Harry Turtledove: Upsetting the Balance

“This course can lead only to your own destruction,” Atvar said.

I think you may be right. But Molotov’s demeanor would not have shown his wife what he was thinking, let alone a Lizard. He said, “We know you have enslaved two races already, and want us to become the third. We know you have kept those other races under subjection for thousands of years, and that you plot the same fate for us. Since all this is true, and since you have not even tried to deny it is true, how can destroying ourselves be worse?”

“You would keep your lives, some of your private property-” Atvar began.

Even stone-faced as he normally was, even in the Lizards’ power, even floating in hideously unfamiliar weightlessness, Molotov burst out laughing. It took him by surprise; it also seemed to take the Lizard fleetlord and his interpreter by surprise. Molotov said, “There is no private property in the Soviet Union; private property is the result of theft. The state owns the means of production.”

Atvar and the interpreter went back and forth in their own language for a little while. When they were done, the interpreter swiveled his eyes back toward Molotov and said, “The full meaning of the concept you describe escapes us.”

“I understand that,” Molotov answered. “It is because the class struggle in your society has not progressed to the point where the dialectic of the transition from capitalism to socialism is above your mental horizon.”

As best he could, the translator rendered that into the Lizards’ language. The fleetlord Atvar made a noise that might well have come from the safety valve of a powerful steam engine. Through the interpreter, he said, “You dare, you presume, Tosevite, to call the Race primitive?” His mouth fell open in a Lizard laugh.

“In your system of social organization? Certainly,” Molotov said.

Despite the confidence with which he imbued his voice, he felt the paradox, for the Lizards’ technical achievements were anything but primitive. The Soviets called them imperialists, but he did not think they were out to conquer the Earth for the sake of developing new markets, as highly advanced capitalist states had done in the past few generations to delay the inevitable proletarian revolution. The Lizards’ society seemed more like that of the ancient empires, with masters ruling slaves and exploiting their labor. But the economic system of the ancient empires had been assumed to be incompatible with developing advanced technology. Marxist-Leninist theoreticians were still hammering out where the Lizards fit into the historical dialectic.

Atvar was laughing at him again, perhaps for his presumption. The fleetlord said, “Well, we care nothing for what you Tosevites think of our arrangements, and I did not summon you here to discuss them. You have made this war more dangerous for us; I do not deny that. But you have also made it more dangerous for yourselves. If you think we will hold back from responding in kind, you are badly mistaken.”

“That was not our concern,” Molotov answered. That was not Stalin’s concern, anyhow. “We shall do what we think best, depending on the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Withdraw your forces from the Soviet Union and you will be in no more danger from us.”

Atvar laughed again, not, Molotov thought, pleasantly. “This cannot be. I show my mercy by not treating you as a criminal, since your rulers came to power through murdering your emperor.”

The fleetlord and the translator both showed what looked like genuine revulsion. The version Atvar gave of what had happened in the Soviet Union wasn’t strictly accurate, but Molotov didn’t argue the niceties with him. The Bolsheviks had done what they had to do to stay in power; to do anything less would have been to betray the workers and common soldiers and sailors who had helped them overthrow their class enemies in the Kerensky regime.

Aloud, Molotov said, “One day, when you have advanced sufficiently, you will do the same.”

If the two Lizards had been revolted before, now they were furious. Again, they made noises that reminded Molotov of a samovar boiling with the fire too high. Atvar spat words. The interpreter proved his fluency had improved by turning them into precise, insulting Russian: “You Big Uglies are the most uncultured, odious creatures anyone could ever have imagined, and you Soviets the most uncultured and odious of the Big Uglies. To suggest such a thing-” Atvar started bubbling and sputtering again.

Molotov took no notice of the insults, but in weightlessness his glasses kept trying to escape from his nose. When he had secured them, he said, “We do not love one another. This much I already knew. Did you summon me here merely to remind me of it, or did you have serious diplomatic proposals to put to me?”

He granted Atvar a moment of professional respect when the fleetlord did return to business: “I summoned you here to warn you that under no circumstances will we tolerate any further use of nuclear weapons by any Tosevite empire, and that we reserve the right to retaliate as we see fit.”

“I can speak only for the Soviet Union, whose peace-loving workers and peasants must of course reject demands made at gunpoint,” Molotov answered. “We also reserve the right to retaliate as we see fit, especially since your forces invaded our land without reason or declaration of war. I can predict, though, that other nations will respond similarly.”

“Other empires-” Atvar let that hang in the air for a few seconds before resuming: “Other Tosevite empires are also working on nuclear weapons; of this we are certain. How can you be assured that they will use these weapons against us rather than you? The Deutsche, for instance, are already developing rockets which could carry them.”

Molotov almost betrayed himself by bursting into laughter again. The Lizard was trying to sow rivalry among his human enemies, which would have been far from the worst of ploys if he hadn’t been so obvious-and so bad-at the game. Even Ribbentrop would have seen through it.

“Before you came, Germany and the Soviet Union were enemies, true,” Molotov said. “Germany and the United States were enemies, Germany and Great Britain were enemies, Japan and Great Britain were enemies, Japan and the United States were enemies. We are enemies among ourselves no more-you are more dangerous to all of us than we were to one another.”

For once, diplomacy and truth came together. Men fought each other on more or less even terms. The Lizards were far ahead of all human nations. Go under to them and you would never come up again. Even Hitler, wretched madman that he was, recognized the truth there.

Atvar said, “Surely you realize this struggle is futile for you.”

“Class struggle is the engine of the historical dialectic,” Molotov answered. “It is never futile.”

“I understand these words one by one, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, but not their full meaning together,” the interpreter said. “How shall I render them for the exalted fleetlord?”

“Tell him we shall go on fighting, come what may, and that we shall use whatever weapons we have to destroy his forces within the Soviet Union,” Molotov said. “No threats he can make will keep us from defending ourselves.”

The translator hissed and popped and squeaked, and Atvar hissed and popped and squeaked back. The translator said, “You will regret this decision.”

“I would regret any other decision more,” Molotov replied. That was true in an immediate, personal sense: if he dared step so much as a centimeter outside the limits Stalin had set for him, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would have him shot and worry afterwards no more than if he’d trimmed a fingernail. But it was also true in the wider way in which he’d intended it. Surrender to the Lizards meant long-term slavery not just for the Soviet Union but for the human race.