Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire (47 page)

"Assignment, to observe routine of perceived leader or semi-leader. Correct status, request made with ritual polite-words?"

I think it was trying to say "please," certainly another first for an Alien. "I'm a member of the Legislature," I said. "I share the leadership with a large number of people."

" 'Legislature,' " Dzhaz repeated, as if taking a note. "Implies democratic or republican governing system. Permission, observe daily routine?"

"Why not?" I said. A soldier appeared in the door behind it, and I made a quick, casual gesture: everything's fine. I hoped it was. If that Alien really was nervous, it might reach for its zapper and cut loose.

It waited a moment before answering. Maybe the Aliens have trouble understanding that a question can be an answer. Finally Dzhaz touched the letter from Bodo. "Request, nature of document?"

"It's the conclusion of an important criminal matter," I said. "A farmer had two cats killed by a naughty child. I helped find the miscreant."

"This rates as important?"

I mulled that over. I'd meant to bamboozle the monster, but now that I thought of it— "Yes, I'd say so."

The Alien took one of the doohickeys from its belt and held it in front of its visor. "Statement of fact," Dzhaz said. "Statement of fact." I saw subdued lights race across part of the object, and I decided it was a lie detector.

Well, even Aliens have a right to be puzzled when a politician tells the truth. It dawned on me then that I was going to play everything straight with the monster.
Scented Vine
's crew had treated humanity like a bunch of savages—devious, shifty, untrustworthy. No doubt this thing had the same attitude, in which case a little candor might trip it up.

"Request, explanation of importance?"

"Well . . . aside from a cat's value as a ratter, there's the nature of the crime." I held up the letter, and a quick blip of light told me the Alien had recorded it. "A child enjoyed taking a gun and killing animals. Now he's being punished—"

"Request, brutalizing child is acceptable act?"

"
Disciplining
a child is acceptable," I said. "The boy might have decided that killing people is fun, too. Aside from paying for the damage he's done, he's also learning not to do things like that."

It fiddled with one of its instruments, a thing that looked like frozen quicksilver. "Request, importance of this to you?"

"I represent Bodo in the Legislature—" I stopped, feeling that didn't cover everything. "I represent society as well. The child wasn't fully responsible for his acts, so it was up to society—myself, Bodo, and the boy's family—to intervene."

"Request, explain why society must intervene?"

I wondered if it had a point to its questions. "No society can tolerate members who work against the society's best interests—"

"Request, attitude includes dissent?"

"Dissent is generally in society's interest," I said. That was a damned peculiar question; didn't the Alien understand the difference between dissent and disorder? "How reliable is your translator?"

Dzhaz touched its three hands together. "Uncertain. Use is made of records purchased from
Scented Vine
crew. Reliability perhaps not total, but adequate. Request, dissent is considered beneficial?"

"It's a good way of catching mistakes before they get out of control. Was that a serious question?" It sounded like something that might have been asked in the Kremlin, or the Nixon White House. I wouldn't have expected it from a star-traveler, no matter how non-human it was.

"All requests made for information,"

"That's what the
Stinking Weed
's crew told us," Gwen said, striding into my office. The look on her face was murderous.

The golden visor turned to her. "Name of earlier ship,
Scented Vine
."

"A rose by any other name," Gwen said, seating herself. "What in hell do you want here, monster?"

"Information, related to social degeneration, this planet."

"What's it to you?" she asked coolly.

"We are academicians. Topic of social collapse rates primary attention in many portions of culture. Hence, information sought."

"Why?" Gwen's face darkened. "So you can write a thesis? Title,
How it Feels to Have Bug-Eyed Monsters Bugger Your World?
"

I made a quick gesture, motioning for silence. The Alien's fidgeting had increased, and now I was certain it was a case of nerves. Gwen's hostility was plain, and I didn't doubt that the Alien's instruments could interpret human emotions for the creature. It might run amok with its zapper—or just stop talking. In either case, I wouldn't learn why it was here. "You didn't come all this way just to learn why we fell."

