Gods Dogs, Book 3

The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.

Alfred Adler

The team snuck into the Chert homeworld once before. They remembered the system as not an easy one to sneak into. Solomon accomplished it by coming in through the Oort Cloud. There, he fired off torpedo-sized comm relays. The six comm-torpedoes set up their operations in an asteroid field further in.

These comm stations scanned all the media stations, the military communication, the world-net, and so on, as the asteroid moved ballistically further into the system to take up station in a cluster of Trojan asteroids trailing a gas giant.

Solomon was looking for a journalist with enough integrity and clout to help set up the debate Solomon envisioned. The relay comm stations were the precaution to keep his actual location hidden by bouncing his laser signal around the inner planetary orbits.

It took a while to find and contact the journalist, Lornalie Duval. It took even longer for her to become satisfied that Solomon was who he said he was and, yes, he was here to debate the Chert’s rationale for war with the Milky Way.

“Get me their best spokesperson,” Solomon told the hairy humanoid female.

“I’m not sure the government will even agree to this.”

“Well, you can tell Anjevin I’ve got Coyotes with me.”

“What are Coyotes?”

“Anjevin knows,” Solomon replied. “I’ll send my opening argument to you tomorrow.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” was Lornalie’s reply as she signed off.

“Was that wise?” Pax asked him. Pax was on duty at the comm station.

“Threatening them with Coyotes?”

“It will cause a response – a more vigorous search, at least.”

“True. But I’m counting on the Anjevin you encountered when you were here. He knows his civilization’s Age of Conquest is nearing its end, and he’s thinking to transition to something else. He just doesn’t know what that is.”

“You’re counting on his curiosity.”

“And his openness to new ideas.”

“That may work,” Pax said. “What is your first argument?”

“An analysis on why conquest empires ultimately fail.”

Pax chuckled. “Well, humanity, all by itself, gives you lots of examples.”

“It did take us a long time to figure out conquest was inferior to cooperation.”

“Longer than other civilizations?”

“Yes. Western civilization anyway, and that by a wide margin.”

“Why was that?”

“The tribal mandate to value and support each member’s need to fulfill his destiny was lost, whereas in other civilizations it was not. In developmental theory, a successful developmental advance preserves the gains from the previous stages. An unsuccessful shift is when one or more of those gains is denied or repressed.”

“Are all empires a result of this failure?”

“Most are, I think, but the androids and bugs built their empires more from a place of self-defense than conquest.”

“Like the League did.”

“Yes. And look at how many evolutions that required before they got it right.”

“Will you explain all that?”

Solomon chuckled. “I’ll be ridiculing where they’re at, Pax. This debate is my alternative to war.”

“I see. Do you have you opening statement ready?”

“Of course.”

Pax’s screen filled with text. It read:

Old, fat, rich men send youth off to die so that…. what? They can get fatter and richer as they get older? I think that is the real reason for ceaseless war. The elite, of course, offer you other reasons. Let’s examine those reasons.

Pax sat back in his chair. “Well, that’s a provocative initial statement.”

Solomon chuckled again. “Yeah. I like it. Read on.”

Pax did:

It began as raids on other tribes to get livestock, slaves, and riches, but also as a way for young males to prove themselves. Since the other tribes were doing the same, we can say it was normal, evolutionary behavior. But when the other tribes evolved to agriculture and city-states, you didn’t. Why? Because, you told yourselves, you had to continue raiding and conquering. You had no choice.

That was a lie. The choice was there. You had the choice to evolve with the rest of your world. Build, rather than destroy; grow your food, rather than steal it; bargain with your neighbors, rather than killing the men and enslaving their women.

You nurtured a culture of lazy, stupid, violent oafs that have nothing to show for their lives except a pile of bones. As time rolled on, this culture did evolve into clans of cowards. Attack only the weak! Overwhelm the strongholds. Show no mercy.

You went from a tribal ritual of shared combat with other tribes to a lazy gaggle of thieves who shunned work. You devolved into a country of cowards that prey on the weak to gain the fruits of their creativity and labor.

