Inferno: A Chronicle of a Distant World (The Galactic Comedy)

by Mike Resnick

  "It was never my intention to invite the Republic to Faligor," answered Cartright, his nervousness gone now that he was addressing himself to his specialty. "We have made Faligor a protectorate, not a colony. The Navy will only come in if our people are endangered." He paused. "There is one exception to that. If word gets out about what we've discovered and we are not exploiting the planet's riches to the Republic's satisfaction, then absolutely nothing Cartography can do will prevent them from moving in."

  "So what you're saying is that we've got to start working the mines immediately," said Talat.

  "I'm saying that someone has got to," answered Cartright. "I'm very loathe to import human miners, because the Navy will insist on protecting them . . . and they won't need protection unless the Navy shows up and begins flexing its muscles, as it is inclined to do. So my question is this: are the jasons sophisticated enough to work with our mining equipment?"

  "Not a chance," answered an educator. "They have no written language, and were even ignorant of the orbit of their planet until we arrived. They're bright, and most of them are eager learners, but it'll be years before they can deal with the computers and sophisticated machinery required for a full-scale mining operation."

  "More to the point," added Victoria Domire, the head of the economic team, "none of them except the Enkoti has even the most rudimentary understanding of money. If you plan to work them in the mines, there's no way you can pay them. That means you'll have to conscript them, which is just the kind of situation we want to avoid."

  "All right," said Cartright. "Those are pretty much the answers I had anticipated." He looked around the room. "Now, has anyone got any suggestions?"

  Beddoes waited until she saw that no one else had any intention of speaking, and then raised her hand.

  "The moles," she said.

  "I beg your pardon?" said Cartright.

  "Moles," she repeated. "I don't know their official name. They're the inhabitants of Socrates IV. Humanoid, oxygen-breathing, assimilated into the Republic for more than two centuries. They're highly skilled laborers who hire out to any world that can pay them. I ran into a group of them in Alpha Santori II."

  "Do they work mines?" asked Victoria Domire.

  "That's their specialty," answered Beddoes. "That's why we call them moles: because they spend so much of their time underground."

  "We'd need a lot of them," said Domire.

  "It's a big planet," said Beddoes.

  "I'll take your suggestion under consideration," said Cartright. "In fact, if no one comes up with a better one by morning, I'll almost certainly act on it." He paused. "Now, are there any other questions or problems anyone wishes to discuss with me?"

  So many hands arose that Cartright was taken aback. "I think the best way to handle this is for me to meet with each department head in my office. In the meantime, keep up the good work." He turned to Beddoes. "Please come with me, Susan. I'd like to speak to you first."

  She followed him out of the meeting room, down a long corridor that led to the office he had commandeered for himself when he first arrived. It contained a desk, a small but powerful computer, and two chairs, as well as a holographic map of Faligor.

  "You've spent as much time among the jasons as anyone, Susan," said Cartright. "So tell me—how much resentment will there be if we import, say, 50,000 moles to work the mines?"

  "I don't know," answered Beddoes. "They don't seem to resent us, but—"

  "But what?"

  "But they can see that we're here to help them. I don't know if they'll understand what the moles are here for."

  "Do you think that will make a difference?"

  "Not at first."

  "Then when?" persisted Cartright.

  "When they realize that we're shipping valuable materials off their planet and they're not getting any revenues from them."

  "That was never my intention. As I said, we need partners, not subjects."

  Beddoes sighed deeply. "I don't know that that will make a difference."

  "Please elaborate."

  "Four months ago these people were living in the stone age . . . or, at best, the bronze age. Suddenly we're educating them and vaccinating them and showing them how to use farm machinery, and that's all well and good, but I think asking them to understand abstracts like a galactic economy and our need for fissionable materials is asking too much too soon. They can understand steel—after all, it makes better spears—but how can they understand the need for diamonds, especially industrial ones? The sitates will take our money, since they have no way of knowing which metals are worth money or how to sell them, but eventually they're going to feel that we are somehow betraying them by shipping these materials to our people, rather than showing their people how to use them and why they're worth so much to us."

  "A point well-taken," said Cartright. "I can see that we cannot simply turn the mines over to the moles, or any other race. We'll have to get the jasons to give us some of their people to learn the procedures. Perhaps within a few years we can even have some of them acting in supervisory positions." He paused thoughtfully. "And it might be a good idea to ship the brightest of them to some of the Republic worlds for their education. Not that we won't have fine educational facilities here, but I want them to be able to come back and tell their people about what's out there, who we are, how we function."

  Beddoes considered his statement for a moment, then shrugged. "I suppose it could work out," she said without enthusiasm.

  "You sound dubious."

  "The jasons are a wonderful species," she said. "They're bright, they're industrious, they're intelligent. Eventually I think they can be everything you hope they'll be."

  "But?" said Cartright. "There's always a 'but'."

  "But I think you're rushing them."

  "We have no choice but to rush them. This world has to serve as a model for assimilation."

