The Mote in God's Eye

“We have considered it. It would take time to work out details—”

“No,” Senator Fowler said positively. “That’s the one thing it won’t take. Your pardon, but we have no intention of letting your Engineers invent the Field and construct a war fleet. The first condition would be immediate admission of Imperial observers to every point in your system.”

“Disarmament. Trust in your good intentions,” Jock said. “Would you submit to such terms?”

“I haven’t been asked to,” Ben said. “You have.”

“I said they would make this offer,” Charlie twittered.

“We cannot accept,” Ivan answered flatly. “We would be helpless. Assume the humans are sincere. Assume the Empire would not destroy us when our true nature became obvious. Can we believe that many generations from now the Empire will be ruled by benevolence? It is a risk we cannot take. The Race must be assured of survival.”

“There is no assurance!”

“We must get out of our system and into the universe. When we are firmly established in many systems, the humans will not dare attack any of them,” Jock said. Her gestures showed impatience.

“You are convinced that we cannot accept this offer?” Charlie asked.

Jock: “We have discussed this before. The humans will be thorough. They will want to disarm the Warriors. Before that happens, the Masters will fight. There will be war, precisely when the humans expect it. They are not fools; and their naval officers are afraid of us. Overwhelming force would back up the observers. If we pretend to accept, they will feel justified in destroying us: remember the fate of human planets in rebellion. This offer cannot even buy time.”

“Then give the answer we agreed upon,” commanded Ivan.

“The Ambassador regrets that any such agreement would exceed his authority. We can speak for all the Moties, but only within certain limits; placing our entire race at your mercy is beyond them.”

“You can’t blame them for that,” Dr. Horvath said. “Be reasonable, Senator.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable and I didn’t blame them. I made them an offer, that’s all.” He turned back to the aliens. “Planets have been brought into the Empire against their will. They don’t get anything like the privileges I offered you—”

Jock shrugged. “I cannot say what the Masters would do if you attempted conquest of our system. I suspect they would fight.”

“You’d lose,” Senator Fowler said flatly.

“We’d hate that.”

“And in losing you might suck up so much of our strength that we’d lose most of this sector. Set the unification drive back a century, maybe. Conquest is expensive.” Senator Fowler didn’t add that sterilization wasn’t; but the unspoken thought hung heavily in the brightly lit room.

“Can we make a counteroffer?” Jock said. “Allow us to set up production centers on uninhabitable worlds. We will terraform them: for every world you give us, we will terraform another for you. As to the economic dislocations, you can form companies to hold a monoply on trade with us. Part of the stock could be sold publicly. The balance could be held to be given as compensation to the companies and workers displaced by our competition. I think you would find that this would minimize the disadvantages of our new technology, while giving you all the benefits.”

“Brilliant,” Horvath exclaimed. “Just what my staff is working on right now. You would agree to this? Trade with no one but authorized companies and the Imperial Government?”

“Certainly. We would also pay the Empire for naval protection of our colony worlds—we have no desire to keep fleets in your parts of space. You could inspect the colony shipyards to be certain.”

“And the home world?” Fowler asked.