Gibraltar Sun (17 page)

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Flannigan’s had started life a century earlier as a typical Irish pub. Over the decades, its owners had taken it upscale, until it eventually relocated to the two hundredth floor of one of Boston’s tallest buildings. It was
the
most expensive restaurant in a town of expensive restaurants.

“My, Lisa, you look lovely this evening,” Dieter Pavel said as Lisa and Mark left the elevator and strode to where he waited in front of the entrance. He leaned over and kissed her hand.

“Thank you, Dieter. You are very handsome yourself.”

“Good evening, Mark.”

“Evening, Dieter.”      

“Shall we go in?” he asked, gesturing to the intricately carved crystal door leading into the restaurant.

The Maitre d’ led them to a window table with a spectacular view of the city and the bay. It was spectacular, that is, when not obscured by evening mist, which was the case this evening. All that was apparent through the glass was a multicolored haze backlit by a few nearby towers, dimly glimpsed.

A steady stream of waiters and stewards visited their table to clear away the extra plates, deliver hot bread, then to offer them the wine list. Dieter performed the ceremonies of sniffing the cork and sampling the vintage. When he professed himself satisfied, the steward poured each of them a glass.

“So,” Pavel said. “To what should we toast?”

“Long life,” Lisa said.

“Safety,” Mark replied.

“To long life and safety it is.”

After clinking their glasses, all three of them drank.

“So, Dieter,” Mark said, “where did you go during the afternoon session?”

“I had to talk to some people,” Pavel replied unhelpfully. “I understand I missed quite a show.”

“Director Hamlin did seem to get his point across,” Lisa agreed. “It took ten minutes to quiet the crowd after he sprang his surprise on them.”

“Give the slaves starships? I must say, I would never have thought of that. Instead of trying to conquer the Sovereignty, we sow dissension and let it come apart on its own. I wish I had been there to hear the details.”

“It’s simple, really,” Lisa said. “We spread our stardrive technology to as many systems as possible, then sever the stargate links to the Broan home world and centers of power, bottling up their fleet. In the ensuing confusion, revolutions break out all across the Sovereignty, complicating the Broan problem to the point where they won’t have any resources left to bother us.”

“Do you really think the slaves will revolt?”

Mark said, “Why not? They are intelligent beings. Let’s say you lived at the bottom of a well and your neighbor kept you in line by threatening to drop rocks on your head. What would you do if someone suddenly dropped you a ladder?”

“Delivering the ladder could be a problem,” Dieter mused. “How do we flood the Sovereignty with tens of thousands of
agents provocateurs
and expect to keep our secret? Some of them will inevitably be captured. Or do you expect the cyanide pill strategy to be one hundred percent effective?”

“No,” Lisa said. Her expression revealed how she felt about the prospect of suicide upon capture.

“Then how do you get the information into the hands of the slaves without risking Earth?”

“Trojan horses,” she replied.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Derelicts,” Mark said as he bit into a warm breadstick. He savored the taste for a moment. The quality of the food made the prices on the menu seem reasonable. “It is doubtful we would get very far if we tried to deliver the specifications in person. For one thing, ‘Beware Greeks bearing gifts’ is probably a universal sentiment. So we do it all by remote control.

“We build hundreds or even thousands of small scout-size starships, complete with working generators and the plans to make more in their computers. Nothing obvious, mind you, just the sort of thing you would find in a repair manual. The ships will be designed for a fictional species, complete with photographs of loved ones on the bulkheads.

“Once we obtain a planetary database and figure out who is what in the Sovereignty, we transport these Trojan horses to carefully selected stars and release them. We aim them to pass through the heart of the target system at a velocity guaranteed to get them noticed. When the locals intercept and board, they discover a ship of non-Broan origin that appears to have lost a battle, one with an interstellar capability that doesn’t rely on stargates.”

“Won’t their Broan masters be notified the moment our derelicts appear on sensors, thereby giving away the game?”

Lisa shook her head, causing her blonde curls to cover her face momentarily in a gesture that both men found intriguing. “Not if we send the scouts into systems with absentee masters, like Klys’kra’t. If their sort of intelligence is anything like ours, they will start plotting revolution as soon as they realize what they have salvaged.”

