Vilcabamba

“You insult us?” Grelch’s rumble sounded ominous. Snarfar usually calmed a Krolp, but it could also enrage. It was a lot like booze--except it wasn’t. Grelch hadn’t carried any weapons into the meeting, but that might not matter. If a renegade killed another President of the United States . . .

Harris Moffatt III drew a Krolpish hand weapon. If he fired it, it wouldn’t just steam-clean Grelch. It would take out a big part of the building, maybe enough to make the rest fall down. Even so . . . “The truth is not an insult,” he said. “If your own people did want you around, you wouldn’t be here with us.”

He waited. Plenty of Krolp wouldn’t listen to anything from humans, even the truth--especially not the truth. Grelch was right on the edge of being one of them. His tail twitched faster, with a sort of boogie-woogie beat. Moffatt relaxed fractionally. That was a good sign. Most of the time, anyhow.

“All right,” the renegade said at last. “We are losers. So are you, Moffatt. All you humans, you are losers.”

“Now you have lost,” Willig added. “You can’t fight a stand-up fight against my folk.”

The President already knew that. He couldn’t very well not know it. Humans had tried again and again, and got smashed again and again. They’d learned a lot from the Krolp these past fifty years. They’d stolen a lot, too. They could annoy the aliens. They could harass them. It didn’t come within miles--it didn’t come within light-years--of being enough.

But there were ways to make war that didn’t involve stand-up fights. Before that drunken Krolp murdered him, Harris Moffatt II had made sure Harris Moffatt III soaked up some preinvasion history. Names rang inside his head. Vietnam . . . Iraq . . . Afghanistan . . .

“We do not want to fight a stand-up fight,” he said. “Or not a stand-up fight and nothing else, anyhow. But we’ve got . . . connections . . . in the rest of America. Can we cause your folk enough trouble to make them change their minds?”

He smiled at the Secretary of Defense. That worthy’s second cousin held a prominent post in the centauroids’ administration. They kept in touch with each other through some highly unofficial channels. The Secretary of Defense’s cousin didn’t love the cheesy-smelling aliens he worked for. There were humans who worked for him who didn’t love the Krolp, either.

Multiply such cases by a hundred or a thousand. If all those humans raised hands against the invaders or simply stopped doing their jobs or started doing them wrong . . . It would screw up the Krolp, without a doubt.

Would it screw them up enough? Doubt. Big doubt.

Grelch and Willig eyed each other. “Maybe,” Willig said, in tones that meant he didn’t believe it for a minute.

“If we do that and if we fight to keep what is ours . . . ?” Harris Moffatt III said.

One more glance between the two Krolp. This time, Grelch was the one who said, “Maybe.” He also didn’t believe it.

Of course, Krolp never believed humans could do anything. Half a century of occupation gave them solid reason not to believe it, too. Every once in a while, they did get an unpleasant surprise. That they’d got a few was the main reason the free United States remained the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Of the stubborn, anyhow.

Harris Moffatt III took a deep breath. “Well, we’re going to try it,” he said.

Willig and Grelch walked out. That pretty much ended the meeting. They had scant hope, or maybe none. Harris Moffatt III had scant hope, too, but not none. Not quite. Muttering under his breath, the Secretary of Defense also left. His men would have to try to stop the invaders. When the irresistible force met the movable object . . .

The Secretary of Alien Affairs lingered. “I was poking around in the library at Mesa State the other day,” he remarked, with luck not apropos of nothing.

“Okay,” the President said. The college library held mostly human knowledge. Education in things Krolpish hadn’t trickled through the system even now. The chaos of the past half-century had a lot to do with that. Educators’ slowness had even more. Moffatt went on, “You found something interesting?”

“Might be. Might be just depressing,” the Secretary of Alien Affairs replied.

“That’s what I need, all right,” Moffatt said. “And you’re going to tell me about it, aren’t you?”

“Unless you don’t want me to, sir.”

“Oh, go ahead,” the President said. “It can’t possibly make me feel worse than I do when I think about telling Prilk no.”

“You could still tell him yes,” the Secretary of Alien Affairs said.

“That doesn’t do me any good, either,” Harris Moffatt III said, shaking his head. “So go on. Say your say. Depress me some more.”

“Er . . . Yes, Mr. President. You probably know the Spaniards conquered the Incas in Peru six hundred years ago.”