God's Dogs Book 2

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Sun Tzu

Pax’s decanting was a low-key affair. Quinn, Moss, and River were there, along with Raina. They waited outside the decanting room and watched through a window. The fluid drained from the tank, the medication flow ceased, and Pax slowly awakened.

The nurses busied over him until he was clothed and lying in a hospital bed in an adjoining recovery room.

“He will tire easily,” a nurse told the group, “and he needs natural sleep to complete the healing process. Do not over-tax him.”

Then she allowed them into the recovery room. Raina pushed forward and took Pax’s hand.

She told him, “You had us worried.”

Pax croaked out, “The two they were trying to kidnap?”

“They got away clean,” Quinn answered. “And it looks like we got to the root problem while you were out. We’ll fill you in later.”

Pax nodded and breathed deep before saying, “Had a near-death experience. I had a choice, Quinn.”

Moss snickered. “And you chose this vale of tears. That doesn’t say much for your sanity.”

Pax grinned, but it faded as he fell into restful sleep.

The conference concluded a week later without further incident. The Blue Dragon, loaded now with return goods, picked up the scientific delegation and left for League space. A Congress destroyer accompanied them.

The Coyotes and Consul Singh’s team remained to do what they could to resolve the crisis between the renegade SpecOps people and the Congress mainstream government.

Pax was training hard, and the rest of the team was paying the price for it. Most of his training was conducted at night: forced marches in the surrounding woods, ambushes set by his teammates, weapons work with training lasers, hand-to-hand sessions, and so on.

During the day, the team addressed the issues the SpecOps renegades claimed the bureaucrats were ignoring. Consul Singh remained non-committal during this process, at Quinn’s urging. The consul or his aides sat in on the discussions that included the Coyotes. Those were held at the convention center, since it was nearby. They primarily used one of the break-out rooms.

These smaller rooms held about 100 people with a raised platform at the front for a panel of speakers. This day, the Coyotes sat across from six beings of different species. Quinn noted two elf-like Sivertonae, two Sentics, but the others he didn’t recognize. They were humanoid as well, but one was bear-like, and the other two had reptilian features.

An elf was saying, “Your race elevated profit over all else. In doing so, many ethnic people suffered. How did this come to pass?”

The team’s implant A.I.s were helpful in these proceedings as they contained humanity’s history. That gave the team the facts to answer most questions, but not one like this. This required interpretation.

Quinn thought for a moment before replying, “In the evolution of a species, there are stages to pass through, developmental challenges to conquer, or collective lessons to be learned. If one of those lessons isn’t learned, or they fail a developmental challenge, then the foundation for further growth is skewed.”

“A challenge was failed. Is that accurate?” a Sentic queried.

“In one of the sub-divisions of our species it did, and that sub-division went on to become the most technologically powerful.”

“Which challenge was failed?” asked the elf.

“The shift from tribal to a confederacy,” Quinn answered. “The communal values of a tribal organization, which valued each member of the tribe, was destroyed by Greece and Rome, which were two countries that warred with their known world to establish empires in what we called the West. With the tribal values destroyed, it became possible for slavery, a caste system, and the devaluation of women to emerge. This state of affairs replaced the communal values that should have continued. Instead, powerful men vied with each other to gain more power, more wealth, and to rule larger areas.”

“It’s simple greed,” the bear noted.

“Yes,” Quinn agreed. “And greed had no place in a tribal structure. There was an understanding that all members were valuable so that each was treated well. In most cases, that meant each individual could fulfill the potential the Creator gave him. And that was lost rather than transferring to a larger social arrangement.”

“But only in the West,” a Sentic pointed out.

“Yes, and to a lesser degree in other places. Many other cultures included tribal values when the social structure evolved to confederations. Even so, because of its technological superiority, the West tried to colonize the rest of the world.”

“Surely there was resistance,” an elf said.

