Jerry Oltion - The Getaway Special

Judy nearly laughed at the irony of it. They had threatened the Earth with a fictitious galactic federation, but it wouldn’t be fictitious much longer. The only question was whether Earth was going to be around to join it once the dust settled.

Not that it would matter to anyone but humanity in the long run. The hyperdrive was out there. Even Tippet’s people couldn’t keep the secret from spreading like wildfire throughout the universe. Any contact with a spacefaring race was likely to make an intelligent but not-quite-there-yet race develop the capability, especially now that the hyperdrive had lowered the bar so drastically. And with every new race who learned how to use it, the same situation would arise.

“Holy shit,” she said. This was a much bigger problem than she had thought. Far from preventing war, Allen’s discovery could ignite it on a galactic scale. Would ignite it, over and over again, unless the cure could somehow be spread faster than the disease.

That was impossible. But what if the cure were at least spread with the disease? Would that be fast enough?

Everyone looked at her. Allen said, “What?”

“Give me a second.” She hadn’t thought it through, but there seemed only one logical thing to do. Humanity had started the problem; it was only fitting that they help stop it. And maybe save their own skins in the process. “It might work,” she whispered.

Tippet said, “You see a solution to our dilemma?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah? What is it?” Allen asked.

She had to swallow before she could speak. This wasn’t the sort of thing she could back away from once she set it into motion. If she opened her mouth, she would just dig herself deeper into the very political mess she had been trying to leave behind. Her life, personally, would probably be much simpler if she just shut up now and let Tippet make up his own mind. But she had brought this on herself. She had brought it on all of humanity, back when she had decided to let Allen spread his secret. And if she had learned anything from the last couple of weeks, it was that running from her problems only made them worse.

So maybe it was time to run headlong into them instead. She took a big breath, then said, “Somebody’s going to start a real galactic federation; why shouldn’t that somebody be us?”

Her companions merely stared at her. “It’s going to happen anyway,” she said. “We know of four intelligent races so far, and there’s undoubtedly more out there. All of them are going to have the same worry that Tippet does, even if we’ve been bombed back to the stone age. Hell, Tippet, if you do that to us, everybody else will be afraid of you —at least until somebody succeeds in wiping you out. And then somebody will wipe them out, and it’ll escalate until there’s only one race left. The only way to prevent that is to band together so the federation is stronger than any one race. They can keep the peace.”

Trent snorted. “Just like the U.N. does on Earth?”

“They’re not perfect,” Judy admitted, “but they’ve kept us from getting into another world war.”

Tippet flew up to hover near her right shoulder. “Humanity has already shown what it thinks of the Galactic Federation.”

“That’s because we were trying to provoke a war. If we give them a chance to work together instead of fight, they’ll do it.”

“Would they not think we were bluffing again?”

She shook her head. “They don’t know it was us the last time. If we just show up and ask to talk, they’ll listen.” Assuming they didn’t shoot first, but she didn’t mention that possibility. Tippet no doubt understood that danger.

That didn’t seem to be his major concern anyway. “You would voluntarily give up your autonomy to join a group mind?” He sounded incredulous, almost offended by the idea. Then she remembered that he was from a hive that wouldn’t link with the others on its homeworld for fear of losing its identity.

“It wouldn’t be a group mind,” she said. “Just an alliance of partners.”

“An alliance whose purpose is to threaten its members with retaliation if any of them causes trouble. Would humans join such a thing?”

“We already have,” she pointed out. “The United Nations isn’t the strongest political force in the world, but it’s strong enough to make even the United States think twice about getting too far out of hand. The U.N. will join the Galactic Federation in a heartbeat if they can get in at the outset, because they’ll figure they can wind up running it.”

“What if they do?” Tippet asked.

“So what if they do? It’ll still work. Once there are enough members to keep the others in line, it won’t matter who plays host.”

“Perhaps not. I’m not convinced.” Tippet whistled for a moment, and the garden window began to constrict.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Trent asked.

“I need to confer with another potential member of the Federation.” As the garden darkened, Tippet said, “In the meantime, while we wait for it to wake up, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” said Trent.

“What?”

“Ask your question.”

“Oh. I see. Very well; you said I’ll leave the runnin’ to people who like that sort of thing.’ What about this? Would you help run the Federation if we decide to implement it?”

Trent ran his fingers through his beard, then took off his hat and scratched his head under his matted-down hair. He looked over at Donna, then back at Tippet, now just a shadowy night moth in the twilight. Judy knew just how he felt. No pressure.

But he finally shook his head and said, “Nope.”

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“That’s right. Sorry, but I’m not the type.”

“And how many of your fellow humans do you think would feel the same way?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” he replied. “Probably a lot of ’em. Most of us just want to live our lives in peace, you know?”

“No,” Tippet said. “We did not know. But it’s encouraging to hear that.”

Whether he was being sarcastic or not was anyone’s guess, but he didn’t provide any more clues. The high-frequency speaker near the tree squealed to life with sound too high-pitched to register as more than a twitter of distant birds, and a moment later the tree’s leaves rustled in response.

Judy wished she could give the same answer to Tippet’s question as Trent had. She hadn’t gone into space to spread politics to the stars; she wanted to explore. But if Tippet went for her proposal, then she would bet money that she would have to have to play diplomat for years to come.

Better than playing Overlord, she supposed, though probably not as satisfying.

Tippet talked with the tree for nearly ten minutes, during which time he ignored the humans completely. While he was absorbed in conversation, Trent leaned forward in the dark and whispered, “Should we make a break for it?”

They could bug out in the pickup. It would leave a hole in the starship, and they couldn’t land when they got to Earth, but they might at least be able to warn people that their fate was being deliberated by aliens out in the asteroid belt. On the other hand, what could Earth do about it even if they knew? Come out here and bomb the ship again? Hell, if they just wanted to do that, she or Allen could simply leave in the Getaway . With its jump field set wide enough to collect the pickup in passing, it would probably yank the guts right out of the starship and kill everyone on board.

Even so, she couldn’t believe that would be enough to stop the threat. Tippet hadn’t said anything about sending a hyperdrive-equipped scout back to his home planet, but he would be a fool not to. He and the other hive minds were probably in constant communication with relay satellites by now. And if they were still trying to decide what to do, the loss of the ship would probably sway them toward war.