Aftershocks (75 page)

“I looked for not a one of them. I have never claimed otherwise,” Atvar replied. “But what I and what the conquest fleet as a whole have tried to do is adapt to these things, not pretend they do not exist. That pretense is what we see too often from the colonization fleet, and what infuriates and addles us.”

“How long did you take before you began to adapt?” Reffet asked. “If you tell me you did it all at once, I shall not believe you.”

“No, we did not do it all at once,” Atvar said, relieved to find Reffet so reasonable. “But, because we were so outnumbered, we could not pretend that the Big Uglies are in fact what we wish they were, an attitude we have seen too often among you colonists. Sooner or later, we shall grow old and die off. Sooner or later, you will have to defend yourselves. Such is life on Tosev 3, like it or not. Until such time as this planet is fully assimilated into the Empire—if that day ever comes—we shall have to maintain our strength, because the wild Big Uglies assuredly will maintain theirs.”

Reffet sighed. “It could be that you are right. I do not say that it is, but it could be. But if it is, this world will be a long-lasting anomaly within the Empire, with a permanent Soldiers’ Time and with the disruptions springing from ginger. If you think I like or approve of this, you are mistaken. If you think I am incapable of dealing with it, however, you are also mistaken.”

“Do you know what?” Atvar said. Without waiting for a reply, he went on, “I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting that, Reffet. On that basis, I think we can get along well enough. I certainly hope we can, at any rate.”

Atvar knew he sounded surprised as well as pleased. So did Reffet: “I also hope so, Atvar. Let us make the effort, shall we?”

“Agreed,” Atvar said at once. After he broke the connection, he stared at the monitor in astonished delight.
Maybe we really can work together,
he thought.
I never would have believed it, but maybe we really can. And maybe, just maybe—
a stranger thought yet
—Reffet is not an idiot after all. Who would have imagined
that?

A moment later, Pshing’s face appeared on the monitor. His adjutant said, “Exalted Fleetbord, you have a call from Senior Researcher Ttomalss. Will you speak to him?”

“Yes, put him through,” Atvar said, and then, as he and Ttomalss saw each other, “I greet you, Senior Researcher.”

“And I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “As you will know, I have been examining the ways in which the Big Uglies administered their own relatively successful empires, in the hope that we might learn from their history. In this effort, the empire administered by the Big Uglies called Romans has proved perhaps the most instructive.”

“All right, then,” Atvar said. “How did these Romans administer their empire, and how might we imitate their example?”

“Their most important virtue, I think, was flexibility,” Ttomalss replied. “They treated areas differently, depending on their previous level of civilization and on how well pacified they were. They had several grades of citizenship, with gradually increasing amounts of privilege, until finally the inhabitants of a conquered region became legal equal to longtime citizens of their empire. And they did their best to acculturate and assimilate new regions into the broader fabric of their empire.”

“These sound as if they may be ideas we can use,” Atvar said. “The concept of multiple grades of citizenship strikes me as particularly intriguing, and as being worth further exploration. Please prepare a more detailed report and send it to me for consideration and possible action.”

“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “I thank you.”

“On the contrary, Senior Researcher: I may be the one who should thank you,” Atvar said. After Ttomalss was off the line, Atvar made the affirmative gesture. Maybe, just maybe, the Race would find ways to incorporate Tosev 3 into the Empire after all.

Liu Han sat behind a table on a dais. A disorderly crowd of city folk and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army filled the hall. Here and there, braziers had been lit, but they did little to fight the chilly wind that howled in through shattered windows. Liu Han brought her hand down sharply on the tabletop. The noise cut through the babbling of the crowd. People looked her way. That was what she wanted.

“We are ready to bring in the next defendant,” she told the soldiers nearest the table. “His name is”—she glanced down at a list—“Ma Hai-Teh.”

“Yes, Comrade,” their leader said. Then he bawled out Ma Hai-Teh’s name at the top of his lungs. More soldiers dragged a man through the crowd till he stood in front of the dais. He wore a frightened expression and the filthy, torn remains of a Western-style business suit. His hands were bound behind him.

“You are Ma Hai-Teh?” Liu Han asked him.

