Illustration by John Allemand
|
Holding truths to be self-evident
can be risky business.
|
The world of Zornley presented no special problems for a new and inexperienced coordinator—which was, without a doubt, the reason Howitt Raarn had been assigned there, though it was virtually an insult to call Raarn "inexperienced." He had held every office from novice to assistant coordinator in assignments across the galaxy, performing well and even with occasional flashes of imagination that his superiors termed "brilliant." He was popular with both superiors and subordinates, and he had long been singled-out for higher office. When a suitable world became available, his name headed the list.
He was a balding, huskily-built, pleasant-appearing man. His linguistic skills were legendary in the service, and that fame had preceded him. His first meeting with his staff went well. It marked the beginning of a learning experience for all of them—Raarn had to learn about a totally strange world, and the staff had to begin noting the eccentricities of a new coordinator. Every coordinator had at least a few.
When Raarn finally dismissed the meeting, he sat for a time gazing at the large window that filled one wall of his office. It looked out on the spectacular beauty of Zornley’s most inaccessible mountain range. The Interplanetary Relations Bureau had its own eccentricities, and one of them was to locate its principal base on each world where no native could possibly stumble onto it, even accidentally. Raarn had no objections. In the long run, beauty would be less wearisome than ugliness.
He ran his eye over the jagged peaks once more and finally turned away with a sigh. His gaze next fell on a framed motto that—by regulation—hung on the wall in every room of every IPR Headquarters in the galaxy: "Democracy Imposed From Without is the Severest Form of Tyranny." Raarn probably had seen it seven or eight thousand times and even paused to reread it and reflect on it several hundred. Now he reflected on it again and with puzzlement.
"I wonder if it’s ever been tried," he mused. He continued to stare at it. Finally he turned to the computer on his desk and evoked a page of quotations:
"Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and gives in the long run a net result of zero."He thought about that for a long time before he tried another. "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
He tried again: "Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them." He spent some time meditating the differences between counting and weighing votes. Finally he spoke into his desk’s communicator.
A long twenty minutes later, Rhys Hulme, the base’s elderly archivist, limped into his office. Hulme had been eligible for retirement years before, but the IPR Bureau was his life, he did his job competently, and he possessed even at his advanced age a fantastic memory that occasionally made him invaluable. He stood before Raarn’s desk squinting near-sightedly at him.
"Sit down, sit down," Raarn said impatiently, indicating a chair. "I’ve just had a spasm of curiosity. See that motto opposite my desk?"
Hulme squinted at it; returned his squint to Raarn. This time there was an expression of deep puzzlement on his face.
"I suddenly found myself wondering," Raarn said. "Has it ever been tried?"
". . . ever been . . ."
"I mean—has anyone ever tried imposing democracy from without just to see what would happen?"
Hulme relaxed. "That’s been done hundreds if not thousands of times. A conqueror always thinks his own customs and institutions are best, and he imposes them on the conquered. No doubt an especially severe form of tyranny has sometimes resulted. Maybe it always results. I don’t recall any studies . . ."
"It just occurred to me that Zornley might be an excellent world to try such an experiment on. Is there enough money in the budget to buy one of those petty kingdoms?"
"Not my department," Hulme murmured.
"To be sure. Thanks for the information."
Hulme went out and quietly spread the word: The eccentricities this new coordinator had were lulus.
Raarn returned his attention to the computer and began administering a crash course in Zornley political science to himself. Zornley was a patchwork of small political entities. On other worlds, these abbreviated political units would have been miniature baronies or dukedoms, or something comparable. On Zornley, the smallest were called narms, each with a ruler called a narmlich, who owed his allegiance to the ruler of the nearest cynarm, a somewhat larger political entity. The ruler of a cynarm, called a cynlich, owed his allegiance to the nearest postlich, who ruled a postarm, a still larger political entity comparable perhaps to a miniature kingdom. In this land of primitive communications and bad roads, a ruler had genuine difficulty in governing his territory if it got very large, which certainly had contributed to the fact that these political entities were so tiny—or seemed so to an outsider.
