Second Contact (16 page)

Molotov nodded, as if he had expected nothing less. In truth, he hadn’t; small shows of insubordination were not Lavrenti Beria’s way of showing his own strength. The longtime head of the NKVD did nothing on a small scale.

Bald as a Lizard, Beria walked in about fifteen minutes later. “Good day, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” he said. His Mingrelian accent was close to the Georgian that had flavored Stalin’s Russian: one more thing to unsettle Molotov. But what Molotov would not show to Queek, he would not show to Beria, either.

“Did we do this, Lavrenti Pavlovich?” he asked quietly. “I did not order it. I think it most unwise. Did we do it?”

“Not on my order, Comrade General Secretary,” Beria answered.

“That is not responsive,” Molotov said. He did not think Beria could realistically aim for the top spot in the Soviet hierarchy; too many Russians would have resented having a second man from the Caucasus set above them. But the NKVD was a tail that could wag the dog. Without the name, without the formal position of power, Beria held the thing itself. He had held it for many years. If Molotov ever decided to purge him, state security would suffer. But if he ever decided he could not afford to or did not dare to purge Beria, then Beria had more power than he. “Answer the question.”

“If we did this, I do not know of it,” Beria said. Molotov was not sure that was responsive, either. Then the NKVD chief amplified it: “If we did this, no one in my ministry knows of it. Whether anyone in the Ministry of Defense knows of it, I cannot say with certainty.”

“They would not dare,” Molotov said. The Red Army, the Red Air and Space Forces, and the Red Navy were firmly subordinated to Communist Party control. The NKVD, being an arm of the Party, was less so. He scratched at his graying mustache. “I am sure they would not dare.”

“I think you are right.” Beria nodded; the golden gleam of the electric lights above him reflected from his bald pate. “Still . . . you want to be sure you are right, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” Molotov said. “I have to be sure I am right.” That sentence would eventually stir the armed forces the way a
babushka
stirred
shchi
, to make sure all the cabbage and sausage in the soup cooked evenly. Molotov went on, “Who is likelier to have done it, the
Reich
or the United States?”

Behind gold-rimmed spectacles, Beria’s eyes glinted. “The
Reich
is always more likely,” he replied. “The Americans are capitalist reactionaries, but they are, by their standards, sane. The Hitlerites?” He shook his head. “They are children, children with atomic bombs. Because they want a thing, they reach out and grab it, never worrying or caring what might happen because of that.”

“And Himmler is more sensible than Hitler was,” Molotov said.

“Indeed,” Beria said. Molotov suspected he was jealous of the German
Führer
. Himmler was a master of secret policemen and spies, too, and he had reached the top in the
Reich
.

Molotov exhaled deeply, a sign of strong emotion in him. “Even for the Germans, this is madness. They struck one blow, but it would take a great many to destroy the colonization fleet. And the Lizards will not permit many blows to be struck against them. They can still strike harder than we, and they will.”

“Indeed,” Beria said again. His eyes glinted once more, this time in anticipation. “Shall I begin an investigation of the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces?”

“Not yet,” Molotov told him. “Soon, but not yet. The soldiers scream when the NKVD encroaches on them. I will tell you when I require your services. Until I tell such a thing, you are to keep your hands in your pockets. Do you understand me, Lavrenti Pavlovich? I mean this most particularly.”

“Very well,” Beria said in sulky tones. No, he did not like following orders. He would sooner have been giving them, as he did in the building on Dzerzhinsky Square.

“Another thing,” Molotov said, to make him attend: “Cut back on arms shipments to the People’s Liberation Army in China. We must soothe the Lizards wherever we can.”

“Yes, this is sensible,” Beria agreed, as if to say the other hadn’t been. He held up a forefinger. “But will it not make the Lizards think we have a guilty conscience?”

“Now that is an interesting question,” Molotov said. “Yes, a very interesting question.” He considered it. “I think we had better cut back, Lavrenti Pavlovich. We have always denied supplying the Chinese for their insurrection against the Lizards. How can we possibly cut back on what we have denied doing at all?”

Beria laughed. “A nice point. We shall do that, then. Shall we do it gradually, so that even the Chinese do not realize at once what is happening to them?”