"Incorrect. As stated, object is to study social collapse."

"You're too late to study anything," Gwen told Dzhaz. "The damage was done before the
Stinking Weed
left. They could give you the whole story."

"Incorrect. They could only describe their activities. Self-evident that they could not describe pre-arrival or post-departure events.
Scented Vine
crew merely—" The translator chopped off suddenly. I heard a faint grinding noise from inside its helmet. Alien speech? Probably it was talking to its friends. "I will now return to shuttlecraft."

Gwen shut the door behind it after it left. "Did you learn anything, Tad?"

"I'm sure I did." The Alien's interests were real headscratchers. "They're interested in more than the Collapse. That one wanted to watch me at work—"

"And you let it?"

"Was I supposed to stop it?" I asked her. "Gwen, we're not in the Forum now, so quit campaigning. I talked to it about Bodo's cats. It asked me some questions—basic, simple ones."

"That has a familiar ring," Gwen said.

I nodded. The questions asked by
Scented Vine
's crew had helped spark the Collapse. There'd been a bored, arrogant indifference to their questions then, when they asked us why we used
such
primitive technology, or why our behavior was so barbaric. Such things, spread over international TV and radio, did little for the human race's pride. And yet—

"There was something different here," I told Gwen. "This one acted as if it was trying to get to the bottom of something. I think my answers puzzled it."

She didn't look pleased. "It may be trying a new approach to destroying us. Tad, I've always felt that
Scented Vine
trashed us on purpose, to destroy potential rivals to their species. These monsters must be here to check up on the job, and to tidy up loose ends."

"Such as the Republic." I caught myself drumming my fingers on my desk, something I do when I've got a tough problem on my mind. Gwen's theory fit the facts, but only if we were wrong about certain things. The Aliens could blast us back to the Stone Age, using their anti-meteor beam to destroy a few critical facilities. Despite their claims,
Scented Vine
's crew had had no compunctions about killing. Certainly the Collapse had led to some five billion deaths over the past quarter century, as most of Earth sank back to the subsistence level, and certainly the Collapse was their doing. The blood was on their hands. Given that, why would our current visitors destroy us the hard way? The facts just didn't jibe.

There was a polite knock at the door, and Washington entered. "You wanted to see me now, Mr. Secretary," he said, standing at parade-rest.

"Yes, I wanted to go over the new mobilization plans." I nodded at the window, in the general direction of Signal Hill. "We're still following Plan Seven, but we never laid any contingency plans for
this
. How much more time will you need to prepare?"

"One week," he said. "The forces watching Weyler and the Aliens are our 'fire brigade'—our emergency reserve," he explained to Gwen. "It will take a week to mobilize their replacements."

"We can afford that week," Gwen said, "How long do you think we'll need to defeat Weyler?"

"I don't think it's possible," he said, a statement that left Gwen looking as surprised as I felt. "The situation has changed."

"Because of the Aliens?" I asked.

"No, sir, the change preceded their arrival." He looked to Gwen. "Ma'am, I said that Weyler has indoctrinated his people."

"What's that got to do with anything?" she said. "They may believe his mumbo-jumbo now, but once we toss him out and send in our educators—"

"The same things were said about Vietnam and Nicaragua," Washington said. "The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the situation here is similar. Weyler has given his people a set of beliefs which explains the world; part of the explanation is that the Republic is a source of evil. An invasion will reinforce this belief."

"We'd defeat ourselves," I said. "Is that your point?"

"Not if our attack was impressive enough," Gwen said doggedly.

"Weyler knows enough to engage us in a guerrilla war," the Colonel said. "I fought in one for a year, in Nicaragua. Even against Stone Age weapons, we would take heavy casualties." He paused, and I got the impression that he was debating something with himself. "We would end up killing many of the people we wish to help."

Gwen looked somber. "That's always the case, Colonel," she said. "We're out to help all of them, even the ones who fight us. It's a choice between prolonged savagery and brief bloodshed—"

"Unending bloodshed is now on the list," he said, surprising me. I've never known him to interrupt anyone. "In Nicaragua, we found ourselves battling a large part of the population. We never knew who was on our side and who was not. I rose from second lieutenant to colonel because the guerrillas concentrated on the officers—and many of them found it impossible to stay alert at every moment."

