Free Aftershocks by Harry Turtledove Page A

who sat across the desk from him, Vyacheslav Molotov shook his head.
“Nyet
,” he said.
    Queek’s translator, a Pole, turned the refusal into its equivalent in the language of the Race. Queek let out another series of hisses and pops and coughs and splutters. The interpreter rendered them into Russian for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR: “The ambassador urges you to contemplate the fate of the Greater German
Reich
before refusing so promptly.”
    That gave Molotov a nasty twinge of fear, as it was doubtless meant to do. Even so, he said,
“Nyet
,” again, and asked Queek, “Are you threatening the peace-loving workers and peasants of the Soviet Union with aggressive war? The
Reich
attacked you; you had the right to resist. If you attack us, we shall also resist, and do so as strongly as possible.”
    “No one speaks of attack.” Queek backtracked a little. “But, considering the harm we suffered from the orbital installations of the
Reich,
it is reasonable for us to seek to limit these in other Tosevite powers.”
    “Nyet
,” Molotov said for the third time. “Fighting between the Race and the Soviet Union stopped with each side recognizing the full sovereignty and independence of the other. We do not seek to infringe on your sovereignty, and you have no right to infringe upon ours. We shall fight to defend it.”
    “Your independence would be respected . . .” Queek began.
    “Nyet
,” Molotov repeated. He knew he sounded like a broken record, knew and didn’t care. “We reckon any infringement a major infringement, one that cannot and will not be tolerated.”
    “That is not an appropriate position for you to take in the present circumstances,” Queek said.
    “I am of the opinion it is perfectly appropriate,” Molotov said. “Are you familiar with the phrase, ‘the thin end of the wedge’?”
    Queek obviously wasn’t. The Pole who translated for him went back and forth with him in the language of the Race. At last, the ambassador said, “Very well: I now grasp the concept. I still believe, however, that you are needlessly concerned.”
    “I do not,” Molotov said stubbornly. “Suppose the Soviet Union tried to impose such conditions on the Race?”
    Queek had no hair, which was the only thing that kept him from bristling. “You have neither the right nor the strength to do any such thing,” he said.
    “You grow indignant when the shoe goes on the other foot,” Molotov said, which required another colloquy between the ambassador and his interpreter. “You have no more right to impose such limits on us than we do on you. And as for strength—we can hurt you, and you know it full well. And you will not have such an easy time wrecking us as you did with the
Reich,
for we are far less concentrated geographically than the Germans were.”
    Queek made noises that put Molotov in mind of a samovar boiling over. The interpreter turned them into rhythmically accented Russian: “Do you presume to threaten the Race?”
    “Nyet
,” Molotov said yet again. “But the Race also has no business threatening the Soviet Union. You need to understand that very clearly.”
    He wondered if Queek did. He wondered if Queek could. Reciprocity was something with which the Race had always had trouble. Down deep, the Lizards didn’t really believe Earth’s independent nations had any business staying that way. They were imperialists first, last, and always.
    “We are stronger than you,” Queek insisted.
    “It could be,” said Molotov, who knew perfectly well it was. “But we have strength enough to protect ourselves, and to protect our rights as a free and independent state.”
    More overheated-teakettle noises came from the Lizards’ ambassador. “This is an unreasonable and insolent attitude,” the translator said.
    “By no means.” Molotov saw a chance to take the initiative, saw it and seized it: “I presume you have made this same demand upon the United States. What