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Mial, dryly, "I didn't ever exactly promise we could do that in so many words,
but they got the idea. Of course, it was the Laburti we had to close with but
I
dickered with the Chedal first to get the Laburti price up."
"What price?"
"Better relationships, more travel between the races."
"But " Ty stammered. "It's not true! That about manipulating the data."
"Of course it's not true!" snapped Mial. "And they never would have believed
it if they hadn't seen you the neutralist fighting me like a Kilkenny cat."
Mial stared at him. "Neither alien bunch ever thought seriously about not
going to war anyway. They each just considered putting it off until they could
go into it with a greater advantage over the other."
"But they can't prefer war to peace!"
Mial made a disgusted noise in his throat.
"You amateur statesmen!" he said. "You build a better mousetrap and you think
that's all there is to it. Just because something's better for individuals, or
races, doesn't mean they'll automatically go for it.
The Chedal and Laburti have a reason for going to war that can't be figured on
your Annie-machine."
"What?" Ty was stung.
"It's called the emotional factor," said Mial, grimly. "The climate of feeling
that exists between the
Chedal and the Laburti races like the climate between you and me."
Ty found his gaze locked with the other man's. He opened his mouth to
speak then closed it again. A cold, electric shock of knowledge seemed to flow
through him. Of course, if the Laburti felt about the Chedal as he felt about
Mial . . .
All at once, things fell together for him, and he saw the true picture with
painfully clear eyes. But the sudden knowledge was a tough pill to get down.
He hesitated.
"But you've just put off war a hundred and twenty-five years!" he said. "And
both alien races'll be twice as strong, then!"
* * *
"And we'll be forty times as strong as we are now," said Mial, dryly. "What do
you think a nearly three percent growth advantage amounts to, compounded over
a hundred and twenty-five years? By that time we'll be strong enough to hold
the balance of power between them and force peace, if we want it. They'd like
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to cut each other's throats, all right, but not at the cost of cutting their
own, for sure.
Besides," he went on, more slowly, "if your peace can prove itself in that
length of time now's its chance to do it."
He fell silent. Ty stood, feeling betrayed and ridiculed. All the time he had
been suspecting Mial, the other man had been working clear-eyed toward the
goal. For if the Laburti and the Chedal felt as did he and Mial, the
unemotional calm sense of Annie's forecast never would have convinced the
aliens to make peace.
Ty saw Mial watching him now with a sardonic smile. He thinks I haven't got
the guts to congratulate him, thought Ty.
"All right," he said, out loud. "You did a fine job in spite of me. Good for
you."
"Thanks," said Mial grimly. They looked at each other.
"But " said Ty, after a minute, between his teeth, the instinctive venom in
him against the other man rushing up behind his words, "I still hate your
guts! Once I thought there was a way out of that, but you've convinced me
different, as far as people like us are concerned. Once this is over, I hope
to heaven I never set eyes on you again!"
Their glances met nakedly.
"Amen," said Mial softly. "Because next time
I'll kill you.
"
"Unless I beat you to it," said Ty.
Mial looked at him a second longer, then turned and quit the room. From then
on, and all the way back to Earth they avoided each other's company and did
not speak again. For there was no need of any more talk.
They understood each other very well.
BROTHER CHARLIE
Once again, a story that makes a companion piece with the previous story. This
time, it's two aliens at each other's throats (though at least one may not
have a throat, quite), with a human caught in the middle, and stuck on an
untamed planet with very hungry predators. What an awful fix for the human to
be in.
Please don't throw me in that briar patch. . . .
I
The mutter of her standby burners trembled through the APC9 like the grumbling
of an imminent and not entirely unominous storm. In the cramped, lightly
grease-smelling cockpit, Chuck Wagnall sat running through the customary
preflight check on his instruments and controls. There were a great many to
check out almost too many for the small cockpit space to hold; but then old
number 9, like all of her breed, was equipped to operate almost anywhere but
underwater. She could even have operated there as well, but she would have
needed a little time to prepare herself, before immersion.
On his left-hand field screen the Tomah envoy escort was to be seen in the
process of moving the
Tomah envoy aboard. The Lugh, Binichi, was already in his bin. Chuck wasted
neither time nor attention on these but when his ship range screen lit up
directly before him, he glanced at it immediately.
"Hold Seventy-nine," he said automatically to himself, and pressed the
acknowledge button.
The light cleared to reveal the face of Roy Marlie, Advance Unit Supervisor.
Roy's brown hair was neatly combed in place, his uniform closure pressed
tight, and his blue eyes casual and relaxed and at these top danger signals,
Chuck felt his own spine stiffen.
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"Yo, how's it going, Chuck?" Roy asked.
"Lift in about five minutes."
"Any trouble picking up Binichi?"
"A snap," said Chuck. "He was waiting for me right on the surface of the bay.
For two cents' worth of protocol he could have boarded her here with the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]