Meiya Aotani looked down onto earth from 200 kilometers. He could not see the bulk of his own ship, but he could see the entirety of Kakyuu's flagship below. It made the crude space platform of the natives look like a toy.
<We could conquer this world in a hundred sorons,> thought Kakyuu's consort. But of course, it would take much longer than that. The fastest Hrrr ships would take months to reach here, perhaps years, and that was assuming they had gotten his clues as to Earth's location and their masters believed those clues. A proper fleet would need at least ten years, or maybe twenty, by his estimate. He was not a spacer to know these things in his blood, but he did not think he could be that far from wrong. It might be still longer, if there was a hostile power blocking the route.
But they would come. They would come, even if he did not live to see them . . .
Returning his mind to the present, he reflected on how few people he could really trust with his secrets or any part of them. He did not even know all of his agents; they used a cell system, of course, to prevent the capture of one from leading to too much exposure of others. But there were political possibilities to exploit, too . . . Meiya glanced at Wemi, Taiki's consort. <Not her.> Not yet, at least, despite Taiki and Kakyuu's little dividend. Murikaz, Seiya's consort, had more possibilities, perhaps, but Murikum was a card he wasn't willing to play with her without much more consideration. Seiya had some kind of special history with the sovereign of this primitive world; he was sure that was why he had been selected to go ahead of all the others.
<Incredible.> The platform below did not even have a fusion reactor. According to the spacers, it got all its power from its solar panels which were incredibly inefficient. Energy storage was even more primitive. No worries about energy weapons; this thing had barely enough power to keep the lights on when Earth was between it and the Sun. Just getting aboard the thing took hours of rigging. Finally the spacers rigged up an adaptor that would fit the airlocks on the platform from one of their small craft. As Meiya was about to board another gig to take him to the platform (it would connect to the first) a medical technician injected him with something, and then handed him a self-medicator. "You'll need it."
"Why? Are they diseased?"
"I hope not, but . . . You ever done any work in a space suit?"
"No, of course not!" It was like asking if he had ever cleaned a stable.
"Well, then, you've never been in free fall very long. They don't have artificial gravity on that thing. I gave you enough to last maybe 100 sorons. Give your self a boost if you start feeling like you are about to throw up. Can't do much speechifying if you are throwing your lunch on your audience."
Cheeky, like all free spacers. Meiya formed his face into the mask he must wear, and practiced holding it on the ride to speak with the barbarians.
Where on earth do you make the first formal contact with extraterrestrials? The President of the United States had decided: not on Earth. The International Space Station was truly international, so no country would seem unduly favored (or imposed on.) While the U.N. was, technically, extraterritorial, the reality was that space was not as politically sensitive as New York or even Geneva, and the parking was better. So was the security, at least against Earthlings.
Getting actual diplomats aboard was another matter. There was a cover plan—a conference on space issues held in space—but the Kinmokunai had shown up early. Thus it was that the various citizens aboard the ISS became representatives of their countries. It was not by co-incidence, however, that recent crew rotations had placed some new people aboard, nor that China, Japan, France, Britain and India were represented, as well as the old spacefaring powers, the United States and Russia.
Meiya could have had Kakyuu to translate—she spoke Nihongo and Eigo, the most widely understood language on the barbarian planet. But he brought his own translators, saying (truly enough) that Kakyuu was quite busy dealing with the problems of the refugee fleet. Happily, this would also establish an image in the minds of the barbarians that the newcomers spoke first through himself. His would be the first voice heard, his face the first seen among the rabble. From what Kakyuu had said, the common people had stronger voices on Earth. It would do well to make the best impression he could on them. That could be quite useful, for instance, when the time came for him to act against their leaders.
The primitive airlock defeated his plans. There was room inside it for only two. He'd seen something like it in a museum once, with an approximate date. He had to choose who to send first. He had to go first himself; he could not let his translators go ahead and be alone with the barbarians. They might say something foolish, after all. So he decided to go with the one best versed in Eigo.
The airlock seemed to take forever to cycle. At last the inner hatch opened. A grinning barbarion with a fur-covered jaw beckoned them forward. Wearing his most accommodating face, Meiya Aotani pinched the translator's butt hard, reminding her that she had to go first to introduce him.
General Rodmistrof eased the first visitor inside. The others saw it was a woman, dressed in baggy trousers and a jacket with voluminous sleeves but fitting her torso snuggly. She had long green hair bound in a ponytail by several jeweled chains. And these were the exact golden first words she spoke:
"He nama Meiya Aotani. He Ambassador fo Kinmokunai. He wif Kakyuu-temou."
Dr. Patel said, "Welcome, Madame Ambassador."
Rodmistrov barked laughter. "I think she means this gentleman is their Ambassador," he explained, guiding the second alien inside.
Meiya would not have survived this long without a great presence of mind. It took only minutes for him to realize that his "translator" had a laughable grasp of Eigo, which all the other barbarians understood. So he tried Nihongo, and found one of the barbarians—not surprisingly the one he disliked the least—responded. It was fortunate; there is never a second chance to make a first impression, and he did not want this meeting to be remembered only as a humorous story.
But there would be more misunderstandings. Sakagawa had to translate for the others, of course, because none of them could speak Nihongo (he told Meiya.)
At the earliest moment, Meiya re-assured the barbarians about their peaceful intentions, though he was still digesting news only hours old to himself.
"We come in peace. We seek only to settle among your people."
Qing responded to that. "Some of your ships are obviously armed. Do you intend to keep your weapons?"
Meiya had anticipated that question, of course. "The soldiers of Kinmoku obey their sovereign, Empress Kakyuu, who came to you quietly—" secretly, but it was better not to point that out—"ahead of our fleet. Empress Kakyuu has already ordered all our soldiers to swear allegience to your own sovereign, Empress Usagi."