“Yes,” Quinn agreed with a grimace. “That resulted in centuries of warfare. We even took that struggle with us to the stars. The final battle was the Corporate Wars, and out of that came the League charter.”

“That was fairly recent,” one of the reptilian beings commented.

“By your reckoning,” Quinn half-grinned, “it is. About 200 years ago. Even so, our capitalist economy is greed-based. We haven’t found a way to make the communal values inherent in tribalism work on a large scale.”

“We’ve reviewed the League charter,” an elf said. “It seems you enforce those values in how the League’s services are funded.”

“And it works,” Quinn asserted. “The problem is that it must be enforced. We seem to have lost the natural ability to be communal, and that is what the SpecOps people identified as a potential threat to the Congress.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Quinn nodded to Moss, who took over, “An early psychologist, Sigmund Freud, said the ego is driven by sex, money, power, and status. I don’t know what drives your egos, but if it’s anything similar to us, then how you learn to deal with those drives is important. Through parenting, socialization, or tribal conditioning a child is shaped into an adult. It’s that conditioning that is the answer to your question. The humans you need to worry about are those who satisfy those drives directly. Safe humans satisfy those ego-drives indirectly, so that they are by-products of doing the right thing.”

Pax added, “All of our cultures have found the ‘golden rule.’ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. People who have some level of empathy are generally safe.”

“And people driven by greed,” the elf concluded, “are not safe. This is true for all species. So, too, is the empathetic rule. How is it humans are more dangerous than other species?”

“Like our skill with warfare,” Moss answered, “we are more practiced at satisfying our greed.”

River expanded on that by saying, “And unlike the other species in the Congress, a hierarchical structure is not a comfort to us. Rather, it is the primary trigger to attempt to dominate others.”

A Sentic spoke his confusion, “That is what we don’t understand. You operate in those structures. You are in a chain of command. Workers have bosses. Your governments have leaders. How do you avoid this trigger you claim exists?”

Moss grinned at them. “As Quinn said, we force those at the top to care for those at the bottom through the League’s charter.”

River added, “And through education, we train the next generation to want to care for those at the bottom, because it works better for them. We teach enlightened self-interest.”

“I see,” the Sentic said, “but the need to dominate still persists. It is a trait within the human genome.”

“We believe so,” Moss agreed. “We are highly competitive. Winning directly at something is more satisfying for us than winning indirectly.”

The bear asked, “What would you have us do with you?”

Quinn answered that question, “Keep us at arm’s length. We can be a potent tool for peace, and we can be a corrupting influence to other species.”

An elf responded, “We have witnessed both, I think. Your missions here brought peace in surprising ways, but those actions also corrupted the SpecOps community.”

The session ended and the lights brightened in the room. The participants headed out, moving slowly and talking to one another.

The team stood to acknowledge the six who questioned them, but they wandered off as well.

“I guess you don’t shake hands after these things,” Moss quipped.

Then they headed out to the cafeteria. Singh caught up to them as they left the building.

“That was intense,” he said. “I’m not sure I liked you dragging out humanity’s dirty laundry for all to see, but you made a strong case for an exemption to patronage.”

Quinn nodded as they stepped into the sunlight. It was a clear day. The off-blue sky held few clouds, but the temperature was pleasant.

The team had dressed down to their normal skin-suits, as the need for light armor was minimal. Singh was dressed in the blue robe of a diplomat, but he continued to be agitated as they walked.

Moss asked him, “Did you get anything new from Penglai?”

Singh frowned at this reference to his daily chats via ansible to their home world. He answered, “No. They keep insisting that I am here. I know what the mood is. I know the issues and the players involved. Therefore, I’m in the best position to know what to do.”

Pax, sensing the consul’s discomfort, told him, “Your inexperience is eroding your confidence.”

“I know,” Singh sighed with some exasperation. “I am not the one who should be brokering this deal.”

Moss chuckled. “Yet here you are, brokering this deal.”

Quinn said with some force, “You have our help, and we have the experience you lack. It will be fine.”