Part 47 (2/2)
”Then the fight goes on, of course,” Mao said.
But she shook her head. ”I'm sorry, Comrade. What I meant was, what if they offer us something less than full independence but more than nothing? What if they offer us, say, some small area to rule on our own, or if they offer us some voice in affairs but not real freedom?”
”Refer such things back to me,” Mao told her. ”They will be checking with their superiors, too. I have no doubt of that.”
”All right.” Liu Han nodded. What Mao said made good sense, though she wondered whether the little scaly devils would have anything at all to say to a representative of the People's Liberation Army. She gave a mental shrug. The People's Liberation Army would contact the imperialist oppressors. If they wanted to talk after that, they would.
She spent the next couple of days discussing possibilities with Mao and with Chou En-Lai. Then word came back that the little devils would treat with her. She got into a motorcar with a white flag tied to the radio aerial. The driver took her out of battered Peking and down to the scaly devils' shuttlecraft port. Voice cheerful, he said, ”This road is supposed to be cleared of mines.”
”If it isn't, I'm going to be very unhappy with you,” Liu Han said, which made the fellow laugh.
A mechanized fighting vehicle like the one that had taken her out of the little scaly devils' prison camp blocked the road. An amplified voice blared from it, in the scaly devils' language and then in Chinese: ”Let the negotiator come forward alone.”
Liu Han got out of the motorcar and walked to the fighting vehicle. Clamsh.e.l.l doors at the rear of the vehicle opened. She got in. Three little scaly devils glared at her. They all carried rifles. ”I greet you,” she said in their language.
”We will take you to our negotiator,” one of them answered-no politeness, only business.
That was the last they said till the fighting vehicle halted a couple of hours later. Liu Han had no idea just where she was. Her surroundings when she left the vehicle did nothing to enlighten her. She found herself in the middle of one of the little devils' encampments, full of drab tents.
A scaly devil was waiting for her. ”You are the female Liu Han?” he asked, as if anyone else were likely to have emerged from the machine. When she admitted it, he said, ”Come with me,” and led her to one of the tents.
”I am Relhost,” said the scaly devil waiting inside. ”My rank is general. I greet you.”
”And I greet you,” Liu Han answered, returning courtesy for courtesy. She gave her own name, though he already knew it.
”You are not fond of us. We are not fond of you. These are obvious truths,” Relhost said. Liu Han nodded. The little devil made his kind's gesture of agreement to show he knew what that meant. He continued, ”Your side and mine have made agreements even so. Maybe we can do it again.”
”I hope so. That is why we asked to talk,” Liu Han said. ”We have liberated a large stretch of China from your imperialistic grasp.”
Relhost's shrug was amazingly like a man's. ”For the time being,” he said. He didn't reckon imperialistic imperialistic an insult; to him, it was more likely to be a compliment. ”I expect we shall retake all the territory you have stolen from us.” He paused. One of his eye turrets swung toward a small portable stove in a corner of the tent, and to the aluminum pot bubbling on it. ”Would you care for some tea?” an insult; to him, it was more likely to be a compliment. ”I expect we shall retake all the territory you have stolen from us.” He paused. One of his eye turrets swung toward a small portable stove in a corner of the tent, and to the aluminum pot bubbling on it. ”Would you care for some tea?”
”No, thank you.” Liu Han shook her head. ”I did not come here to drink tea. I came here to discuss the fight with you. I think you are wrong. I think we can keep what we have taken. I think we can take more.”
”It is usual, in a hard fight, for both sides to think they are winning,” Relhost observed. ”One of them proves to be wrong. Here, I think-the Race thinks-you will prove to be wrong.”
”Plainly, we disagree about that,” Liu Han said. ”We can hold. We will hold. And we can bleed you white.” That was how Liu Han thought of the phrase, anyhow; its literal meaning was, We can crack all your eggs. We can crack all your eggs.
”You have cost us a certain amount,” Relhost admitted, and then tempered that by adding, ”but not so much as you think. And I am certain that we have hurt you a great deal more.”
That was true, gruesomely true. Liu Han had no intention whatsoever of admitting it. Instead, she said, ”We can afford to lose far more than you can.” She also knew that was true; it was an underpinning of Mao's strategy.
