinz replied with gusto. “Your employees will steal you blind if you let them.”
“The situation is somewhat different in the Sovereignty, but close enough for the purposes of this conversation.”
“I hear this Sovereignty of yours is big.”
Sar-Say signaled an affirmative. “We rule five times twelve to the fifth power suns. In human reckoning, that is about a million stars.”
Both the mayor and Heinz let out low whistles. “How large a population?” Harrigan asked.
“We prefer a lower population density than here on Earth. On average, there are probably a billion sentients on each world.”
Gus Heinz blinked. When he spoke, it was very slowly. “You have a population… of a million-billion people?”
Sar-Say paused to do a calculation in his head. “Yes, that is correct. We have ten to the fifteenth power sentients. They are not, strictly speaking, “people” in the human sense. There are nearly as many species of sentients as there are worlds.”
“The prospects for trade must be tremendous!”
“Oh, yes,” Sar-Say replied with sudden interest. “There are literally hundreds of millions of starships that transport goods of all kinds to our various worlds. Does this interest you, Mr. Heinz?”
“Of course,” Heinz replied. For once his usual poker face slipped and Sar-Say saw a human expression he had not seen before.
“I am interested in all aspects of human life. However, I find that your academics give short shrift… is that the right term?… to the subject of commerce. Perhaps you would have time to teach me your commercial methods?”
“I would like that,” Heinz replied, his tone suddenly as guarded as Sar-Say’s In that moment, an unspoken agreement passed between human and alien. It was almost as though they could read each other’s minds.
In the current situation, there was profit to be made, if only one had the wits to figure out how to make it. Of course, Heinz’s definition of ‘profit’ did not correspond to Sar-Say’s.
#
Chapter Thirteen
The plains and forests of Ssasfal, the original world of the Broa, rolled endlessly below the aircar as it made its way toward Valar, the ancient capital of both this world and all of Civilization. Overhead, Faalta, their yellow-white sun, cast its rays down from a purple sky. Yesterday’s clouds had dissipated and it was possible to see the glow of the sun off the white beaches of the Larger Ocean far to the right of the aircar’s flight path. The golds and reds of the vegetation below were carved into intricate geometric shapes, islands of color in the amber expanse of the great plain that ran east from the capital. The shapes were the work of generations of foresters at the order of the masters over whose domains Sar-Ganth was now flying.
Interspersed among the shrubbery were lakes and rivers, also sculpted to the taste of Those Who Rule. So ancient was the civilization that ruled Ssasfal that barely a square
fel
of planetary surface remained as nature had originally constructed it. Like all of Civilization, the masters molded their domains to suit their individual tastes, letting neither mountain, nor forest, nor desert thwart their desires.
Sar-Ganth, primate of the Sar-Dva Clan, looked down on the scene and considered the effort that had gone into taming this single world. Multiply that effort by several orders of magnitude and one began to comprehend the difficulties involved in running a galaxy-spanning civilization. Those difficulties must be resolved by Sar-Ganth and his compatriots. It was a burden placed on him by his ancestors and one he bore gladly. For, was it not the destiny of the Broa to bend every world to their will as they had Ssasfal? Why else would they have been given domain over so many stars visible in the night sky, and countless others too distant to be seen?
It had not always been thus. There were ancient legends of the days when stargates were new. The legends spoke of fire raining from the sky, turning whole worlds into radioactive wastes. Replacing those killed in such attacks had been the work of generations and the lessons taught had been well learned. Hard experience had shown that there could be but two classes of thinking beings in the universe: masters and subservients.
This led to a solution that was easy in concept, but extremely difficult in practice. Inhabited worlds discovered outside the bounds of Civilization were incorporated into the Broan realm whether they wished it or not. Often, the integration went quickly and with a reasonable expenditure of value. Occasionally, the aborigines resisted. Such stubbornness resulted in significant destruction being visited upon the miscreants before they bowed to the inevitable. Then there were the rare cases when a species proved too expensive to conquer. The only viable option for such cases was total annihilation.
Slowly, over millennia, the Race had worked its will on all within reach, using the stargates as both weapon and reward. Ssasfal had grown rich on the labor and resources of others, as had its people. They had become so rich that they were now utterly dependent on subservients for all but the most important tasks.
As their empire had grown, so too had Ssasfal’s population. Not with masters, whose numbers rose slowly, but rather, with their servants and retainers. The last census had counted eight times as many subservients on the home world as masters. This abundance brought the masters a life of ease; which, Sar-Ganth considered, was not an unalloyed benefit.
There was a recent tendency among younger Broa to forsake the life of obligation adopted by Sar-Ganth’s generation. He had nothing but disdain for these young drones. They spent their days lying in the sun, and nights in endless rounds of parties, celebrations, and when the females were in estrus, fornication.