The Atom War and the Long Winter

 

By being trustworthy executors of their masters' will, Orions had learned that they could obtain more alien technolgical wisdom, fewer restraints on the education of slaves, and other little freedoms deemed vital to their cause. After 4,000 years, the minor Orion bureaucrats and functionaries gained a good measure of what they requested and the Orions grew more prosperous and civilized.

One of the Orion bureaucrats' successes was the gain of nuclear technology. Thousands of years of listening to alien diplomatic dickering over nuclear deterrence taught the Orions that deterrents could slow down or even stop the warfare on Botchok-a worthwhile and admirable goal. As soon as they constructed their own nuclear weapons, the Orions triumphantly delivered to their owners an ultimatum: depart the Rigel system or face annihilation.

The Orion officials should not be blamed for grossly miscalculating their masters' reaction. After holding secret meetings off Botchok, the alien property-holders exploded their own nuclear weapons on Botchok. Despite Botchok's importance as an involuntary keeper of the peace, a generation without it did not much overtrouble the aliens. Kammzdast was modified to keep Orions away from nuclear technology, and other harmful knowledge-not that there were many Orions left on Botchok. Approximately 85% of Botchok's native population would be dead before the Atom War and the Long Winter ended. The aliens had Orions off Botchok that they could breed for slaves; sooner or later Botchok would become habitable again and they could rebuild. There was no great interest in saving the lives of slaves bred to fight and die anyway. While all modern interstellar races have detonated atomic weaponry on their respective homeworlds, only the Orions own homeworld would ever experience large-scale nuclear warfare, and the resulting nuclear winter. While no hard numbers are available, it is estimated that approximately 6 billion Orions perished within a century on Botchok.

Eventually, the aliens began rebuilding Botchok with Orions 'imported' from elsewhere, who were not radiation-damaged or starving. If anything, these 'imported' Orions were even more outraged than the surviving Homeworlders and more determined to wrest free of careless coldblooded invaders. Compiled soon after the planet was repopulated, the Book of Tears describes the awful waste and destruction newcomers and natives were forced to clean up. Here and there are vows that Orions will never again allow themselves to be so callously manipulated. Orions would never again allow themselves to be so callously manipulated. Denied advanced technical knowledge, the Orions plotted to develop their own, steal, or do without. The Book of Tears is also, tragically enough, the first major work of literature produced in Orion culture, and exists today in original manuscript form at the Kammzdast Museum of Orion Civilization on Kammzdast, in a vacuum-sealed, neutronium-cast rodinum case, and has (perhaps predictably enough) never been displayed.

By and large, the orions stole most of the information they subsequently acquired. To win free of the aliens, however, the Orions needed to convince every alien race that they were too much trouble to govern. This was a monumental task. The limits in the Treaty of Kammzdast were firm, and had outlasted most of the original signatory races as well as the Long Winter. To undo all that would take time, excrutiating patience, and equally excruciating feats of planning and restraint.

The adjustments of Kammzdast at the Rigel Conferences were always tiny and grudging, and those who ratified the Treaty never relinquished a whit of actual power. Even as the old races faded from the galactic scene and new ones rose to msatery, Kammzdast remained in force. To be free of it, the Orions used an odd weapon: reliability. If they obeyed enough orders, served with enough humility, and were sufficently selfless, then they would become trusted.

Over a very long time, the Orions did succeed. They buried their reputation as barbarians under thousands of years of loyal service to whatever race wanted to use them. Patiently, they acquired a reputation as faithful, reliable servants whose loyalty could not be stolen. Their long presence on the galactic scene made them valuable advisors and confidants; it was said that if an Orion had not seen it, it did not exist. Although their homeworld was still a battlefield, the Orions gradually instituted rules for battlefield conduct that reduced costs and casualties while preserving patron control and the thrill of actual combat.