Гарри Гаррисон - There Won't Be War

“Well, rats,” said Hurtevert. “Just what I needed.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the Galactic Effectuator.”

“Who’s that?” Gatt asked.

“One of the busybodies from Galactic Central come to tell us how to run our lives.”

“You didn’t mention anything about Galactic Central.”

“I can’t tell you the entire history of the galaxy in an hour, can I? Galactic Central is a group of very ancient civilizations at the core of this galaxy, just as the name implies. The Centerians, as they are called, try to maintain the status quo throughout the galaxy. They want to keep things as they used to be. If they had their way, they’d go back to the Golden Age before the Big Bang, when things were really quiet.”

“They wouldn’t let us help you take back your planet?”

Hurtevert shook his head. “The Galactic Arbitrators never OK any change. If they see what you’re up to, they’ll nix it”

“Are they powerful enough to do that?”

“Baby, you’d better believe it,” Hurtevert said.

“So the war’s off.”

“Not necessarily.” Hurtevert took an object from the pouch attached to his waist and opened it. It was a long pole wound with fine wire. He handed it to Vargas.

“Wave that at him before he has a chance to deliver his message. He’ll go away and report to his superiors. Galactic Center will figure there was a mistake, since no one would dare zap a Galactic Effectuator. They will send another Effectuator.”

“So they do send another Effectuator. Am I supposed to zap that one, too?”

“No. You’re allowed only one mistake by Galactic Center. After that, they crush you.”

“How does zapping the first one help us?”

“It gives us time. In the time between the first and second Effectuators, you’ll be able to occupy our planet and establish your rule. When the second Effectuator comes and learns the situation, he’ll confirm you in power.”

“Why would the second Effectuator do that when the first one wouldn’t?”

“I told you, it’s because Galactic Center tries to preserve any political situation its effectuators discover. It’s change that Galactic Central is opposed to, not any particular instance of it. Trust me, I know about these things. When he comes in, just wave the rod at him.”

“We don’t want to kill anyone,” Gatt said. “Unnecessarily, that is.”

“Don’t worry,” Hurtevert said. “You can’t kill an Effectuator.”

And then the Galactic Effectuator appeared before them. He was very tall and seemed to be made entirely of metal. That, and his flat, tinny voice, confirmed Vargas’s suspicion that the Effectuator was a robot.

“Greetings,” said the Effectuator. “I have come from Galactic Center to bring a message ...”

Gatt gave Vargas a meaningful look.

“Therefore,” said the Effectuator, “know all men by these presents—”

“Now?” Vargas asked in a whisper.

“Yes, now,” Gatt said.

Vargas waved the pole. The Galactic Effectuator looked startled, then vanished.

“Where did he go?” Vargas asked the alien.

“Into a holding space,” the Alien said. “He’ll reassemble himself there, then report back to Galactic Center.”

“You’re sure he’s not hurt?”

“I told you, you can’t hurt an Effectuator because he’s a robot. In fact, only robots are permitted to be Galactic Effectuators.”

“Why is that?”

“To ensure that they won’t defend themselves if attacked by barbarians such as yourself.”

“Well, whatever,” Gatt said. “Let’s get on with business. Where’s this planet of yours we’re going to conquer? Excuse me, I mean liberate.”

“Take me to your computer,” Hurtevert said. “I will program him to take us there.”

The Earthship, with its sleeping troopers and its card-playing officers, hurtled on through space. Several time periods passed without event. Vargas wanted to know why it was taking so long. Hurtevert rechecked his calculations and told him they were almost there. Vargas went to report this to Supreme Commander Gatt. While he was reporting, the Intelligence Detector sounded off. The planet Magellenic lay dead ahead.

“Go get ’em, tiger!’ Gatt said to Vargas.

“But I don’t know how,” Vaigas said. “An entire planet ....”

“You remember how we used to sack cities, don’t you?”

Vaigas grinned and nodded. How could he forget.

“Just go to Magellenic and do the same thing. It’s just the scale that changes.”

There was really no way of finding out in advance how much armament the alien occupiers of Magellenic might put up against them. Vargas decided to try a bold yet conservative tactic. He’d just go in and take over the joint. What the hell, it had worked for the Hittites.

The great ship from Earth roared down through the atmosphere. Hurtevert pointed out the leading city on the planet, the one from which all power emanated. That made it convenient. Vargas sent out five thousand shock troops armed with horrifying and instantaneous weapons. The remaining five thousand were kept in reserve .. As it turned out, they weren’t needed.

General Vargas wrote home soon after the successful conquest of Magellenic:

Dear Lupe, I promised to tell you about the invasion. It went very well. So well, in fact, that at first we suspected some sort of treachery. We airdropped a first force of a thousand picked men, armed to the teeth, into the big square in the middle of the main city here, which is called Magellopolis. Our boys landed during a folk dancing festival and there was quite a bit of confusion, as you can imagine, since the population thought our boys were demonstrating war dances. We cleared that up soon enough.

The remaining four thousand troopers of the first wave came down just outside the city, since there was no room to pack them into the town square. The lads marched into Magellopolis in good order, and they got an enthusiastic greeting from the citizens, who seemed delighted to see them.

The Magellenics took in the situation quickly, and had flowers and paper streamers handy to give our boys a proper welcome. There were no unfortunate incidents, aside from several local women getting trampled in their eagerness to show our boys a nice welcome.

Magellenic is a very nice planet, prosperous, and with a nice climate except at the poles where we don’t go. We have seen no signs of the alien invaders that Hurtevert told us about. Either they are holed up in the hills, or they all left when our ship approached.

Now it is a week later. We have been very busy and I am writing hastily so this letter can go out with the first load of booty which we ‘re sending to Earth.

Our Art Squads have done a find job of combing the planet. As we promised the men, the first haul is theirs.

Frankly, the stuff doesn ‘t look like much. But we’ve collected whatever we can find in the way of furniture, postage stamps, silver, and precious stones, and that sort of thing.

It’s too bad that we have to ship it all back to Earth at government expense and sell it for the troops. But that’s what we promised and otherwise they might mutiny.

We‘re also sending back some of the local food surpluses. I just hope there’s a market for cranko nuts and pubble fruit back on Earth. Personally, I can do without it.

I forgot to mention, we are sending back to Earth our first draft of Magellenic workers. We had no trouble collecting them. A lot of people on this planet have volunteered to do stoop labor in the fields and unskilled crap work in the factories for starvation wages. This is useful because nobody on Earth wants to do that stuff anymore.