He paused and looked them over again. "Other questions? Lord Agros."
The leader of the House of Nobles stood up, a wry expression on his aristocratic face. "Your Reverence, you would have us invade an empire far larger than our own. What happens if they defeat us?"
"Exactly. What do we do if they defeat us? They know we exist now, and considering our intrusion, and the nature of our only encounter, they can hardly feel other than hostile toward us. Sooner or later, if we do not rule them, they will find and invade us. It seems almost certain. Personally I prefer that we invade them, and not the reverse. And I prefer to launch the invasion fleet as soon as it can properly be done, in the Year of The Prophet 4727 at the latest, as I described.
"In 4721, their imperial fleet was no larger than we could send there next month, and inferior in armament. They had no planetary fleets to supplement it. They had a relatively small imperial army, again with inferior armaments. And their planetary armies were smaller and supposedly inferior to their imperial army.
"They had seven times our number of worlds, but only perhaps two or three times our people, because of the control of births and population size, and the use of machines to accomplish many kinds of labor.
"But how long will they continue inferior in strength knowing that we exist? Our only contact with them was violent. Do you suppose their Diet has not approved the building of new shipyards? New armament factories? Do you suppose they have not authorized a reconnaisance to find out where we are? From so far away, and presumably with only a general notion of the direction we came from, it may take them a century to find us, of course, but find us they will, almost surely."
He paused long, looking them over.
"When Sultan Rashti sent out his expedition, for reasons which apply to every world, he redefined our destiny. Our alternative destinies. We can conquer now, or else be conquered a generation or a century hence by a Confederation powerfully armed and terribly dangerous.
"Had we known six years ago what we know now, it could have been a large and powerful fleet that left the empire, instead of Rashti's small flotilla. And we could easily have conquered. Each year we wait, the more difficult it will be.
"We can assume they have new shipyards built by now." He paused. "Unless of course their Diet lacks the will to act. And we can assume their fleet will be considerably larger, when ours arrives, than it was three years ago.
"It takes incentive and resources and time to develop great military power. They have the resources and we have given them the incentive. We must not give them the time.
"Fortunately, warships without force shields are very vulnerable, and the Confederation does not have force shields. Though having hyperspace generators, they have the potential, the science, to develop and build force shield generators. The possibility will occur to them sooner or later."
The Kalif scanned his audience with hard eyes. He'd shaken them. This was a consideration he hadn't brought up before.
"Sooner or later we will have to face up to a war with them. The plan I've described to you will put our fleet upon them, and an army, while they are still vulnerable-if this chamber has the perspective and will to finance it.
"The opportunity to bring the pagans to Kargh, and the availability of underpopulated worlds-these are reasons enough to invade. But given the distances and expense, they are not utterly compelling; one might argue against them in good conscience. On the other hand, the matter of our security and the future of Karghanik are beyond debate."
His opposition was taken unprepared by this, but struck back as best they could. They questioned his certainty that the Confederation had no force shields, and his answer was not totally reassuring. They argued that the necessary taxes would strain an already unhealthy economy, and that the excitement coincident to such a project would cause further civil disturbances.
The possibility of invasion from the non-human empire was also brought up. The Kalif stood again to reply.
"If," he said, "the non-humans are so formidable and so inclined, why haven't they attacked us already? It was more than five years ago that they first clashed with the Klestronu flotilla, less than a year's distance from Klestron.
"In fact we have no strong reason to believe that a non-human empire exists in the sector where the non-human ship was encountered. The Klestronu flotilla encountered a single ship. Later it encountered a single ship. Still later it found itself followed by-a single ship. The evidence strongly suggests that all three encounters were with the same ship."
At this, Rothka surged to his feet and shouted a retort without asking recognition: "You throw possibilities at us in lieu of reasons! 'Why haven't they?' you ask, as if that proved anything! 'No strong reason to believe!' 'Strongly suggests!' What sort of evidence is that? What kind of fools do you take us for? What song will you sing when a warfleet loaded with monsters arrives here with death and enslavement on its mind? While our own fleet is three years distant, with no way even to let them know!"
Alb Tariil's gavel was rapping before Rothka had gotten his first sentence out, and before he'd finished, some of the noble delegates were shouting "out of order." But his trumpet voice blared through them, and when he'd lapsed into grimly satisfied silence, the others still shouted till the gavel silenced them.
The Kalif stood gazing at Rothka from the rostrum, seemingly as calm as if a routine question had been moderately put. After the uproar had stilled, and the gavel, he spoke. " 'When a warfleet loaded with monsters arrives here,' you say. I hadn't realized you were clairvoyant, Lord Rothka. You're fortunate that witches aren't flayed and drowned in brine any longer.
"As far as that's concerned, you're fortunate that your present Kalif doesn't deal with attacks the way his predecessor did-the predecessor you sided with so often.
"But forgive my sarcasm. I'm afraid I was influenced by your own ill manners. As for the facts I pointed out, which you attempted to twist-I have not pretended that they constitute proof. But they remain. The Klestronu flotilla encountered a single ship on three occasions. The second time they assumed it was a second ship, a different ship. If it was, it was identical in every respect recorded on the flagship's DAAS, although first in battle and then in flight, their commodore never thought to look. The third time they realized it was the same ship as the second, and suspected it might be the same as the first.
"A vast and hostile non-human empire? Possibly. Also possibly, the non-humans' ship had detected them while both were in hyperspace, and emerged to communicate with them. Commodore Tarimenloku himself admitted that after firing without warning on the alien, it occurred to him their electronic intrusion into his DAAS's data bank might have been intended to produce a translation program.
"And finally, what became of that alien ship? Commodore Tarimenloku launched a distortion bomb in the hyperspace direction of their pursuer. He did not determine whether their pursuer was destroyed, and his DAAS lacked the information needed to evaluate the probability. But SUMBAA has estimated-not proved, but estimated-the probability at eighty-one percent, with a six percent error of estimate.
"Let's assume for a moment that there is a non-human empire. And let's assume further than the Klestronu encroached on its space. The odds are strong that that hypothetical empire doesn't know it was encroached upon. For if the alien ship had taken the necessary few minutes to prepare and send a message pod to wherever it came from, it could hardly have succeeded in tracking the Klestronu."