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"As you think best."
President Gram looked up at Drill, her head rising reluctantly, as if held
back by a great weight. "My son," she said. "He was on the planet when it
happened."
"You have other offspring," Drill said.
Gram looked at him, the pain burning deep in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "I
do."
- - -
The fields around Ship filled once again. Cries and howls rent the air, and
dirges pulsed against Ship's uncaring walls. The Shar broadcasts in the next
weeks seemed confused to Drill. Coalitions split and fragmented. Vang spoke
frequently of readiness. President Gram succeeded in doubling the quota of
planets. The decision was a near one.
Then, days later, another message. "One of our commanders," said President
Gram, "was based on the vicinity of the attacked planet. He is one of Vang's
creatures. On his own initiative he ordered our military forces to engage.
Your terraforming Ship was attacked."
"Was it destroyed?" Drill asked. His tone was urgent. There is still hope, he
reminded himself.
"Don't be anxious for your fellow humans," Gram said. "The Ship was damaged,
but escaped."
"The loss of a few hundred billion unconscious organisms is no cause for
anxiety," Drill said. "An escaped terraforming Ship is. The Ship will alert
our military forces. It will be a real war."
President Gram licked her lips. "What does that mean?"
"You know of our Shrikes and so on. Our military people are worse. They are
fully conscious and highly specialized in different modes of warfare. They are
destructive, carnivorous, capable of taking enormous damage without impairing
function. Their minds concentrate only on tactics, on destruction. Normally
they are kept on planetoids away from the rest of humanity. Even other humans
find their proximity too .
... disturbing." Drill put all the urgency in his speech that he could.
"Honorable President, you must give me the locations of the remaining planets.
If I can get Memories to each of them with news of the peace, we may yet save
them."
"I will try. But the coalition ..." She turned away from the transmitter.
"Vang will claim a victory."
"It is the worst possible catastrophe," Drill said.
Gram's tone was grave. "I believe you," she said.
- - -
Drill listened to the broadcasts with growing anxiety. The Shars who spoke on
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the broadcasts were making angry comments about the execution of prisoners,
about flower gardens and values Drill didn't understand. Someone had let the
secret loose. President Gram went from group to group outside Ship, talking of
the necessity of her plan. The Shar's responses were muted. Drill sensed they
were waiting. It was announced that Vang had left the coalition. A chorus of
triumphant yips rose from scattered members of the crowd. Others only moaned.
Vang, now simply General Vang, arrived at the field. His followers danced
intoxicated circles around him as he spoke, howling their responses to his
words. "Triumph! United will!" they cried. "The humans can be beaten!
Treachery avenged! Dictate the peace from a position of strength! We smell the
location of their planets!"
The Shars' weird cackling laughter followed him from point to point. The
laughing and crying went on well into the night. In the morning the
announcement came that the coalition had fallen. Vang was now
President-General.
In his sleeping chamber, surrounded by his video walls, Drill began to weep.
"I have been asked to bear Vang's message to you," Gram said. She seemed
smaller than before, standing unsteadily even on her tripod legs. "It is his .
. . humor."
"What is the message?" Drill said. His whole body seemed in pain. Even
Lowbrain was silent, wrapped in misery.
"I had hoped," Gram said, "that he was using this simply as an issue on which
to gain power. That once he had the Presidency, he would continue the
diplomatic effort. It appears he really means what he's been saying. Perhaps
he's no longer in control of his own people."
"It is war," Drill said.
"Yes."
You have failed
, said Memory. Drill winced in pain.
"You will lose," he said.
"Vang says we are cleverer than you are."
"That may be the case. But cleverness cannot compete with experience. Humans
have fought hundreds
of these little wars, and never failed to wipe out the enemy. Our Memories of
these conflicts are intact.
Your people can't fight millions of years of specialized evolution."
"Vang's message doesn't end there. You have till nightfall to remove your Ship
from the planet. Six days to get out of real space."
"I am to be allowed to live?" Drill was surprised.
"Yes. It is our . . . our custom."
Drill scratched himself. "I regret our efforts did not succeed."
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"No more than I" She was silent for a while. "Is there any way we can stop
this?"
"If Vang attacks any human planets after the Memories of the peace arrangement
have arrived," Drill said, "the military will be unleashed to wipe you out.
There is no stopping them after that point."
"How long," she asked, "do you think we have?"
"A few years. Ten at the most."
"Our species will be dead."
"Yes. Our military are very good at their jobs."
"You will have killed us," Gram said, "destroyed the culture that we have
built for thousands of years, and you won't even give it any thought. Your
species doesn't think about what it does any more. It just acts, like a
single-celled animal, engulfing everything it can reach. You say that you are
a conscious species, but that isn't true. Your every action is ... instinct.
Or reflex."
"I don't understand," said Drill.
Gram's body trembled. "That is the tragedy of it," she said.
An hour later Ship rose from the field. Shars laughed their defiance from
below, dancing in crazed abandon.
I have failed
Drill told Memory.
You knew the odds were long, Memory said. You knew that in negotiations with
species this backward there have only been a handful of successes, and
hundreds of failures.
Yes, Drill acknowledged.
It's a shame, though. To have spent all these months away from home.
Eat! Eat!
said Lowbrain.
Far away, in their forty-mile-long Ships, the human soldiers were already on
their way.
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