Poul Anderson: The Star Fox

“I hate you!” Lisa screamed. She flung out of the lounger and ran. For a second the bright dress, slender body, and soft brown hair were before Heim’s gaze, then she was gone. He heard her kick the door of her room, as if to make it open for her the faster.

What else could I do? he cried after her, but of course there was no reply. He prowled the long room, roared at a maid who dared come in with a question, and stalked forth to stand on the terrace among the roses, glaring across San Francisco.

The city lay cool and hazed under a lowering sun. From here, on Telegraph Hill, his view ranged widely over spires and elways, shining water and garden islands. That was why he had picked this suite, after Connie died in that senseless flyer smash and the Mendocino County house got too big and still. In the past year or so Lisa had begun to whine about the address being unfashionable. But the hell with her.

No. It was only that fourteen was a difficult age. It had to be only that. And without a mother—He probably should have remarried, for Lisa’s sake. There’d been no lack of opportunity.

But at most the affairs had ended as… affairs… because none of the women were Connie. Or even Madelon. Unless you counted Jocelyn Lawrie, but she was hopelessly lost in her damned peace movement and anyway—Still, he could well be making every mistake in the catalogue, trying to raise Lisa by himself. Whatever had become of the small dimpled person to whom he was the center of the universe?

He glanced at his watch and swore. Past time to call Twyman.

Back in the study he had a wait while the secretary contacted her boss and sealed the circuit.

He couldn’t sit; he paced the room, fingering his books, his desk computer, 1% souvenirs of the lancer to whose command he had risen. Hard had it been to give up Star Fox. For a year after his marriage, he’d remained in the Navy. But that wouldn’t work out, wasn’t fair to Connie. He stroked a hand across her picture, without daring to animate it right now. Not hard after all, sweetheart. Well worth everything.

The phone chimed and the secretary said, “The senator is on the line, sir.” Her image gave way to Twyman’s distinguished gray head. Heim sat down, on the edge of the chair.

“Hello, Gunnar,” Twyman said. “How’s everything?”

“Comme ci, comme ça,” Heim answered. “A little more ci than ça, I think. How’s with you?”

“Rushed damn near to escape velocity. The Aleriona crisis, you know.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I wanted to talk about”

Twyman looked alarmed. “I can’t say much.”

“Why not?”

“Well , .. well, there really isn’t much to say yet. Their delegation has only been here for about three weeks, you remember, so no formal discussions have commenced. Diplomacy between different species is always like that. Such a fantastic lot of spadework to do, information exchange, semantic and xenological and even epistemological studies to make, before the two sides can be halfway sure they’re talking about the same subjects.”

“Harry,” said Heim, “I know as well as you do that’s a string of guff. The informal conferences are going on right along. When Parliament meets with the Aleriona, you boys on the inside will have everything rigged in advance. Arguments marshaled, votes lined up, nothing left to do but pull the switch and let the machine ratify the decision you’ve already made.”

“Well, ah, you can’t expect, say, the Kenyan Empire representatives to understand something so complex—”

Heim rekindled his pipe. “What are you going to do, anyhow?” he asked.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you.”

“Why not? Isn’t the Federation a ‘democracy of states’? Doesn’t its Constitution guarantee free access to information?”

“You’ll have as much information as you want,” Twyman snapped, “when we start to operate on an official basis.”

“That’ll be too late.” Heim sighed. “Never mind. I can add two and two. You’re going to let Alerion have New Europe, aren’t you?”

“I can’t—”

“You needn’t. The indications are everywhere. Heads of state assuring their people there’s no reason to panic, we’re not going to have a war. Politicians and commentators denouncing the ‘extremists.’ Suppression of any evidence that there might be excellent reason to go to war.”

Twyman bristled. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve met Endre Vadász,” Heim said.

“Who?—Oh, yes. That adventurer who claims—Look, Gunnar, there is some danger of war. I’m not denying that. Prance especially is up in arms, demonstrations, riots, mobs actually tearing down the Federation flag and trampling on it. We’ll have our hands full as is, without letting some skizzy like him inflame passions worse.”

“He’s not a skizzy. Also, Alerion’s whole past record bears him out. Ask any Navy man.”

“Precisely.” Twyman’s voice grew urgent. “As we move into their sphere of interest, inevitably there’ve been more and more clashes. And can you blame them? They were cruising the Phoenix region when men were still huddled in caves. It’s theirs.”

“New Europe isn’t. Men discovered and colonized it.”

“I know, I know. There are so many stars—The trouble is, we’ve been greedy. We’ve gone too far, too fast.”

“There are a lot of stars,” Heim agreed, “but not an awful lot of planets where men can live. We need ’em.”

“So does Alerion.”

“Ja? What use is a people-type world to them? And even on their own kind of planet, why didn’t they ever colonize on anything like our scale, till we came along?”

“Response to our challenge,” Twyman said. “What would you do if an alien culture started grabbing planetary systems as near to Sol as Aurore is to The Eith?” He leaned back. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. The Aleriona are no saints. They’ve sometimes been fiends, by our standards. But we have to inhabit the same cosmos with them. War is unthinkable.”

“Why?” drawled Heim.

“What? Gunnar, are you out of your brain? Haven’t you read any history? Looked at the craters? Understood how close a call the Nuclear Exchange was?”

“So close a call that ever since the human race has been irrational on the subject,” Heim said. “But I’ve seen some objective analyses. And even you must admit that the Exchange and its aftermath rid us of those ideological governments.”

“An interstellar war could rid us of Earth!”

“Twaddle. A planet with space defenses like ours can’t be attacked from space by any fleet now in existence. Every beam would be attenuated, every missile intercepted, every ship clobbered.”

“That didn’t work for New Europe,” Twyman said. He was getting angry.

“No, of course not. New Europe didn’t have any space fortresses or home fleet. Nothing but a few lancers and pursuers that happened to be in the vicinity—when Alerion’s armada came.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gunnar. The affair was simply another clash, one that got out of hand.”

“So the Aleriona say,” Heim murmured. “If that’s the truth, how come none, not one, of our vessels escaped?”

Twyman ignored him. “We’ll never be sure who fired the first shot. But we can be sure the Aleriona wouldn’t have missiled New Europe if our commander hadn’t tried to pull his ships down into atmosphere for a toadhole maneuver. What other conceivable reason was there?”

If New Europe really was missiled, Heim thought. But it wasn’t.

The senator checked indignation, sat silent for a bit, and went on almost mildly. “The whole episode illustrates how intolerable the situation has become, how matters are bound to escalate if we don’t halt while we still can. And what do we want to fight for? A few wretched planets? We need only let Alerion’s traditional sphere alone, and the rest of the galaxy is open to us. Fight for revenge? Well, you can’t laugh off half a million dead human beings, but the fact remains that they are dead. I don’t want to send any more lives after theirs.”