He needed a few sweet thoughts, for the next agenda item was no more satisfactory than the one pertaining to China: the American Big Uglies were going right ahead with their plan to turn small asteroids into missiles aimed at Tosev 3. Probes had found several new distant rocks to which they’d fitted motors, and analysts were warning in loud and strident tones that they were sure they hadn’t found them all.
“Spirits of Emperors past turn their backs on the Americans,” Atvar muttered. He swung an eye turret toward Pshing. “Our analysts believe the Americans will resist with force if we try to destroy these installations, even if no Big Uglies are presently aboard them. What is your view?”
“Exalted Fleetlord, it might have been better had we not threatened them with war if they attacked our automated probes out in the asteroid belt,” his adjutant replied. “Now they can reverse that precedent and hit us in the snout with it.”
“No doubt you are right about that,” Atvar said unhappily. “But I am more concerned with practical aspects than with legalistic ones here. If we ignore the precedent and resort to force, will they respond in kind?”
“By every indication from Henry Cabot Lodge, they will,” Pshing said. “Do we wish to ignore the express statements of their ambassador? Can we afford to ignore those statements? If we ignore them and find we were mistaken, how expensive and how embarrassing will that prove?”
“Those are all good questions,” Atvar admitted. “They are, in fact, the very questions I have been asking myself. I wish I liked the answers I find for them better than I do.”
“And I also understand that,” Pshing said. “The more technically capable the Big Uglies become, the more difficult in other ways they also become.”
“And the more unpredictably difficult, too.” Atvar swung both eye turrets toward the monitor. “Why are so many American and Canadian manufacturing companies suddenly ordering large quantities of a particular small servomotor from us? To what nefarious purpose will they put the device?”
“I saw that item, Exalted Fleetlord, and checked with our Security personnel,” Pshing said. “The stated reason is, this motor will be the central unit in a toy for Tosevite hatchlings.”
“Yes, that is the stated reason.” Atvar bore down heavily on the word. “But what true reason lurks behind it?”
“Here, I believe, none.” Pshing spoke to the monitor, which yielded Atvar a view of a goggle-eyed, fuzzy object that looked like a cross between a Big Ugly and some of the large wild beasts of Tosev 3. “This thing is called, I believe, a Hairy. By the excitement with which the Tosevites speak of it, it is already remarkably popular, and seems on the way to becoming more so.”
“Madness,” Atvar said with great conviction. “Utter madness, and an utter waste of good servomotors, too.”
“Better they should go to fripperies than to devices that truly would trouble us,” Pshing said.
“Well, that is a truth, and I can hardly deny it.” Atvar looked at the next item on the agenda. It involved talking with Reffet about recruiting males and females from the colonization fleet. “Reffet is a nuisance, and I can hardly deny that, either. Go call him, Pshing. Perhaps the shock will make him fall over dead. I can hope as much, at any rate.”
“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Atvar’s adjutant said, and went off to do it.
Reffet remained among those breathing. Atvar had known his untimely demise was too much to hope for. “I greet you,” Atvar said when his opposite number’s image appeared in the monitor. He’d given up trying to be friendly to Reffet. Perhaps he could still manage businesslike. “Have you seen the latest casualty figures from my males trying to put down the Chinese revolt?”
“They are unfortunate, yes,” Reffet answered. “This planet should never have cost so much to pacify.”
“If you know how to make the Big Uglies ignorant, perhaps you will tell me,” Atvar said. “Since we must deal with them as they are, though, perhaps you will draw the obvious conclusion and stop obstructing what needs to be done.”
More earnestly than Atvar had expected, Reffet said, “Do you not yet grasp how alien this world is to me-indeed, to all the colonization fleet? Do you think we imagined independent Tosevite not-empires, spacefaring Big Uglies armed with explosive-metal bombs, when we set out from Home? Do you think we imagined how disrupted our carefully planned economy would become when we discovered that the Tosevites were already doing so much of the manufacturing we had expected to have to do ourselves? Do you think we dreamt of the staggering effect ginger would have on our whole society? Can you truthfully say you looked for any of these things before going into cold sleep?”
“I looked for not a one of them. I have never claimed otherwise,” Atvar replied. “But what I and what the conquest fleet as a whole have tried to do is adapt to these things, not pretend they do not exist. That pretense is what we see too often from the colonization fleet, and what infuriates and addles us.”
“How long did you take before you began to adapt?” Reffet asked. “If you tell me you did it all at once, I shall not believe you.”
“No, we did not do it all at once,” Atvar said, relieved to find Reffet so reasonable. “But, because we were so outnumbered, we could not pretend that the Big Uglies are in fact what we wish they were, an attitude we have seen too often among you colonists. Sooner or later, we shall grow old and die off. Sooner or later, you will have to defend yourselves. Such is life on Tosev 3, like it or not. Until such time as this planet is fully assimilated into the Empire-if that day ever comes-we shall have to maintain our strength, because the wild Big Uglies assuredly will maintain theirs.”
Reffet sighed. “It could be that you are right. I do not say that it is, but it could be. But if it is, this world will be a long-lasting anomaly within the Empire, with a permanent Soldiers’ Time and with the disruptions springing from ginger. If you think I like or approve of this, you are mistaken. If you think I am incapable of dealing with it, however, you are also mistaken.”
“Do you know what?” Atvar said. Without waiting for a reply, he went on, “I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting that, Reffet. On that basis, I think we can get along well enough. I certainly hope we can, at any rate.”
Atvar knew he sounded surprised as well as pleased. So did Reffet: “I also hope so, Atvar. Let us make the effort, shall we?”
“Agreed,” Atvar said at once. After he broke the connection, he stared at the monitor in astonished delight. Maybe we really can work together, he thought. I never would have believed it, but maybe we really can. And maybe, just maybe- a stranger thought yet-Reffet is not an idiot after all. Who would have imagined that?
A moment later, Pshing’s face appeared on the monitor. His adjutant said, “Exalted Fleetbord, you have a call from Senior Researcher Ttomalss. Will you speak to him?”
“Yes, put him through,” Atvar said, and then, as he and Ttomalss saw each other, “I greet you, Senior Researcher.”
“And I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “As you will know, I have been examining the ways in which the Big Uglies administered their own relatively successful empires, in the hope that we might learn from their history. In this effort, the empire administered by the Big Uglies called Romans has proved perhaps the most instructive.”
“All right, then,” Atvar said. “How did these Romans administer their empire, and how might we imitate their example?”
“Their most important virtue, I think, was flexibility,” Ttomalss replied. “They treated areas differently, depending on their previous level of civilization and on how well pacified they were. They had several grades of citizenship, with gradually increasing amounts of privilege, until finally the inhabitants of a conquered region became legal equal to longtime citizens of their empire. And they did their best to acculturate and assimilate new regions into the broader fabric of their empire.”