"Race, our world is dying. We can't stand against Terra.
And there are other things, worse things."
I sat up, surprised to find myself defending Terra to this girl. After
all these years I was back in my own world. And yet I heard myself say
quietly, "The Terrans aren't exploiting Wolf. We haven't abolished the
rule of Shainsa. We've changed nothing."
It was true. Terra held Wolf by compact, not conquest. They paid, and
paid generously, for the lease of the lands where their Trade Cities
would rise, and stepped beyond them only when invited to do so.
"We let any city or state that wants to keep its independence govern
itself until it collapses, Dallisa. And they do collapse after a
generation or so. Very few primitive planets can hold out against us.
The people themselves get tired of living under feudal or theocratic
systems, and they beg to be taken into the Empire. That's all."
"But that's just it," Dallisa argued. "You give the people all those
things we used to give them, and you do it better.
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