Larry Niven - Footfall

“Mr. President, this is Dawson. I hear you. I have an offer of conditional surrender from the Herdmaster.”

Jenny knew his voice. It was Wes, and he was all right. She could see Carlotta Dawson down on the floor below. Carlotta was grinning like an idiot.

“Surrender,” Toland muttered. “We must have hurt them.”

Admiral Carrell waved impatiently.

The President said, “What terms?”

Wes Dawson’s laugh sounded half mad. It could have been simply static. “That’s the stumbling point, all right. Here are the terms. We call off the attack. The enemy, the Traveler Herd, will vacate Earth immediately. They’ll vacate the solar system as soon as possible. What we’ll have to do to bring that about involves building them a—” Dawson stopped, then seemed to sputter. “A siskyissputh. They threw their own siskyissputh away while rounding the Sun, so that we couldn’t examine it. It’s a modified Bussard ramjet. Get a technical expert to explain that to you. It’s the key to the stars, and when we’ve built theirs we’ll know how to build one for ourselves.

“The Herdmaster has offered these terms, not the formal surrender of his herd. I am not to have my foot on any fi’s chest. This was made clear. Do you understand?”

“I understand. Have you a time period for the evacuation of Earth?”

“No. I’m not sure they can enforce it anyway. The fithp can split into smaller herds, and it’s possible the ones in Africa won’t leave…”

“Dawson! Dawson, come in, Dawson!”

“Africa can take care of itself,” General Toland said. “Hell, the snouts can’t fight with nobody to drop meteors for them. Let the Zulus have ’em.”

“No threat to us, agreed,” Admiral Carrell said. “Did they cut Dawson off?”

“Dawson here. They didn’t want me to say that. They should have let me finish. The ones in Africa won’t matter! They’ll be glad to call a truce. They don’t want Kansas. Mr. President, I cannot tell you what’s happening outside. Do you know?”

“Wes, we’re in communication with the Archangel. The commander is General Gillespie. They expect to destroy the enemy mother ship within two hours. Certainly we know what’s happening.”

“The Herdmaster wants me to repeat the offer. You call off — what did you call it? Archangel? Good name! You call off Ed Gillespie, and they’ll use the digit ships to rescue Michael and the smaller ships. Everyone who wants to leave Africa will get a chance. Any that stay won’t be a problem. They’ll tell us how to build an interstellar drive. Mr. President, they’re prepared to destroy all the plans for that drive. They’ve been planning this for years, since before they ever reached the solar system. They planned to surrender the interstellar drive if they couldn’t defeat us.”

“Should we take this offer?” the President asked.

“I’m sorry, President Coffey. I don’t know enough and it’s not my choice. They made a previous offer I decided not to transmit. Mr. President, they’ll give you — it’s about ten minutes. They say they’re mobilizing to fight Archangel, I don’t know what with. They say that once they start doing that they will have no reason to surrender.”

“Are they listening to me? Can they understand?”

“They’re listening. Some understand.”

“Tell them they will have to wait while I get advice.”

“They understand that, sir.”

“All right. Hang on …”

“They want you to have Archangel stop shooting while you decide. The reason they want to negotiate is to keep you from damaging Thuktun Flishithy, because it’s carrying all their females and childr—”

“Wes. Wes, what’s happened?”

A strange voice, cold, sibilant, spoke. “This is Teacher Takpusseh-yamp. Go seek your advice. We will listen.”

“Get Michael,” Admiral Carrell ordered.

“Can he tell us enough?” President Coffey wondered aloud.

“Whatever he knows, we’ll need to talk with him,” Carrell

“Michael, this is Gimlet. Michael, this is Gimlet.”

“Go ahead, Gimlet.”

Jenny motioned to Admiral Carrell.

“General, we’re pretty certain our codes are good, but you’ll excuse me if I use circumlocutions.”

“Understood.”

Mama wants to kiss and make up. We live in separate houses, only you have to stop projecting dinnerware at her right now. Great White Father needs a lawyer. You’re it.”

“Ah-Roger. Tell Big Daddy we don’t have lockjaw yet, but you never know.”

“Michael, have you enough dinnerware?”

“We are running short of dinnerware. The family car needs repair too. Can win the case, but cannot stop to discuss alimony.”

“Thank you, Michael. Carry on. Gimlet out.” Admiral Carrell nodded, speaking mostly to himself. “As I thought. If he stops now, they’ll outrun him. Michael fights on while we decide this.”

“Send for Hap Aylesworth, and get me the Threat Team,” the President said.

Nat had been waiting for the phone to ring. “Dreamer Fithp, Nat Reynolds here. We’ve been listening.”

“Mr. Reynolds, your opinion: what do we do about this offer? Accept or let Archangel go for the throat? Bearing in mind that Archangel might not make it.”

The others were crowded close around him, with Harpanet’s huge head protruding between sets of shoulders. They all looked like they were ready to jump down his throat.

Nat said, “Give us five minutes.”

“Take four.”

Nat hung up. “I’ll take a poll. Keep it short. Sherry?”

“They’ll honor a surrender. Take the offer.”

“Bob?”

Bob Burnham shook his massive white head. “It’s not a physics problem. Oh, if we let them go, they can go straight for the Moon; then they own us. But whether they’ll do it … Nat, you never liked my aliens.”

“Right. Curtis?”

“Nuke ’em till they glow, then shoot ’em in the dark. Sherry you can—”

“Cool it! Joe?”

Joe Ransom hesitated, spoke in a rush. “I abstain. It’s too even I wish Bob Anson were here.”

“We all do. So we don’t know. Discussion. One minute each. Sherry?”

“It’s not complicated. When they surrender, they stay surrendered.”

“Yeah, but — okay. Wade?”

“No. They’ll go back to Saturn, repair their ship, and come back with a fucking moon. We win now or we never do. As for surrender, bullshit, Sherry. The surrender a fi’ honors is a foot on the chest and join the herd as a slave. They haven’t offered surrender.”

“Joe?”

“By damn, they haven’t, have they? But they’ve been giving conditional surrender in Africa. They understand the concept.”

“Sure,” said Curtis. “Charnel House Books understands contracts too, but they don’t honor them! Sherry, if they don’t offer a foot on the chest you can’t argue that their reflexes are involved.”

“I haven’t heard you commit yourself, Nat.”

“Right. Harpanet? This is a peculiar case. You joined the Dreamer Fithp before you ever heard of a conditional surrender.”

“Not so. I know of such a case in our history.”

“Say on, but keep it short.”

The fi’ said, “There was a war. Others had been fought with nuclear weapons, and so was this. The South Land Mass Fithp evolved a disease that would feed on the edible grasses of the East Land Mass. They demonstrated this for the East Land Mass Fithp and learned that they had evolved something similar …”

“We don’t have time, Harpanet!”

“Lead me. The planet was harmed. More harm would come. Maybe all fithp would follow the Predecessors into death. The Herdmasters met and agreed to use the knowledge in the Sky Thuktun to build a spacecraft. The high ranks of one flthp would travel to the nearest star, which was known to house intelligence. When Thuktun Flishithy was prepared, the two fithp would gamble for who must leave.”