STOOP TO CONQUER

JOHN RACKHAM

Given two opposing armed forces whose battle tactics are worked out by computers of equal ability, then how break the deadlock?

* * * *

THE howling wind that struck Caswell’s left shoulder and threatened to throw him off course had whooped its way down from the North Pole and seemed full of bitter determination to sweep him away just as it had effectively swept away everything else on the bleak iron-hard plateau. Snow as fine as flour further hampered vision already restricted by the shielding goggles he wore. Had it not been for the second-by-second radio-tone in each ear he would have long since lost his aim. So long as those two notes didn’t jangle he knew he was going in the right direction. That much the military outpost could do for him. They had also told him he had about three miles to go, on his own, before he struck the nearest Meden outpost. Three miles hadn’t seemed all that much, when he started out, but now it felt as if he had been plodding and slithering forward half a life-time.

The hunched shoulder, tucked-in chin and squint forward into grey haze had become mechanical, leaving his mind free to go over, forwards and backwards, the reasons why he was here, almost as alien in this setting as the aliens he was going to meet. Reviewing data and trying it in various combinations was nothing new to him. Sam Caswell, BA, PhD, mathematician, poet and pianist, ardent pacifist, was also Chief Analyst of the Strategic Computer Complex of United Earth. That post had been created within weeks of the horrible reality of the Meden invasion of Earth, almost a year ago now, and it followed that Caswell knew as much as anybody and more than most about the Meden. Because he was a natural-born computer-man he wasn’t at all sure that he knew enough to justify what he was now doing. He wasn’t absolutely sure. Ninety-eight per cent plus was as close as he could make it, and the missing fraction bothered him a lot more than the slippery underfoot or the savagely cold wind. So he went ever it again, step by step, as he leaned into the bitter blast and struggled on.

Almost exactly a year ago, the Meden had come, abruptly from nowhere, without warning, announcing their presence and intentions with stark efficiency. Dark and anonymous ships, a whole fleet of them, were suddenly there in orbit and while astonished humanity was still reacting to the surprise, out went the tiny and precarious outpost on Ganymede, out in a bigger show of fireworks went the struggling dome-colonies of Mars, and out, in a really spectacular but swift demonstration, went the whole Lunar complex. Within short hours of those body-blows came the neatly-tied-off-ends report that there remained not one single artificial satellite anywhere in Earth’s orbital space. Then, while everyone scrambled crazily for cover and wondered what to do next, the dark fleet divided itself neatly into two and came down, with neither flourish nor fanfare, to settle and dig in at either Pole. Then came the message, on all wave-bands and in creditably intelligible versions of all major Earth languages. Caswell could remember the exact words.

‘We are the Meden. We have taken your planet. Resistance is futile. We will allow you ten planetary revolutions to organise and arrange total surrender to us. Do this, serve us, and you will be well treated. Resist and we will use whatever force may be necessary to defeat you. We are the Meden …’

It had been a hectic year. Caswell’s thoughts, however, were more on the three decades that had immediately preceded the invasion. And on the vast string of centuries before that. And, like all other pacifists, he could have wept for the irony of it. Centuries of struggling with and against all those inborn urges to fight, the biological drives and imperatives, the lunatic persistence, right up to and hanging over the very fringes of total self destruction—a decade of trembling on the brink—and then, gingerly and delicately, hardly daring to breathe, the slow pull back. Mankind had at last made the choice that was no choice at all, the way of sanity, peace and goodwill. And for three nervous but ever more hopeful decades, it had been peace. Common-sense. Talk it out. Work it out. Solve it, don’t smash it!

Caswell stumbled over a treacherous ice-lump and sprawled a moment, got painfully up, oriented himself by the noise in his ears and struggled on, leaning into the blast. Thirty years of peace and then the Meden had come, and Mankind had once more to turn and pick up the weapons that had been laid aside, hopefully for ever. Damn them!