“Yes, Comrade,” he answered meekly. “I want to say that I am innocent of the charges brought against me, and I can prove it.” He spoke like an educated man—and only an educated man was likely to have, or to want, Western-style clothes.

“You don’t even know what those charges are,” Liu Han pointed out.

“Whatever they are, I am innocent,” Ma replied. “I have done nothing wrong, so I cannot possibly be guilty.”

“Did you serve as a clerk for the little scaly devils while they ruled Peking?” Liu Han asked. “Did you help them rule Peking, in other words?”

“I moved papers from one folder to another, from one filing cabinet to another,” Ma Hai-Teh said. “That is all I did. The papers were school records, nothing more. Nothing in them could possibly have harmed anyone.”

Liu Han nodded. Ma looked relieved. That was a mistake, and would doubtless prove his last. Now she wouldn’t even have to bother calling wit-nesses to confirm that he had been a clerk for the scaly devils. She said, “You have confessed to counterrevolutionary activity, and to being a running dog of the little scaly imperialists. There is only one penalty for this: death. Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, take him away and carry out the sentence.”

Ma Hai-Teh stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears. He hadn’t understood what sort of trial this was, and he would never get a chance to improve his understanding. “But I am innocent!” he wailed as the bored-looking soldiers dragged him off.

A minute later, a volley of gunfire outside cut off his protests. Liu Han looked at the list again. “Next case,” she said. “One Ku Cheng-Lun.”

Unlike the luckless, naive Ma, Ku Cheng-Lun labored under no illusions about the sort of proceeding in which he found himself. As soon as he had given his name, he said, “Comrade, I used my clerical position to make as many errors as I could and to sabotage the little scaly devils every way I could.”

“I suppose you have some proof of this?” Liu Han’s voice was dry. She supposed no such thing. She’d listened to a lot of running dogs and lackeys trying to justify their treason to mankind. She’d heard a lot of lies.

But, to her astonishment, Ku, whose hands were also bound, turned to his guards and said, “Please take the paper from my shirt pocket here and give it to the judge.” When a soldier did so, the clerk went on, “Comrade, this is a reprimand from my supervisor, warning me not to make so many mistakes and saying I put his whole department in danger because I did. But I kept right on, because I hate the little devils.”

“I will look at this paper.” Liu Han unfolded it and rapidly read through it. It was what the prisoner said it was, and was even written on the stationery of the Ministry of Public Works. Had he written it, to protect himself after the scaly devils were expelled from Peking? Had his boss written it because he was nothing but a lazy good-for-nothing? Or was he really a patriot and a saboteur, as he claimed?

He spoke now with unhesitating pride: “I am
not
a traitor. I have never done anything but fight for freedom, even if I did not have a rifle in my hands.”

“I suppose that is possible,” Liu Han said: as great an admission as she’d made in any of these summary trials. She scratched the side of her jaw, considering. After half a minute or so, she said, “I sentence you to hard labor, building roads or entrenchments or whatever else may be required of you.”

“Thank you, Comrade!” Ku Cheng-Lun exclaimed. Hard labor was
hard
labor; his overseers might well end up working him to death. He probably knew that, too—he seemed very well informed. But to come through one of these trials without getting executed was something close to a miracle. Ku had to be aware of that.

Sure enough, Liu Han sent the next man brought before her to the firing squad, and the one after him, and the one after him as well. Revolutionary justice ruled in Peking now. The little scaly devils had held sway for a generation. Traitors and collaborators and running dogs by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, needed to be hunted down and purged.

The fourth man after Ku Cheng-Lun claimed to be in the service of the Kuomintang. That presented Liu Han with another dilemma. The Kuomintang had risen along with the People’s Liberation Army, but, having less in the way of armaments, was very much a junior partner in the struggle against the little scaly devils. Still, Liu Han didn’t want to damage the popular front, so she sentenced the fellow to hard labor. If his fellow reactionaries chose to rescue him later, she wouldn’t worry about it.

Nieh Ho-T’ing had also been trying traitors. They met for supper after nightfall ended the trials till morning. Over buckwheat noodles and bits of shredded pork, Nieh said, “Even if the little devils do end up putting down this revolt, they will have a hard time finding anyone to help them administer China.”