Those located on rivers or oceans, where they could make use of water transportation, had an enormous advantage. Zornley’s engineers had not yet thought of canals, and somewhere in Raarn’s files were minutes of an acrimonious debate as to whether the IPR Bureau should invent them and save the world centuries of floundering with bad communications and terrible transport. The suggestion had got entangled in the red tape of IPR regulations and was overwhelmingly voted down. The IPR Bureau was understandably cautious about opening Pandora’s Box.
In the relations between these primitive states, a cynlich could lord it over a narmlich but had to watch his step with a postlich. No doubt postlichs had their own status arrangements in their dealings with each other.
It all seemed highly complicated, but it worked. War was non-existent. If a postlich started throwing too much weight around, a combination of narmlichs and cynlichs quickly emerged to put him in his place. Whatever happened, the commoners paid the price, as they did on every world; but Zornley’s commoners were quite well off. Extreme poverty seemed nonexistent.
The goal of the IPR Bureau, to convert all of these petty political entities to democracies—ultimately, to achieve one world-wide democracy—seemed a long, long way off, but Raarn’s attention had been caught by a peculiarity that was almost unique to Zornley.
Scattered about the world’s three continents were several genuine cities, each of them the capital of one of the few really large kingdoms or postarms. It only followed that these large kingdoms were, all of them, blessed with convenient networks of rivers and an ocean for easy transport and communication. If a petty nobleman—or, more likely, his wife—tired of rusticating amidst farm animals and spinning wheels, he could sell his narm, or his cynarm, or even his postarm, if the price was right, and retire to the bright lights and dazzling society of a major city. The buyer, probably a neighboring narmlich or cynlich or postlich who had managed his territory well, extracted taxes more efficiently than usual from his harassed people, and saved his money, added the new purchase to the land he already held and automatically promoted himself from narmlich to cynlich or even to postlich if the addition were large enough.
Raarn asked himself, "What would be the objection to the IPR Bureau buying a small political entity and setting up a model government for it? A democracy, in fact?"
He would have to think this over carefully. If managed properly, he might shorten by decades the time it was going to require to convert Zornley to a world-wide democracy.
He summoned his assistant coordinator. Laing Mares had been doomed from childhood to always be someone’s assistant. The best he had ever achieved, in any assignment handed to him, was an undistinguished mediocrity. Now he was serving his time out until retirement and trying to avoid the slightest controversy that might postpone that date.
He had already heard Rhys Hulme’s description of the new coordinator’s eccentricities, and he responded to Raarn’s signal expecting something genuinely weird. Even so, the question Raarn greeted him with astonished him. "Are there any narms up for sale cheap?"
Mares blinked twice before he bleated, "Narms for sale?"
"Is there a central real estate market where one looks for narm listings?"
"I don’t recall that the problem has ever come up," Mares murmured politely.
He went out muttering to himself. The gossip about the new coordinator’s eccentricities was about to take flight.
Raarn thought for a moment and decided he was using the wrong approach. He consulted the base directory, studied a map, and set about solving his problem in his own way.
The walk seemed to take forever, and when he reached his destination, he thought he was lost. The sign over the door said, "Property Control." The interior looked like a rather disorganized warehouse, which it probably was. The manager, whose name was Leslor Ozing, had a harassed look that immediately became more harassed when he learned that the new coordinator was calling. He was young and, according to his personal file, extremely competent. He had acquired an impressive list of commendations. This was his misfortune. He was unlikely to be promoted because he had made himself too valuable where he was.
He said absently, "Yes. Well—welcome to Zornley, I hope. I can’t remember the last time any coordinator found his way to this remote outpost. What can I do for you?"
"It occurred to me that the IPR Bureau must own substantial amounts of property scattered all over the planet—houses that our agents can occupy when necessary, businesses we operate more or less permanently, land, anything needed to further our mission here. In fact, we must own something or other in every substantial city on Zornley."
Ozing nodded. "Just about every substantial city and also in a lot of unlikely places. An agent will insist on our acquiring something he needs for some project or other. Maybe whatever it is turns out not to be necessary, or he finishes his mission and moves on, and then we are stuck with another property."
"What happens to it?"
"I try to dispose of it—at a profit, of course."
Raarn, grappling with the realities of an unfamiliar world, wanted to know what sort of thing an agent could need that suddenly became unnecessary or useless.