A year of madness. A year in which the Meden had put out forays, had demolished a minor city or two, just to show they could do it and in which their feeler offensives had been fought, shocked, stopped and thrown back, to show them they weren’t going to have it all their own way. A year, too, in which humans had mounted offensives against the two Polar bases and had been solidly and effectively repulsed by potent weapons and sophisticated defences. Skirmishes. And then stalemate. Caswell knew it, from his data. Into his hands came all the data. In short order Earth had combined and coalesced all its immense computer capacity into one giant network—a war machine—and its conclusions were impersonal and accurate, within narrow limits. Both sides had bigger and nastier weapons than they cared to use. Neither side wanted all-out final war when the prize was a radio-active waste-land.

So the Machine said. And so Caswell had reported to his superiors, to the United Earth War Council, comprising World President Kolodin and his advisors and ministers, together with General Osborne, C-in-C of the Combined Services Command. Almost perfect stalemate. Which was intolerable. Which was why he was here. Grasping at a straw. And there, surely, was the Meden outpost? He halted to peer through the thin spindrift and saw ten white-clad shapes emerge from their watch-post hides, each holding a weapon. It was too late now for further consideration. He raised his arms in the universal sign of helplessness and shouted over the howling wind,

‘A truce! A truce! I come to talk!’ He was crazily tempted to add, ‘Take me to your leader!’ but restrained himself. It was just as well, for that’s what they did, anyway. Eventually.

* * * *

Onsep Ald, Dar of all the Meden-on-Earth, was not in a good mood. As the week’s data unrolled itself across the reader on his desk, that mood grew worse. Things were not going according to plan, and that, by Meden standards, was close to heresy. This planet, observed through an adequate period and seen to be peaceful, co-ordinated and intelligently inhabited, had suddenly transformed itself into a finger-burning brand. It didn’t make sense! He scowled at the tail-end of the figures, slapped the reader inert and glared up at his second-in-command, Odar Cylo Lan, who knew better than to show any emotion at all except a wooden-faced readiness to jump whichever way the wind blew.

‘We progress backwards, Lan! These damned humans! And now you! By your look you bring no good news!’

The Odar snatched at this slight zephyr gratefully. ‘Some good news, Mighty One, and some bad. The good news …’

‘Save it. Give me the gloom while I’m in the frame of mind for it. This accursed contrary planet. Despite rigorous hygiene our units continue to suffer sickness because of the infernal heat, yet we must make these forays to obtain provisions, on a planet where they have not yet learned how to utilise their snow and ice fields! And the humans keep on devising new and devious ways of cutting at us. What they call guerilla tactics. Sneaking sabotage. Stiff-necked defiance. Even self-destruction rather than sane surrender. And we thought this was a peaceful planet! What bad news can you have that can compare with that? Is it possible?’

‘It is possible. Mighty One,’ Cylo Lan said regretfully. ‘As you know we have now been in occupation for one orbital revolution, the human “year”, and we have now accumulated sufficient data on all relevant aspects of the situation to be able to cast an accurate estimate of future prospects.’

‘Not before time! Sweat and blisters, what kept you ?’

‘They are many races. Mighty Dar,’ Cylo Lan pointed out, properly respectful but determined to uphold his position as Chief Minister of the Machine, ‘and the planet has an amazing variety of climates and of topological and ecological features. The sheer quantity of data …!’

‘Very well. Now it is all in and the Machine has spoken. What?’

The Odar cautiously stiffened again into wooden impersonality. ‘Three times to eliminate possible error. Mighty Dar, and still the Machine says that, exclusive of some radical unknown, there is a small but significant bias in favour of the humans. Small. Significant. In the long run, they will defeat us.’

All this considered, the Dar took it very well. For a full minute he roared, beat his desk with clenched fists, called down all the curses he could think of on the past, present and future of the obscene humans—and some of those curses were so new to the Odar that he had mental notes of them for future reference—but he made no attack on the handiest person present, the Odar himself, nor on any other Meden, either directly or by innuendo. All things considered, it was an example of masterly control. And then, feeling relieved, Onsep Ald began to think.

‘Small but significant, eh? A change in our weapons policy could alter it. We have been too soft so far, perhaps?’

‘Not according to the Machine, Mighty One. It has been computed.’ Cylo Lan spoke with due reverence, and Ald appreciated it but murmured, ‘Just a little escalation, perhaps?’

He knew, as none better, that the Meden were equipped with far more powerful and dreadful weapons than they had so far used. It was understood that such large-scale destructive devices would be used only in emergency. Wasn’t this just such an emergency? The Odar sighed negatively.