“That is good . . . I suppose,” Liu Han said. “Better would be driving them back so we go on ruling here.”

“Yes, that would be better,” Nieh agreed. “I do not know if it can happen, though. Wherever they concentrate their strength, they can beat us. That remains true, even with our new weapons—and we’ve used up a lot of those.”

“The Russians will have to send us more, then,” Liu Han said.

“That won’t be so easy, not any more,” Nieh Ho-T’ing replied. “The scaly devils have already shot up a couple of caravans—and Molotov, damn him, doesn’t dare get caught in the act of helping us. If he does get caught, the little devils land on him instead, and he won’t take that chance. So we’re liable to be stuck with what we’ve got.”

“Not good,” Liu Han said, and used one of the scaly devils’ emphatic coughs.

“No, not good at all,” Nieh said. “And we had an unpleasant report today from down in the south.”

“You’d better tell me,” Liu Han said, though she was anything but sure she wanted to hear.

“Here and there, the scaly devils are starting to use human troops against us,” Nieh Ho-T’ing said.

“They’ve tried that before,” Liu Han said. “It doesn’t work well. Before long, the soldiers go over to us, or enough of them do, anyhow. Humans naturally have solidarity with one another.”

But Nieh shook his head. “This is different. Before, they would try to use Chinese soldiers here in China, and you’re right—that didn’t work. But these men, whoever they are, aren’t Chinese. They’re mercenaries in the pay of the little devils. They don’t speak our language, so we can’t reach them. They just do what the scaly devils tell them to do—they’re the perfect oppressors.”

“Now that is not good. That is not good at all.” Liu Han scratched her jaw, as she had while judging Ku Cheng-Lun. What she decided here was a good deal more important than her verdict in the clerk’s case—though Ku would not have agreed with that. After some time, she said, “We will have to speak in the little scaly devils’ language. The mercenaries are bound to understand that, or some of them are. Otherwise, the scaly devils couldn’t give them their orders.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing nodded. “Yes, that is a good idea. Better than anything we’ve tried yet—it’s bound to be. Some people say these soldiers are from South America, others say they’re from India. Either way, they might as well come from Home for all the sense we can make of what they say.”

“We have to make them understand,” Liu Han said. “Once we do, the rot will start.”

“Here’s hoping, anyhow,” Nieh said.

Before Liu Han could answer, jet engines started howling low over Peking. Antiaircraft guns barked. Antiaircraft missiles took off with roaring whooshes. Bombs burst. The ground started to shake. Little waves shimmered in Liu Han’s bowl of broth and noodles. She picked it up. “I wish we had airplanes of our own,” she said. “The way things are, the little devils can hit us, but we can’t hit back.”

“I know.” Nieh Ho-T’ing shrugged. “Nothing we can do about that, though. Molotov isn’t about to pack fighter planes on camelback, any more than he’s likely to send us landcruisers. But now, at least, we make the scaly devils pay a price when they use those things.”

“Not enough,” Liu Han said. More bombs burst, some not very far away. She glanced at the oil lamps that lit the inside of the noodle shop. So easy for a hit to knock them into the rubble and start a fire . . . Broad stretches of Peking had already burned from fires of that sort.

“If we fail this time, we try again,” Nieh said, “and again, and again, and as often as need be. Sooner or later, we win.”

Or we give up,
Liu Han thought. But she would not say that; saying it seemed to make it more likely to come true. Part of her realized that was nothing but peasant superstition, but she kept quiet all the same. She’d grown up a peasant, never expecting to be anything else, and couldn’t always escape her origins.

Bombs fell again, some nearer, some farther away. Nieh Ho-T’ing said, “If they keep doing this, there won’t be anything left of Peking but ruins.”

“Maybe not,” Liu Han said, “but they’ll be
our
ruins.”

Nieh eyed her with more than a little admiration. “You would say that about all of China, wouldn’t you?”

“If it meant being rid of the little scaly devils for good, I would,” she replied.

He nodded. “You always have taken the hard line against them.”

“I have my reasons, even if some of them are personal and not ideological,” Liu Han said. “But I am not really a hardliner. My daughter, now, she would say, ‘Let all of China be ruined even if it doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of the little devils for good, just so they can’t have it.’ ”