Ozing went to a filing cabinet. "Here’s an example. House. It was available cheap. An agent was keeping an eye on a political agitator who lived next door. We suspected he was planning some kind of uprising. The uprising came to nothing and eventually the agitator moved away. The agent followed him, of course, leaving me stuck with this house. I try not to sell things at a loss—in fact, this department shows a very commendable profit on its operations—but this particular house is too small for even a small family and in a decrepit neighborhood. Problem."
"What will you do?" Raarn asked.
"I might send an agent down there to use it to start a new business. Then I could sell the business and make a profit on the house. But these things take time and planning, and it’s hard to find a willing agent. They all want to lead a revolution. Establishing a greengrocer business or a new fad in foot wrappings doesn’t appeal to them."
"Foot wrappings?"
"A Zornley peculiarity. Shoes consist of a sort of sole to protect the foot with brightly colored or strikingly designed straps threaded through holes. Both men and women are ridiculously vain about their foot wrappings."
Raarn chuckled. At least it wasn’t nose rings or elbow ribbons. Fads took strange forms on most planets.
"This world’s profile says that from time to time one of these petty rulers will sell his narm, or cynarm, or whatever, and retire to the bright lights of the nearest city," Raarn said. "How difficult is it to acquire one?"
"Acquire a narm? It’s not especially difficult. I have one in stock now."
Raarn paused to swallow hard. "You have—do you mean the IPR Bureau actually owns a narm?"
"Right. It was for sale, and I thought I could turn it over at a nice profit, so I bought it."
"What’s happened to it? I mean, you can’t put a political entity on the shelf until you find a use for it. Surely it has a population, and some measure of trade and industry, and its people have to eat, and work, and carry on their lives."
"Of course. All of that. I sent a bright young agent down there to act as narmlich until I’m able to dispose of the narm at a profit. He’s having a ball, and his wife, who of course is his narmlicher, has revolutionized the narm’s high society. They’ll be reluctant to leave, but I think I’m about to receive an offer that will be too good to turn down."
"An offer? You mean—there’s a continuing market in narms?"
"There is for this one. Look." He conjured up a map on his computer. "This we call Narmport to avoid using the native name, which is unpronounceable. Small seaside city on a river. Not much of a port, or a city, either, and a miserable excuse for a river, though a lot could be made of it.
"Despite those things it happens to be an extremely important city. Four narms come together there; and Narmlarnif, which is the one we own, had the luck to include the bit of land that contains the port. The other three narms, which for convenience I call Narm North, Narm East, and Narm South—because those are their locations—have to import everything through Narmport.
"When the old narmlich of Narmlarnif—or, more likely, his wife—decided to sell the narm and retire to the bright lights of what passes for high society, the other three narmlichs immediately began to drool. If one of them acquired Narmlarnif, he could promote himself to cynlich. Also, the ruler who controlled Narmport also controlled customs duties for the entire area; and he could, with adroit manipulations, make a very good thing of that. Fortunately I heard about this in time, and I got there while the bidding was still going on. I swept the board and got the narm. Since then, the three disappointed narmlichs have been hopeful that I’ll resell it to one of them, and they’re ready to resume the bidding any time I’ll let them. I expect to turn a very nice profit indeed."
"Let me get this straight. You were the high bidder, you bought the narm, and the other bidders are still trying to outbid you?
"I wasn’t the high bidder. I was the low bidder. But I threw in a house in Parshzor, the city the old narmlich and his wife wanted to retire to. I had been trying to get rid of it for a couple of years. IPR Agents, who often have to come and go secretly, didn’t care for its conspicuous location, but it was ideal for retired minor nobility with social aspirations. I suggested that the house be taken in part payment for the narm, and, once they had seen the house, the narmlich and his narmlicher couldn’t resist my offer. So I got rid of an unwanted house and got a bargain price on the narm. Now all I have to do is sell the narm at a profit, and—" He paused. Raarn was shaking his head gently.
"I think not," Raarn said. "I think this particular narm is just what I’m looking for."
It was not the inconspicuous non-entity of a narm that Raarn had had in mind. It contained a port that served three neighboring narms as well as itself, and it was a fishing as well as a trading center of considerable local importance. However, the IPR Bureau already owned it. It was there and waiting for whatever tests and experiments he felt like inflicting on it. He studied the map delightedly. "When can I have a look at it?"