  "I don't see that moving an entire race out of the bush and into the Galactic Era in one generation makes an ideal model." She paused. "My closest friend among the Enkoti, a warrior named Tubito, attained what I shall call his manhood by killing a huge carnivore with a spear not three years ago. He has many admirable qualities, not the least of which are his curiosity and intelligence, but you can't put him into a tunic and sit him down in front of a computer—not this year, not in ten years, possibly not ever. He could be the Copernicus or Galileo of his race, but he squats outside in the rain and eats strips of dried meat that he rips off with his bare hands."

  "But his children can be assimilated as easily as yours or mine could," said Cartright.

  "Probably," said Beddoes. "If they grew up in a human household."

  "Your doubts are logged and noted," said Cartright. "But we simply haven't got the time. You've seen what's happened to other worlds when the Republic, with the best of intentions, tried to colonize them. Faligor is our last best chance to prove to them that there's a better way, to show them that the carrot works better than the stick. We're asking a lot of the jasons, I know, but they seem a bright and willing race, and the rewards will be commensurate with their effort. And, of course, the alternative is considerably worse."

  "Well," said Beddoes. "You asked for my opinion. I gave it to you."

  "And I thank you for it, Susan—and especially for your suggestion about the moles. Now, since I'm here for a limited time, I think I'd better speak with my other experts."

  Realizing she had been dismissed, Beddoes got to her feet. She walked to the door, then stopped and turned to Cartright.

  "May I make one final suggestion?"

  "Certainly."

  "I've only counted two alien psychologists among your experts," she said. "If you're going to accelerate the jasons' march to civilization, I'd import a hell of a lot more of them if I were you."

  3.

  Despite all of Susan Beddoes' doubts, Faligor worked.

  There was no show of resentment at the importation of some 300,000 moles on long-term mining
contracts.

  Jason and Man worked side-by-side in the fields, taming the land and exporting more than enough food in the first six months so that the nearby mining worlds were no longer dependent upon any other source.

  The seas proved to be as rich in protein as the soil was in minerals, and before long the fishing and aquaculture industries were also able not just to feed the populace but also to export their products as well.

  No less a personage than Johnny Ramsey, the former Secretary of the Republic, went on a hunting safari, spent some time preaching his brand of democracy to the jasons, and solemnly declared that Faligor was the Diamond of the Outer Frontier.

  Seventeen Republic worlds planned to open embassies on Faligor, each of them intent upon setting up trade relations with either the miners or the farmers or both.

  At Disanko's invitation, Men built the city of Romulus on Enkoti soil, and made it their headquarters. Within a year the neighboring city of Remus was built on the shores of a large inland lake.

  When Disanko died suddenly, stricken by a virus, he was succeeded by his son, Tantram, who immediately vowed to work closely with the Republic to bring its benefits to all of his people. His first act was to use the money Disanko had stockpiled to create Tantram University on the outskirts of Romulus, and he established a trust fund that was sufficient to hire the finest human academics to staff it.

  Cartright was elated at the way things were progressing, so much so that he purchased a large tract of land from the Rizzali and built a house on it with the intention of retiring to Faligor when his contract with the Department of Cartography expired.

  Beddoes herself remained on the planet. When Cartography suggested it was time to move on, she resigned and signed up with one of the local safari companies, which had sprouted like weeds after Ramsey's visit and his subsequent book extolling the virtues of Faligor. She had no interest in or talent for hunting, but she acted as a guide for holo safaris, and spent her spare time pursuing her avocation. During her first two years on Faligor she had identified, cataloged, and named more than three thousand species of insect.

  She was pleased to see that her passion for entomology, if it didn't exactly infect her fellow Men, at least caused most of them to bring her any insect they hadn't seen before, rather than grind it into the dirt. Once she began naming them after their discoverers, she found to her amusement that her fellow safari guides would bring them to her by the dozens, and would make sure she knew how to spell their names before they left.

  Since she still had friends in the Cartography Department, and since Faligor was still in the process of being mapped, she frequently went out with them on their surveys, just for the pleasure of seeing new areas of her adopted world. There were vast flatlands filled with herbivores, which had picked up such Terran nicknames as Thunderbulls, Tanbucks, Candystripes, and Skyjumpers. There were impenetrable rain forests, a huge central desert, and a number of mountain ranges, the most impressive of which was the snow-capped Hills of Heaven, the slopes of which were home to huge numbers of primates and avians.

  There were some twenty-seven distinct tribes on the planet, all of them living on the one major continent. Each had several subgroups, and it was virtually impossible for any Man or jason to learn more than a handful of the hundred-plus languages, but at various times almost every tribe had been conquered by the now-decimated Maringo tribe, which had fallen upon hard times and numbered less than two thousand members, and most of the tribes spoke some variation of Maringo in addition to their native dialect. The Sitate Tantram decreed that all of his citizens must also learn Terran, and not to be outdone, the sitates of the other tribes followed suit, so that before long there were two planetary languages. Terran became the language of state, used for formal occasions and when dealing with off-worlders, while Maringo was preferred when the jasons spoke informally among themselves.

  Within three years there were boreholes in every village, allowing the jasons access to water in times of drought, and modern farming methods had been adopted by all of the jason tribes. Before long huge hotels towered above Romulus and Remus, and hunting concessions were replaced by game parks in order to attract even greater numbers of tourists.

