Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

Hogram’s eyestalks quivered now. “May you prove right. That day, however, is not one I will live to see, nor you, either. Worry about planting our first bud, not the ones that may spring from it.”

“As you say, clanfather.” No denying that Hogram made sense. But Fralk’s ambition ran further than he would admit to anyone, especially to the domain master, whose position only made his already suspicious nature more so. If Fralk established a new domain on the far side of Ervis Gorge, and if his descendants kept pushing back the Omalo and setting up new domains of their own, might they not eventually prefer to style themselves after their first domain master?

Great clan Fralk. The young male had repeated that to himself often enough, when he was sure no other male could hear. He liked the sound of it.

“Hello, Athena. Houston here.” Irv Levitt thumbed on the recorder. The mission controller back home would not pause for acknowledgment, not with back-and-forth transmission time near twenty minutes. Irv was about to go on about his business- most of what Houston had to say was Emmett Bragg’s problem, not his-when the controller, as if reading his mind, continued. “We have some new instructions for you, Irv.” His voice came in scratchy across the millions of miles but was perfectly understandable.

Now that the mission controller-his name was Jesse Dozier was talking to him, Irv said, “Me? What’s up?” just as if the man could hear him. Catching himself, the anthropologist laughed at his own foolishness.

He had only talked over a sentence or so, and that not directly relevant to him, or so he thought. “-continued excellent response to the assistance you folks gave the Soviets, both here and in the States and from around the world,” Dozier was saying. “Interest in the Minerva mission hasn’t been so high-or so favorable-since just after Athena touched down. The polls are running strongly for continued contact and exploration.”

Polls… Irv felt his mouth twist. He half wished polling had never been invented. These days, no politicians dared moved half an inch past what their polls told them. They followed so closely that most of them had forgotten how to lead.

Again Dozier’s words ran parallel to his thoughts. “We’re preparing to have the new appropriation submitted while things look so good. And to help nail it down, we It like to be able to show Congress another major success. That’s where you come in, Irv.”

Levitt blinked. “Me?”

Dozier, of course, took no notice. Irv shut up and listened.

“From the data you folks and Tsiolkovsky have sent back, it seems likely that the two groups in whose lands you find yourselves will soon be at war. We want you to arrange a radio hookup with the Soviets, so that the leader on your side of Jotun Canyon can confer with the ruler on the western side. Think what a feather in your caps it will be if you can mediate a dispute between rival factions of an alien species.

“Louise”-the mission controller changed the subject-“we have some new subroutines to speed up your number crunching.

First-”

“Dozier, you are stoned out of your gourd,” Irv said. Now he didn’t care if he missed some of the feed from Houston. He wished he hadn’t heard any of what Dozier had just finished saying. What did they think back home, that Reatur and the domain master across the canyon were a couple of Third World dictators, to be brought into line by threatening to cut off their weapons shipments?

“Sounds like it,” Emmett Bragg said when Irv, throwing his hands in the air for extra emphasis, shouted that question at him.

“But we don’t have anything like that kind of leverage on them,” Irv said, still loudly. “Tolmasov had it right-they were going to fight whether we were here or not. The other fellows want to cross, Reatur doesn’t want to let them. Where’s the room for discussion?”

“Good question.” Bragg laughed two syllables of a humorless laugh. “Maybe, if we’re real lucky, the Russians won’t cooperate. That’d get us off the hook.”

“Maybe.” Irv was as skeptical of that as Emmett sounded. The Russians spent even more time beating their breasts about how peace loving they were than the United States did. They would have to link-Hogram? Irv wasn’t sure he remembered the western chieftain’s name-up with Reatur, assuming Reatur was willing to talk… “Do you suppose Houston would let me beg off if I told them the domain master would feed me to the crows for bringing up the idea at all?”

“You could try, I suppose, but I don’t think it’ll fly. Trouble is, Houston already knows Reatur’s got an open mind, because if he didn’t, he’d never have gone along with your wife’s trying to save that female. If he’s game for that, chances are he’d be willing to talk peace, too.”

“You have this disgusting habit of being right.” Irv sighed. “Of course, just because he’ll talk doesn’t mean he’ll agree to anything. I wouldn’t, in his shoes.”

“Neither would I, not that he wears shoes. And somehow I don’t think the art of negotiation’s come as far here as it has back home. Which is to say that Reatur’s more likely to call the westerner every name in the book than talk turkey with him.” Bragg grinned crookedly. “Which is what you said a while ago.”

“You know it, I know it, the Russians here know it, I’m sure the Minervans know it, too. What do you think the odds are of convincing Houston?”

“Slim, Irv, slim. After all, they have the experts there. Just ask ‘em.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Valery Aleksandrovich, do you seriously believe Hogram will make peace with the clans east of Jotun Canyon?” Oleg Lopatin demanded. “He has been preparing for war since we landed, and for some time before that.”

“You are right, Oleg Borisovich,” Valery Bryusov agreed. The linguist did not like admitting Lopatin was right about anything. He consoled himself by mentally sneering at the way the KGB man pronounced Hogram’s name: he said it as if it started with a G, as most Russians did with foreign words that began with the sound of rough breathing. “Still,” Bryusov went on, “we must make the effort. Moscow would not be pleased if we let the Americans brand us as warmongers.”

“No,” Lopatin growled, dragging out the word as if it pained him. “But Moscow will not be pleased if we forfeit the position of trust we have earned here, either. And asking Hogram to do something he manifestly does not wish to do may well bring that fate down on our heads.”

“You are right,” Bryusov said again. This second admission hurt twice as much as the first one had. Bryusov scratched at his arm. His fingers clicked on the plaster of his cast. He knew it was there, but reflex made him scratch every so often anyhow. Both long-unwashed skin and healing bone itched ferociously.

“Now I wish I were up at the tent by Hogram’s town instead of here on Tsiolkovsky,” Lopatin grumbled. “We must tread carefully, subtly.”

“Colonel Tolmasov will do well.” Bryusov slightly stressed the pilot’s rank to remind the chekist who was in charge. All Lopatin knew of subtlety, the linguist thought, was how to knock on a door at midnight. “Sergei will make Hogram understand that the request to confer with the eastern chieftain comes from our own domain masters,” he continued, “and as dutiful males we have no choice but to convey it to him.”

“I suppose so,” Lopatin said in a tone that supposed anything but. “Negotiations have their uses, like any other tool. But once these fail-and fail they will, quite without help from us-we must be prepared to extend our full support to Hogram and his males.”

Bryusov frowned, wondering if he had heard the KGB man correctly. He saw he had. Coughing, he reminded Lopatin, “Oleg Borisovich, these are capitalists about whom you speak in such glowing terms. Alien capitalists, da, but capitalists even so.” Had it been the end of the sixteenth century rather than the end of the twentieth, he would have been accusing Lopatin of devil-worship.