It was already an expensive route, Torres knew; whether or not the companies could actually afford the extra cost, he didn’t know, for by the standard treaty which Sol had also signed, the League’s books were its own secret. He waited out the dramatics, then said patiently:
“The Borthudian press gangs have been operating for two years now, sir. We’ve tried to fight them, and can’t. We didn’t make this decision overnight; if it had been up to the brothers at large, we’d have voted right at the start not to go through that hellhole. But the Lodgemasters held back, hoping something could be worked out. Apparently it can’t.”
“See here,” growled van Rijn. “I don’t like this losing of men and ships any better than you. Worse, maybe. A million credits a year or more it costs this company alone. But we can afford it. Only fifteen per cent of our ships are captured* We would lose more, detouring through the Gamma Mist or the Stonefields. Crewfolk should be men, not jellyfish.”
“Easy enough for you to say!” snapped Torres. “We’ll face meteors and dust clouds, rogue planets and hostile natives, warped space and hard radiation . . . but I’ve seen one of those pressed men. That’s what decided me. I’m not going to risk it happening to me, and neither is anyone else.”
“Ah, so?” Van Rijn leaned over the desk. “By damn, you tell me.”
“Met him on Arkan III, • autonomous planet on the fringe of the Kossaluth, where we put in to deliver some tea. One of their ships was in, too, and you can bet your brain we went around in armed parties and were ready to shoot anyone who even looked like a crimp. I saw him, this man they’d kidnaped, going on some errand, spoke to him, we even tried to snatch him back so we could bring him to Earth for deconditioning— He fought us and got away. Godl He wasn’t human any more, not inside. And still you could tell he wanted out, he wanted to break the conditioning, and he couldn’t, and he couldn't go crazy either—”
Torres grew aware that Van Rijn was thrusting a full goblet into his hand. “Here, you drink this.” It burned all the way down. “I have seen conditioned men. I was a rough-and-tumbler myself in younger days.” Tha. merchant went back behind his desk and rekindled his pipe. “It is a fiendish thing to do, ja.”
“If you want to outfit a punitive expedition, sir,” said Torres savagely, “I guarantee you can get full crews.”
“No.” The curled, shoulder-length black locks swished greasily as Van Rijn shook his head. “The League does not have many capital ships. It is unprofitable. The cost of a war with Borthu would wipe out ten years’ gains. And then we will have trouble with the milksop governments of a hundred planets. No.” ^
“Isn’t there some kind of pressure you can put on the Kos-salu himself?”
“Hah! You think maybe we have not tried? Economic sanctions do not work; they are not interested in trade outside their own empire. Threats they laugh at. They know that they have more navy than we will ever build. Assassins never get close to the big potatoes.” Van Rijn cursed for two straight minutes without repeating himself. “And there they sit, fat and greedy-gut, across the route to Antares and all stars beyondl It is not to be stood!”
He had been prowling the floor; now he whirled about with surprising speed for so large and clumsy a man. “This strike of yours brings it to a head. And speaking of heads, it is getting time for a tall cold beer. I shall have to confer with my fellows. Tell your men there will be steps taken if it is financially possible. Now get out!”
It is a truism that the structure of a society is basically determined by its technology. Not in an absolute sense—there may be totally different cultures using identical tools—but the tools settle the possibilities: you can’t have interstellar trade without spaceships. A race limited to one planet, possessing a high knowledge of mechanics but with all its basic machines of commerce and war requiring a large capital investment, will inevitably tend toward collectivism under one name or another. Free enterprise needs elbow room.
Automation made manufacturing cheap, and the cost of energy nose-dived when the proton converter was invented. Gravity control and the hyperdrive opened a galaxy to exploitation. They also provided a safety valve: a citizen who found his government oppressive could usually emigrate elsewhere, which strengthened the libertarian planets; their influence in turn loosened the bonds of the older world.
