Page 9 - Effable Encounters

Batrachomyomachy
(Fantastic Transactions 1, 1990)

The frogs and mice waged war fitfully, advancing in military
sophistication as they asymptotically approached stalemate. Their
territories adjoined: the disputed border area providing a zone of
pitched battles, troop maneuvers, propaganda, and intrigue. Advance
scouts were recruited, turned, and sent back as double agents.
Pacifists also made contact with their opposite numbers interbellum,
their treachery tolerated by each side’s ruling generals as an escape-
valve for dissidence and a light workout for the secret police.
Lines had recently been drawn, however, which neither belligerent
was eager to cross. Powerful strategies and weapons had evolved,
striking a balance of terror between both parties: the frogs could
flood the rodent homeland by tunneling beneath the roots of a tree,
at the cost of their pond; the mice could gnaw at those roots to fell
the tree and crush the pond, but lose their own habitat in the process.
Sapper corps stood at the ready, trained and disciplined to implement
the policy of mutual destruction at a moment’s notice.
It was felt among the generally uneasy frog and mouse populations
that their leaders would either establish a lasting peace or destroy the
known world. Alas, knowing the necessity of preventing total war did
not counteract old habits and ideologies. Each side wanted some sort
of victory, neither any sort of defeat. Compromise equaled cowardice
in official government pronouncements, and few voices were raised
in opposition.
One dissenting voice, however, could be heard within the
batrachian military establishment itself. Professor Lonestone, a
respected scientist, had been for years working on the top-secret
Operation Deluge; his credentials were impeccable, his loyalty
unquestioned. Nevertheless, his participation in designing the
machinery of doomsday had brought his inquiring mind into direct
contact with the paradoxes of the situation. As a result, he had
carried out certain unauthorized researches on his own, upon
conclusion of which he dutifully scheduled an appointment with the
commander-in-chief to present his findings.

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