"But you survived," Gwen argued, "And with your experience, you could avoid the mistakes made down there—"

"My experience," the Colonel said. "For the most part, I learned how to avoid combat. Everyone who wanted to survive did that. It held down casualties, but it was no way to win a war. As for the action I did see . . ." His voice trailed off and an introspective look showed on his face.

He started speaking again, as impassively as ever. "On my last day in Nicaragua, I was in a troop truck with a dozen other men, on the way to the airport. The communists hated the idea of any Americans leaving their country alive, so they made a last-minute attack on us. When the truck stopped at an intersection, a guerrilla ran up behind us with a grenade—"

"Please stop," Gwen said suddenly.

The Colonel ignored her. "I estimate he was ten years old. No doubt one of his parents gave him the grenade. That was common, because a large part of the population had been indoctrinated to fight at all costs. A military victory would have required genocide, you see, which would have been counterproductive."

"So that's when you were wounded," I said inanely.

"I was not wounded. I shot the guerrilla before he could throw the grenade. A medical officer learned about the incident when I returned stateside, and I was subjected to a psychiatric examination. I was confined to the psychiatric wing of Walter Reed for observation." His voice remained as matter-of-fact as ever. "It was the military's opinion that the things I did to survive were insane, even though I was following orders."

Gwen looked rattled. "But—but they decided you were all right eventually—"

"No, ma'am, I went AWOL from the hospital. I always felt my confinement was a mistake, being a decision made by people who had never been in combat and refused to understand the situation."

I felt my skin crawling. "So when you rejoined the Army—"

"The Collapse was well under way, Mr. Secretary. I knew no one could check on me, and there was a need for my skills." He checked his old wind-up watch. "I should return to my headquarters now."

"Okay." I nodded weakly and he left. My head was buzzing. This explained so much about the man, I thought. Small wonder that he had isolated himself from people. I couldn't imagine how he endured the loneliness that required.

"No wonder he keeps to himself," Gwen said quietly. "He couldn't afford to have anyone learn that—and neither can we."

"Is that all you can think about?" I asked. Granted, it would devastate everyone to learn that our national hero was a ruthless killer and an escaped lunatic, but the Colonel hadn't been speaking merely to unburden what was left of his conscience. "He was warning us not to start this war."

"I know. I just don't want to think about that right now." Gwen was slumping wearily in her chair, and for the first time I realized that she had as many gray hairs as I do. "It's times like this that I can't see why I went into politics."

"You and me both." I forced myself to consider our alternatives to the war. Attack was out, not if it would embroil us in a war we couldn't win . . . and produce more casualties like Washington. The hell of it was that we couldn't back down, which would demoralize our own people while encouraging more outlander attacks. Merely defending our borders wasn't enough, either. With our limited resources, it was either expand or die.

Facing our lack of options, it took me a moment to notice an odd rhythmic sound floating through my office window. The Aliens? I wondered, getting up. I couldn't see anything odd atop Signal Hill. The force field looked steady.

Gwen had noticed it, too. "That sounds like chanting," she said. "We'd better see if Weyler's up to something."

He was. We went down to the Concourse, where Weyler and half his men had arrayed themselves. Weyler himself sat cross-legged on the grass beside the boulevard, while his men formed a semicircle on the asphalt. They were chanting
ottar-idle, hai! ottar-idle, hai!
, over and over at the top of their lungs, while shuffling their feet in an odd step, left, left, right, and swinging their spears in the air. Several of our soldiers were watching them, baffled by the sight, while a crowd of spectators gathered. And then I saw the Alien.

Dzhaz had been on its way back to the shuttlecraft when the savages had blocked its path. Don't ask me why the beast didn't go around them. All I can think of is that it stopped to observe another quaint native activity, and then found itself surrounded by a horde of humans, cutting it off from its friends.