Birthright

A Teroni, its face obscured by the chlorine gas inside its helmet, approached them.

“Where is your delegation?” it asked.

“They'll be here, never fear,” said Thome in Galactic-O. “They had better be,” said the Teroni, walking away to where a number of other chlorine-breathers were gathered.

“I wonder whatis keeping them,” said Lipas softly. “We're not going to be able to stall much longer.” “They're only about half an hour late,” said Thome confidently. “And besides, a third of the aliens aren't here yet either.”

“Butthey aren't vital to the meeting,” said Lipas. “Weare.” That was indeed the crux of it. It was Man who was the focal point of the meeting; any other race or even any group of races was merely window dressing. Man had fallen upon hard times in the past century, hard even compared to those that existed at the beginning of the millennium. From four thousand worlds he was now reduced to less than five hundred. His military might, which during the heyday of the Oligarchy and early Monarchy could not even be computed, was now a matter of record: 53,305 battleships, a standing army of less than a billion, and some seventeen billion hand weapons. These were still formidable figures, but precious few of the races assembled in this room had any reason to be envious of them; most possessed far more firepower, and incomparably better communication systems. Man's economy had suffered even more than his military power. Of his 489 worlds, some 368 were in the throes of a severe depression, while most of the others were fighting a losing battle against runaway inflation. The Deluros VI planetoids, with no finances available to maintain them, had finally been cannibalized and sold to alien scientific establishments. On every front, Man's star was fast approaching its nadir. Isolated anti-human pogroms had turned into widescale wars of extermination, economic sanctions had turned into galaxywide boycotts, and treaties were signed and broken by alien races with the regularity that had once characterized the race of Man. Man responded with bluff, guile, and pressure in proportions that he thought would do the most good; but the aliens had possessed a master teacher for millennia, and had learned their lessons well. So Man resorted to force. Half his meager Navy was lost in one brief battle around Praesepe VI. The entire planet of Aristotle was blown up. The worlds of the Spica system were taken, one by one, in less than a week. Torn and reeling, bloody but unbowed, Man fought on. Or rather, most Men did. But there were a few, such as Thome, who could see no sense in absorbing defeat after defeat, humiliation after humiliation. He did not preach surrender, for no Man—including himself—ever surrendered. But he spoke in favor of reaching a political accommodation with the other races of the galaxy, and soon had so many followers that he was encouraged to form a political party. It ran candidates for offices on Sirius V, Delta Scuti II, and Earth ... and lost every election. After an appropriate interval his followers ran again, and lost again.