Federations

Alan Dean Foster is the bestselling author of several dozen novels, and is perhaps most famous for his Commonwealth series, which began in 1975 with the novel Midworld. The most recent in that series, Quofum, was published in 2008, and a new Commonwealth book featuring the popular characters Pip and Flinx— Flinx Transcendent —should be out around the same time as this anthology. Also forthcoming is The Human Blend, the first book of a new SF trilogy for Del Rey. Foster’s short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, and Jim Baen’s Universe. A new collection, Exceptions to Reality, came out in 2008.

Like the forthcoming Flinx Transcendent, this story takes place in Foster’s Commonwealth milieu. Foster said it was inspired by the idea that there are various ways to conquer. “Sometimes simply persuading an opponent that your way is better can achieve the desired end,” he said. “I always thought killing an opponent was a poor way of convincing him of the rightness of your argument.”

Admiral Gorelkii shifted his seat on the meter-thick, jewel-encrusted, ceremonial golden cushion that rose behind the sweeping transparent arc of the solid crystal crescent moon, and fumed. His substantial pale gray bulk was draped in a bloom of multihued embroidered standards, each one representing one of the ancient Great Hordes that together comprised the Empire of the Three Suns. They weighed on him physically as well as historically. The wearing of the standards was a great honor accorded to a select few only on the most extraordinary occasions.

Unfortunately for him, today’s extraordinary occasion was one of surrender.

His courage and willingness in accepting the responsibility for heading the disagreeable negotiations was recognized on all five inhabited worlds of the three systems that comprised the Empire. That did not mean he looked forward to the impending ceremony. What the exact details would consist of he did not know. What specific protocol was to be followed he did not know.

No doubt the conquerors of the Empire would be enlightening him in due course.

The Falan had never been a species to hesitate. Imbued with the heady wine of discovery and an assurance of their own superiority, they had looked forward to the steady expansion of their Empire in the direction of the arm of the galaxy that held a greater density of star systems than their own immediate vicinity. Following initial exploration they had discovered, explored, charted, and engaged in the successful colonization of two new habitable systems.

Then they had found Drax IV.

So it was called by the short, multi-legged, hard-carapaced creatures who inhabited the cities and towns they had excavated beneath its jungles and forests. Mild in temperament, absurd in appearance, they claimed to be part of a vast interstellar dominion called the Commonwealth. Vast, small, or imaginary, their polite insistence did nothing to deter the aggressive Falan. It was announced that the system of Drax would be incorporated into the Empire forthwith, and any foolish resistance met with fire and destruction on a planetary scale. Declaring war, the Falan proceeded to open hostilities by unleashing a small example of their firepower on a little-populated corner of the planet.

Subsequent to this ferocious demonstration, the inhabitants requested some time to contemplate their limited alternatives. While any military prowess on their part remained undetermined, they proved expert in the arts of obfuscation and delay. Eventually the patience of the Falan, never extensive to begin with, ran out.