"That's even less." Rick touched the grenade through his pocket. It was a new variety; a small grenade not much larger than a golf ball, made mostly of plastic. It would explode into thousands of tiny fragments, surely enough to kill everyone in the room-including himself. It didn't seem a very useful weapon at the moment. "May I smoke?" he asked.
"I prefer that you do not," Agzaral said.
"Okay. Look, how the hell do you expect thirty men to take over an entire planet?"
"Not an entire planet." Karreeel's tone didn't change; it remained matter-of-fact, calm, unworried. "Most of"-he twittered something incomprehensible-"is of no interest or value. Only one region will be worth controlling. Surely your men with firearms and other military equipment will have no difficulty dominating primitives with lances, bows, and swords?"
That seemed possible. Rick didn't care much for the idea. If the planet were that primitive in weapons, it would also be primitive in hygiene and medical science. Living there would not be much fun.
He wondered what it would be like to be on welfare in one of Agzaral's cultures. It hadn't sounded pleasant, but Agzaral was undoubtedly used to more luxuries than Rick was. But then there was that phrase "experimental subjects," and that didn't sound good at all.
There was another problem that would be even worse. "We're all men," Rick said. "And you'll be sending us to another planet for the rest of our lives-"
"Ah," Karreeel said. "I understand. Permit me to explain that there will be human females."
"You've kidnapped women?" Rick demanded.
"No. Providing a sufficient number might be difficult without -violating – the regulations. The planet-let us call it Paradise. That is a good name for a planet. Paradise is inhabited by humans."
"Bull puckey," said Rick.
There was silence for a moment. Rick wondered if he had offended the alien.
"It is quite true,"Agzaral said. "There are humans in many parts of the galaxy."
"How?" Rick demanded.
Agzaral smiled thinly. "Don't your own scientists suggest that humans are not native to Earth?"
"I never heard of that theory being taken seriously. If people-humans-are spread all over the galaxy, how'd they get that way?"
"I doubt that you will ever find that out," Agzaral said. His voice had become very serious, with no trace of warmth at all. Then he shrugged. "There are no English translations of galactic history, and I have no time to give you lessons. For the moment, believe it."
Rick frowned. He wondered if it could be true. There were legends of early astronauts: Ezekiel and the wheel, cherubim, the biblical four-faced flying creatures; even the so-called evidence of commercial writers. Genesis could be interpreted as the transplantation of a very small number of people- the story said only two-onto a world where they hadn't evolved.
It was beyond Rick. He had never been a brilliant student. One reason he had worked hard in ROTC classes was that he had thought he might need the army for a job. The only subject he had consistently done well in was military history, and that hadn't promised a very good living.
Paradise. He smiled lopsidedly as he remembered a lump of uninhabitable ice had been named "Greenland" in the hopes of attracting suckers who might go there to settle. "Real people," he said. "Homo sapiens."
"How sapient is debatable. Not merely for those on Paradise, but everywhere," Agzaral said. "But depend upon it; union with females there will be fertile."
Something else nagged at Rick. "You're a policeman," he said. "I get the idea that you're here to protect the people of Earth. All those regulations. Can't kidnap people who aren't going to die anyway. Yet you're sending us off to conquer this primitive place you call Paradise. Why aren't you concerned about the people there?"
Agzaral frowned. Rick wondered if he'd hit a sore spot.
"Paradise-you may as well know the place's real name," Agzaral said. "In the dominant language it is called 'Tran.' Tran is not covered by the same regulations as Earth." He stopped and pressed his lips grimly together. "Besides, you can't do anything to the people there that they haven't been doing to themselves. You may save them much misery."
There was some mystery here, Rick thought. Agzaral's expression did not match his words. But what? "If it's that easy, why don't you do it yourselves?"
"We can't." Agzaral pointed to Karreeel. "Discoverers, colonizers, and developers have their rights, too. But when you arrive on Tran with your weapons, you might recall that the people there are as human as you or I. Captain Galloway, you must make a decision."
"How much time do I have?"
Agzaral looked to Karreeel.
"There is no vital hurry," the alien said. "Shall we say twenty-four hours?"
Rick put the proposition to the troops. He wasn't surprised when there was a long silence, then babble. He knew how they felt; he'd wanted to babble himself when he left the interview with Karreeel and Agzaral.
Then a loud voice cut through the chatter. "Another planet? That's not possible."
Private Larry Warner, called "Professor" by the other troops, had a voice that could be heard in the middle of a battle. He was a college graduate, and Rick had no idea why the man had volunteered for the army, still less why he had volunteered a second time for a CIA operation. He argued with everyone: officers, noncoms, anyone who would listen. Only threats of severe punishment could shut him up. For all that, he was an educated man, and Rick had found his knowledge valuable in the past.
"Faster-than-light travel is impossible," Warner said. "We can't get to another star system-and there sure aren't any inhabited planets in the solar system. They must be lying to you."
"It seems a pointless deception," Andrй Parsons said.
Sergeant Elliot had a simpler way. "Shut up, Warner."
"Where did the aliens come from?" Jack Campbell shouted. "Not this solar system. You said so yourself, Professor." Campbell was a college dropout who'd joined the army for lack of something better to do. He enjoyed teasing Warner. "Hey, I like it! Captain, I take it there'll be some changes in our status. Most of us can hope for something more than twenty years in the army and retirement-"
Rick shrugged. "I hadn't much thought about it, but I guess so. They talked like we could do pretty well what we wanted to."
"I have always fancied myself as a king," Andrй Parsons said. "I see no reason why we cannot all become kings-or at least dukes and barons. Presuming we succeed, of course."
"We have to get out of here," someone shouted.
Babble broke out.
"Where to?"
"I've got a wife and two kids-I got to get back home!"
"Ten-hut!" Elliot's command quieted them for a moment.
Before they could speak again, Rick said, "We aren't going home. They made that clear, and I don't see any way to get there. They can let the pressure out of here anytime they want to. Anybody know how to breathe vacuum?"
"So what do we do, Captain?" Campbell asked.
"Stick together. Do what they want," Rick said. "Lieutenant Parsons is right. We can all get rich out of this. We can't go home, but we can be rich. If we stick together."
"Fight a whole planet?" Campbell asked.
"Not quite," Rick said. "But we could. We have the edge in weapons and tactics. There'll be a lot of people down there, though. A lot. If we don't stay together-well, when does anyone sleep?"
"First we need a new contract," Warner said. His voice had a smug quality that instantly irritated Rick. "A new contract. We can begin by electing a chairman-"