“May it please the exalted fleetlord,” Shiplord Straha of the 206th Emperor Yower said, “but much of this territory strikes me as being that on Tosev 3 least worth the having. True, it’s warm enough to suit our kind, but much of it is so beastly wet that our fighting males break out in molds and rots.”
“Molds and rots are a small price to pay for victory,” Atvar answered. More of the hologram turned gold, so that Tosev 3 itself looked blotched and diseased. “Here are our holdings in the regions where the Big Uglies are most technologically advanced. As you can see for yourselves, valiant males, these have expanded considerably since last we gathered together.” The hologram rotated to give the shiplords a view of the entire planet.
Brash as usual, Straha said, “Certainly we have made great gains. How could it be otherwise, when we are the Race? The question that arises, however, Exalted Fleetlord, is why our gains have not been greater still, why Tosevite forces yet remain in arms against us.”
“May I speak, Exalted Fleetlord?” Kirel asked. At Atvar’s assent, the shiplord of the 127th Emperor Hetto went on, “The principal reason for our delays, Shiplord Straha, strikes me as obvious to a hatchling still wet from the egg: the Big Uglies’ capabilities are far greater than we imagined while readying the expeditionary force.”
“Oh, indeed, as we have discovered to our sorrow,” Straha said sarcastically, eager to score points off his rival. “But why is this so? How did our probes fail us so badly? How did the Tosevites become a technological species while the Race turned its eye turrets in the other direction?”
Kirel turned to Atvar in protest. “Exalted Fleetlord, the blame for that must surely rest with the Big Uglies themselves, not on the Race. We merely applied procedures which had proved themselves eminently successful on our two previous conquests. We could not know in advance that they would be less effective here.”
“That is so.” Atvar glanced down to check some data on a computer screen. Before Kirel could look too smug at having his commander’s support, the fleetlord added, “Nevertheless, Straha poses a legitimate question, even if impolitely: why are the Tosevites so different from us and our two previous subject races?”
Now Straha brightened up. Atvar needed to keep his rivalry with Kirel active; that way both powerful shiplords, and the lesser leaders who inclined to one of them or the other, would continue to labor zealously to seek the fleetlord’s support.
After reviewing his electronic notes once more, Atvar said, “Our savants have isolated several factors which, they feel, cause the Tosevites to be as they are.” A muffled hiss ran through the shiplords as they gave their commander full attention. Some of these speculations had already gone out in bulletins and announcements, but bulletins and announcements flowed from the fleetlord’s ship in such an unending stream that no one, no matter how diligent, could pay attention to them all. Words straight from the fleetlord’s jaws, though, were something else again.
He said, “One element contributing to the Tosevites’ anomalous nature is surely the anomalous nature of Tosev 3.” Now all at once the planet’s immense, innumerable oceans and seas and lakes and rivers glowed bright blue. “The excessive amount of free water serves, along with mountains and deserts, to wall off groups of Big Uglies from one another and allow them to go their own separate ways. This is obvious from one eye’s glance at the globe, and is not too different from our own most ancient days back on Home.”
“But, Exalted Fleetlord-” Kirel began. Not only had he read all the bulletins and announcements, he’d discussed them with Atvar-the advantage of being shiplord to the bannership of the fleet.
“But indeed.” Atvar wanted to lay out this exposition himself, without interruptions. “What follows is more subtle. Because land dominates water on the worlds of the Empire, we have little experience with boats and other aquatic conveyances. That is not the case among the Tosevites, who lavish endless ingenuity upon them. When some Big Uglies stumbled upon technology, they were quickly able to spread its influence-and theirs-by sea to most of the planet.”
“Then why do we not face one unified Tosevite empire, Exalted Fleetlord?” asked Feneress, a shiplord of Straha’s faction.
“Because the Tosevites in the area where the breakthrough took place were already divided among several competing groups,” Atvar answered “Travel by sea let them all expand their influence outward without consolidating into a single empire.”
The assembled shiplords hissed again, more quietly this time, as implications began to sink in. Back on Home, the ancestral Empire had grown step by small step. That was the only way it could grow, on a normal world where there were no great oceans to let its influence suddenly metastasize in a hundred directions at once. Atvar hissed himself as that word crossed his mind; it seemed the perfect metaphor for the Tosevites’ malignantly rapid technological growth.
“You must also bear in mind the constantly competitive nature of the Big Uglies themselves,” he went on. “As we have recently discovered, they are sexually competitive throughout the year, and remain, in a state permitting sexual excitement even in the long-term absence of any breeding partner.”
Atvar knew he sounded faintly disgusted. Without pheromones from females in heat, his own sexual urge remained latent. He didn’t miss it. On a mission like this, it would have been a distraction. The Rabotevs and Hallessi were like the Race in that regard, which had led its savants to believe all intelligent species followed the same pattern. There as elsewhere, Tosev 3 was proving a theorist’s crematorium.
Straha said, “Exalted Fleetlord, I recently received a shiplord’s-eyes-only report noting that the Tosevite empires opposing us are in fact not empires at all. I find this a contradiction. Granted that the scale of area ruled may vary, but how can there be government without empire?”
“Before I came here, Shiplord, I assure you I found that concept as unimaginable as you do now,” Atvar answered. “Tosev 3, unfortunately, has taught us all a variety of unpleasant new ideas. Of the lot, government without empire may be the most repugnant, but it does exist and must be dealt with.”
The shiplords stirred uncomfortably. Talking about government without empire was worse than talking about sexual interest in the absence of females in heat. For the Race, the latter was just an intellectual exercise, a study in abstraction. Government without empire, though, tore at the underpinnings of a thousand millennia of civilized life.
Feneress said, “Without emperors, Exalted Fleetlord, how can the Big Uglies administer their affairs? I too saw the report to which the senior shiplord Straha refers, but I confess I dismissed it as just another flight of fancy from savants drawing broad conclusions without enough data. You are saying this is not the case?”
“It is not, Shiplord. For my own peace of mind, I wish it were, but the data are irrefutable,” Atvar replied. “Moreover, revolting as it surely seems to us, the Big Uglies in many cases seem proud of their success at ruling themselves without emperors.” The Big Ugly named Molotov had seemed proud of belonging to a band that had slaughtered his empire’s emperor. The very idea still gave Atvar the horrors.
“But how do they administer their affairs?” Feneress persisted. Several other shiplords, males from both Straha’s faction and Kirel’s, made gestures of agreement. Here the whole Race united in finding the Tosevites baffling.
Atvar found them baffling, too, but he had been working hard to understand. He said, “I will summarize as best I can. In some Tosevite, uh, non-empires-the two most powerful examples are Deutschland and the SSSR-the ruler has full imperial power but draws on no hereditary loyalty and affection from his subjects. This may be one reason these two Tosevite areas are ruled with more brutality than most: obedience out of affection being unavailable to them, they force obedience out of fear.”