Interstellar distances being what they are, and intelligent races all having their own ideas of culture, there was no union of planetary systems. Neither was there much war: too destructive, with small chance for either side to escape ruin, and there was little to fight about. A race doesn’t get to be intelligent without an undue share of built-in ruthlessness, so all was not sweetness and brotherhood—but the balance of power remained fairly stable. And there was a brisk demand for trade goods. Not only did colonies, want the luxuries of home, and the home planets want colonial produce, but the_ old worlds had much to swap.
Under such conditions, an exuberant capitalism was bound to strike root. It was also bound to find mutual interest, to form alliances and settle spheres of influence. The powerful companies joined together to squeeze out competitors, jack up prices, and generally make the best of a good thing. Governments were limited to a few planetary systems at most; they could do little to control their cosmopolitan merchants. One by one, through bribery, coercion, or sheer despair, they gave up the struggle.
Selfishness is a potent force. Governments, officially dedicated to altruism, remained divided; the Polesotechnic League became a super-government, sprawling from Canopus to Polaris, drawing its membership from a thousand species. It was a horizontal society, cutting across all political and cultural boundaries. It set its own policies, made its own treaties, established its own bases, fought its own minor wars—and, in the course of milking the Milky Way, did more to spread a truly universal civilization and enforce a lasting Tax than all the diplomats in the galaxy.
But it had its own troubles.
One of Nicholas van Rijn’s mansions lay on the peak of Kilimanjaro, up among the undying snows. It was an easy spot to defend, and a favorite for conferences.
His gravcar slanted down through a night of needle-sharp stars, toward the high turrets and glowing lanterns. Looking through the roof, he picked out the cold sprawl of Scorpio. Antares flashed a red promise, and he shook his fist at the suns between. “So! Monkey business with Van Rijn, by damn., The whole Sagittarius clusters waiting to be opened, and you in the way. This will cost you money, my friends, gut and kipper me if it don’t.”
He thought back to days when he had ridden a bucketing ruin of a ship through the great hollow spaces, bargaining under green skies, and in poisonous winds for jewels Earth had never seen before, and a moment’s wistfulness tugged at him. A long time now since he had been any farther than the Moon . . . poor old fat man, chained to one miserable planet and unable to turn an honest credit. The Antares route was more important than he dared admit; if he lost it, he lost his chance at the Sagittarian developments to corporations with offices on the other side of the Kossaluth. In today’s pitiless competition, you either went on expanding or you went under. And he had made too many enemies, they were waiting for the day of his weakness.
The car landed itself, and the guards jumped out to flank him. He wheezed the thin chill air into sooty lungs, drew his cloak of phosphorescent onthar skin tightly about him, and scrunched across frosty paving to the house. There was a new maid at the door, pretty little baggage . . . Venusian-French, was she? He tossed his plumed hat at her as the buder said the Freemen were already here. He sat down and told the chair “Conference Room” and went along corridors darkly paneled in the wood of a hundred planets.
There were four colleagues around the table when he entered. Kraaknach of the Martian Transport Company was glowing his yellow eyes at a Frans Hals on the wall. Firmage of North American Engineering puffed an impatient cigar. Mjambo, who owned Jo-Boy Technical Services—which supplied indentured labor to colonial planets—was talking into hi
s wristphone. Gornas-Kiew happened to be on Earth and was authorized to speak for the Centaurians; he sat quietly waiting, hunched into his shell, only the delicate antennae moving.
Van Rijn plumped himself into the armchair at the head of the table. Waiters appeared with trays of drinks, smokes, and snacks. He took a large bite from a ham sandwich and looked inquiringly at the others.
Kraaknach’s owl-face turned to him. “Well, Freeman host, I understand we are met on account of this Borthudian brokna. Did the spacemen make their ultimatum?”
“Ja.” Van Rijn picked up a cigar and rolled it between his fingers. “It grows serious. They will not take ships through the Kossaluth, except to get revenge, while this shanghai business goes on.”
“So, why not blast the Borthudian home planet?” asked Mjambo.
