Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Jerry Pournelle
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
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First printing, June 1989
ISBN: 0-671-69826-5
Cover art by David Egge
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PEBBLE AMONG THE STARS by Gregory Benford first appeared as "Seascape" in the
Faster Than Light
anthology in 1977. Published by permission of the author. Copyright © 1988 by Abbenford Associates.

THE CLAW AND THE CLOCK by Christopher Anvil was first published in the February 1971
Analog
. Copyright © 1971 by Condé Nast Publications.

THE ONLY THING WE LEARN by Cyril Kornbluth appeared first in the July 1949
Startling Stories
. Copyright © 1949 by Better Publications, Inc.

REMEMBERING VIETNAM by H. J. Kaplan was published in the December 1987 issue of
Commentary
. Copyright © 1987 by H. J. Kaplan.

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK by G. C. Edmondson appears here by special arrangement with the author. It was first published in the September 1955 issue of
Astounding
. Copyright © 1955 by Street & Smith Publications.

LIMITING FACTOR by Theodore Cogswell made its first appearance in the April 1954 issue of
Galaxy
. Copyright © 1954 by Universal Publishing.

TRIAGE by William Walling first appeared in the November 1976
Analog
. It is published by permission of the author. Copyright © 1976 by Condé Nast Publications.

HYPERDEMOCRACY by John W. Campbell, Jr. was first published in the August 1958 issue of
Astounding
. Copyright © 1958 by Street & Smith Publications.

CHAIN REACTION by Algis Budrys first appeared in the April 1957
Astounding
. Copyright © 1957 by Street & Smith Publications.

EARTHMAN'S BURDEN by Morton Klass appeared for the first time in the May 1954 issue of
Astounding
. Copyright © 1954 by Street & Smith Publications.

BLOOD BANK by Walter M. Miller, Jr. was previously published in the June 1952
Astounding
. Copyright © 1952 by Street & Smith Publications.

HERE, THERE BE WITCHES by Everett B. Cole first appeared in the April 1970 issue of
Analog
. Copyright © 1970 by Condé Nast Publications.

THE BUZZ OF JOY by Phillip C. Jennings was written especially for this volume. Published by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1988 by Phillip C. Jennings.

SECOND CONTACT by W. R. Thompson was first published in the April 1988 issue of
Analog
. Copyright © 1988 by Davis Publications.

THE QUEST by Rudyard Kipling is in the public domain.

The fall of an empire may be agonizingly long or mercifully short. Winston Churchill could protest that he had not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over liquidation of the British Empire, but in fact that is what he did; for better or worse, in less than a generation the British experiment in world order was history. During the same period the French Empire ceased to exist. Italy and Germany had already lost whatever imperial pretensions they may have had.

Of course the age of empire is hardly over: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is imperial in all but name. Perhaps it, too, will fall.

Paul Kennedy argues in
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
that great powers fall because of the economic strain of their military burdens. The United States in particular faces the dilemma of hoarding resources for investment, or spending to keep present military power in order to meet immediate threats.

The dilemma is real, but there is another problem. The United States may not really have any choice, because any resources not spent on military power will not be saved and invested for the future, but immediately consumed. We all know this, and assume that it's "just politics." We also assume that politics is and will remain predominant.

Meanwhile, the United States is transforming itself into an odd form of oligarchy. The nation is, after all, ruled by a small elite elected in effect for life: 98% of all members of Congress were reelected in 1986, and there is no reason to suppose that figure will ever be different. As one observer put it, the two houses of Congress have become in effect the House of Lords twice over, with the only real national contest being for the Presidency.

Of course the President controls the military.

We are brought up on the view that economics and politics control human affairs. Perhaps so; but it is well to remember what is primary. John Keegan, one-time military historian at Sandhurst, says in his
Mask of Command
:

"Marx was able to argue for the primacy of ownership of the means of production as a determinant of social relationships largely because, at the time when he wrote, finance and investment overshadowed all other forces in society, and the military class—exhausted by the Napoleonic wars and dispirited by the defeat of its interests in Russia in 1825 and France in 1830—was at an unnaturally low ebb of self-confidence. Yet military power, represented in its crudest form by the robber-baron principle, can, of course, at any time it chooses, make fools of the financier and investor, as the history of investment in unstable areas of the world makes unarguably evident. It can equally make fools of 'historical' laws. Marx, in his heart, recognized both truths, feared more than any other the temperament—and the military class is ultimately self-choosing by temperament rather than by material interest—that will seize arms simply for the pleasure that blood-letting gives, and constantly urged the politically conscious to learn the habits and discipline of the military class as the merest means of defending and furthering the revolution."

It is self-evident that the
nomenklatura
, the real rulers of modern Russia, have forgotten Marx's warnings. So have the politicians and economists in the United States.

Herewith stories of empire in the future: their rise, and their crash.

Republics tend toward centralism. The United States was conceived as a nation of states, but democratic pressures have driven us toward uniformity. This has far-reaching results. The Civil Rights Acts ended one kind of regional diversity.
Roe vs. Wade
, the abortion rights Supreme Court decision, ended another.
Escobedo
and
Miranda
changed the criminal law for every state. Congress is about to undo some of that with the new Drug Law, but the states aren't being consulted. The National Defense Education Act effectively federalized the education system.

