"David, we are terribly sorry," Chang said quietly. Peixoto said nothing at all; didn't trust his control. David's nod was wooden. I should have known it would come to that, he thought. It was inevitable. All of it. This mission was a charade, by an admiral trying to convince himself, and two fools who wanted to believe.
After half a minute, the president spoke again. "I will call the others back in now. There are questions that must be looked at." The people from War House and the Commonwealth Ministry had heard the entire cube before. He'd sent them out as a courtesy to David, in case he broke down.
They did not question Qonits at length, but they did play Quanshuk's cube. Then they reviewed possibilities they'd discussed before, and the conclusions they'd drawn, asking Qonits for clarifications, and his opinions. The chief scholar's comments were brief but informative.
Peixoto's closing comment was to Qonits: "Mr. Ambassador, your grand admiral was correct in believing we prefer negotiation to war. We do not wish to destroy your people, nor be destroyed by them. When your fleet has been smashed, perhaps the survivors will agree to terms. Then you will have a major role in this."
Peixoto didn't actually lie, but he didn't imagine that terms could be agreed on, even assuming that Soong's Commos won the battle to come. For he knew things that Qonits still did not. The armada had stopped very briefly in the fringes of two more inhabited systems, departing quickly without attacking, leaving only their emergence signatures. Clearly, Charley had been right: They'd decided to postpone further conquests, and were inbound with the intention of forcing a showdown, a final battle. Given their new rate of progress, they'd reach the Eridani System in about three weeks. The Eridani System had a home-grown population of nearly two billion, a bevy of universities, burgeoning industries-and millions of colonial evacuees, armed and more or less trained.
Soong and his Commos would be there, waiting with reinforcements, and Charley Gordon was refining a strategy and tactics to include the new spook drones, whose functions were deception and confusion.
With the new weapons and Charley Gordon, there was still a chance. The Admiralty thought so and Soong thought so. The Altai's shipsmind rated it one in four, and War House's AI agreed. Charley Gordon rated it even. "Wait and see," he'd said. "If we survive the first phase, we will beat them."
Peixoto had never known Charley Gordon to fool himself, but in this situation he might. Because this will be the final battle, Peixoto told himself, with everything at stake. And it is on Charley's shoulders. The pressure will not break him, but it might bend his judgement.
Chang, on the other hand, believed the Tao wanted humanity to survive, and therefore that it would. And of course if all else failed, there was Project Noah.
David and Qonits sat in the palace guest suite they shared, neither speaking at first. Finally David suggested they have something to drink, something alcoholic, and diagrammed the ethanol molecule, elaborating. Qonits nodded. Ethanol was the active ingredient in most Wyzhnyny liquors. Then David asked their marine orderly to send for dark rum.
The orderly, who wore a stunner and a lance corporal's stripe, seemed a competent young man. Qonits assumed the stunner was a weapon, and the marine as much guard as orderly, but the chief scholar did not feel threatened. And rightly. The lance corporal had been warned that a stunner was lethal to Wyzhnyny. He was there to defend his charges, and forbidden to use it on the ambassador under any circumstances, however desperate.
Another lance corporal delivered the bottle. Each "guest" took a drink; both marines declined. David took his straight. Qonits sipped his with water, but drank nonetheless.
"So it will only be a few weeks," David said. "Who do you suppose will win?"
"The grand admiral feared that you would, eventually," Qonits answered. "Your resources are enormous."
"But your fleet is enormous," David replied, "and we have not been a warlike species for a very long time."
"Perhaps not. But your battlecomps have proven much better than ours, and you have robot cruisers that can maneuver-" he failed to come up with the word "evasively," so he zigzagged a hand. "And obtaining target locks requires milliseconds-not an easy matter when a target moves erratically at such speeds." He paused, then added: "Also your shields are stronger."
David still had trouble imagining an effective Commonwealth fleet. Certainly not one so quickly constructed and trained. He peered thoughtfully at Qonits, who sipped his rum again.
"We lost many more fighting ships than you did," Qonits continued. "And a majority of our ships are not fighting ships."
It occurred to David that the chief scholar would be keeping those things to himself, if he thought there was any chance at all of meaningful negotiation. And the prime minister had told Qonits about the savants, which he wouldn't have done if he expected to negotiate.
"Many are colony ships, supply ships, factory ships," Qonits went on. "It is necessary that our colonies set up manufacturing industries, with different tribes having different industries.
"And therein lies a greater problem." He paused again to sip. "Agricultural tribes are landed first, to establish food production and a planetary database. And when shipsmind decides we have occupied as large a sector of space as we can administer, the tribes not yet landed are assigned by shipsmind to worlds already occupied. On the basis of planetary environments, tribal affinities, and an integrated, practical industrial program.
"Usually there is no technologically potent empire to destroy. And when there has been, it has never been too large to swallow. Until now."
He took another swallow himself, then fixed his bleak gaze on David again. "We never imagined an empire so large as yours. Not a hundredth as large. We were already badly overextended when we fought the first human fleet. We would not have enough tribes. And our industries would be so widely dispersed, they would not constitute a viable system."
"Then why… "
Qonits fist slammed the table top, making David jump. "Because we dared not stop! Not within the bounds of a technologically advanced empire! We would have been mortally exposed!"
He paused, staring ruefully at his fist. "I am sorry, David. I should not have committed violence, even against a table. The scholar gender does not tolerate ethanol well. And you are my friend. My only friend in this galaxy."
"In this galaxy," David echoed. "You've said that before, and I've assumed it was a figure of speech. Don't tell me the Wyzhnyny are from another galaxy."
"We are." Qonits began to rock, forward and back. "We are," he repeated. Then he finished his drink and sat quietly.
Contemplating only the All-Soul knows what, David thought. "But surely you hadn't filled up your own galaxy. And how could you have gotten here from so far away?"
He'd never before heard Qonits laugh, but it seemed to him that's what this sound was. Probably an ironic laugh. The chief scholar refilled his glass himself, and drank. "We do not know," he said, then briefly described the experience. "Nor do we know which other one we came from. Not that it makes any difference. The nearest would be too far."
Briefly they sipped without speaking. Then David, groping for a change of subject, asked what Qonits' home world was like. They spent the next hour exchanging reminiscences of childhood and youth. And drinking. Finally Qonits slumped onto his side and closed his eyes.