Birthright

Weeks later he was summoned to Renyan's office, where once again he met Agatha Moore, now in

charge of the newly formed Commission of Alien Rights. A brief discussion of minor problems followed, after which Renyan broke open a bottle of his finest liqueur, and passed glasses around. “To Man,” he said, raising his glass, “who may not have come out of all this smelling like a rose, but who came out on top all the same.”

“Do you really think so, Mr. Renyan?” asked Agatha Moore. “Absolutely,” said Renyan expansively. “In one fell swoop we've added twenty percent to the Republic's annual income, nipped what amounted to an insurrection in the bud, satisfied if not delighted our fellow races, and secured Man's political power for the foreseeable future.” “And what do you think, Mr. Ngana?” she asked. “I think Man has had it,” he replied bluntly. "What?"demanded Renyan.

“Oh, not tomorrow, or even a century from now. I bought us quite a bit of time,” said Ngana. “But the handwriting is on the wall. We expanded too far too fast, tried to do too much too soon. In a matter of four or five hundred more years we'll have run out of stepping blocks to throw at the other races and we'll be out in the cold. I've secured us enough military might so that we'll survive. In fact, we'll do more than survive; we'll thrive and prosper. What we will not do is rule the galaxy with an iron hand. Not yet, anyway. The first chapter in Man's galactic history is coming to an end. The best we can do is consolidate what we've got and try to hang onto it for a few millennia; then we'll be ready to move forward again.”

“You sound as if we're about to enter a galactic Dark Age,” scoffed Renyan. “No,” said Ngana. “But our first Golden Age is going to get rather tarnished in the years ahead. Am I correct, Miss Moore?”

“Absolutely,” said Agatha Moore.

“Well, I'll be damned!” snapped Renyan. “You make it sound as if you sold us out!” “Not at all,” said Ngana. “I simply postponed the inevitable for as long as I could, and got us the best bargain I could manage. The problem was a fault inherent in our basic dream of Empire ... and make no mistake about it: Empire is what we were dreaming of. To control a world, you must control its economy, but for a world to have an economy it must be enlightened enough to ultimately desire fair payment for its labors. They happened to pick this point in history to demand that payment. “If it will make you feel any better, Man will continue to be the most potent and powerful single race in the galaxy. But a millennium or so from now, he will stand alone and apart from a galaxy that will be more or less united against him, or at least a galaxy with goals considerably different from his. Then Man will begin the second stage of his destiny. The first was to overcome the obstacles of Nature, and he succeeded with consummate ease. The next step will be to overcome the intelligent races of the galaxy, some of them a by-product of Nature, some bastard stepchildren of an illegitimate union between Man and Nature, for many of them would not have had their annoying drives and ambitions without our