‘We wish to live on the planet, Mighty One, not render it unfit for life. And the Machine now has sufficient data to predict that if we escalate, the humans will do likewise. Calculations indicate that the same idea is all that restrains them from escalation. They, too, have fearsome weapons they have not yet used. Our information also indicates that they, too, have computing and estimating devices similar to our Machine.’

The Dar scowled, snorting out breath that billowed into vapour as it struck the room’s atmosphere. ‘So it is a stalemate with a small bias in their favour. In the long run, you said. Does the Machine say how long?’

‘The estimate is approximately one hundred orbital revolutions.’

Now the Dar stared openly. ‘A hundred of their years? Does the Machine actually predict they can endure so long?’

‘Also that we will endure,’ the Odar sighed, ‘but no longer.’

‘Well,’ Onsep Ald grunted, ‘time enough for us to think out many new strategies.’ But the comment rang hollow. Onsep Ald was Dar, the Leader, but he was also Meden through and through and no Medenan would ever seriously question the findings of the Machine. A hundred years and failure at the end of it! A bleak prospect and one for which there was small precedent. The Meden technique was strictly formalised. The warrior class were specially selected and trained to go forth, find a suitable planet and subdue it to the point of compliance. Then the sleeping civilian classes were awakened to move into their comfortable niches as masters, with the warriors as token police, but actually in semi-retirement and at ease, to sire and train more warriors, while the civilians sired more of their kind and the whole process would eventually be repeated on some other planet. All strictly according to a master plan— and a struggle dragged out over a hundred years and ending in defeat was no part of that plan at all. He would have to convene a Council of Ten, in itself a loss of face. But it was just barely possible that out of the Ten might come a wisp of an idea to tilt the balance of probabilities. Perhaps just one fast, smashing blow with a big weapon, to shake the opposition rigid? Ald came out of an unhappy reverie to see his second still standing there.

‘What? Ah yes, that good news you had. What?’

‘Not altogether good, Mighty One,’ the Odar was cautious, ‘but we have a signal from the perimeter south that there is one lone human, under a flag of truce, seeking to parley. To talk.’

The Dar scowled as he revised his language equivalents. ‘A bid to make some kind of arrangement between us? Peace-talk?’

‘That’s what it sounds like.’

‘Sweat and blisters! We went to all the trouble to learn most of their languages especially so that we could convince them we have only one kind of deal in mind. Absolute and unconditional surrender. And now this! A crazy planet, Lan, and crazy people. Thank Meden we have the Machine to help us half-way to understanding them. Has this … this parley offer been presented to the Machine, incidentally?’

‘Of course. Mighty One. No comment. Insufficient data.’

‘Yes. Well, a mere puff of vapour helps to show the direction of the wind and we are in no position to ignore so much as a single snowflake. Have the human checked out and brought here.’

The Odar departed obediently, leaving Onsep Ald to brood alone. A peace offer. A deal! It was first law in Meden training that one did not deal with native inhabitants when taking over their planet. One reduced them to helpless surrender and then exploited them. A deal, indeed! Still, the small but significant bias was their way. It had to be altered.

* * * *

Caswell got up from the hard seat in the small cell-like room they had shut him up in and again started to jog, flap his arms and breathe deeply in a desperate effort to get warm. He had been waiting over three hours and that was a hopeful sign, but the cold was making it hard to believe. Out of all the data he had, he knew the Meden to be so nearly human as to require expert biological study to pinpoint the differences. Apart from the fact that they enjoyed and were comfortable at an ambient temperature some ten degrees above freezing point. That one was not only obvious, it was slowly stealing away what little confidence he had left. Why, he wondered, was the military mind always so rigidly set against comfort, whether human or Meden? Ten degrees Centigrade would have been comfortable for them—it would still have been bitter for him—but this cell was actually on the frost-mark!

Even when his cell-door opened to reveal an escort and he was given the order to march, the passages and corridors were no better. And thinking habits die hard. He had expected the chambers of the head-man to be warmer, possibly even comfortable, but they weren’t. As he was routinely being made known to the Dar, and the Odar, and then the Council of Ten, the chamber swirled with vaporising breath. He could have done without the distraction. These people looked so normal, so human, even at ease, in this ice-box? He shivered despite his furs and his insulex underwear.

