“Nearly three years ago,” he said, “you came in here to see me with a prediction. You remember that?”
I smiled.
“You could hardly forget it, I suppose,” he said. “Well, Tarn-” He stopped and signed heavily. He seemed to be having trouble getting down to what he wished to say. But I was old and experienced in patience nowadays. I waited. “We’ve had time to see things work out and it seems to me, you were both right-and wrong.”
“Wrong?” I repeated.
“Why, yes,” he said. “It was your theory that the Exotics were out to destroy the Friendly culture on Harmony and Association. But look at how things have gone since then.”
“Oh?” I said. “How?-For example?”
“Why,” he said, “it’s been plain for nearly a generation now that the fanaticism of the Friendlies- acts of unreasoning violence like that massacre that took your brother-in-law’s life on New Earth three years ago-were turning opinion on the fourteen other worlds against the Friendlies. To the point where they were losing the chance to hire out their young men as mercenary soldiers. But anyone with half an eye could see that was something the Friend-lies were doing to themselves simply by being the wdy they are. The Exotics couldn’t be to blame for that.”
“No,” I said. “I suppose not.”
“Of course not.” He sipped at his drink again, a little more heartily this time. “I think that was why I felt so much doubt when you told me that the Exotics were out to get the Friendlies. It just didn’t ring right. But then it turned out to be Friendly troops and equipment backing that Blue Front revolution on Ste. Marie, right in the Exotics’ back yard under the Procyon suns. And I had to admit there seemed to be something going on between the Friendlies and the Exotics.” He stopped and looked at me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“But the Blue Front didn’t last,” he went on.
“It seemed to have a great deal of popular support at first,” I interrupted.
“Yes, yes.” Piers brushed my interruption aside.
“But you know how it is in situations like that. There’s always a chip on the shoulder where a bigger, richer neighbor’s concerned-next door or on the next world, whichever. The point is, the Ste. Marians were bound to see through the Blue Front shortly and toss them out-make them an illegal party as they are now. That was bound to happen. There were only a handful of those Blue Front people, anyway, and they were mostly crackpots. Besides, Ste. Marie isn’t set up to go it alone, financially or any other way, in the shadow of two rich worlds like Mara and Kultis. The Blue Front thing was bound to fail-anyone outside the picture had to see that.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“You know so!” said Piers. “Don’t tell me anyone with the perception youVe demonstrated couldn’t see that from the start, Tarn. I saw it myself. But what I didn’t see-and apparently you didn’t either- was that, inevitably, once the Blue Front was kicked out, the Friendlies would put in an occupation force on Ste. Marie to back up their claim for payment from the legal government for the help they’d given the Blue Front. And that under the mutual assistance treaty that had always existed between the Exotics and the legal government of Ste. Marie, the Exotics would have to reply to the Ste. Marians’ call for Jielp to oust the Friendly occupation forces-since Ste. Marie couldn’t pay the kind of bill the Friendlies were presenting.”
“Yes,” I said. “I foresaw that, too.”
He darted a sharp glance at me.
“You did?” he said. “Then how could you think that-” He broke off, suddenly thoughtful.
“The point is,” I said easily, “that the Exotic expeditionary forces haven’t been having too much trouble pushing the Friendly forces back into a corner and cutting them up. They’ve stopped for the winter season now; but unless Eldest Bright and his council send reinforcements, the soldiers they have on Ste. Marie will probably have to surrender to the Exotic troops this spring. They can’t afford to send reinforcements but they have to anyway-”
“No,” said Piers, “they don’t.” He looked at me strangely. “You’re about to claim, I suppose, that this whole situation was an Exotic maneuver to bleed the Friendlies twice-both for their help to the Blue ‘Front, and again in the cost of sending reinforcements.”
I smiled inside, for he was coming to the very point I had intended to come to three years ago-only I had planned that he should tell me about it, not I, him.
“Isn’t it?” I said, pretending astonishment.
“No,” said Piers strongly. “Just opposite. Bright and his council intend to leave their expeditionary force to be either captured or slaughtered-preferably slaughtered. The result will be just what you were about to claim in the eyes of the fourteen worlds. The principle that any world can be held ransom for debts incurred by its inhabitants is a vital-if not legally recognized-part of the interstellar financial structure. But the Exotics, in conquering the Friendlies on Ste. Marie, will be rejecting it. The fact that the Exotics are bound by their treaty to answer Ste. Marie’s appeal for help won’t alter things. Bright will only need to go hunting for help from Ceta, Newton and all the tight-contract worlds to form a league to bring the Exotics to their knees.”
He broke off and stared at me.
“Do you see what I’m driving at now? Do you understand now why I said you were both right-in your notion of an Exotic-Friendly vendetta-and wrong? Do you see,” he asked, “now, how you were wrong?”
I deliberately stared back at him for a moment before I answered.
“Yes,” I said. I nodded. “I see now. It’s not the Exotics who are out to get the Friendlies. It’s the Friendlies who’re out to get the Exotics.”
“Exactly!” said Piers. “The wealth and specialized knowledge of the Exotics has been the pivot of the association of the loose-contract worlds that allowed them to balance off against the obvious advantage of trading trained people like sacks of wheat, which gives the tight-contract worlds their strength. If the Exotics are broken, the balance of power between the two groups of worlds is destroyed. And only that balance has let our Old World of Earth stand aloof from both groups. Now, she’ll be drawn into one group or another-and whoever gets her will control our Guild, and the up until now impartiality of our News Services.”
He stopped talking and sat back, as if worn out. Then he straightened up again.
“You know what group’ll get Earth if the Friend-lies win,” he said, “the tight-contract group. So- where do we, we in the Guild, stand now, Tarn?”
I stared back at him, giving him time to believe that his words were sinking into me. But, in reality, I was tasting at last the first slight flavor of my revenge. Here he was, at last, at the point to which I had set out to bring him, a point at which it seemed the Guild faced either the destruction of its high principle of impartiality, forcing it to take sides against the Friendly worlds; or its eventual capture by that partisan group of worlds to which the tight-contract Friendlies belonged. I let him wait, and think himself helpless for a little while. Then I answered him slowly.
“If the Friendlies can destroy the Exotics,” I said, “then possibly the Exotics can destroy the Friend-lies. Any situation like this has to have the possibility of tilting with equal force either way. Now if, without compromising our impartiality, I could go to Ste. Marie for the spring offensive, it might be that this ability of mine to see a little deeper into the situation than others can, might help that tilt.”
Piers stared at me, his face a little white.
“What do you mean?” he said at last. “You can’t openly side with the Exotics-you don’t mean that?”
“Of course not,” I answered. “But I might easily see something that they could turn to their advantage to get out of the situation. If so, I could make sure that they see it, too. There’s nothing certain of success about this; but, as you said, otherwise, where do we stand now?”
He hesitated. He reached for his glass on the table and, as he picked it up, his hand shook a little. It took little insight to know what he was thinking. What I was suggesting was a violation of the spirit of the law of impartiality in the Guild, if not the letter of it. We would be choosing sides-but Piers was thinking that perhaps for the sake of the Guild we should do just that, while the choice was still in our own hands.
“Do you have any actual evidence that Eldest
Bright means to leave his occupation forces cut up as they are?” I asked as he hesitated. “Do we know for sure he won’t reinforce them?”