“I’ve heard that till I’m taped for it. I prefer to program myself, thank you.” Vickery paused. “See here,” he continued in a leveled tone, “I agree the situation is critical. We’re all Avaloniads together. If I feel certain of your proposals are unwise, I tell this to the public and the Parliament. But in the end we compromise like reasonable beings.”

Ferune’s face rippled. It was as well that Vickery didn’t notice or wasn’t able to read the meaning. Liaw of The Tarns remained expressionless. Holm grunted, “Go on.”

“I must protest both your proceedings and the manner of them,” Vickery said. “We are not under martial law, and indeed the Compact makes no provision for declaring it.”

“Wasn’t needed in the old days,” Holm said. “The danger was clear and present. I didn’t think it’d be needed now. The Admiralty is responsible for local defense and liaison with armed forces elsewhere in the Domain—”

“Which does not authorize you to stop trade, or raise a tin militia, or anything cutting that deeply into normal Avalonian life. My colleagues and I have endured it thus far, recognizing the necessity of at least some things. But today the necessity is to remind you that you are the servants of the people, not the masters. If the people want your policies executed, they will so instruct their legislative representatives.”

“The Khruaths did call for a home guard and for giving the Admiralty broad discretion,” Liaw of The Tarns said in his rustling voice. He was old, had frost in his feathers; but he sat huge in his castle, and the screen gave a background image of crags and a glacier.

“Parliament—”

“Is still debating,” Holm interrupted to finish. “The Terran Imperium has no such handicap. If you want a legal formula, well, consider us to be acting under choth law.”

“The choths have no government,” Vickery said, reddening.

“What is a government?” asked Liaw, Wyvan of the High Khruath — how softly.

“Why… well, legitimate authority—”

“Yes. The legitimacy derives, ultimately, no matter by what formula, from tradition. The authority derives, no matter by what formula, from armed force! Government is that institution which is legitimized in its use of physical coercion on the people. Have I read your human philosophers and history aright, President Vickery?”

“Well… yes… but—”

“You seem to have forgotten for the moment that the choths have been no more unanimous than your human factions,” Liaw said. “Believe me, they have been divided and they are. Though a majority voted for the latest defense measures, a vocal minority has opposed: feeling, as you do, President Vickery, that the danger has been exaggerated and does not justify lifting that great a load.”

Liaw sat silent for a space, during which the rest of them heard wind whistle behind him and saw a pair of his grandsons fly past. One bore the naked sword which went from house to house as a summons to war, the other a blast rifle.

The High Wyvan said: “Three choths refused to make their gift. My fellows and I threatened to call Qherran on them. Had they not yielded, we would have done so. We consider the situation to be that grave.”

Holm choked. He never told me before! — Of course he wouldn’t have. Ferune grew nearly as still on his bench as Liaw. Vickery drew breath; sweat broke, out on his smoothness; he dabbed at it.

I can almost sympathize, Holm thought. Suddenly getting bashed with reality like that.

Matthew Vickery should have stayed a credit analyst instead of going into politics (Holm’s mind rambled on, at the back of its own shocked alertness). Then he’d have been harmless, in fact useful; interspecies economics is often a wonderland in need of all the study anyone can give it. The trouble was, on a thinly settled globe like Avalon, government never had been too important aside from basic issues of ecology and defense. In recent decades its functions had dwindled still further, as human society changed under Ythrian influence. (A twinge of pain.) Voting was light for offices that looked merely managerial. Hence the more reactionary humans were able to elect Vickery, who Viewed With Alarm the trend toward Ythrianization. (Was no alarm justified?) He had nothing else to offer, in these darkening times.

“You understand this is confidential,” Liaw said. “If word got about, the choths in question would have to consider it a deathpride matter.”

“Yes,” Vickery whispered.

Another silence. Holm’s cigar had burned short, was scorching his fingers. He stubbed it out. It stank. He started a new one. I smoke too much, he thought. Drink too much also, maybe, of late. But the work’s getting done, as far as circumstance allows.

Vickery wet his lips. “This puts… another complexion on affairs, doesn’t it?” he said. “May I speak plainly? I must know if this is a hint that… you may come to feel yourselves compelled to a coup d’etat.”

“We have better uses for our energies,” Liaw told him. “Your efforts in Parliament could be helpful.”

“Well — you realize I can’t surrender my principles. I must be free to speak.”

“It is written in the Compact,” Ferune said, and his quotation did not seem superfluous even by Ythrian standards, “’Humans inhabiting Avalon have the deathpride right of free speech, publication, and broadcast, limited only by the deathpride rights of privacy and honor and by the requirements of protection against foreign enemies.”

“I meant—” Vickery swallowed. But he had not been years in politics for nothing. “I meant simply that friendly criticism and suggestions will always be in order,” he said with most of his accustomed ease. “However, we certainly cannot risk a civil war. Shall we discuss details of a policy of nonpartisan cooperation?”

Behind the ready words, fear could still be sensed. Holm imagined he could almost read Vickery’s mind, reviewing the full significance of what Liaw had said.

How shall a fierce, haughty, intensely clannish and territorial race regulate its public business?

Just as on Terra, different cultures on Ythri at different periods in their histories have given a variety of answers, none wholly satisfactory or permanently enduring. The Planha speakers happened to be the most wealthy and progressive when the first explorers arrived; one is tempted to call them “Hellenistic.” Eagerly adopting modern technology, they soon absorbed others into their system while modifying it to suit changed conditions.

This was the easier because the system did not require uniformity. Within its possessions — whether these were scattered or a single block of land or sea — a choth was independent. Tradition determined what constituted a choth, though this was a tradition which slowly changed itself, as every living usage must. Tribe, anarchism, despotism, loose federation, theocracy, clan, extended family, corporation, on and on through concepts for which there are no human words, a choth ran itself.

Mostly, internal ordering was by custom and public opinion rather than by prescription and force. After all, families rarely lived close together; hence friction was minimal. The commonest sanction was a kind of weregild, the most extreme was enslavement. In between was outlawry; for some specified period, which might run as high as life, the wrongdoer could be killed by anyone without penalty, and to aid him was to incur the same punishment. Another possible sentence was exile, with outlawry automatic in case of return before the term was up. This was harsh to an Ythrian. On the other hand, the really disaffected could easily leave home (how do you fence in the sky?) and apply for membership in a choth more to their taste.

Now of course some recognized body had to try cases and hand down judgments. It must likewise settle inter-choth disputes and establish policies and undertakings for the common weal. Thus in ancient times arose the Khruath, a periodic gathering of all free adults in a given territory who cared to come. It had judicial and limited legislative authority, but no administrative. The winners of lawsuits, the successful promoters of schemes and ordinances, must depend on willingness to comply or on what strength they could muster to enforce.