“Death and damnation!” Van Rijn tugged at his goatee. “I had a little computation run off today. Assuming we lost no ships—and Borthu has good defenses—but allowing for salaries, risk bonus, fuel, ammunition, maintenance, depreciation, estimated loss due to lack of protection elsewhere, lawsuits by governments afraid the Kossaluth may strike back, bribes, and loss of profits to be had if the cost were invested peaceably—the bill for that little operation would come to about thirty trillion credits. In a nutshell, we cannot afford it. Simmons, a bowl of Brazils!”
“You will pardon my ignorance, good sirs,” clicked Gomas-Kiew’s artificial vocalizer. “My main interests lie elsewhere, and I have been only marginally aware of this trouble. Why are the Borthudians impressing our men?”
Van Rijn cracked a nut between his teeth and reached for a glass of brandy. “The gruntbrains have not enough of their own,” he replied shortly.
“Perhaps I can make it clear,” said Kraaknach. Like most Martians of the Sirruch Horde, he had a mind orderly to the point of boredom. He ran a clawlike hand through his gray feathers and lit a rinn-tube. “Borthu is a backward planet . . . terrestroid to eight points, with humanoid natives. They were in the early stage of nuclear energy when explorers visited them seventy-eight years ago, and their reaction to the presence of a superior culture was paranoid. They soon learned how to make modem engines of all types, and then set out to conquer themselves an empire. They now hold a volume of space about forty light-years across, though they only occupy a few Soltype systems within it. They want nothing to do with the outside universe, and are quite able to supply all their needs within their own boundaries—with the one exception of efficient spacemen.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Firmage. “Their commoners might see things differently, if we could get a few trading ships in there. I’ve already suggested we use subversive agents—get the Kossalu and his whole bloody government overthrown from within.”
“Of course, of course,” said Van Rijn. “But that takes more time than we have got, unless we want Spica and Canopus to sew up the Sagittarius frontier while we are stopped dead here.”
“To continue,” said Kraaknach, “the Borthudians can produce as many spaceships as they want, which is a great many since their economy is expanding. In fact, its structure— capitalism not unlike ours—requires constant expansion if the whole society is not to collapse. But they cannot produce trained crews fast enough. Pride, and a not unjustified fear of our gradually taking them over, will not let them send students to us any more, or hire from us, and they have only one understaffed academy of their own.”
“I know,” said Mjambo. “It’d be a hell of a good market for indentures if we could change their minds for them.” “Accordingly, they have in the past two years taken to waylaying our ships—in defiance of us and of all interstellar law. They capture the men, hypnocondition them, and assign them to their own merchant fleet. It takes two years to train a spaceman; we are losing an important asset in this alone.”
“Can’t we improve our evasive action?” wondered Firmage. “Interstellar space is so big. Why can’t we avoid their patrols altogether?”
“Eighty-five percent of our ships do precisely that,” Van Rijn told him. “But the hyperdrive vibrations can be detected a light-year away if you have sensitive instruments— pseudogravitational pulses of infinite velocity. Then they close in, using naval vessels, which are faster and more maneuverable than merchantmen. It will not be possible to cut our losses much by evasion tactics. Satan and small poxl You think maybe I have not considered it?”
“Well, then, how about convoying our ships through?”
“At what cost? I have been with the figures. It would mean operating the Antares run at a loss—quite apart from all the extra naval units we would have to build.”
“Then how about our arming our merchantmen?”
“Bahl A frigate-class ship needs twenty men for all the guns and instruments. A merchant ship needs only four. Consider the salaries paid to spacemen. And sixteen extra men on every ship would mean cutting down all our operations elsewhere, for lack of crews. Same pestiferous result: we cannot afford it, we would lose money in big fat gobs. What is worse, the Kossalu knows we would. He needs only wait, holding back his fig-plucking patrols, till we were too broke to continue. Then he would be able to start conquering systems like Antares.”
Firmage tapped the inlaid table with a restless finger. “Bribery, assassination, war, political and economic pressure, all seem to be ruled out,” he said. “The meeting is now open to suggestions.”