‘I’m cold,’ he said, knowing that he couldn’t possibly think straight all the while he was shaking. ‘Is there anything you can do to help that?’

The Dar nodded sternly. ‘We know that your kind are in the habit of drinking infusions of herbs and powders in boiling water,’ he said. ‘A quantity of such drink has been made ready for you.’

Caswell managed to hide his surprise and suspicion of the steaming metal jug and ‘captured’ cup. It smelled and tasted like passable coffee. He was not to know that the Dar, being the Great Leader, had not so far come face to face with a living, breathing human. That had been left to underlings until now, now that the Dar was desperate for that little wisp of vapour in the breeze. So, together with the rest of the Ten, Ald watched in fascination mixed with awe as Caswell sipped the near-boiling coffee and appeared to enjoy it.

‘You have come,’ he said, after a respectful interval, ‘with talk of peace offers between us. That is if I understand and speak your language correctly?’

‘Right on both counts.’

‘Very well. It is not the Meden way to make any kind of agreements with subservient races except those which we formulate and impose. But we are curious. We wish to know how your minds work. First then, are you of authority? Do you speak for all, or only yourself?’

‘That’s difficult.’ Caswell looked at it a moment. ‘Nobody speaks for all, with us. We have majorities, minorities and individuals. Everybody is entitled to an opinion and a point of view. I speak for me, but I also speak for a whole lot of other people who think the way I do.’

‘I would find that hopelessly confusing,’ Ald admitted.

‘Happens to us sometimes, too. So we have machines to help, machines that calculate odds and percentages, using data and trend analysis, machines which can predict the most probable outcome of almost anything, provided we can get the data in there. But you’ll understand that. It’s our information that you also have such machines.’

‘Only one!’ the Dar said solemnly. ‘Only one. The Machine. It contains all relevant data. It provides all logical answers. Yours?’

‘Not that good,’ Caswell admitted, but, computer-man to the core, he felt bound to add, ‘We’re getting along that way, though. We have a master machine, now, that is a beaut. That’s really why I’m here.’ His momentary glow of enthusiasm passed. ‘You say you don’t talk peace-terms, ever?’

No Meden ever got to be Dar without acquiring a good layer of philosophy over his native intelligence. Onsep Ald studied Caswell shrewdly. ‘The Meden way is like this, Earthman Caswell. Our home planet is very like this Earth of yours. Long ago we learned how to send ships into space, how to arm and equip them to overcome any opposition. From time to time, when we have too many mouths to feed, too many heads to count, we build a fleet and send away those we cannot keep. We have such a company with us now, asleep, waiting for the time when you have been subdued and are willing to serve. That is how it will be. You will serve us! We do not deal with others as equals, ever! Is that understood ?’

‘Plain enough.’ Caswell sighed. ‘It was worth a try.’

‘To try what?’

‘I told you about the Master machine, didn’t I? Well, by now we have enough data in there to predict the outcome of this invasion of yours. It’s not one hundred per cent accurate, naturally, but close enough for us.’

‘That I can understand.’ The Dar was suddenly hopeful, but hid it. ‘Your machine tells you that you will lose, so …’

‘No no! That’s just the hell of it. Our machine predicts that we will win!’

‘Hah!’ One of the Ten so far forgot his dignity as to snort aloud. ‘You think you can defeat us ?’

‘Put it this way,’ Caswell looked at his interruptor and then back to Ald. ‘We figure you have a lot of weapon-power you’re not using. So have we. Same reason on both sides. We live here. You want to live here. Neither of us wants suicide, the ecosphere sizzling with radio-activity, or so burned and bleached by chemicals that life is impossible. So it’s a limited war, right ? But we live here. We know the place and all its tricks. And we outnumber you millions to one. So, in the long run, we’re going to win. No doubt about that. The machine says so, and you can’t argue against that.’

Ald raised a palm to quell what looked like further excited interruptions from the Council. One phrase rang a bell. ‘In the long run.’ He singled out his Odar with a bleak eye. ‘Before we go any further we will have insurance. We will be satisfied that this is the truth and not some subtle trick. Bring the detector.’

