Ourrr weaponsss leave no wounded. Everrryone diesss, and verrry quickly. But yourrre rrright, Igorrr. We trrried to capture living enemiesss. Itsss not working. They die almossst immediately. The block in the brrrain goesss off. They know we can gut their brainsss out and take out everrrything they know. Thatsss why they die rrright away.
Can you read peoples thoughts, too? Lit-tas information was of great concern to me.
We dont rrread thoughtsss, Igorrr. We can extrrract informatttion from the brrrain. But itsss a long processss that rrrequiresss special trrraining and kills the perrrssson being quessstioned. But the quarrrgs know we can do it and they die.
Whats this block in the brain of a quarg, Lit-ta?
Itsss a biological conssstraint. We also know how to ssset one. We can also rrremove such a block, unlessss, of courssse, an orderrr for unconditional death is issssued.
Lit-ta, quargs surrender to us. Rarely, but surrender. They behave reasonably, they dont try to escape, they dont attack the guards, they may even answer simple questions that do not concern the war or their home, they can work, keep order among their own, but they never answer any questions about war, their social structure, their economy, their industry, or anything except the simplest questions. Weve tried force and chemistry and psychological breaking. It all works, but as soon as the quarg decides to talk, he dies. Now I see why. But now you and your skills are on the stage. Tell me, can you get the quargs block down before the death order goes off, if he doesnt know that its you and that hes in danger?
Itsss verrry complicated He ssshould be consciousss. Procccedure rrrequiresss prrreparrration. He will sssee feel and die.
And if hes convinced until the last minute that everything is normal, that theres only people around, who cant get the block down and dont even know it exists? Because the quargs weve captured dont know weve met yet.
I have to think, Rrrearrr Admirrral, Lit-ta nodded her head, Whatsss important to me rrright now isss the negotiationsss yourrre taking me to. I cant be too distrrracted. But you asssked me an interrresssting question. Ill contact you afterrrwardsss, wait.
* * *
Inga and I returned to Earth just as the negotiations with the lizards were coming to an end. Our diplomats have achieved impressive success, which, in general, was not surprising, because the upsides for both parties of our meeting with the lizards were immeasurably greater than the downsides.
Tobolsky was so pleased with the results of the work of the diplomats that he decided to meet Lit-ta personally, which he had not originally planned, as the Federation President should have met with the leader of the Allied state, but this was a very unusual case.
Of course, the meeting was not called negotiations, but a reception, which somewhat mitigated the unequal status of the parties, but the essence of it did not change. The delegation of lizards was transported with their ship to the Solar System and invited to the Presidential Palace. The official part of the meeting was broadcast online and, as was customary, it was not without solemn speeches.
Tobolsky said nothing new to me in his speech, he praised the courage of the lizards and talked a lot about «fruitful cooperation», «broad prospects», «joint efforts» and other «shoulder to shoulder». And Lit-ta turned out to be one hell of a thing. She, of course, also said the words that corresponded to the moment, but then went on much less formally:
Ourrr people rrrememberrr theirrr historrry. And thisss historrry does not contain warrrs. We have alwaysss rrresolved ourrr differrrencesss peacefully, through negotiationsss and mutual concessionsss. We have been taught to fight by quargsss who arrre utterrrly incapable of negotiationsss. I had plenty of time asss a guessst on board Rrrearrr Admirrral Lavroffs ssship, and with hisss help I was able to get a look at the hissstorrry of humansss. You fought a lot, but then you found the ssstrength to ssstop arrrmed conflictsss and unite. The sssame quargsss made you rrrememberrr your passst. I have no doubt that thisss warrr will rrresult in our common victorrry. Ive ssseen enough to know it for sssurrre. But after victorrry comesss a new time when our peoplesss will have to live together among the starrrsss. It will be a tessst of our frrriendship, because differrrences between us are certain to arrrissse, it is inevitable. But I am convinced that the orrriginal peaccce-loving nature of ourrr people and the corrrrect assessment of your historrrical experrrience by you will enable usss to preserve peaccce forever.
That was a very good speech, if you ask me. In ordinary language, it would sound something like this: Dear Allies, we are delighted to meet you, and we are prepared to do our utmost to work together to defeat our evil enemies, but keep in mind that we can look forward, and do not think that after victory you can dictate your terms to us by force.
Lit-ta did not want to finish her speech on such a note, and suddenly for me continued:
Our meeting took place in battle. And it happened that 35 people werrre killed by our weaponsss. It took usss a while to figurrre out who was frrriend and who wasss enemy. But your sssoldiers didnt fire a sssingle shot back. We thank the people for their ssself-rrrestrain and patience. We regret the loss of the worthy fighters, Lit-ta took a little break and rocked her body, changing the position of the tail on which she rested, like on another leg, I wish to exprrressss my grrratitude to the commanderrr of these men, whose ssskill prrrevented our firssst meeting frrrom becoming the last one. Our people will alwaysss welcome Rrrearrr Admirrral Lavroff among usss.
It was a ritual phrase. I knew that from our previous conversations with Lit-ta, but its exact meaning was not entirely clear to me, and the lizards leader clearly attached great importance to her statement. I suspected that in the future this story had every chance of getting the most unexpected development.
* * *
Lit-tas call caught me in my office. After Inga and I got back from Barnard-3, the Department of New Equipment and Armaments of the Ministry of Defence was in chaos for the third day. Well, the boss wasnt at his desk for a month and a half
Igorrr, good time! said Lit-ta from the tablet screen, showing me her split tongue, which in some cases meant smiling, but I still havent figured out the subtleties of their facial expressions.
Good time, Lit-ta, I replied, and with a hand gesture made it clear to the staff that the meeting was temporarily postponed, Are you satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations?
I got what I came here forrr, the lizards leader said, without going into the details, There will be otherrrsss worrrking with people. Im not a diplomat, Im a goverrrnorrr-generrral, and I need to get back to my ssstarrr syssstem and rrrepair the damage. But I rrremember our converrrsssation about captivesss, Rrrearrr Admirrral. I had the time to think. What you asssked me might work. Itsss important, and Im willing to ssspend my time worrrking with the quarrrgsss, but not more than two weeksss of your time.
I had to drop everything and tackle a new issue again, but it was worth it.
The question of what to do with the captured quargs arose almost immediately after the outbreak of the war. As soon as the intelligence services lost interest in them because of their utter uselessness as a source of information, the problem of housing and holding prisoners was transferred to the service of the rear, headed by the very active General Barrington. The unpleasant fact that the quargs do not live in captivity for more than ten years was not known at the time. Regardless of their living conditions, they died from the failure of all systems of the body, caused by completely ambiguous causes. Barrington was faced with the question of what to do with this pool of freeloaders, already quite numerous and growing, who consume the resources of the belligerent state and will consume them beyond a very uncertain time.