  Faligor had come so far so quickly, had adapted itself to Man's vision so completely, that Beddoes found herself half-expecting the planet to be visited by some disaster, if only to chastise Man for his ambition. No world could be this perfect, this tranquil and peaceful, this close to paradise. Oh, to be sure, the Rizzali and Traja had a minor border dispute that erupted into warfare, but when the Republic's representatives moved in to mediate, only eleven jasons had been killed. And a particularly virulent form of skin disease, not totally unlike smallpox, had surfaced among the tribes living on the eastern savannah, but it took the human doctors less than a month to isolate the virus and only another three weeks to come up with a vaccine. Johnny Ramsey came back for two more hunting safaris, accompanied, as always, by two or three dozen members of the press, and word of Faligor spread throughout the galaxy.

  It was on Ramsey's final safari that the Sitate Tantram went out hunting with him, and was badly gored by a huge amphibian known as a Riverkiller. The medics managed to save his life, but he became an invalid, and turned over the kingship of his people to his younger brother, a Terranfile who took the name of the Sitate Robert August Tantram II.

  The new sitate spoke exquisite Terran, had been schooled on the university planet of Aristotle, had a passion for Terran history, fast vehicles, and human clothing. He built a huge theater in the center of Romulus and imported the finest human stage, opera and ballet companies. He also funded a museum dedicated to works of human art, and a publishing house committed to translating the oral traditions of the Enkoti into Terran.

  He took too many human stimulants, and drove too many fast human vehicles, and looked just a little bit silly wearing formal human clothing, but Emperor Bobby, as the human populace dubbed him, was both popular with his people and a willing co-developer of his world with its human contingent.

  He broke with many Enkoti traditions: he no longer held court in the presence of his ancestors, but now presided over the business of his people in an impressive white building he had built for that purpose. He renounced the religion of his people and converted, in quick order, to Christianity, Islam, and was currently a practitioner of the Hindu faith. Though nicotine had no effect whatsoever upon his metabolism, he became a heavy smoker, importing his cigars and cigarettes from distant Antarres.

  He staged elaborate entertainments for his retainers and his human friends. One month he would sponsor an imported symphony orchestra, another month there would be a tripodal alien magician from the Hesporite III. Once he flew his entire party out to watch the capture of a small herd of Thunderbulls for the zoo world of Serengeti.

  The evening that he dropped his bombshell was at another of his many entertainments, this the first boxing match between a jason and a human. He had imported Billy Wycynski, the heavyweight champion of Sirius V, to fight Gama Labu, the huge Rizzali warrior who had thus far beaten all comers.

  Susan Beddoes wasn't especially interested in boxing, but one didn't refuse an invitation from Emperor Bobby, so she dressed in what she hoped was an appropriate semi-formal outfit and showed up at the designated time.

  About two hundred Men and jasons were there, including Arthur Cartright, who was on a business trip to Faligor, and Beddoes noted with approval that some fifteen or twenty red-skinned moles were also in attendance. Bobby had torn down his brother's former domicile, and erected an impressive human-style palace in its place. His three hundred and one ancestors were discreetly hidden from view, as if he considered them an embarrassment. A boxing ring had been constructed in the middle of his newly-grown and meticulously-cropped lawn, surrounded by perhaps fifty tables, with more than one hundred uniformed jasons serving as waiters and ushers. Off to the left were extensive formal gardens, and just beyond them Beddoes could see some dwellings t
hat had existed when she first arrived among the Enkoti: they were no more squalid or primitive now than then, but they seemed moreso because of their proximity to the sitate's new residence.

  "Susan!" said Emperor Bobby when he saw her. "I'm so glad you could come!"

  Beddoes was taken aback by his greeting, as she hadn't exchanged twenty sentences with him since he ascended the throne, but he greeted her as if they were close personal friends and rattled on for a few minutes about insects, until his gaze fell upon some other newcomer and he went off to greet him.

  She heard a low chuckle behind her, and turned to find herself facing Cartright.

  "If he wasn't already the emperor, I'd swear our Bobby was running for office," he said.

  "He does tend to overdo it," agreed Susan.

  "That's the politician in him," said Cartright, an amused smile on his face. "He's quite something, isn't he?"

  "Quite."

  Cartright looked over the tables. "There don't seem to be any place cards or seating designations," he noted. "I suspect Bobby must have attended a garden party when he was offworld, and totally forgot how he knew where to sit. Shall we appropriate a table for ourselves?"

  Beddoes nodded, and Cartright led her to an empty table.

  "I have no idea why I'm here," she said as she sat down. "I don't know anything about boxing," she said.

  "You're here because Bobby likes to impress his human visitors," answered Cartright. "As for boxing, it's really very simple. Two men—or in this case, a man and a jason—get into the ring and try to kill each other."

  "I wish he'd invited me to the symphony instead."

  "I wish he'd imported someone with poorer credentials than this Wycynski fellow. It would do wonders for the jasons' self-esteem if their boxer could win."