Mike Resnick - Birthright

took his seat again. “Shall I begin?” he asked.

Bellows nodded.

“All right, then. You ran for the Governor's chair based on a campaign of human primacy. So did your opponent, but it was you who began proclaiming that it was manifest destiny that Man once again rule the galaxy.”

“Just politics,” said Bellows.

“No, sir, it wasn't just politics. Just politics would have been promising to exterminate the Lemm, or some other race who's been a thorn in our sides. A quick little battle like the one we fought a couple of centuries ago against Pnath; it had no business taking place, but we won pretty easily and everyone felt pretty cocky about it. That's politics. You've done something more. You've given them a dream, a promise that our race will return to its former position of supremacy. You hammered away at it for almost a year. Now, I'll admit that you were forced into it or else you'd never have won, but your constituency put you here, and they're getting a little restless waiting for you to lead them to the promised land. You've been in office almost three years now; that's sixty percent of your term, and you haven't produced yet. “So,” he continued, “they're taking matters into their own hands. There have been pogroms on a number of worlds which we cohabit with other races, there have been some minor skirmishes in space between ships from our outworlds and those of various aliens, and your legislature has been dragging its feet on every recommendation you've sent them. The human race has a standing battle force of some sixty million ships and ten billion men throughout the galaxy, and they're getting restless. “As for your impeachment, the media is just now starting to talk about it, but I've done a head count, and they're only about a dozen votes short.” “Twenty-eight votes,” said Bellows.

“That was last month,” persisted Hill. “Josh, you just can't sit on your hands. You've got to do something.”

“Like what?” said Bellows softly. “What the hell do they want me to do—launch a sneak attack on Lodin XI and the Canphor Twins? Am I supposed to kill off every alien in the galaxy just to make them happy? I'm not the President of the human race, you know. I'm just the Governor of one world.” “Deluros VIII is more than one world, and we both know it,” said Hill. “Since we moved our bureaucracy here from Earth, we've been the social, political, and moral headquarters of the race of Man. For centuries the Governor of Deluros VIII has been the most powerful human in the galaxy; for all practical purposes, the job is identical to being President of the human race. If you give an order, every military unit from here to the Rim will obey it without question; if our economy goes up or down, every other human world follows suit in a year or so. We set the fashion, physically and philosophically, for every human everywhere. So don't hand me any of that crap about being the leader of one small, insignificant little world.”

“All I ever promised was to give Man back his dignity,” said Bellows. “I said it was our destiny to rise to the top of the heap, and it is—but not by pulling the other fellows off. We'll do it by working harder, producing more, being smarter—”

“Bunk! You couldn't deliver on that promise if your term of office was ten thousand years and you lived

to the last day of it. Look,” said Hill, clasping and unclasping his hands. “You were born handsome,

articulate, and likable. I mean it. I've always liked you, and I like you even now, when you're throwing both our careers down the drain. You come on like a forceful but benevolent father that everyone automatically trusts. Just give the mess to Josh; he'll take care of it. The problem is that you've never had to use that thing you call a brain a day of your life. Everything comes easy to Godlike father images, and when you needed some dirty work done, someone like me has always been around to do it. Not that we've minded. But now you're Governor of Deluros VIII, and there's no higher office a human can aspire to the way the Democracy's set up. Now you've finally got to deliver instead of going after the job of the guy who's next in line above you. And if you can't make the decision and take the kind of action that's required, then let me or someone else do it in your name, or that handsome, noble face and lordly demeanor are going to get expurgated from the history book faster than you can imagine.” “Well, I'm sure as hell not going to go down in history as the man who started the first galactic-scale war!” said Bellows. “I don't plan to be remembered as the greatest genocidal maniac of all time.” “It's not a matter of genocide,” said Hill. “It's simply a matter of testing the opposition, pushing and probing until you find a weak spot, then plugging the gap and looking for more. No one's advocating cutting off our noses to spite our faces; we need the other races as much as we ever did, perhaps more. But we need them on our terms, not theirs.” “We've been through all this before,” said Bellows, glancing down at his appointments calendar. “Evidently it hasn't done much good up to now,” said Hill. “Dammit, Josh, I know that you've got reservations about it, but the Governorship is no place for vacillation. Sooner or later it's got to come, and it might as well be sooner.”

“If it could be bloodless, I'd have no hesitation,” said Bellows. “But these are sentient beings, Mel, not so many pieces on a gameboard.”

“Begging your pardon, but we are all just pieces on a gameboard. A politician is successful or unsuccessful by virtue of how well or poorly he manipulates the pieces.” “Mel, if Man is to rule the galaxy—and I'm convinced he is—he's got to do so by exhibiting leadership in those areas that truly show his worth: industry, dignity, intellect. No simple show of force will make us fit to rule; if anything, it goes to prove the point that we're not yet capable of doing so.” “That's beautiful rhetoric, Josh, and I hope you put it in your memoirs,” said Hill, “but it's a bunch of ivory-tower gobbledegook. Religion, morality, and Joshua Bellows to the contrary, Man is neither good nor bad, pure nor impure. He is simply Man, and his destiny, if he has one, is to make the most of all of his gifts, without attempting to place values upon them. If he has a notion to grasp at the stars, then it's his duty to do so in the best and most efficient way he can; and if he fails, well, at least he did his damnedest. But Man can't just spout pretty platitudes while there's anything in his universe lacking accomplishment. I've heard it said that Man is a social animal. Some deeper thinkers have concluded that he's a political animal. I've known women who swore he was a sexual animal. None of them are totally wrong, but they haven't quite got around to the truth of it. Man is a competitive animal. Philosophers dream of utopias in which every need is cared for, and there is an inordinate amount of time for contemplation. Utopia, hell—that's madness! Man's living in utopia right now, a time filled with as many challenges as he can handle. But he can't start meeting those challenges until you give the word.” “And you say they're preparing to throw me out of office if I don't give it.”

“They don't want to do that, Josh,” said Hill. “With the magnetism you've got, they'd back any action

you took. The legislature would be much happier with you than without you but you've got to play ball with them.”

“I'm still as popular as ever in the polls,” said Bellows. “What if I force them into a showdown, make them put up or shut up?”

“You'd lose,” said Hill promptly. “Your popularity is due, in large part, to stories I've leaked to the media about how are forces are massing and how we're ready to begin reasserting ourselves. The day they find out that those are phony, you won't have to wait for the legislature; the voters'll throw you out on your ear.”