“Yes, that would be very good.” Molotov nodded. “Very good indeed. Mao has complained from time to time that we are not Marxist-Leninist enough to suit him. Let us see how going without aid suits him, and how much he criticizes us after that.” Had he been another man, he might have chortled. Being the man he was, he allowed himself another nod, this one of anticipation.

Reffet’s furious face stared out of the screen at Atvar. “Destroy them!” the fleetlord of the colonization fleet shouted. “Destroy all the nasty Tosevites, that we may take this world for ourselves and do something worthwhile with it.”

“Could I have destroyed the Tosevites, or at least their capacity for making war, do you not think I would have done so?” Atvar returned. “In this case, the destruction would be mutual.”

“Incompetence,” Reffet hissed, careless of his opposite number’s feelings.

“Incompetence,” Atvar agreed, which startled Reffet into momentary silence. Atvar went on, “Incompetence reaching back more than sixteen hundred years. We misjudged what the probe told us, and we failed to send another one to see if the situation had changed in the interim before dispatching the conquest fleet. As a result, very little has gone as it should on Tosev 3.”

“As a result, twelve of my ships are blown to radioactive dust, and all the males and females in them,” Reffet replied. “And you have not yet punished the creatures responsible for this outrage.”

“We do not yet know which of the creatures
are
responsible for the outrage,” Atvar pointed out. “If we knew that, punishment would be swift and certain.”

“You told the Big Uglies that, if you could not find out which of their ridiculous groupings committed this crime, you would punish them all,” Reffet reminded him. “I have yet to see you do this, however eagerly I await it.”

“The Tosevites’ groupings would be more ridiculous were they not armed with nuclear weapons and poison gas,” Atvar said.

“Your warning will be more ridiculous if you issue it and then fail to carry it out,” Reffet retorted.

That was true; Atvar knew as much, and the knowledge pained him. “Much of the blame for this disaster is mine,” he said. “We have been at peace—or at an approximation of peace—with the leading Tosevite not-empires for too long. We examine what they do less minutely than we did in the days just after the fighting ended—and they are better able to conceal what they do, too. So many of their satellites were shifting orbit lately, we still cannot determine which not-empire activated one of its machines. For that matter, the machine might have been disguised as something other than what it was, and lain quietly in wait for a moment of opportunity—a moment of treachery.”

“That is why you said you would punish them all,” Reffet said.

“It is also why they all said they would consider punishment for deeds I could not prove they committed an act of war,” Atvar answered unhappily. “Big Uglies enjoy fighting to a degree we have trouble understanding. They are always fighting among themselves. I believe they would fight us.”

“I believe they are bluffing,” Reffet said. With his lack of experience with Tosevites, that was not helpful. His next comment was: “And one group of them is bound to be lying.”

“But which?” Atvar asked. “Mass punishment is something they would be more likely to use than we. We care more for justice.”

“Where is the justice for my colonists?” Reffet asked. “Where is the justice in making a threat and then forgetting it?”

“I was hasty,” Atvar said. “In my haste, I may have behaved like a Big Ugly—the Tosevites are hasty by nature.”

“This world has corrupted you,” Reffet said in the tones of a judge passing sentence. “Instead of the Tosevites’ becoming more like proper subjects of the Emperor, you act like a Big Ugly.”

“This world will change the colonists, too,” Atvar said, admitting most of Reffet’s charge without acknowledging the word
corrupted
. “If you think it will not, you live in a ginger-taster’s dream.”

Perhaps he should not have mentioned ginger. With a fine mocking waggle of the eye turrets, Reffet said, “One more delight Tosev 3 has produced. I tell you this, Atvar”—alone among males and females of the Race on Tosev 3, he addressed Atvar as an equal—“if you do not keep your promise to punish the Big Uglies, I shall report you to the Emperor.”

Fury and scorn ripped through Atvar. “Go ahead, Reffet,” he hissed, using the other fleetlord’s name with savage relish. “By the time your grumbling reaches him, and by the time he composes a reply and it gets back to us, as many years will have gone by as passed between your departure from Home and your arrival here. Have you forgotten where you are? For better or worse, we are the males on the spot. Whatever answers the Race finds for Tosev 3, we are the ones who will have to find them.”

