"This is our token of allegiance to the Dragon-folk tribe. Everyone who opposes talking peace — today… none of you leaves this starport!" Elder Ram said with a cold smile.
"You arranged this vote deliberately, then, for the purpose of weeding out those who differ from you?" Chieftain Ted glared at him.
Elder Ram shrugged, and then clapped his hands.
At once a squad of fully armed soldiers charged into the conference ground, laser rifles trained upon the councilors on Chieftain Ted's side.
"I have no wish to kill you, so you had best not put up pointless resistance. Perhaps if you kneel and beg mercy before His Majesty the Dragon Emperor, there may yet be some possibility of your lineages surviving. And that's right — do not think, either, that the fleets outside the starport will help you. Do you know why I chose this place as the meeting site? Because this starport's patrol fleet is already wholly under my control; and beyond that, at half an hour's sailing from here, the Golden Eagle tribe have dispatched their legion fleets, and they are on their way. When the hour comes I need only hand you over to them, and we shall join the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth and become one of the new thirty great tribes! This civil war should end." Elder Ram sat back down in his chair, wearing the look of a man with victory in hand.
At this the councilors who had just voted against peace fell into confusion, one and all.
Some even began at once to beg mercy of Elder Ram's crew, declaring themselves willing to join the peace faction.
Chieftain Ted, by contrast, showed no anger whatever at this hour; he exchanged a glance with the Black Fox chieftainess beside him.
"Elder Ram, I had supposed that having lived above a hundred years, you would not do so foolish a thing. I had not thought you would, in the end, commit so great an error." Chieftain Ted let out a sigh.
Elder Ram did not see the look of panic and dismay he expected upon Chieftain Ted's face, and it made him most uncomfortable. "Foolish? It is your conduct that is foolish. Do you truly imagine that what you are doing can overthrow the Warhammer's existing order? It is impossible! The Dragon-folk tribe's might is beyond your imagining. They have simply not yet made their move!"
"And do you know why the Dragon-folk tribe have been so slow to move?" the Black Fox chieftainess spoke up.
Elder Ram was taken aback.
The Black Fox chieftainess went on, "It is because the Dragon-folk tribe are playing a game of their own. They mean to unify the whole Warhammer; they too wish to overthrow the old tribal-alliance system. By our Revolutionary Army's hand, the strength of the other tribes is worn down without cease — including those tribal powers who follow the Dragon-folk tribe. And once all has gone smoothly enough, the Dragon-folk tribe will enter the campaign by main force and gather into their own hands every stretch of star-region territory our Revolutionary Army has taken. The Dragon-folk tribe now control a quarter of the Warhammer's star-region map, and we, all told, control about a quarter as well — and may in future reach a third. So the Dragon-folk tribe may, as a matter of course, take these star-region territories from our hands. And by then the Warhammer territory under the Dragon-folk tribe's control will be one half! Over a year or so, the Dragon-folk tribe will digest these Warhammer territories, and then begin the thorough purging of the other tribal powers. Five years hence, the whole Warhammer will no longer have any system of a sovereign rotating once a decade; by then the whole Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth will have one permanent sovereign only, and that the Dragon-folk tribe's chieftain! And every great tribe must submit beneath the Dragon-folk tribe's feet, reduced to something like the lords of other civilizations' systems."
Hearing the Black Fox chieftainess out, Elder Ram's expression shifted between light and shadow, and he retorted, "This is merely your conjecture. The whole Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's twenty great tribes will not permit the Dragon-folk tribe to do such a thing! It will only form a new balance!"
"A balance? Heh, heh, heh. Is that balance not precisely what you are about to shatter? Because of this presumptuous arrangement of yours, a good many of our Revolutionary Army's strongholds will be seized by the Dragon-folk tribe by main force. Do you suppose that the star-region territories the Dragon-folk tribe take into their bag, they will return to their owners? Once a balance is broken, this historic shift of the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth will not stop again," so the Black Fox chieftainess said.
"Nonsense — this is all your conjecture! You have no proof!" Elder Ram was shamed into anger.
"Proof? I have it. If I have not guessed wrongly, the agreement of cooperation you reached with the Dragon Emperor earlier was that they would merely dispatch the Golden Eagle tribe's legion fleets to hasten here and help you destroy and put down our legion fleets. Yes? But what if I told you that what is hastening here now is not the Golden Eagle tribe's legion fleets alone, but the Dragon-folk tribe's legion fleets besides? And at the same time, at other important systems our Revolutionary Army holds, several Dragon-folk legion fleets are bearing down. What do you make of that! Do you still suppose yourself very clever? Even were we all destroyed, do you imagine this pack of clowns could truly talk peace with the Dragon Emperor!" The Black Fox chieftainess put out a projection of an interstellar holo-table.
Upon it were clearly marked the movements of every Dragon-folk fleet — and every one of them, beyond doubt, bore toward the Revolutionary Army's several important stronghold systems.
One of them pointed straight at this very starport where they stood.
"This… this is impossible… this is only the Dragon-folk tribe wishing to control the situation! It is not as you say!" Elder Ram's feelings slipped somewhat out of control; again he denied the Black Fox chieftainess's account.
Chieftain Ted shook his head and said with a sigh, "Chieftainess Hu Ya, say no more. You can never wake a man who is pretending to sleep."
Chieftain Ted fixed his eyes upon Elder Ram and let out a long sigh; this Elder Ram might well be called one of the Revolutionary Army's founders.
"Elder Ram, I still remember the belief you first held when you set out to overthrow the Warhammer. You wished to prove the strength of your ram-folk — and for it you led your lineage away from the War-Ram tribe, which was then one of the twenty great tribes, and founded the ram-folk of the present Revolutionary Army. You meant to prove your own kinsmen of the War-Ram tribe wrong; you meant to build a mightier and greater ram-folk tribe! And now? What difference is there between you and that War-Ram tribe that follows the Dragon-folk? The difference, perhaps, is the color of your coat, the length of your horns — and the laughable look upon your faces when you kneel!" Chieftain Ted said it at the last in anger at one who would not strive.
"Silence! I have changed. And why is that? My children, my descendants, have all died in this meaningless struggle. I cannot go on watching my people be sacrificed. At the least, before I die, I would have my people set at ease. Is that wrong of me!" Elder Ram roared.
"Sacrificed? Who has not sacrificed? Since we set out upon this road of revolution, sacrifice is inevitable. If you feared sacrifice, you should never have left the War-Ram tribe back then; you should have stayed obediently in the sheepfold the Dragon-folk wove for you. And this conduct of yours now will only make those children of yours who died feel that they were failed!" Chieftain Ted looked at Elder Ram in bitter reproach.
Elder Ram's expression turned crazed; he drew the laser pistol at his waist and leveled it at Chieftain Ted.
Which frightened no few of those seated there.
Midai'er, more than that, put herself in front of her own father, and Hu Xin'er made ready to fight.
"Time will prove me right! And you — you shall remain here forever!" Shamed into fury, Elder Ram took aim at Chieftain Ted and squeezed the trigger.
Bang.