Here's an example of a chapter from my version of the book. Skip right to it now if you don't want spoilers. Taking inspiration from the thought that being a food animal for humans is a winning evolutionary strategy (where would pigs, cows and chickens be today if we didn't rear them to eat?) I wondered how an alien politician might act to preserve his species in the face of an all-conquering genocidal civilization. The Leptira are that civilization, here described as "insectoid" -- another thing that would have annoyed 11-year-old me but that is standard practice in modern sci-fi. Don't judge Poltro too harshly, will you? What else can he do to save his people? It isn't so crazy that turkeys might vote for Christmas, after all, if the alternative is extinction.
A Hard Bargain
“Sir, are you feeling all
right?” said the applicant, his young face scrubbed and shining with concern.
“I’m
fine, thank you,” said Poltro.
It
was a lie. Being aboard a Leptira flagship was enough to give anyone a terminal
case of the jitters, but the main reason he was feeling peaky was the two
litres of insect poison he’d forced himself to drink that morning. He pulled
out a silk handkerchief and dabbed at his pudgy face. Was the room spinning?
They were in orbit, of course, but this seemed worse. I mustn’t pass out, he
told himself. That really would be the end of the world.
Poltro
had an antitoxin to neutralize the poison, but that was back on his bedside
table, about forty kilometres straight down. He could hardly bring the
antitoxin to the meeting in case the Leptira searched him, but he didn’t think
he’d need to. Everything would have been fine if they’d stayed on schedule – by
now he’d be on the shuttle home. Except that the ambassador had already kept
them waiting almost an hour. Poltro should have anticipated that. By now the
stuff was really working its way into his bloodstream and, although it was
meant to be fatal only to insects, he was getting to feel as if somebody had
put all his internal organs in a smoothie blender.
“Ugh.”
Poltro clapped his hand over his mouth. Between the effects of the poison and
guilt at what he was about to do, it was a struggle not to throw up all over
the ambassador’s waiting room.
“Are
you sure you’re okay?” said the applicant, fidgeting on the seat next to him.
“Only you’re sweating rather a lot – ”
“They
keep it too hot in here,” Poltro shot back.
“
– and the sweat looks sort of… well, green.”
Poltro
didn’t look at him. He didn’t want to see the look in the applicant’s eyes – eagerness,
honesty, decency. That’s why he’d kept everything so coldly businesslike up
till now. Getting to know the fellow would only make it harder.
“A
new mineral supplement I’ve been taking,” he said. “It’s good for the liver.”
He didn’t add that unless he got the antitoxin quite soon, he’d probably need
to buy a new liver.
He
could feel the applicant’s relief. “Oh, I haven’t heard of that one. I’ve got a
whole range of vitamin and mineral –
The
door to the ambassador’s office hissed open and a Leptira official in stiff
grey-and-orange robes emerged holding a slate. It scanned the list of names and
appointments with eyes as unreadable as lumps of polished coal.
There
was no-one else in the waiting room. Finally the wretched creature looked up at
them.
“Senator
Poltro Gnaktagurr,” it declared in a scratchy voice that sounded like an
off-key tune played on an instrument stringed with raw nerve endings.
Poltro
winced. Typical Leptira disdain for local customs. As a member of a noble
family, most of the letters in his name were silent. It was supposed to be
pronounced just “Nak”, like somebody starting to say “no” but hiccupping
instead. Still, what was the point of correcting it? Most of the young people
of his own planet could hardly be bothered with the old customs, and when you
had dealings with the Leptira, your name was whatever they chose to call you.
“I’m here.” He got slowly to his feet,
shrugging off a helping hand from the young applicant.
The
ambassador’s office wasn’t quite as big as a throne room, it only seemed that
way because of being built across three levels of a converted docking bay.
Poltro traced a fresh dampness in the air to a stream that gave off a soft
relaxing murmur as it ran down from the carpeted upper area through a garden of
heavily over-scented flowers from Leptira’s purple moon to a replica beach. The
white sand of the beach area had been raked into the careful geometric patterns
that the Leptira loved to create and then destroy. Beyond that, a view of
Poltro’s home planet of Mondress filled three-quarters of the vibroglass window
that looked out into space.
Despite
himself, Poltro was impressed. He could easily imagine the Leptira sitting on
that beach with cold drinks and a plate of bar snacks at the end of a long day,
gazing out of the window and discussing the planet they intended to destroy.
It
didn’t surprise him that a Mondressan ambassador like himself wasn’t considered
important enough to merit a meeting on the garden or sand levels. The Leptira ambassador
sat waiting directly in front of them at a transparent desk inside which
luminous eels swam sluggishly. Behind him – or her, or it – stood half a dozen
other officials, all wearing the distinctively hexagonal-patterned clothing,
armour and weaponry of the Leptira diplomatic corps. There were no other chairs.
“Your
Excellency,” Poltro bowed and then held out his hand, confident that the
ambassador wouldn’t shake it.
To
his surprise, however, the ambassador got up and came around the desk. A feeler
reached out to stroke his fingers. Poltro felt the briefest touch of
buzzsaw-sharp bristles, like a horse flicking at flies with its tail, then the
ambassador drew his arm away. Perhaps he sensed the poison in Poltro’s blood,
or perhaps it was just natural rudeness.
“So
this is your applicant,” said the ambassador, fixing all his eyes on the young
man.
“Pleased
to meet you, Excellency.” The applicant extended his hand and the ambassador
took it in both sets of feelers, stroking it with the careful attention of a
gourmet judging the ripeness of a piece of fruit.
“Mmm,”
buzzed the ambassador in satisfaction, and looked at Poltro as if to say, “Ah,
so you didn’t put any nasty poison in this one.”
Poltro
was feeling sick again. He just wanted to get the whole business over with.
“Show His Excellency your résumé,” he told the applicant.
The
ambassador stared at the folder that was offered to him, then waved over one of
the officials, who snatched it from the applicant’s hand. Laboriously – because
Leptira diplomats were given more training in warfare than in foreign languages
– it read out the list of accomplishments.
The
ambassador gave an impatient flick of his antennae. “So you can type, manage a
database and you know how to file a report in octupilicate…”
“I
also have a degree in Interstellar Relations,” said the applicant, looking
hurt.
“I’m
more interested in – what would you call it on your planet, Poltro?”
“The
inner man?”
“Precisely.
This position calls for a well-rounded individual.”
“Well,”
said the applicant, his enthusiasm kicking up a gear, “my hobbies include
painting miniature –
“I’m
sure that’s marvellous,” interrupted the ambassador. “Those miniature whatevers
don’t paint themselves. But a healthy mind requires a healthy body.”
The
applicant looked to Poltro for reassurance. It was beginning to dawn on him
that the interview wasn’t going the way anybody would expect for a secretarial
position.
“His
Excellency just wants to be sure that you are in proper physical condition for this
job,” said Poltro hurriedly. “It’s not just pattering fingers on a keypad and
lifting the phone, you know. There could be travel – to the galactic main, even
to the Hub.”
He
turned away to look at the aquarium desk so that he wouldn’t have to see the gleam
of excitement in the young man’s eyes.
“That’s
a coincidence, the senator and I were just talking about vitamin supplements,”
the applicant told the ambassador. “I’m quite a health nut, I’m afraid.
Exercise and a good diet are hobbies of mine too.”
“Don’t
apologize,” said the ambassador. “That’s exactly what we like to hear.” He took
the folder from the official and went so far as to glance at the cover. “You
don’t smoke, drink, mash or steep, I take it?”
“Mash?
Steep?” The applicant hesitated for a moment, puzzled at the bad habits of
far-off worlds, but soldiered on through. “Er, no, I don’t do any of those
things.”
“There’s
only one more question,” said the ambassador. “You’re not, I trust, a
vegetarian..?”
“I
suppose I ought to be,” laughed the applicant, “but I just love meat too much.”
“Mmm.”
The ambassador looked up. “Me too.”
Poltro
couldn’t take any more of this. “If that’s settled, Excellency, I expect we
should be getting out of your way.”
“Oh,
you can go, Poltro,” said the ambassador. “I was thinking that Mr – ” he looked
again at the résumé – “Mr Kolvubar here –
“It’s
pronounced ‘Kolbar’, actually,” said the applicant. Everybody ignored him.
“I’m
so impressed with Mr Kolvubar,” said the ambassador, “that I’d like to keep him
for lunch.”
Poltro
was boarding the shuttle back down to Mondress when his phone beeped.
“Ambassador!”
He forced a smile into his voice. “Everything satisfactory, I hope?”
There
was a sound that might have been a belch. “Oh yes. I’d go so far as to say your
sample exceeded all our expectations, Poltro. I believe we have a deal.”
As
the shuttle nosed out of spacedock, Mondress appeared in the porthole, a
sun-blazing jewel of clean blue seas and greenly wooded continents. Yet already
there were brown scars of deforestation visible. And there in the darker zone
where night had fallen, Poltro could make out the dull fiery gleam of Leptira
factories, huge disfiguring patches, spreading daily from coast to coast.
“Where’s the harm in economic development?” people had been saying. “Let’s face
it, Mondress is a backwater. We should be flattered that the Leptira wish to
invest in our world.”
Poltro
knew what “economic development” by the Leptira really meant. Was everybody
else blind? Why did he alone have to save – ?
“Are
you still there?” snapped the voice on the phone.
“Yes.”
Poltro shook his head. “That’s… marvellous news, Your Excellency.”
“Of
course it is. So we’re going to be putting in a larger order next time.”
In
between the waves of nausea, Poltro felt both elation and despair. He knew what
was coming, but he had to ask. “A larger order?”
“Yes. Shall we say: your entire species?”