Why? Because, you try to convince yourselves, you had no choice. They, the soon-to-be enemy, possessed what you needed. Since you were too lazy to figure out how to produce what you needed on your own, you took it from those who did know.

Today, you pretty it up by calling it ‘annexing’ a new world, and refer to the lopsided slaughters as ‘glorious battles.’ Underneath it, though, you’re still lazy cowards that are good at lying to yourselves. And we kicked your lazy asses when you brought your filthy game to our galaxy.

Pax finished and thought about the words and tone of Solomon’s opening statement. Then he said, “If it’s a battle you want, this will guarantee it. I’m wondering what the effect will be on the under classes.”

“If they’re smart,” Solomon replied, “they will keep their heads down. Cowards are noted for displacing their anger on those who cannot fight back.”

“So they would squash anyone or any group that dared to agree with what you’re saying.”

“Most definitely, especially the young elites that haven’t seen battle yet and buy into the nonsense they’ve been sold all their lives.”

“That makes sense, and they are still recovering from their loss at the battle at the galaxy’s edge.”

“They blamed it on the Iracians and the Machines. Technically, in their book, they didn’t lose. They have perfected the blame-game and raised it to new heights.”

“We learned in grammar school that professional Victims are masters of the blame-game.”

“They are that as well. Big, fat Victims who whine, ‘I had to do it.’ And another Victim variation to that theme, which leaders use to convince the public, ‘We have no choice except to’… whatever.”

“They are victims of circumstance, their customs and laws, their fear of the ‘other,’ and so on.”

“Yeah. Cowards are riddled with fear and cover it with bombast and the ‘illusion of control.’”

Pax asked, “When will you send this off?”

“As soon as Lornalie gets back to me,” Solomon said. “I’ll send it to her, wait two days, then broadcast it system-wide. I’ll preface that broadcast with my offer to debate their champions.”

Pax groaned. “On the third day after, they’ll come looking for us.”

“I suppose so.”

The broadcast did create panic in the elite. The elite was an hereditary nobility. The emperor was the First among Equals, but he also answered to the council of elders – the old, lazy, fat men Solomon attacked in what they saw as a cheap and vulgar diatribe. For centuries, the elders guided, ruled, protected, and shaped their thriving culture and grew it into an empire.

How dare some silicon-brained, artificial intelligence challenge them to a duel of ideas. It was an insult that must be answered with maximum prejudice.

Anjevin was meeting with the council and one of the old men was saying, “Find him and destroy him.”

“I have already set that in motion,” the emperor assured him. “Do you plan on rebutting his statement?”

Another answered, “No. We will discredit it through our press secretary.”

“How did he get into our space?” asked a third.

Anjevin glanced around at the room of twelve supreme elders. They sat in comfortable chairs in a semi-circle. He stood at the radius of the circle. He knew all of them but was close to none. It wasn’t wise for him to be seen as favoring one faction over another.

He answered, “Their stealth system is superior to ours.”

“Even now? It’s been two years.”

“We know the Iracians helped them develop it, but we haven’t been able to capture any samples.”

“It seems strange our scientists can’t figure it out. Do we need to make an example of someone?”

Anjevin breathed to settle his spiking resentment at that inane remark and said, “How they deal with waste heat is beyond our understanding. We have no working theory on how they defy the laws of physics to accomplish what they do.”

“Well,” the first one said, “get samples when you destroy their ship.”

“Yes. I plan to.”

“What about the journalist?” a different elder asked.

“She gave us everything we asked for. Solomon picked her, we assume, because she’s well-known and well respected.”

“Watch her anyway,” the elder directed.

“I am. They might use her again.”

“If that is all, emperor,” one of the elders prompted.

“One more thing,” Anjevin said. “Solomon indicated he has a Coyote team with him.”

The dozen old men froze in place for a long moment before the leader said, “Then you truly must destroy their ship.”

Anjevin knew that wasn’t likely to stop a Coyote team, but he didn’t voice it. The destruction of Citadel City remained a sore spot. It still hadn’t been rebuilt. It was a forbidden topic for the press. It was mostly a forbidden topic in this room.

As such, Anjevin nodded an assent and said, “That’s all I have for a briefing today.”

He left the conference room and made his way to his own section of the commandeered set of buildings that replaced the Citadel. His chief of staff met him in his office.

“How did it go?”

“Well enough. We need to find their ship.”

“Our only hope of that is to backtrack their signal. If they use a laser whisker between the ship and their repeaters, we may find a repeater when it ties into the broadcast bands, but that’s about all.”

Anjevin sighed. “I know it’s unlikely. Maybe there is another way to draw them out.”

The chief smiled. “Shall I call in the journalist?”

“Yes.”

The next morning, Lornalie was shown into Anjevin’s office. She wore a sleeveless robe that was slit to the thigh on both sides. Her mane of ruddy hair was gathered at the neck in a wide silver clasp.

The Chert were a hairy people and wore minimal clothing. Males typically wore harnesses and kilts, sandals and no head covering. Women wore mostly the same, but the harnesses included covering and support for their breasts. A tunic or robe, like Lornalie was wearing, was more formal.

“Highness,” she said and bowed her head.

“You will send a message to Solomon asking him to meet with our scholars at the University,” Anjevin ordered.

“I’ll convey the message,” she acquiesced. “Do you have a day and time for when the debate begins?”

“It will be at his convenience.”

“Then you could set the day and time, because he has no other purpose for being here. We could broadcast an announcement and carry the debate live.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Lornalie didn’t miss a beat as she said, “I see. I’ll send your offer as soon as I get back to my office. But, if I may be so bold, playing him false will have consequences.”

“I’m sure it will.”

She bowed again and left. Anjevin sat and toyed with his ambivalence. He was still of two minds about the Milky Way situation. On one side of it were his upbringing, training, education, and his current station. All of that infused him, in a sense, with the soul of the empire. On the other side of it, he knew the ancient course they still traveled would reach an endpoint. That road would dead-end, and a new path would need to be chosen.

The emperor of the Chert Empire needed to destroy Solomon and defame his message. The thoughtful ruler of trillions of beings wanted to save them from misery and death.

Solomon was chuckling in the smaller conference room with the command staff. He told them why, “The press release and the press conference did what I figured. It was like a script from a bad play. ‘Trust your leaders. Don’t believe these malicious lies. What would you expect from barbarians and machines that have no honor,’ and so on. I’ve sent my response. You can review it.”

He sent it to their implants. The he said, “Their next predictable ploy was to invite me to meet with their scholars at the University. It’s a trap, of course, but I will attend.”

“How?” Ikel asked.

“I have a comm-bot I’ve been working on. I’ve miniaturized the ansible technology to fit inside it.”

Ikel chuckled, which for a Sentic was a raspy sound. “The ansible signal is untraceable.”

“I know,” Solomon said with some glee. “In my response, I set a day and time for the verbal showdown. I’ll need you to send a team to drop off my comm-bot to Lornalie’s office.”

Ikel said, “We have infiltration teams that could manage that.”

Sgt. Tsa took it further, “The elves would be most suited for that. We can easily go where larger beings cannot.”

“We’ll be your backup,” Quinn said.

Pax asked Solomon, “Do you think there will be a debate at all?”

Solomon chuckled again. “There’s also an anti-matter bomb in the comm-bot.”

Moss grinned. “Really, Solomon? You’re going to hold them hostage?”

“They invited me. They shouldn’t expect me to show up without some protection.”

Sgt. Massi muttered, “He’s been reading too many Coyote after action reports.”

“That’s a low blow,” Moss retorted.

Gunny Murphy responded, “But not far off the mark.”

Solomon interjected, “I have my own devious mind that forms plans with no regard for precedent. Although, I will admit this does have precedent, but it’s usually a bad guy tactic.”

“Yeah,” River agreed. “Holding people hostage is usually a bad guy tactic. What if they call your bluff?”

“That would be bad. It’s only a small bomb, though. Fifty meter radius or thereabouts.”