There was a silence, under the radiant ceiling.
Gomas-Kiew broke it: “Just how is this shanghaiing done? It is impossible to exchange shots while in hyperdrive.”
“Well, good sir, statistically impossible,” amended Kraaknach. “The shells have to be hypered themselves, of course, or they would revert to sublight velocity and be left behind as soon as they emerged from the drive field. Furthermore, to make a hit, they would have to be precisely in phase with the target. A good pilot can phase in on another ship, but the operation is too complex, it involves too many factors, for any artificial brain of useful size.”
“I tell you how,” snarled Van Rijn. “The pest-bedamned Borthudian ships detect the vibration-wake from afar. They compute the target course and intercept. Coming close, they phase in and slap on a tractor beam. Then they haul themselves up alongside, bum through the hull or the air lock, and board.
“Why, the answer looks simple enough,” said Mjambo. “Equip our boats with pressor beams. Keep the enemy ships at arm’s length.”
“You forget, esteemed colleague, that beams of either positive or negative sign are powered from the engines,” said Kraaknach. “And a naval ship has larger engines than a merchantman.”
“Well, then, why not arm our crews? Give ’em heavy blasters and let ’em blow the boarding parties to hell.”
“The illegitimate-offspring-of-interspecies-crosses Borthudians have just such weapons already,” snorted Van Rijn. “Sulfur and acidl Do you think that four men can stand off twenty?”
“Mm-m-m . . . yes, I see your point,” agreed Firmage. “But look here, we can’t do anything about this without laying out some cash. I’m not sure offhand what our margin of profit is—”
“On the average, for all our combined Antarean voyages, about thirty per cent on each voyage,” said Van Rijn promptly.
Mjambo started. “How the devil do you get the figures for my company?”
Van Rijn grinned and drew on his cigar.
“That gives us a margin to use,” said Gomas-Kiew. “We can invest in fighting equipment to such an extent that our profit is less—though I agree that there must still be a final result in the black—for the duration of the emergency.”
“Ja,” said Van Rijn, “only I have just told you we have not the men available to handle such fighting equipment.”
“It’d be worth it,” said Mjambo viciously. “I’d take a fairsized loss just to teach them a lesson.”
“No, no.” Van Rijn lifted a hand which, after forty years of offices, was still the broad muscular paw of a working spaceman. “Revenge and destruc
tion are un-Christian thoughts. Also, they will not pay very well, since it is hard to sell anything to a corpse. The problem is to find some means within our resources which will make it unprofitable for Borthu to raid us. Not being stupid heads, they will then stop raiding and we can maybe later do business.”
“You’re a cold-blooded one,” said Firmage.
Van Rijn drooped his eyes and covered a shiver by pouring himself another glass. He had suddenly had an idea.
He let the others argue for a fruitless hour, then said: “Freemen, this gets us nowhere, nie? Perhaps we are not stimulated enough to think clear.”
“What would you suggest?” asked Mjambo wearily.
“Oh ... an agreement. A pool, or prize, or reward for whoever solves this problem. For example, ten per cent of all the others’ Antarean profits for the next ten years.”
“Hoy there!” cried Firmage. “If I know you, you robber, you’ve just come up with the answer.”
“Oh, no, no, no. By good St. Dismas I swear it. I have some beginning thoughts, maybe, but I am only a poor rough old space walloper without the fine education all you Freemen had. I could so easy be wrong.”
“What is your idea?”
“Best I not say just yet, until it is more clear in my thick head. But please to note, he who tries solving this problem takes on all the risk, and it may well be some small expense. Also, without his solution nobody has any more profits. Does not a little return on his investment sound fair and proper?”
There was more argument. Van Rijn smiled with infinite benevolence.
He was satisfied with an agreement in principle, sworn to by mercantile honor, the details to be computed later.
Beaming, he clapped his hands. “Freemen, we have worked hard tonight and soon comes much harder work. By damn, I think we deserve a little celebration. