Poul Anderson - The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century

“But—” Belug’s fist closed on his wineglass as if to splinter it. “Why?” he roared.

“My representatives have explained it a hundred times,” said Rusch wearily. “In blunt language, I don’t trust you. If…oh, let us say there should be disagreement between us while the armada is en route…well, a transport ship is easily replaced, after its convoy vessels have blown it up. The fighting craft of Kolresh are a better hostage for your good behavior.” He struck a light to his pipe. “Naturally, you can’t take our whole fifty-million-man expeditionary force on your battle wagons; but I want soldiers on every warship as well as in the transports.”

Belug shook his ginger head. “No.”

“Come now,” said Rusch. “Your spies have been active enough on Norstad and Ostarik. Have you found any reason to doubt my intentions? Bearing in mind that an army the size of ours cannot be alerted for a given operation without a great many people knowing the fact—”

“Yes, yes,” grumbled Belug. “Granted.” He smiled, a sharp flash of teeth. “But the upper hand is mine, your lordship. I can wait indefinitely to attack Earth. You can’t.”

“Eh?” Rusch drew hard on his pipe.

“In the last analysis, even dictators rely on popular support. My Intelligence tells me you are rapidly losing yours. The queen has not spoken to you for a year, has she? And there are many Norrons whose first loyalty is to the Crown. As the thought of war with Earth seeps in, as men have time to comprehend how little they like the idea, time to see through your present anti-Terrestrial propaganda—they grow angry. Already they mutter about you in the beer halls and the officers’ clubs, they whisper in ministry cloakrooms. My agents have heard.

“Your personal cadre of young key officers are the only ones left with unquestioning loyalty to you. Let discontent grow just a little more, let open revolt break out, and your followers will be hanged from the lamp posts.

“You can’t delay much longer.”

Rusch made no reply for a while. Then he sat up, his monocle glittering like a cold round window on winter.

“I can always call off this plan and resume the normal state of affairs,” he snapped.

Belug flushed red. “War with Kolresh again? It would take you too long to shift gears—to reorganize.”

“It would not. Our war college, like any other, has prepared military plans for all foreseeable combinations of circumstances. If I cannot come to terms with you, Plan No. So-and-So goes into effect. And obviously it will have popular enthusiasm behind it!”

He nailed the Overman with a fish-pale eye and continued in frozen tones: “After all, your dominance, I would prefer to fight you. The only thing I would enjoy more would be to hunt you with hounds. Seven hundred years have shown this to be impossible. I opened negotiations to make the best of an evil bargain—since you cannot be conquered, it will pay better to join with you on a course of mutually profitable imperialism.

“But if your stubborness prevents an agreement, I can declare war on you in the usual manner and be no worse off than I was. The choice is, therefore, yours.”

Belug swallowed. Even his guards lost some of their blankness. One does not speak in that fashion across the negotiators’ table.

Finally, only his lips stirring, he said: “Your frankness is appreciated, my lord. Some day I would like to discuss that aspect further. As for now, though…yes, I can see your point. I am prepared to admit some of your troops to our ships of the line.” After another moment, still sitting like a stone idol: “But this question of returning prisoners of war. We have never done it. I do not propose to begin.”

“ I do not propose to let poor devils of Norrons rot any longer in your camps,” said Rusch. “I have a pretty good idea of what goes on there. If we’re to be allies, I’ll want back such of my countrymen as are still alive.”

“Not many are still sane,” Belug told him deliberately.

Rusch puffed smoke and made no reply.

“If I give in on the one item,” said Belug, “I have a right to test your sincerity by the other. We keep our prisoners.”

Rusch’s own face had gone quite pale and still. It grew altogether silent in the room.

“Very well,” he said after a long time. “Let it be so.”

WITHOUT A WORD, Major Othkar Graaborg led his company into the black cruiser. The words came from the spaceport, where police held off a hooting, hissing, rock-throwing mob. It was the first time in history that Norron folk had stoned their own soldiers.

His men tramped stolidly behind him, up the gangway and through the corridors. Among the helmets and packs and weapons, racketing boots and clashing body armor, their faces were lost, they were an army without faces.

Graaborg followed a Kolreshite ensign, who kept looking back nervously at these hereditary foes, till they reached the bunkroom. It had been hastily converted from a storage hold, and was scant cramped comfort for a thousand men.

“All right, boys,” he said when the door had closed on his guide. “Make yourselves at home.”

They got busy, opening packs, spreading bedrolls on bunks. Immediately thereafter, they started to assemble heavy machine guns, howitzers, even a nuclear blaster.

“You, there!” The accented voice squawked indignantly from a loudspeaker in the wall. “I see that. I got video. You not put guns together here.”

Graaborg looked up from his inspection of a live fission shell. “Obscenity you,” he said pleasantly. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I executive officer. I tell captain.”

“Go right ahead. My orders say that according to treaty, as long as we stay in our assigned part of the ship, we’re under our own discipline. If your captain doesn’t like it, let him come down here and talk to us.” Graaborg ran a thumb along the edge of his bayonet. A wolfish chorus from his men underlined the invitation.

No one pressed the point. The cruiser lumbered into space, rendezvoused with her task force, and went into nonspatial drive. For several days, the Norron army contingent remained in its den, more patient with such stinking quarters than the Kolreshites could imagine anyone being. Nevertheless, no spaceman ventured in there; meals were fetched at the galley by Norron squads.

Graaborg alone wandered freely about the ship. He was joined by Commander von Brecca of Ostarik, the head of the Double Kingdom’s naval liaison on this ship: a small band of officers and ratings, housed elsewhere. They conferred with the Kolreshite officers as the necessity arose, on routine problems, rehearsal of various operations to be performed when Earth was reached a month hence—but they did not mingle socially. This suited their hosts.

The fact is, the Kolreshites were rather frightened of them. A spaceman does not lack courage, but he is a gentleman among warriors. His ship either functions well, keeping him clean and comfortable, or it does not function at all and he dies quickly and mercifully. He fights with machines, at enormous ranges.

The ground soldier, muscle in mud, whose ultimate weapon is whetted steel in bare hands, has a different kind of toughness.

Two weeks after departure, Graaborg’s wrist chronometer showed a certain hour. He was drilling his men in full combat rig, as he had been doing every “day” in spite of the narrow quarters.

“Ten-SHUN!” The order flowed through captains, lieutenants, and sergeants; the bulky mass of men crashed to stillness.

Major Graaborg put a small pocket amplifier to his lips. “All right, lads,” he said casually, “assume gas masks, radiation shields, all gun squads to weapons. Now let’s clean up this ship.”