Faren Twill looked across the table at Regin Naylo. They were alone,
and finally Twill voiced the thought uppermost in both of their minds:
"This waiting is ridiculous, Regin."
"I agree. In fact, the only point upon which we disagree is the
method. I say hit them hard, and with finality. You want to make an
equal-to-equal alliance with them."
Faren shook his head. "Not really," he said. "No real alliance can ever
be possible between stellar races. The alliance I had in mind would be
patterned on the relationship between mother state and protectorate.
We supervise their laws, control their commerce, and apply a small but
adequate taxation to pay us for our service to them. Tariffs and duties
to be set up for a beneficial economy in our favor, and yet low enough
so that they can continue operating, only mildly limited. That sound
sensible to you?"
"I think it can be carried out more efficiently than that," Regin Naylo
objected thoughtfully. "First we collect the lifeship nearest us, maybe
both of them. We sweep down along the line of search and wait in battle
pattern. Why, we can probably collect their entire fleet without firing
more than a couple of batteries. Then we have the survivors broadcast
on the blanketing infrawave that we are applying the rules of space
salvage and that redemption of their fleet is to cost some nominal
fee--er--say ten metric tons of uranium, nine-nines pure. After which
we take their captured fleet to the seat of their government and take
over. Then we are in a real position to make demands. None of this
simple taxation and commerce control. None of this mother state and
protectorate. This will be conqueror and vanquished."
"Suppose they fight back?"
"With what?" asked Naylo sarcastically. "Guided torpedoes and A-heads?
Faugh!"
"They may have--"
"Bet you a hat. If they haven't been able to use the infrawave bands
for space locating and detecting, they wouldn't get to first base
discovering the magnus forces."
"You realize," said Twill, "that you're setting up a pattern of
violence that may never be resolved?"
"No matter how you set up the meeting of cultures, you've started a
pattern of violence that can never be resolved. I say make 'em realize
right now that they are clobbered. And if they want fight, we'll give
it to 'em."
Twill growled, "Not too long ago you were cautiously admitting that
elephants can be beaten by a pack of determined rats."
"Until they put out more than that squadron of twenty-five spacecraft,
they're no real pack, compared to our task force."
"You may be.... Hush!"
The door opened. Viggon Sarri looking refreshed and alert, greeted,
"Good morning. You've heard the latest?"
"What latest?"
"We've probably located the destination-star. From one of the large
stars along the flight path of the original spacecraft there has formed
a second search squadron of twenty-five spacecraft. The infrawaves are
filled with calls back and forth, coordinating the search pattern."
"How are they doing?"
"Depends," replied Viggon Sarri, with a grin. "Poorly, if you mean
that their success looks imminent. But excellently, if you mean their
technique. They're really covering space like a blanket, slice by
slice. But they started on the wrong slice."