”What do you propose, then?” Relhost asked.
”An end to the fighting. You recognize our independence in the land we control now, and we promise not to try to gain any more,” Liu Han said.
”No. Absolutely not.” Relhost used the little scaly devils' hand gesture that was the equivalent of a human headshake. ”You spoke of cracking eggs. Your promises are not worth cracked eggsh.e.l.ls. We have seen that too many times by now. We will not be fooled again.” He appended an emphatic cough.
Liu Han knew the People's Liberation Army's promise would be written on the wind, too. She wouldn't admit that, either. She said, ”We have shown we can take and rule broad stretches of territory. We do not hold others where we can still disrupt you. You might do better to give up this land. You cannot hold it.”
”We can. We shall.” The scaly devil used another emphatic cough. ”You think we are not ready for a long fight. I am here to tell you that we will fight for as long as it proves necessary. If we yield here to you now, we would have to yield elsewhere to other Tosevites later. It would mean the ruination of the Empire on this world. That shall not be.”
You understand that you would lose face, Liu Han thought. Liu Han thought. You under-stand this one stone would start an avalanche. You under-stand this one stone would start an avalanche. Very often, the little scaly devils were naive about the way people worked. Not here, worse luck. Here, they understood only too well. Liu Han wished they hadn't. She said, ”Another bargain may be possible.” Very often, the little scaly devils were naive about the way people worked. Not here, worse luck. Here, they understood only too well. Liu Han wished they hadn't. She said, ”Another bargain may be possible.”
”I am listening,” Relhost answered.
”You have seen that we are going to be a power in the land for a long time to come,” Liu Han said. ”Give us a share in ruling China. It is possible that you might control foreign affairs. But we can share in administering the land.”
But Relhost said, ”No,” again. He said it with as little hesitation as he'd used before. He went on, ”You want us to admit you have some legitimate right to be part of the government of China. We will never do that. This land is ours, and we intend to keep it.”
”Then the fight will go on,” Liu Han warned.
”Truth,” Relhost said. ”The fight will go on. It will go on, and we will win it. You would do better to accept that now, and to live within the Empire. You could become valued partners in it.”
”Partners?” Liu Han asked sardonically. ”Partners are equals. You have just said we cannot be equals.”
”Valued subjects, then.” Relhost sounded cross that she had pointed out the contradiction.
”We should not be subjects in our own land,” Liu Han said. ”We will not be subjects in our own land. That is why the fight goes on. That is why it will go on.”
”We shall win it,” the little scaly devil said.
Maybe he was right. Liu Han still had faith in the historical dialectic, but less than she'd had when she was younger. And the scaly devils had their own ideology of historical inevitability to sustain them. They believed in what they were doing every bit as much as the People's Liberation Army believed in its mission.
”I will send you back to your own side under safe-conduct,” said the little scaly devil who was a general. ”The war will continue. We will never agree to your independence. We will never agree to your autonomy.”
”You will never defeat us.” Liu Han wondered, not for the first time, whether she would live long enough to find out if she was right.
Queek, the Race's amba.s.sador to the Soviet Union, was in a worse temper than usual. ”Here, Comrade General Secretary,” he said to Vyacheslav Molotov through his Polish interpreter, who as usual seemed to be enjoying himself. ”I insist that you examine these photographs.”
Molotov put on his reading gla.s.ses and looked at them. ”I see a number of explosions,” he said. ”So what?”
”This caravan was intercepted from the air just on the Chinese side of the border with the USSR,” Queek said. ”These explosions you are generous enough to notice prove that it was carrying munitions-very large quant.i.ties of munitions.”
”So what?” Molotov repeated. ”The Chinese are in rebellion against you. Why is it surprising that they should use large quant.i.ties of munitions?”
”By everything we have seen, the Chinese are incapable of manufacturing many of these munitions for themselves,” Queek said. ”This leads us to the conclusion that the Soviet Union is supplying them.”
”You have no proof of that whatever,” Molotov said. ”I deny it, as I have denied it whenever you have made that accusation.”
”These photographs prove-” the Lizard began.
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