Caswell eyed apprehensively but with interest the machine console that appeared on silent wheels. Its attendants made for him with obvious intent and he submitted, not having any choice.

‘We have a gadget something like that,’ he offered. ‘We call it a polygraph. Very commonly called a lie-detector. It isn’t, of course.’

‘This one is,’ Ald assured him, and by the time all the connections had been made and checked out, Caswell was prepared to believe it. The machine operator arranged twin read-outs, one for himself, the other where the Council could watch it.

‘Speak some truths,’ he commanded, and Caswell thought a moment.

‘I am human,’ he said. ‘Adult. Male. Dark brown in colour. Weigh about one-fifty. Stand five-eleven. Wearing a fur suit…’

‘Enough. Now some untruths of a similar type.’

‘I’m pale pink, a little girl aged eight with long yellow hair. I’m three feet tall, wearing a blue dress and blue ribbons in my hair.’

The operator put up a hand, turned to bow to the Dar and settle by his controls. Onsep Ald settled back in his chair.

‘We did not,’ he said, ‘settle the question of your authority to speak. We will do that now.’

Caswell shrugged and recited his name, qualifications and his post as head of programme and analysis of the United Earth War-Simulation and Strategic Computer Network, while the Dar kept his eye on the read-out.

‘And your purpose here?’

‘To try and do a deal between us.’

‘Yet your data must surely show that we do not deal?’

‘Right, but it was worth a try.’

Ald frowned at that but kept patient. ‘And you say your machine predicts the final victory will go to you?’

‘Right. In the long run.’

Ald lost his patience. ‘You know—believe—that you will win and yet you come here with peace offers that you know we will not hear? Are you then insane?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Caswell answered, and, for what it was worth, that showed up true on the machine too. Onsep Ald blew vapour disgustedly, then scowled, grew curious, then cunning.

‘Tell me why you are here. The real reason?’

Caswell concealed his relief, hoping it wouldn’t show anything odd on the instruments. ‘It’s this way,’ he said, gathering his ideas. ‘We humans have been fighting each other now for a long time. We are pretty good at war. One way or another there has been a war of some kind, somewhere on this planet of ours, throughout recorded history, for at least five thousand years, probably longer than that. So long, in fact, that we had a queer kind of twisted pride in it. We glorified warriors, remembered battles, counted up our glorious dead like so many score-cards of merit. We expended more money, time and ingenuity on war and weapons than on any other activity there was. Our children played with toy soldiers and toy weapons of war. Our retired and senile war-leaders also played with toy soldiers and toy weapons of war. Almost the whole of our technological spin-off came as the result of war. In fact the very computer network that is my job had its beginnings in “brain” machines that started as war-weapons. And that was all true, up to about thirty years ago. And then—it seemed like overnight—we found we were hanging on the edge by our finger-nails!’

Onsep Ald looked puzzled, so Caswell hastened to explain.

‘We found we were talking about the last war. The end. The finish of everything. We had weapons so big and powerful and dirty that no one could win this one. Just one more and it was all over, for ever.’

‘Yet you are still here?’ Ald suggested.

‘Right. Because while we took a breath to look at that answer, we found something else. That war was irrelevant. It didn’t solve any problems. It just smashed them. And that while we had been so busy blasting, burning and breaking up our war-problem, another kind of enemy had grown up. Not the kind you can fight that way. Pollution. Spoliation. Waste. Over-population. Waste … we were hip-deep in it. Of all kinds. We live here. We still live here … because, about thirty years ago, we grew up. We tried figuring out other ways of settling things. We had to. And we succeeded, in bits and pieces and with hard work. Not easy. But we found several new ways, new solutions. And we have been working them for thirty years. And we have grown to like it.’

Caswell stopped to sigh, to eye the assembled Ten, to wonder if he was getting across to them. ‘It would take me all day to tell you all the ways we are better off by having no more fears, no more destruction, no more hysteria, no more waste of precious assets by making pointless and destructive machines. We have grown to like it. We can see a thousand more ways of progress ahead. And then—you came.’

‘And you remembered how to fight.’ The Dar nodded as certain things became clear to him. But there were still obscurities.

