The Weapon

     [Now and then, I stumble over an entirely original, brilliant idea that another writer has tossed off as if it’s merely a trivial component of his tale, without bothering to explore its wider implications. For me, that’s a head-shaker. There aren’t all that many original, brilliant ideas around at any moment; they shouldn’t be treated as “throw-ins.” I encountered the one that underpins the story below just yesterday evening, in a TV movie. – FWP]

     The truce talks were held on the Moon, very near to where the invaders from Phift had landed.
     The representative of the phifti was white-faced. It moved toward the truce table haltingly and seated itself hesitantly, as if it feared that the man across the table might attack and kill it at any moment.
     Extraordinary Ambassador Seth Novikov sat quietly. It had been a long time since he’d had to sit on the surface, in a moonhut. Once he’d been assured that it was proof against leaks or punctures, he’d been able to remove his pressure suit’s helmet and relax. He was ready for the talks, though he had no idea what the phift might say or what he might say in response. He knew the invaders to be humanoid, if not human in all respects. Yet no member of their expedition had even tried to descend to the surface of the Earth.
     Waiting to see if their weapon would succeed against us, no doubt.
     Several seconds passed in silence.
     “Well?” Novikov said. “What are we here to talk about?”
     “The expedition…” the phift said, and trailed off.
     “Yes?”
     “The expedition is without options.”
     “Meaning what?”
     “It cannot return to Phift.”
     “Why not?”
     “Lack of resources.”
     “Which ones?”
     “Food, water, and propellant.”
     “But those needs are transient rather than absolute,” Novikov said. “Perhaps we can help. What would you need to return to Phift?”
     The phift did not reply.
     “Despite the harm you have done us, we are not inclined to take vengeance.” Novikov spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation. “If we can help you, we will, though not at the expense of another race of sentients. What do you need?”
     “There are other difficulties. Our homeworld is no longer habitable. The other worlds known to be suitable,” the phift said, “are all occupied.”
     “Ah. And you are unable to share a world?”
     “It would pose problems.” The phift appeared reluctant to give details.
     “From that,” Novikov said, “I take it that you could not bring yourselves to share Earth with its current inhabitants. I must confess that I cannot understand it. You appear to be as human as we are.”
     “Such an arrangement would not be… stable.”
     “But why?”
     “We…”
     It was the phift’s first use of a collective pronoun. Novikov sat up sharply.
     So it does speak for the rest.
     “Yes?”
     “We are… a belligerent race,” the phift said at last. “It compels us to live sparsely. To a phift, Earth seems impossibly crowded. Lethally crowded. One of us could never imagine living in one of your small towns, much less one of your great cities. It would result in carnage. We draw near to one another at extreme peril, for any cause, no matter how slight, can spark a combat to the death.”
     “But—” Novikov struggled with the implications. “How do you… reproduce?”
     “Rarely and with great fear.”
     It was the revelation that gave rise to comprehension.
     They’re alone lifelong. There can be no society among them.
     One compelled to lifelong solitude must go insane or die.
     One and all, they are insane. Probably from birth.
     “Is that why… ” Novikov hesitated. “…why you don’t have names?”
     The phift nodded. “It is.”
     “Is it also why you attacked us with proxy organisms?”
     “It is.” The phift’s face contorted. “We knew that we could not defeat you with weapons. We are too few. Yet we had to exterminate you if Earth is to be ours. So though it cost us terribly, we gathered the greatest predators our travels had ever discovered, set them loose among you, and waited. Had you not developed the nemesis—”
     “By which you mean our counter-organism?”
     The phift’s whole body tensed. It jerked partway out of its seat, looking as if it badly wanted to spring at Novikov and kill him.
     Novikov raised a hand, palm toward his interlocutor. “My apologies,” he said. “I should not have interrupted you. Please forgive me, that we may continue.”
     The phift drew a long, shuddering breath, From its clenched expression, it was forcing itself back to a state of calm.
     “Forgiveness,” it said after a moment, “comes hard to us.”
     Novikov nodded. “Nevertheless, you must exert yourself. You know the conditions under which we permitted this meeting to occur.”
     The phift peered at him suspiciously. “It was not a bluff?”
     “I would not have trusted my life to a bluff. Your fleet is being continuously watched. Ever since you requested a parley, you have been under a suspended sentence of death. Any act of aggression would cause that sentence to fall. If I die, so do you all.”
     “You… are undefended?”
     “I bear no weapon,” Novikov said. “I am protected solely by the threat to your life and the lives of your fellows.”
     “In eliminating our fleet,” the phift said, “you would destroy all that rests upon the surface of this satellite.”
     “We are aware of that.”
     “Yet you came. Despite the risk, you came.”
     “I came.”
     “What are you?”
     “A man. An administrator, a husband, and a father.”
     “What do you… administer?”
     “Our settlement upon this satellite.”
     “Are you many?”
     Novikov nodded. “We are. Many thousands.”
     “Where are the others?”
     “You do not need to know that.”
     “When our fleet landed,” the phift said, “why did you not attack us?”
     “If our positions were reversed,” Novikov said, “would your people have done so?”
     “At once!”
     Novikov could not repress a smile.
     “We too,” he said, “are a belligerent people. Perhaps even as belligerent as yourselves. Yet we have learned restraint. We do not strike unless and until the need is clear.”
     “I cannot imagine that. Restraint kills,” the phift said.
     “Among you?”
     “Yes.”
     “We did observe your arrival,” Novikov said. “Despite the risks, we deemed it possible that you might become friends. We only decided otherwise when you released your war creatures upon the Earth.”
     “They killed many, did they not?”
     “Oh yes. More than half the population of the world. Had we not developed the nemesis fungus, they would have exterminated us. But we exterminated them instead. They are gone from Earth. And so you and I sit here now.”
     The phift shuddered and fell silent.
     Presently it said “We could not have imagined this.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “That your whole people would cooperate to confront and defeat our invasion.”
     “Would your people not have done so?”
     “It is unlikely.”
     “If that is so, you are doomed.” Novikov rose. “I deem it time that we retire and reflect. There may yet be a way that we can help you, though it appears clear that we cannot allow your people to have access to Earth. Return to your ship and take counsel from your fellows… if you can. I will remain available to you.”
     He essayed a half-bow. When the phift had departed, Novikov exited through the tunnel that connected to the subterranean passage to the body of the lunar settlement.

     Alice awaited Novikov at the door to their compartment. He was barely out of his pressure suit before she’d wrapped her arms around him, trembling palpably. He returned the embrace with a soothing murmur.
     “Where are Rod and Susan?” he said.
     “I sent them to the cafeteria. I didn’t want them to be here if you were upset or angry or…”
     He stroked her back. “I understand. Can we have a little dinner?”
     “It’s in the microwave. Two minutes.”
     He followed her to their galley and seated himself at the dinette table. She started the microwave and set the table. They had finished their meals before either spoke again.
     “Can you tell me about it?” she said.
     He nodded. “It went nowhere. I did learn a couple of things, though. They had no idea that we were here. We’re very fortunate to be deeply dug in.”
     “The colony couldn’t have worked any other way.”
     “We’re still lucky. Remember. everyone was on the surface for the first twelve years. The invaders didn’t expect us to make homes inside the Moon.”
     She cast her gaze around their spacious, well-furnished lodgings and frowned. “I can’t imagine living in a tiny hut exposed to the radiation and the meteorites.”
     He chuckled. “Some people did imagine it. They certainly tried it for long enough.”
     “Well, we’re here now, and that’s what matters.” She stood, gathered the dishes, put them into the sanitizer, and returned to her seat. “Do you think we’ll be making room for them?”
     “Not a chance. By their own admission, they’re much too belligerent. If we didn’t exterminate them, they’d exterminate us.”
     “Could we beat them without using the fungus?”
     “We’d have to. It can’t live here.”
     “So what do we do with them?”
     He looked away and tried to think.
     We can’t share the Earth with them, and we can’t inflict them on another inhabited world. What’s left?
     “Don’t know,” he said. “But someone else on the council might.”
     “You debriefed already?”
     “Oh yeah. It didn’t take long. Anyway, they have the recordings.”
     “So why did you come home in your pressure suit?”
     He grinned. “Too tired to take it off. You know, I think I learned something today.”
     “From… them?”
     “Yeah. The phift representative. Three times he said his people ‘couldn’t imagine’ this or that.”
     She frowned. “So?”
     “They were things we take for granted. Ordinary social stuff. Living together, making towns and cities together, working together to beat a threat to all of us. At first I thought the key to the thing was the ‘together’ part. Their response to the sight of one another is to attack and kill. Like two male grizzlies confronting one another.”
     “They can’t overcome it?” she said incredulously.
     “Well, they haven’t.”
     “How did they build their ships?”
     “I didn’t ask. Maybe they were leftovers from another race. Creatures that used the phifti as planet-clearing weapons, the way they used those things against us.”
     She shook her head and grimaced. “Were we ever like that?”
     “Earth humans? Maybe. You’d have to ask an anthropologist. But the ‘couldn’t imagine’ stuff is what got me thinking.”
     “How so?”
     “He reached across the table and took her hands in his. “Do you remember what I said after our first date?”
     Her brow wrinkled. “That you’d—wait—that you couldn’t imagine that I’d ever agree to go out with you?”
     He nodded. “But I could, or I wouldn’t have asked, right?”
     Her face lit with a slow smile. “Yeah!”
     “And the guys Earthside who came up with the killer fungus had to imagine it first, right?”
     “Yeah…”
     “But all those countries that hate each other had to get their top minds together to figure it out, right?”
     “Yeah!”
     “Well,” he said, “then our decisive weapon wasn’t the fungus. It was imagination. Imagination is a superweapon. For sure it beat those predators they unleashed at us.” He winked. “Got any idea who it was that said the guys who say something can’t be done should stand out of the way of the guys who’re doing it?”
     “I have no idea. You, maybe?”
     “I wish I was that clever.” He stood. “Let’s go get the kids.”

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