Pavel turned pensive. He didn’t speak for long seconds, and when he did, it was with skepticism. “Have you considered the long term consequences of your plan?”

“Which are?” Mark asked.

“Let’s say you are successful and you spark so many rebellions inside the Sovereignty that the Broa lose control. Aren’t you solving one problem by creating a bigger one?”

“What do you mean?”

“We currently face the threat of a single alien species. You propose to multiply that threat by a million.”

“Not really,” Mark replied. “As Director Hamlin said this afternoon, there are a lot more intelligent species out there than the Broa and their slaves. If every race of thinkers in the universe is a danger, what difference if we add a million more to the billion that are already out there, but that we don’t yet know about?”

“A scientist’s viewpoint, not a politician’s,” Dieter said with a laugh. “If we explain it to the public that way, we are liable to be lynched.”

“Facts are facts,” Mark said stubbornly.

“You make it sound easy.”

“It won’t be easy at all. We will have to build our own network of stargates and establish forward operating bases where we can marshal our forces. We’ll have to scout out the Broan home worlds and power centers. Then we’ll have to select the systems into which we introduce our Trojan horses, all the while massing for strategic strikes against their gate network to bollix up their communications at the right moment.

“Still, if we judge it right, if we can sow confusion just as our various schemes come to fruition, it ought to work…”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Mark shrugged. “Then we’ll try something different…”

“A cavalier attitude,’ Dieter said, his voice rising in tone and volume.

“Any idea what is on for the morning session tomorrow?” Lisa interrupted, changing the subject to short circuit the growing testosterone confrontation. “The program just says ‘special guest speaker.’”

“No idea,” Dieter replied, visibly regaining control.

“It’s not the Coordinator, is it?”

He shook his head. “She’s in Europe all this week. I guess we will find out in the morning. Are you both ready to order?”

They nodded and Pavel signaled the waiter who had been skulking just outside of range of their conversation.

To Mark’s surprise, he found the remainder of the dinner enjoyable. Pavel, it turned out, was a skilled raconteur when he wasn’t being an obnoxious bureaucrat.

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Chapter Eighteen

The auditorium was nearly filled the next morning as everyone awaited Director Fernandez’s “special guest speaker.” The extra attendees included members of working groups who had spent the previous day in breakout sessions. Interestingly, a number of the newcomers were from the media.

“Who invited them?” Mark asked, hooking his thumb in the direction of the men and women with small tripod mounted cameras and microphones clustered in the back.

“Three guesses,” Lisa replied as the two of them took their seats.

Mark laughed. “Alan Fernandez is a bit of a publicity hound, isn’t he?”

As before, the dignitaries filed onto the stage and took their places behind the long table. The holocube was nowhere to be seen and the lectern stood alone beneath bright floodlights. There followed several minutes in which datacoms were synchronized and papers shuffled. Finally, Alan Fernandez rose and strode to the lectern.

“Good morning,” he said. “I hope all of you have sufficiently recovered from yesterday’s marathon session. I know I slept soundly last night.

“Yesterday we heard first from the Paris Institute and Director-General Jean-Pierre Landrieu, who outlined the plan to make this planet as unobtrusive as possible in order to avoid coming to the attention of the Broa. I must say that the Paris plan was well thought out and left us with much to consider. I do not think any here will disagree when I say that it is the more ‘conventional’ of the two approaches presented.

“Director Landrieu was followed by Director Dexter Hamlin of the Colorado Springs Institute, whose task it is to flesh out the ‘Gibraltar Earth’ plan. I must say that Director Hamlin’s talk was especially stimulating and gave all of us something to think about. I would categorize the work of our Colorado Springs group as being the more ‘proactive.’ Of course, that is what we assigned them to do and I think we can all agree that they have given us a rather large helping of food for thought.”

Fernandez paused, smiled and looked up at the audience, as though enjoying some private joke.