Reffet looked as if he hated Atvar, hated Tosev 3, hated everything except the idea of tucking down his tailstump and fleeing back Home. He had probably been ready to refer any hard problems he found to bureaucrats back on Home, confident conditions would not have changed much while light sped from Tosev to Home and back again. Slow change, incremental change, was the hallmark of life in the Empire.

Atvar’s mouth fell open in a bitter laugh. Incessant, maddening change was the hallmark of life on Tosev 3. If Reffet couldn’t figure that out, couldn’t adapt to it as Atvar had had to adapt . . .
too bad,
Atvar thought. “Out,” he said aloud, and broke his connection with the other fleetlord.

Ttomalss looked on his summons from the fleetlord of the colonization fleet as an honor he could have done without. Not only did it take him away from his work, it also involved him in high-level controversies that might end up causing him trouble later. But Reffet had not asked his opinion: Reffet was a male new-come from Home, not a snoutcounting Big Ugly. Reffet had simply summoned him. What choice had he but to obey?

None,
he thought as he folded himself into the posture of respect and said, “How may I serve you, Exalted Fleetlord?”

“Computer searches and a conversation with Senior Researcher Felless identify you as the leading expert from the conquest fleet on the natives of this chilly ball of mud,” Reffet said. “I presume this is accurate?”

“I am one of the leading students of the Tosevites, yes, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. He hid his amusement at that. His gains in knowledge had got under the scales of a good many of his colleagues. As far as he was concerned, they had no imagination. As far as they were concerned, he had too much. Maybe he was able to learn about the Big Uglies because he could come closer to thinking like them than other males of the Race could do.

“Explain to me, then, Senior Researcher, why any group of these Tosevites should have sought to perpetrate the atrocity my fleet has suffered,” Reffet said.

“First obvious point: for the purpose of doing us harm,” Ttomalss said. “Second obvious point: because the guilty Tosevites thought they could do us harm and at the same time escape punishment.”

“In that, they may even have been correct,” Reffet said discontentedly.

“As may be, Exalted Fleetlord.” Ttomalss was not a male in a position to set policy. “Third, less obvious point: because the guilty Tosevites may have sought revenge against us for wrongs suffered during the period of fighting. The Big Uglies are far more given to elaborate vengeance than we are.” He remembered the captivity he had endured at the hands of the Chinese female Liu Han after taking her hatchling to use in his researches—and he had suffered that captivity despite returning the hatchling.

“I see that this is true,” Reffet said. “Senior Researcher Felless confirms it and, as I noted, speaks well of your insight into the subject. I must confess, though, that I fail to grasp the reasons behind it.”

“In my view, they are related to the reproductive behavior of the Big Uglies, which, you will have gathered, is different from our own and different from that of any other intelligent race with which we are familiar.”

“I have gathered this, yes.” Reffet made a noise redolent of disgust. “They are sexually available to one another at all seasons of the year. They form pairs and nurture the hatchlings to which the female of each pair gives birth by a process that revolted me when I read of it and revolted me even more when I viewed a video of it. It strikes me as astounding that any survive.”

“It strikes me the same way, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “The difficulty of the method, the helplessness of the hatchling over a startling period of time”—he recalled his own difficulties coping with the needs of first Liu Mei and then Kassquit—“and the sexual bond between specific males and females create emotional attachments among the Tosevites we can understand only intellectually. A Big Ugly whose sexual partner or hatchling has come to harm may well seek revenge for that harm without concern for its own survival.”

Reffet pondered that. “I have seen as much in the reports,” he said slowly. “It did not make sense to me before. Now it does, at least to a certain degree. But it also leaves me with an unanswered question, one on which I hope you will shed more light: which Tosevite not-empire do you reckon most likely to think it owes us such vicious, elaborate vengeance?”

“I fear I must disappoint you, Exalted Fleetlord, for I can offer no certain answer there,” Ttomalss said. “By the standards the Big Uglies use to judge such things, we have inflicted grievous harm on all their leading not-empires, and on the lesser ones as well. I wish I could be of more assistance.”