He paused, but there were no questions as yet. “Let the debate continue, then,” he said and sat down. He looked at the speaker who had been interrupted by the appearance of the fleet ship. Fedo elArm was debating the position that the rebels should wait for the appearance of the Outsiders, and enlist their aid in the struggle against the World Group armies. It was not a popular position, but perhaps a wise one. Trol’s face showed nothing as he watched and listened to the speaker, but he was hearing only a fraction of the words that were ringing out in the cavern, echoing against the rock walls with emotion and force. The decision would rest on him; everyone knew that. His decision would not be questioned once made. He glanced at the other six men at the long table, his personal advisers, each showing a face as impassive as his own, each beset by the same doubts.
He listened for a moment to Fedo. “…unless provoked. Of course, it isn’t easy, or comfortable, to see their soldiers strutting down our streets, taking our women, our material possessions, but the alternative is planet-wide slaughter…”
Trol turned his thoughts inward again. It had been slaughter in the beginning, when the World Group forces made their appearance and demanded landing space. The Tensor scientists had been delighted; the politicians wary. The politicians had been right in this instance. The demand for land was met; the WG people demanded taxes and trade privileges, and finally the deportation of teachers, scientists, leaders in every field, and the right to establish World Group schools. War flared, briefly, bloodily, and the peace that followed was not a real peace, but a lull during which the rebels had grouped themselves in the mountains, steeling themselves against the reports of reprisals.
Elt al Trin rose to speak then. “I remind you, gentlemen, of the parable of the ashtris and the lantric. The lantric in his wanderings came into the valley where the ashtris had lived peacefully since time immemorial. The lantric blundered into their nests, killing great numbers of them, and the ashtris held a meeting. What should we do? they cried. Look at how big the lantric is. We cannot hope to subdue an enemy so powerful. Let us move away until he tires of this valley and leaves it again. Even as they spoke thus, the lantric stepped on the nursery and destroyed thousands of their young, and then on the passageways that led to the communal dwellings, so that many thousands more were trapped and doomed to die from suffocation. One of the ashtris rose then and shouted, Let us all together meet this lantric. We number millions to his one. That is all that we have to fight with, our vast numbers. So they gathered, and in the dawn they swarmed over the lantric, blinding him with their bodies, piercing his tough skin with their pincers, chewing their way into his heart, and by the dusk the lantric lay dead among them.”
Elt al Trin paused and held up a transparent container in which there were three ashtris, no larger than fleas. There was a murmur throughout the chamber. He replaced the container on the table before him. “I say to you, gentlemen, we have nothing to fight with but our numbers. Today we are forty thousand fighting men, our enemy has ten thousand stationed on Tensor. Tomorrow he will have hundreds of thousands, and then it will be time to sit waiting for the intercession of the mythical Outsiders.” There was scattered clicking of the audience’s tongues against their teeth, and he held up his hand for quiet. “We don’t even know that the Outsiders exist! What evidence have we that there are such people? A rumour from a dying man, a prisoner from Mellic who lived in a ship’s storeroom and was burned by radiation for three weeks. Who can say how much of his tale was born of sickness? How firmly entrenched will the World Group powers be before this mythical race appears from nowhere in order to aid a people, of whom it has never even heard? Might we not better go back to the anthropological gods of our fathers and ask for their intercession? Might not the one be as helpful to us in our great need as the other?”
Fedo waited until there was again silence in the chamber before he made his final rebuttal. “My friends, what are numbers against the rain? Can numbers alone turn back the fires, the gases, the bombs? Can numbers withstand the deadly beams that dissolve and turn to air the targets they seek? We know about the camps where the soldiers live, the areas they have cleared about them; we know about the beams they can use to destroy anything that moves within those cleared areas, the gas clouds that bring death with even greater speed. How can we overcome them if we cannot even approach them? Those who go into our cities and towns? Yes, we can murder them, a handful, enough to draw the wrath of the main body, that is all. Then what? I can tell you: destruction. Complete and utter destruction.”
“We don’t know that they won’t visit that kind of complete destruction on us at any time as matters now stand!”
“But we do know that they haven’t done so yet.”
“They are waiting for their reinforcements! We intercepted their message to that effect. One month. That’s how much time we have! One month!”
Trol raised his hand for the debate to be ended. Each side had had its three hours; all had been said that could alter the situation, tilt it towards either position. Now it would rest with him and his council, but mainly with him. He inclined his head towards the council room, and the other members arose heavily and started to leave the large chamber. Trol was handed a message which he read. He raised his hand for attention.
“A metal robot has emerged from the ship that landed,” he said. “The ship is radioactive and cannot be approached. The robot is less radioactive. It has made no overture of any sort towards the observers, although they are positive that they are well within its range. They await instructions.”
“I’ll go immediately,” Luo umDis cried, jumping to his feet. “And Das, and Lewi…”
Trol nodded. “I command you, Luo, to take charge of the matter, to report back to me by radio of your findings. Take as many of the scientists as you deem necessary. Be wary of a possible trick…”
Luo bowed, his sharp blue eyes blazing with excitement and hope. A robot… If he could programme it to serve them… If it were more than the simple mobile tool that he knew the World Group possessed…
A group of twelve men travelled fast through the thick forests as silently as the animals that watched their progress. The people of Tensor had learned to live with their stretches of forests, not sacrificing them when technology began rising to ascendancy. The forests were still honoured and loved for themselves; the people still preferred them to the cities they dwelled in and the rare crime against nature itself was as severely punished as the still rarer crime against man. The patrols met the group as it neared the area where the robot was standing.
“It left the ship and since then has not moved,” the patrol scout said, motioning Luo to advance quietly. They stayed behind trees and looked out at the robot gleaming red and gold as it reflected the lengthening rays of the setting sun.
“Have you tried to contact it at all?”
The scout shook his head, his gaze intent on the robot.
It waited motionlessly. It had the need of fuel, and had not been taught how to obtain it. No one was threatening it. It waited. If no one had approached it at that point it would have waited until time and change wore away its covering, eroded its metals and crystals and diluted its chemicals until they were inert traces only. It recorded the voices that whispered away to its left, but it didn’t turn its dome to gather other sensory data concerning them. The words it was recording were meaningless. It scanned, then activated the circuit that was programmed for translating.