In the Balance

“But how do they administer their affairs?” Feneress persisted. Several other shiplords, males from both Straha’s faction and Kirel’s, made gestures of agreement. Here the whole Race united in finding the Tosevites baffling.

Atvar found them baffling, too, but he had been working hard to understand. He said, “I will summarize as best I can. In some Tosevite, uh, non-empires-the two most powerful examples are Deutschland and the SSSR-the ruler has full imperial power but draws on no hereditary loyalty and affection from his subjects. This may be one reason these two Tosevite areas are ruled with more brutality than most: obedience out of affection being unavailable to them, they force obedience out of fear.”

That made a certain amount of logical sense, anyway, no matter how much it appalled the fleetlord. Since logical sense was hard enough to come by on Tosev 3, he cherished it when he found it Deutschland and the SSSR were models of comprehensibility when set beside some of the other-maybe lands was a good word for them, Atvar thought-on Tosev 3.

He went on, “Italia, Nippon, and Britain are empires in our sense of the word. Or so they claim, at any rate; nothing the Big Uglies do can be trusted to be what it appears. In the first two empires I mentioned, the emperor serves as a false front for other Tosevites who hold the actual power in their regimes.”

“This phenomenon was also known among the Rabotevs before we integrated them into the Empire,” Kirel noted. “In fact, some of our own ancient records may be interpreted to imply that it occurred among the Race as well, in the long-ago days when the Empire was limited, not merely to one planet, but to a portion of that planet.”

The shiplords muttered among themselves. Atvar did not blame them. Anything that cast doubt on the sovereignty of the Emperor had to be intensely disturbing. The Emperor was the rock to which their souls were tethered, the central focus of all their lives. Without him, they could only wander through existence alone and afraid, no better than the Big Uglies or any other beasts of the field.

Yet this briefing held more that would disquiet them. As the mutters died away, Atvar spoke again: “The case of Britain is more obscure. Again, though it is an empire, its emperor holds no real power. Some of you will have noticed the name of the male, uh, Churchill, as appearing repeatedly among those who urge the Tosevites to continue their futile and foredoomed resistance to the Race. This Churchill, it seems (admittedly from the limited data we have and our own imperfect-the Emperor be praised! — understanding of Tosevite customs), is but the leader of the Britainish faction which currently musters more support than any other. If the factions shift, their leaders meeting together may at any time choose for themselves a different chief.”

Straha’s jaws gaped in amusement. “And when they do, Exalted Fleetlord, how will this war leader, this-Churchill, did you say? — respond? By abandoning the power he has seized? Isn’t he more likely to set soldiers on them to cure their presumption? Isn’t that what you or I or any sane male would do?”

“We have reason to believe he would abandon power,” Atvar answered, and had the satisfaction of seeing Straha’s mouth close with a snap. “Intercepted radio signals indicated such-how best to put it? — resignation to factional shifts is a commonplace of government (or lack of government) among the Britainish.”

“Madness,” Straha said.

“What else would you expect from the Big Uglies?” Atvar said. “And if you think the Britainish mad, how do you account for the Tosevite land called the United States?”

Straha did not answer. Atvar had not expected him to answer. The rest of the shiplords also fell silent. Without a doubt the most prosperous land on Tosev 3, the United States was by any rational standard an anarchy. It had no emperor; as far as any of the Race’s savants could tell, it had never had an emperor. But it also had few of the trappings of a land ruled by force like the SSSR or Deutschland.

Atvar summed up the Race’s view of the United States in one scornful word: “Snoutcounters! How do they have the hubris to imagine they can build a land that amounts to anything by counting one another’s snouts?”

“And yet they have,” Kirel said, as usual soberly sticking to observable truth. “Analysis suggests they acquired the snout-counting habit from the Britainish, with whom they share a language, and then extended it further than even the Britainish countenance.”

“They even count snouts in the prison camps we have established on their soil,” Atvar said. “When we needed Big Ugly representatives through whom to deal with their kind, that’s how they chose them-instead of picking ones known to be wise or brave, they let several vie for the jobs and counted snouts to see which had the most in favor.”