Upsetting the Balance

Innoss Airbase armorer, southern France

Jisrin Killrcraft pilot

Kirel Shiplord,127th Emperor Hetto

Msseff Reasercher in China

Nejas Landcruiser commander, Alsace

Nivvek Killercraft pilot

Pshing Adjutant to Atvar

Ristin Prisoner of war, Denver, Colorado

Rokois Assistant to Pshing

Skoob Landcruiser gunner, Alsace

Sserep Killercraft pilot

Straha Shiplord,206th Emperor Yower

Teerts Flight leader, prisoner of war, Tokyo

Tessrek Researcher in human psychology

Ttomalss Researcher in human psychology

Ullhass Prisoner of war, Denver, Colorado

Ussmak Landcruiser driver, Alsace

Vesstil Shuttlecraft pilot for Straha

Wuppah Smallgroup commander, Chicago

1

The fleetlord Atvar had convened a great many meetings of his shiplords since the Race’s conquest fleet came to Tosev 3. Quite a few of those meetings had been imperfectly happy; the Tosevites were far more numerous and far more technically advanced than the Race had imagined when the conquest fleet set out from Home. But Atvar had never imagined calling a meeting like this.

He used one eye turret to watch his leading officers as they gathered in the great hall of his bannership, the127th Emperor Hetto. The other eye turret swiveled down to review the images and documents he would be presenting to those officers.

Kirel, shiplord of the127th Emperor Hetto and a staunch ally, stood beside him on the podium. To him, Atvar murmured, “Giving a good odor to what happened in the SSSR won’t be easy.”

One of Kirel’s eye turrets swung toward a hologram of the tall cloud rising from the nuclear explosion that had halted-worse, had vaporized-the Race’s drive on Moskva. “Exalted Fleetlord, the odor is anything but good,” he said. “We knew the Big Uglies were engaged in nuclear research, yes, but we did not expect any of their little empires and not-empires-especially the SSSR-to develop and deploy a bomb so soon.”

“Especially the SSSR,” Atvar agreed heavily. TheSoyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialesticheskikh Respublik sent a frisson of horror through any right-thinking male of the Race. A short span of years before, its people had not only overthrown their emperor but killed him and all his family. Such a crime was literally unimaginable back on Home, where emperors had ruled the Race for a hundred thousand years. Among the Big Uglies, though, impericide seemed stunningly common.

The gas-tight doors to the great hall hissed closed. That meant all the shiplords were here. Atvar knew it, but was still less than eager to begin the meeting. At last, Kirel had to prompt him: “Exalted Fleetlord-”

“Yes, yes,” Atvar said with a hissing sigh. He turned on the podium microphones, spoke to the males waiting impatiently in their seats: “Assembled shiplords, you are already aware, I am certain, of the reason for which I have summoned you here today.”

He touched a button. Two images sprang into being behind him, the first of a brilliant point of light northeast of the Soviet city of Kaluga captured by an observation satellite, then that ground-level shot of the cloud created by the SSSR’s atomic bomb.

The shiplords, no doubt, had already seen the images tens of times. All the same, hisses of dismay and fury rose from every throat. The tailstumps of several males quivered so hard with rage that they could not stay in their seats, but had to stand until their tempers eased.

“Assembled shiplords, we have taken a heavy blow,” Atvar said. “Not only did this explosion take with it many brave males and a large quantity of irreplaceable landcruisers and other combat equipment, it also moved our war against the Big Uglies into a new phase, one whose outcomes are not easily foreseen.”

To the Race, few words could have been more ominous. Careful planning, leaving nothing to chance, was not only inherent in the temperament of most males but inculcated in all from hatchlinghood. The Race had sent a probe to Tosev 3 sixteen hundred years before (only half so many of this planet’s slow revolution around its star), decided it was worth having, and methodically begun to prepare. But for those preparations, little in the Race’s three-world empire had changed in that time.