The same trends dominate within states. Local school boards are made powerless while state bureaucracy multiplies.

Some will see all these trends as simple justice. Others see a centralized government riding roughshod over local differences. A few will even see the tyranny of the majority that Tocqueville warned us about.

Majority decisions are usually compromises. Uniformity imposed by a majority has the advantage that most of the population—by definition—accepts the national decision. Problems arise when a powerful minority truly believes the majority decision is immoral. In such cases compromises are impossible: how can you compromise between a group that believes abortion is murder, and a group that says that anything less than full free choice is slavery for women? Even so, the pressure for uniformity is overwhelming.

Empires have traditionally preserved diversities. So long as the subject states pay their taxes and hold allegiance to the Emperor, they may have whatever local customs and laws that they like.

Of course some local customs are more important than others. So are some of the subject states . . .

Dawn comes redly on a water world.

Shibura sat comfortably in lotus position, watching the thin pink line spread across the horizon. Slowly the Titanic Ocean lost its oily darkness and rippled with the morning wind. Waves hissed on the beach nearby.

The pink line collected into a red ellipse, then into a slowly rising yellow ball. The gathering wetness of the morning fog slowly seeped away. Shibura passed through this transition complete, of a piece, attention wholly focused. Then a small creature, something like a mouse with bat wings and a furry yellow topknot, coasted in through layers of fog and landed on his shoulder. Smiling, he made a finger perch for the animal, noting that its wings were translucent and covered with fine pearly moisture. Shibura and the air squirrel studied each other for a moment. There came the furious beat of wings from above and the faint high cries of pursuit. The squirrel fidgeted; Shibura fished a crumb from his pocket and threw it into the air. The animal leaped, caught it with a snap and coasted away on an updraft. Shibura smiled.

Waterchimes sounded and a small, nut-brown man emerged from his home further down the beach. He began doing exercises on the white beach: hip thrusts; smooth flowing of limbs first one way, then the other; easy leaps into the air. The man's house was a vaulted, delicate structure of curved lattices. The reddish grease-wood gave it the appearance of weight and mass, belied by the rakish tilt of the columns and cantilevered beams that would have been impossible in normal Earth gravity. Everywhere there were curves; no angles, no sharpness or sudden contrast to jar the eye.

Shibura enjoyed the man and his house, just as he appreciated the other homes hugging the tide line of the Titanic. But they were people of the world, and given to such things. He was a Priestfellow and lived in a rude hut of rough cane wood. His floor was fine ground sand.

His food—Shibura reached to the side and found a bowl of red liquid—simple and adequate. His neighbor was a dealer in metals who shipped deposits from the Off Islands for use in the holy factories. The small man had achieved a station in spiritual life adequate to his personality, and now reaped the rewards. So it would come to Shibura. He had but to wait until the Starcrossers made audience on Seascape again. Then—if the audience was successful and reached cusp—he would fulfill his role and pass through the holy lens.

The lesson was clear: if the Starcrossers were pleased, if the Paralixlinnes proved functional, then Shibura (indeed, all of Seascape) would have proved holy in the light of the stars, complete again for another generation or more. After that audience would come the material things, if Shibura wished them.

Within himself he was sure he would not desire such trappings. He relished the life of austerity and the denial of the body. Not, of course, for its own sake: that was counter to the integrated spirit. But he knew that for himself simplicity was integrity and serenity. Even the coming of the Starcrossers would not deflect him from this.

Down the coast Shibura could see people leaving their homes and walking on the beach, some swimming and others doing morning meditation. Through the thinning fog he could make out the main road, still void of traffic. A lone figure moved down it in the quilted morning shadows: a priestservant, to judge by his robes. Shibura wondered what the man's mission could be. He believed he was the only Priestfellow nearby, but he could imagine no task before him which required a summons so early. Perhaps the man was bound out of town, toward the interior farmland.

Well, no matter. He tried to return to his meditation, but his focus veered. The sun had risen slightly, and its steam brought him even more into the awakening of the morning. He looked up. The great eye of Brutus hung overhead, a half crescent streaked with brown and yellow bands. As he watched, Shibura could see small changes as the great clouds of that turbulent atmosphere swirled and danced. He knew that Brutus was massive and powerful; it sucked the waters away in the second tidetime, stronger than the sun. But now it seemed calm and peaceful, unracked by storms. So unlike Seascape it was, yet Brutus was the parent of this world. Shibura knew this as a truth passed on from the Starcrossers, but it seemed so unlikely. Seascape was a place of quietness and Brutus usually a drove of storms. There were some in the streets who said Brutus influenced the lives of men, but when asked, the Starcrossers said no—men were not born of Seascape, and their rhythms were unkeyed to this world, however much it suited man to live here.

Shibura shook his head; this was disturbing, it took him out of his natural place. All hope of further contemplation vanished when there was a loud jangling of his welcome bells. The priestservant was padding quickly down the short wooded path. His sandals scattered pebbles to the side in his haste. Shibura breathed deeply to compose himself and caught the first sharp tang of the morning tide. The man knocked delicately on the thin door and Shibura called to him to enter. He was an old priestservant who, it was said, remembered well the last audience of the Starcrossers. His robe was tattered and retained the old form of pants and vest beneath his flowing purple outer garments. The man smiled, exposing brown teeth, and ceremoniously handed forward a folded yellow parchment.