"A lie, my Lord!" said the Lupan commander, "A despicable lie! We traded
an expensive cargo of Liken Weed, a substance The Humes use as a medical
preparation. We took the women in fair trade. They said they were surplus...criminals
and destitutes that their men had no use for. This charge of abduction is
a lie! They merely wish to take our cargo and retrieve their women also,
with this false and baseless charge!"
"It seems to be," said the royal representative, "that it is our commander's
word against yours, and I think I will stick with my commander! Perhaps
there has been some misunderstanding and you feel you have been cheated,
that is the reason for this charade. If you withdraw now, I will feel obliged
to forget that you entered our territory with military forces, and threatened
our people. Take your men and depart. We will not surrender what is rightfully
ours. You Humes must learn to play the game. When you have lost something,
it stays lost. You cannot win it back by bluff. You see, I know your traditions,
your aversion to killing the innocent.
You will not explode a bomb killing all the women and children in this settlement,
no matter what the cost. that would violate your code of honor."
"No," said the Hume, "but we WOULD detonate a bomb to kill our own people
to keep them from becoming slaves. That IS within our code of honor. Any
others that die in the result, their blood would be on the hands of those
responsible for the enslaving. As much as we hate to kill, we hate slavery
even more. And we will meet death before we will endure it. You know our
history proves that, if you have studied our culture."
The royal representitive nodded. "Yes," he said, "I know of your people's
insane loyalty to this imaginary ideal. Come sir, step aside. Let us speak
in private and settle this matter."
The Speaker nodded to his men and making his way through the crowd stepped
off to the side with the Lupan noble.
"Look, sir," said the noble. "I HAVE studied your history, I take your threat
seriously. I know what hapened when your first colony ship made contact
with the Zarins and the terrible restitution you took on The Zarins for that
act. But be reasonable, man. You have put men in an impossible position.
I cannot back off. What is this thing, this freedom? Can you feel it?
Can you hold it? Can you taste it? Is the freedom of these few women worth
war between our people? If you disgrace us like this, humiliate us, it will
surely mean war. Our great King could do nothing else to regain our honor.
The women will be well treated. We have very strict laws. Would they not
prefer to surrender this freedom rather than cause the bloodshed that will
be sure to follow if you take them home?"
"If you must ask such a question," said The Speaker, "then you do not know
my people at all. And I can never explain to you what freedom is. Perhaps
someday you will understand, but I could not explain it to you. There, however,
will be no bloodshed, no war. Your king is no fool. I know enough of YOUR
history to understand that. True, at my colony I only have ten cruisers
and you alone, here, have twenty-five. But your kingdom only has six systems
with six major planets and a couple of dozen inhabited planetoids. Where
our Republic has thirty-six systems with over fifty major planets and one-hundred
planetoids within a month we would have a fleet here that would sweep through
your kingdom, and within a year it would be ours.
Your pride is great, but your wisdom is greater. Even the alliance you are
considering between yourself and the Zarins will not be enough for a head-on
conflict with The Republic. And you know that, also. You will concede to
all the demands I have mentioned before, and you will concede now. I grow
impatient.
And, you will concede to this, also. One of our women was killed by your
crew, on the journey here. If your commander does not confess to this crime,
according to our Law I will have to execute him and his entire crew. You
will instruct him to admit his guilt and accept his punishment.
There are thirty in your crew, twenty-five in the Zarin crew, as I must take
one-hundred for the one we lost, I will take forty-five unmarried males to
make the difference. This will be your people's punishment for the raid.
We will also take an additional hundred as hostage but they will be returned
as soon as the pilot of the vesel overhead returns safely to our system.
Of course we will need a couple of ships for the return journey. We will
keep those, also. PLUS the raider."
"You're mad!" said the Lupan noble. "Completely mad! Never! Never will
I agree!"
The Hume took a small communication's device from his belt and brought it
up to his mouth.
"Do you hear me, Thunderbolt?" he asked.
"I read you, ground point!" the device acknowledged.
"Set detonation for forty seconds," The Speaker said, "and activate on my
signal. Negotiations have failed. The final moment must occur!"
"Understood," the instrument responded. The Speaker sat a dial on the instrument
and the number 45 appeared in red numerals on the tiny screen, slowly counting
down. When the numbers reached forty The Speaker pressed a button and the
numbers turned white.
"Bomb charged and activated," the instrument responded. The Speaker held
the instrument up to the Imperial representative so that the Lupan could
see and hear the numbers counting down. "Beep! Beep!" went the instrument
as the numbers changed.
"You're bluffing!" the Lupan said. "By the greatest of all Lords,, you're
bluffing! You couldn't. There's three million people in this city. You
couldn't!"
The numbers kept counting down and the Hume only continued to stare at the
Lupan.
"You'll die, too!" the Lupan cried. The Speaker only nodded. The Lupan
looked up into the sky. "I agree!" he screamed, "I agree! Stop the countdown!"
The Hume had already pressed the button on the instrument but spoke into
it afterwards.
"Discontinue! Discontinue! Shut down sequence! Did you receive!"
"Received and understood!" the instrument answered. "Shutdown at .02....standing
by."
"Of course you know," said The Hume, "each of the ships we lift in will be
equipped with a bomb exactly like the one overhead. One stun beam......POOF!"
The Lupan was wiping tears from his eyes.
"I understand," he said, "because of my dishonor, because of what I have
done, you must take me as one of those you will not return. All you say
is true. My king would understand. But after so dishonoring him I could
not return."
"Are you married?" asked The Hume.
"No, betrothed, but not married."
"Good," said The Hume. "We will take only unmarried men. Something that
slipped my mind...the families of the raider's crews....they come too."
"Damn!" said the Imperial representative, "what will you want next, the
city treasury?"
The Hume began to smile then laughed. "No!" he said, "I think what we have
taken will be payment enough! Now! Order the crew's families here immediately.
Give your people their instructions. I want to get underway."
And they were, within the hour. Five Lupan cruisers escorted them all the
way back to their own system and waited there to pick up the one-hundred
hostages after the bomb ship returned. There was a slight problem, however,
the detonator on the bomb was stuck in the last two seconds of the countdown,
and refused to reset! Being far too dangerous to be left laying around,
the bomb was ejected into deep space and struck with a stun beam to detonate
it. The Lupan noble standing with the Speaker at an observation point viewing
the operation, turned to him.
"You weren't bluffing," he said, "you really weren't bluffing!"
"No," said The Hume, "I was praying to The Lords you would give in. The
bomb WOULD have gone off."
The Lupan nodded. "My people have learned a costly lesson," he said, "a
lesson I am sure will not be forgotton. Never will you again be troubled
by my kind. But tell me something, your people call us two names, Lupan
and Werewolf. The first I understand, but what does the second mean?"
"Ages ago," said The Hume, "among our people there were legends of men that
turned into wolf-like creatures when the moon was full. Our common name
for you, Lupan, means wolf. Werewolf means a man-like wolf. Both names
fit because to us you resemble both these creatures, the real, and, the mythological!"
"Quite interesting!" said The Lupan. "What do you intend to do with me?"
"Put you to work!" The Hume said. "Whatever you like."
"I would like to be your servant," The Lupan said. "I would like to learn
more about your ways."
"I see no reason," said The Speaker, "that that can't be arranged."
It was not long before the two adversaries became friends, and that their
races became friends. There would be a few more incidences, but in time
each would come to respect the other, and there would be trust and peace
between them.