“There is, however, a third opinion that we should consider before finalizing our plans for parliament. It is an opinion that we have not heard before, and for good reason. However, I felt it important that we at least listen to what our next speaker has to say.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present the one being on this world who knows most about the Sovereignty, and whose opinion is germane to our discussions. It is my honor to present Sar-Say of the Sar-Dva Clan, and a member of the ruling species of the Broan Sovereignty. Sar-Say, the floor is yours!”

The audience erupted into pandemonium and the news crews began to speak excitedly into their headsets. Director Fernandez retreated as two stage hands carried a low platform out and set it behind the lectern.

Sar-Say stepped out from behind a curtain. He wore the ‘formal’ outfit that he had the night of the reception and walked upright rather than on his knuckles. He approached the lectern and awkwardly mounted the low platform, bringing his head to human height. He gazed around the crowd while he waited for silence to be restored.

After two entreaties from Alan Fernandez, the noise trailed off and an expectant hush fell over the auditorium. Sar-Say scanned the crowd in a very human gesture, then began to speak in a tone that indicated he had studied the principles of oration. He did not appear to be reading from the holographic teleprompter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Members of Parliament, Executive Office Officials, Members of the Press. I would like to thank you for inviting me to speak this morning. As you may know, I have an entertainment screen in my quarters and I have been avidly following your debate. Seeing your political institutions at work gives me a much better understanding of your species, and I must say that I am impressed by what I see.

“However, one thing that I find lacking from your studies is a certain amount of sophistication regarding my species. You appear to be framing your arguments strictly in human terms.

“Of course, it is possible that I misjudge you. Not being human myself, there may well be nuance to your arguments that I miss. But I have also seen people on my holovision concocting fantastic schemes to go forth and slay the ‘ugly little monkey gods,’ as one commentator put it. Surely I have not misunderstood the meaning of that statement.

“Despite being one of the ‘enemy,’ my purpose here is to aid your debate. Hopefully, I can improve your understanding of what you face, and therefore, allow you to come to a better decision than you would without my input. I do not expect you to believe everything I say, but I assure you that every word I speak is the truth.”

Sar-Say emitted the sound that substitutes for a laughter among the Broa. He raised his arms in an unrecognizable gesture, before dropping them again. “I imagine many of you are thinking, ‘Wouldn’t he say that if he were lying to us?’  True, but you need not believe what I say. It is enough that you listen to me.”

Lisa leaned over to Mark and whispered into his ear. “What do you think of my star pupil now?”

Mark responded, “I would say that he has learned Standard about as well as someone can. Congratulations, I think.”

“Thank you… I think.”

They both settled back to listen once more.

Sar-Say continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, what I have to say involves your future. Let me describe what awaits should you voluntarily choose to join the Broan Sovereignty, which my people simply call ‘Civilization.’

“We are not the monsters we have been portrayed in your media. We do not eat children, or rather, the small offspring of our subservients. Mostly, we eat fruits and vegetables, with only an occasional helping of meat, derived from non-sentient beasts we raise for the purpose—just as you do.

“If we bring you into our Sovereignty, we will not insist that you change your diets to match ours. Each species must follow its own nature. There are beings who hunt their food and swallow it while still alive. That is their nature. We do not waste time attempting to change things that are inherent in a species’ makeup. To do so would be both costly and futile. To use an Earth expression of which I am quite fond: ‘My mother did not raise any stupid cubs.’

“I can hear the unspoken objection before it forms in your throat. ‘But you Broa rule a million stars!’ This is a misconception. We are not human, and do not conform to the human mold.

“We do not ‘rule’ our subservients as you define the term. Civilization is too broad and diverse to allow us the luxury of emulating some ancient human king or emperor. We do not rule other species for the simple reason that we cannot rule them. There are too few of us to control every aspect of life in Civilization.

“The method by which we control our domain does not translate well into Standard. I want to say that we ‘guide’ our subservients, but that word is a pale substitute for the reality I am attempting to communicate. For the good of all, we establish common-sense rules, and enforce them when they are violated. One of our rules is that no subservient species may make war on any other. We enforce this edict by controlling traffic through the stargates.