Harry Turtledove - In the Balance

“Honto, hai,” Okamoto said: “Yes, it is true.” Teerts did his best not to show his relief, as he had tried not to reveal fear before.

Kobayashi said, “What good is this Lizard if he can only babble of marvels without being able to share them?” Teerts took the return ride from relief to fear. The Nipponese kept him alive mainly because they were interested in what he could teach them. If they decided they weren’t learning, they wouldn’t hesitate to dispose of him.

Colonel Doi spoke at some length. Teerts had no idea what he said; instead of interpreting, Okamoto joined the discussion that came when the senior officer stopped talking. It grew loud. Several times, stubby Tosevite fingers stabbed out at Teerts. He did his best not to flinch. Any one of those gestures could have meant his death.

All at once, the antiaircraft cannon outside the tower where he was being interrogated began to roar. The scream of killercraft overhead was incredibly loud and incredibly terrifying. The jolting thud of bombs going off made the floor shiver as if in an earthquake. If the Race had targeted this hall for destruction, it could kill Teerts along with the Nipponese. How dreadful, to die from the weapons of one’s friends!

He had to admit the Big Ugly officers showed courage. They sat unmoving while the building shook around them. Colonel Doi looked at Teerts and said something in his own language. Major Okamoto translated: “The colonel says that if he joins his ancestors in the next little while, he will have the happy-no, the pleasure-that you go with him.”

Maybe Doi’s words were intended to make Teerts afraid. Instead, they gave him one of the very few moments of pleasure he’d had since his aircraft swallowed those indigestible Nipponese bullets. He bowed first to Doi, then to Okamoto. “Tell the colonel I feel exactly the same way, with roles reversed.” Too late to regret the defiant words; they were already spoken.

Okamoto turned them into Nipponese. Instead of getting angry, Colonel Doi leaned forward in his chair, a sign of interest. Ignoring the dreadful racket all around, he said, “Is that so? What do you believe happens to you when you die?”

Had Teerts’ face been flexible like a Tosevite’s, he would have grinned enormously. At last, a question he could answer without fear of getting himself into deeper trouble! He said, “When we are through here, our spirits join those of the Emperors who guided the Race in the past so that we may go on serving them.” He didn’t just believe that, he was as sure of it as he was that this part of Tosev 3 would turn away from its star tonight. Billions of individuals of three species on three worlds shared that certainty.

When his remarks had been translated, Colonel Doi made that mouth-motion of amiability, the first time Teerts had seen it from an interrogator. The officer said, “We have much the same belief. I shall be honored to serve my emperor in death as I have in life. I wonder if the spirits of our dead war against those of your kind.”

The notion made Teerts queasy; material Tosevites were quite troublesome enough, and he didn’t care to think of Emperors past being compelled to struggle against their spiritual counterparts. Then he brightened. Up until a handful of years before, the Big Uglies had enjoyed no industrial technology. If their barbarous spirits dared assail those of the Race, surely they would be smashed.

He did not say that to Colonel Doi. “It may be so,” seemed a much safer answer. Then he swung his eyes toward Okamoto. “Please ask the colonel if I may ask him a question that has nothing to do with spying.”

“Hai,” Doi said.

Teerts asked, “Do all Tosevites hold the same idea about what will happen after you die?”

Even in the midst of chaos, that sent the Nipponese officers into gales of their barking laughter. Through Major Okamoto, Doi said, “We have as many beliefs as we have different empires, maybe more. That of us Nipponese is the correct one, however.”

Teerts bowed politely. He did not presume to contradict his captors, but Doi’s answer left him unsurprised. Of course the Big Uglies were divided in opinion about the world to come. The Big Uglies, as far as he could see, were divided about everything. Their little makeshift empires had all been fighting one another when the Race came; no doubt their little makeshift beliefs fought one another, too.

Then his scorn faded. In an odd way, the Big Uglies’ innumerable different beliefs and languages and empires might have proved a source of strength for them. They competed so savagely among themselves that less effective methods fell by the wayside. Maybe that was why the sword-swinging savages the Race had expected to meet no longer inhabited Tosev 3.

Like any right-thinking member of the Race, Teerts automatically assumed unity and stability desirable in and of themselves. Until he came to Tosev 3, he’d never had any reason to assume otherwise. Now, as if a cold breeze blew through his thoughts, he wondered what price his species, and the Hallessi and Rabotevs with them, paid for their secure, comfortable lives.

Until the Race came to Tosev 3, it hadn’t mattered. Now it did. Even if the exalted fleetlord Atvar were to pull every starship off this chilly mudball tomorrow (which of course the exalted fleetlord would not do), the Race would not be finished with the Tosevites. One fine day-surely sooner than anyone back on Home would expect-starships full of fierce, savage Big Uglies would follow where Atvar had gone.

What did that leave? The only thing that occurred to Teerts was conquering the Tosevites and so thoroughly integrating them into the Empire that their competitiveness would be stifled for good. Failing that… he didn’t want to think about failing that. The next best choice he came up with was sterilizing the planet altogether. That would keep the Empire safe, no matter how hard it was on the Big Uglies. All other choices looked worse.

Bombs stopped falling; the turbofans of the Race’s killercraft faded into the distance. In the streets of Harbin, a few Nipponese still fired rifles into the air at imaginary targets. “It is over,” Lieutenant Colonel Kobayashi said. “Until the next time they come back.”

“Let us resume the questioning, then,” Colonel Doi said. He turned his face toward Teerts once more; his poor immobile eyes could not do the job by themselves. Whatever friendliness and recognition of Teerts as a fellow intelligent being he had shown while discussing the nature of the world to come now vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. “We were speaking of radar machines. I find your answer evasive and unsatisfactory. If you do not prove more forthcoming, you will be punished. Major Okamoto…”

Teerts braced for what he knew was coming. Okamoto bowed to Doi, then stepped forward and slapped Teerts across the muzzle, just in front of his left eye turret. He staggered. When he regained his balance, he bowed to Okamoto, though he would sooner have killed him. “Please tell the colonel I will do my best to answer his question, but I am ignorant of the knowledge he seeks.”

Okamoto translated that. Doi said, “Ha! More likely you are a liar. Major…” Okamoto slapped Teerts again. While he desperately tried to think of something that might satisfy Doi, Okamoto drew back his hand for yet another blow. Teerts began to think that being killed by bombs from the Race might not have been so dreadful after all.

Atvar said, “We can now take it as certain that the Big Uglies know enough to covet nuclear weapons of their own.” His voice had the dreadful finality of a physician’s when telling a patient only a little time was left.

The assembled shiplords stirred restlessly. Atvar tried to think of worse news he might have given them. Maybe that the Big Ughes had exploded a nuclear weapon under one of the Race’s landed ships. Of course, they would have found out about that without his telling them.