The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [5]
So there was war from the start, a war in which six worlds and many fleets of spacecraft died before ever the Ilwan and the Chirpsithra tried to talk to each other.
Communication was the work of computer programmers of both species. The diplomats got into it later. The problem was simple and basic.
The Ilwan wanted to keep expanding. The Chirpsithra were in the way.
Both species had evolved for red dwarf sunlight. They used worlds of about one terrestrial mass, a little colder, with oxygen atmospheres.
“A war of extermination seemed likely,” said the Chirpsithra. She brushed her thumbs along the contacts of the sparker, once and again. Her speech slowed, became more precise. “We made offers, of course. A vacant region to be established between the two empires; each could expand along the opposite border. This would have favored the Ilwan, as they were nearer the star-crowded galactic core. They would not agree. When they were sure that we would not vacate their worlds ...” She used the intrinsic possessive, and paused to be sure I’d seen the point.
“They broke off communication. They resumed their attacks.
“It became our task to learn more of the Ilwan. It was difficult. We could hardly send disguised spies!” Her companions chittered at that. She said, “We learned Ilwan physiology from captured warriors. We learned depressing things. The Ilwan bred faster than we did; their empire included thrice the volume of ours. Beyond that the prisoners would not give information. We did our best to make them comfortable, in the hope that some day there would be a prisoner exchange. That was how we learned the Ilwan secret.
“Rick Schumann, do you know that we evolved on a one-face world?”
“I don’t know the term,” I said.
“And you have spoken Lottl for thirty years!” Her companions chittered. “But you will appreciate that the worlds we need huddle close to their small, cool suns. Else they would not be warm enough to hold liquid water. So close are they that tidal forces generally stop their rotation, so that they always turn one face to the sun, as your moon faces Earth.”
“I’d think that all the water would freeze across the night side. The air too.”
“No, there is circulation. Hot winds rise on the day side and blow to the night side, and cool, and sink, and the cold winds blow across the surface back to the day side. On the surface a hurricane blows always toward the noon pole.”
“I think I get the picture. You wouldn’t need a compass on a one-face world. The wind always points in the same direction.”
“Half true. There are local variations. But there are couplet worlds too. Around a red dwarf sun the planetary system tends to cluster close. Often enough, world-sized bodies orbit one another. For tidal reasons they face each other; they do not face the sun. Five percent of habitable worlds are found in couplets.”
“The Ilwan came from one of those?”
“You are alert. Yes. Our Ilwan prisoners were most uncomfortable until we shut their air-conditioning almost off. They wanted darkness to sleep, and the same temperatures all the time. The conclusion was clear. We found that the worlds they had attacked in the earlier stages of the war were couplet worlds.”
“That seems simple enough.”
“One would think so. The couplet worlds are not that desirable to us. We find their weather dull, insipid. There is a way to make the weather more interesting on a couplet world, but we were willing to give them freely.
“But the Ilwan fought on. They would not communicate. We could not tolerate their attacks on our ships and on our other worlds.” She took another jolt of current. “Ssss ... We needed a way to bring them to the conference arena.”
“What did you do?”
“We began a program of evacuating couplet worlds wherever the Ilwan ships came near.”
I leaned back in my chair: a high