Sakagawa told the others, "He says their queen came ahead, and that she told all her soldiers to follow the rabbit queen."
"The Rabbit Queen?"
They didn't understand. Meiya patiently repeated himself, rephrasing. Obviously Kakyuu's grasp of Nihongo had not been perfect to begin with, but he failed to see how he could have such difficulty explaining such a universal concept.
After quite a bit of interplay in Japanese, Sakagawa told the others, "He says he wants to speak with someone named Usagi—that is ‘rabbit' or ‘hare' in my language.
"Usagi?" asked one of the Americans.
"What he seems to be saying is that—"
The other American, who was wearing headphones, pressed the switch on a tiny transmitter. The station was plunged into darkness, and the live audiovideo feed stopped.
Unfortunately, about one billion people had already seen and heard what had come earlier, and tens of millions of them recorded it, including nearly 10 million Japanese households.
Rodmistrov knew exactly why the power had gone off—he was about to hit his own hidden switch but someone else beat him to it. He pretended to look for the "malfunction" while waiting keeping an eye on the Americans, the aliens, and the rest.
"It must be those General Electric parts from America," joked Rodmistrov. "I will insist on all-Russian parts for my next space station!"
Meiya missed the humor, but he had not missed that the barbarians were playing some kind of game with him and with each other. He suspected, correctly, that learning enough about them and their ways to manipulate them was going to be even more difficult than he had imagined.
Meiya waited patiently, knowing that they would want to meet somewhere away from him. Of course, every word they said was being recorded through the sensors on his ship, which could reconstruct sound within the platform from the vibrations they made on the surface. Eventually the words would be understandable.
After nearly an hour of farce, the aliens, except one, had moved to another compartment.
Rodmistrov had in meantime communicated with his own government. Now he had permission to be blunt. "What are you Americans about? I know you can speak Japanese, Dr. Vanajen—if that is your real name. You understood what the alien was saying before Sakagawa translated."
Qing, the Chinese, turned to Sakagawa and demanded to know if the Americans and the Japanese had some secret, illegal agreement.
Strassmann (impeccably French despite his Teutonic name) said "I would not like to believe this of our friends, but when he speaks of our Empress, one must suspect he means either the President of the United States or your own Empress, Sakagawa-san."
"Perhaps you have forgotten we still have a Queen," Sir Harold interjected. "But surely this is some kind of misunderstanding? If you chaps have made some private agreement with the extraterrestrials, I shall have to stand with my French colleague and say that this seems in bad faith. And that is to say Her Majesty's Government stands with France and with the rest of the European Union, and with China, India, and all the nations not represented here who were not party to this agreement. If there is an agreement."
Sakagawa was not about to let Japan become a target. "The Ambassador was quite specific. He said their queen or empress spoke with ours—that is, with Earth's empress and that she agreed. Our Empress—Japan's sovereign—is only nine years old. So the Ambassador can only have meant the American President."
Dr. Vanejen—or Major Verhofen as he actually was—decided to exercise initiative. His secure link had fritzed—probably courtesy of Rodmistrov or the other Russky, but he really didn't want to know—so he was on his own. "No, the Ambassador really meant the Rabbit Queen."
None of the others responded with words, only expressions and unconscious noises.
"Her name is ‘Usagi,' and she lives in California. She grew up in Japan, though, and that's where she met their Empress a long time ago."
The Frenchman said, "If this is a joke, Monsieur—"
"I thought you might know. Maybe your government does."
"What do you mean?" demanded Straussmann and several others at once.
Verhofen was a soldier-intellectual, but he was a soldier, and he knew how to take command. "All of you here must have some of the highest clearances your governments give out or you would not be here now. I am going to assume that we are all out of communication, and that we all have authority to act for our governments now. Do all of you agree?"
They all did, Qing last.
"Good. Now the reason I thought Dr. Straussmann might know about the Rabbit Queen is because she was at the White House during the table last summer."
"She was?" It was Harold Knollys speaking.
"She was a guest of Michiru's."
"How does this person know their queen?" asked Knollys.
"Why is she so important to their empress?" asked Patel.
"Because," said Major Verhofen, looking at Sakagawa to check his reaction, "Usagi is the leader of the bishoujo senshi."
Sakagawa was surprised or the best actor alive. "Bishoujo senshi? Seeramuun?"
"Soldiers?" asked Straussman, betraying that he understood Japanese.
"Bishoujo senshi. Angel girls. They appeared at the White House . . . of course," muttered Rodmistrov. "She is the leader of the Japanese angels?"
"Of all of them," said Verhofen. "There are more than Sakagawa-san has probably heard of. Probably more than I know about myself. So, in a manner of speaking, Ms. Usagi Chiba is the queen of the whole world. Of course," he paused, "That's not the story we are going to release."
"And what would that story be, my American colleague?" Rodmistrov asked drily.
"We will say that in order to adapt her people to life here, she has made a decision which is a bit unconventional. Instead of handing over her soldiers to the United Nations or some individual nation or group of nations—the spacefaring powers, for instance—their Empress has given over her fealty to an old friend of hers here on Earth. Not a potentate or a president or a premier, but a 40-kilogram homemaker in a wheelchair who lives in a borrowed home in California, trying to raise four children on death benefits and the kindness of her family and friends."
"Such a release might be made," said Sir Harold, "If you manage to convince us it should. Is any of this true?"
"Yes, it is."
"How do you know so much of this woman?" asked Patel. "Are you telling us what you have been told to tell us?"
"Not exactly," said Verhofen. "I really do know the Rabbit Queen pretty well. You see, in a manner of speaking, she's my mother-in-law.