‘We remembered,’ said Caswell bitterly, ‘but we also remember peace. When our predictor told us that the best we could hope for was a long war, about a hundred years of it, before we could expect victory …’

‘Your Machine mentioned that figure? One hundred years?’

‘Right. And it just is not worth it. As I say, we remember peace. We like it. So that’s why I’m here. To try for a treaty, sure. It was worth a try. But if that failed—all right—to offer surrender and find out what your terms are. Anything is better than war—again!’

Ald was completely baffled. He eyed the Machine, this part of it. So too did every member of the Ten. Then they stared at each other. They knew that Caswell spoke true. It said so, right there on the instrument. But it was a truth that Ald just could not believe. To fight and win, that was good. To fight and lose—was very bad. But to be able to win—and yet surrender—was unthinkable! An exchange of glances with the Council told him that they shared the same shattered unbelief. There could be only one answer, the answer that came straight out of Meden first-law. ‘Never deal with the local inhabitants. ‘Never! And hadn’t he himself said this was a crazy planet with crazy people ? He made his decision fast.

‘This interview is concluded. Return that one whence he came, back to his own kind!’

“But what about terms?’ Caswell asked. ‘What do I tell…?’

He might as well have talked to the snow. In short order he was disconnected from the Machine and unceremoniously sent back to the outpost, there to find his baffled way across snow and ice to the human fort he had started from, to be warmed and fed and flown back to his immediate superior.

* * * *

He confronted General Osborne apologetically, with a sense of having failed. ‘I just don’t understand it,’ he confessed. ‘I told them the way it was, that we couldn’t face another century of war, that we wanted to give up, that we’d had enough. You’d think they would jump at it! But they just threw me out!’

‘You’re sure they believed you ?’

‘Positive. They tied me into that lie-detector machine of theirs, that one the prisoners have told us about. They knew, all right.’

‘Yes,’ Osborne smiled kindly. ‘It needed that. It must have been hard for them to believe that we would lay down our arms, just like that. When we could win, if we kept on.’

‘I told them all that,’ Caswell mumbled. ‘I just don’t understand it at all. Complete failure!’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Osborne was still kind. ‘It was a gamble, anyway. You did your best.’

Within forty-eight hours all Meden forces had pulled in tight to either ice-cap. Eight hours after that the dark ships lifted off and went away without a word. General Osborne was very relieved to be able to report this news to World-President Kolodin himself in person.

‘It was a gamble,’ he admitted. ‘But worth trying. I didn’t fancy a century of constant warfare either.’

‘Now I don’t understand,’ Kolodin confessed. ‘You say Dr. Caswell genuinely intended offering total surrender ?’

‘Genuine for him, yes. He’s a pacifist all the way through. He is also a damned fine computer-man. But there are other kinds of computers.’ Osborne touched his head significantly. ‘I’m old enough to have had military training in the old style. One of the things they tell you is “Try to think into the enemy’s pattern.” Computers can handle statistical strategy but they’re not much good at personality problems. The Meden believe in conquest by war and then subjugation by force. They also believe implicitly in their Machine. That much we knew. From their limited observations they knew we were a peaceful planet. They found out different, fast, and that must have shaken them a bit. So, when I heard Caswell arguing, as he had a right to do, that we would be better off if we surrendered, it struck me we had a chance to throw them something they would never believe at all!’

‘Ah! I begin to see. It was all genuine, then?’

‘That was the beauty of it. I’ve read up the record on pacifists. I don’t understand them, at all, but I do know the way they act. Anything, to them, is better than war. The Meden wouldn’t understand that. They also wouldn’t understand how a one hundred per cent pacifist could at the same time be responsible for the working of the War-Simulator and Predictor—just a computation problem to Caswell. And, when I suggested it to him, he was all afire to volunteer. He firmly believed he was speaking on behalf of … no, he was speaking on behalf of all those who think the way he does. So he was the genuine article, all the way down. Their machine said so. And they had to believe their machine.

‘You gambled yourself out of a job. General.’

‘In a way. But it was worth it. Caswell is right on one thing. The last thirty years have been pleasant. And now I can get back to that Central Australia Irrigation problem I was working on. You really need an army organisation there…’