"Walter Jon Williams - The Crown Jewels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

ing military battle stations, chose to resist, and once these
were disposed of, the sensible majority sensibly surrendered.

Most Khosali conquests work that way. They've en-
countered only a few alien races that weren't as sensible as
humanity, and these were, with regret, extinguished down
to the last individual, and sincerely mourned afterward.
The Khosaii, admirable as they may be in other respects,
do not see the humor in other species' independence. The
whole point of the Imperial System is universal allegiance
to the Emperor, and without that everything goes down the
drain.

19

20

WALTER JON WILLIAMS

The Khosali, as conquerors go, are fairly enlightened.
They don't interfere with local institutions or religions if
they can help it; their taxation is, on the whole, light; they
import tens of thousands of teachers and missionaries to
elevate the subject race to a useful near-equality and an
appreciation of High Custom. When a race is sufficiently
advanced, members will begin appearing on the Imperial
Council and in positions of importance throughout the

Empire,

There will, of course, be a few changes. There are
garrisons; the news gets censored—Khosali are stuffy, but
not stupid. High Custom defines what the Khosali consider
best about themselves: their formality, their elegance, their
rigid idealism. The Khosali consider High Custom a uni-
versal, but the reality of High Custom is that it's a test. If
an alien can master the intricacies of High Custom, she
proves herself someone the Khosali can talk to and deal
with. That's what the missionaries and teachers are really
about; they're fishers of men, dipping their hooks into the
oceans of alien races, searching for those capable of stand-
ing as intermediaries between the Khosali and their own
race, capable of communicating with both, interpreting

one to the other.-

Such lucky individuals often find themselves ennobled.
Silly, really, but the Khosali insist. What's an Imperial
System without a hereditary aristocracy? Earth had gone
through one convulsion after another trying to get rid of its