The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [59]
"So this is ... what, an arms limitation conference?"
"That's right. The envoys all have the power to agree that their respective races will stop using certain weapons. The losers give up their doomsday devices in exchange for the winners giving up some of the dirtier weapons that don't discriminate between military and civilian targets. My hope is that by the time they've finished, there won't be very much left for them to fight with." He sighed as he gazed down at the jungle. "I sent out robot messengers twenty years ago with the invitations. The Daleks and the Cybermen refused even to respond, of course, and destroyed the messengers out of spite, but a lot of the other, second-rank races were interested. That was all I got for a while - interest.
Nobody could agree on a location or a chairman that they trusted."
"Until you chose the Earth for the location and the Doctor for the chairman," Vicki prompted.
"Exactly," Braxiatel nodded. "The Earth is a developing world with a bright future ahead of it. Within a thousand years or so it will become a dominant force in this part of the galaxy, partly because of its unique strategic position but mostly because of the unique ability of its inhabitants."
"I didn't know that we had any unique abilities," Vicki said.
"You don't," Braxiatel replied, "that's your unique ability. Other races specialize in trade, or warmongering, or shapeshifting. You humans are generalists, and for that reason you can do everything reasonably well, rather than one thing very well and everything else badly. I thought that holding the conference on Earth would remind the various envoys that they were all young and powerless once." He turned to face Vicki. "It's also conveniently placed for everyone, of course, and at this point in its history it's on the verge of mass-producing cheap but effective weapons using a powder that was originally developed for fireworks - a reminder to all the envoys that even the most innocent of research programmes can be perverted to a military end."
"And the spaceships of all the envoys are parked on the moon?"
He nodded. "Less conspicuous that way. We shuttle them down here in spaceworthy skiffs. And, of course, all of the envoys' ships are heavily armed. Most of them brought examples of the weapons that they'll be discussing. It's safer to have them all out of temptation's way. The ships are all empty - the envoys and their crews have all been quartered down on Earth in whatever locations are most comfortable and, by and large, uninhabited. The Ice Warriors have a base near the North Pole, the Krargs are in the Sahara, the Vilp are deep underground and so on. The Greld have been here longest. They agreed on the location almost straight away, twenty years ago, and I had them quartered out in what you would probably know as North America. They've used the time to teach themselves standard Galactispeak, but they can't quite come to grips with the fact that verbs and personal pronouns don't come at the end of sentences. That, incidentally, is why Albrellian is a little... flighty. He's been waiting so long for this convention to start that he's on edge all the time. I think they call it
"stir crazy". We've had more problems with the Greld delegation going out formation flying than with anyone else."
Vicki felt herself blushing slightly, and looked away. "Is that why he said... that he loved me?"
Braxiatel was equally embarrassed, judging by his tone of voice.
"The Greld are a very... sensuous... race. They take their physical pleasures very seriously, and they're enlightened enough not to restrict themselves to members of their own race." Vicki glanced over to find Braxiatel furiously polishing his bifocals. "There are no female Greld in the delegation, and I've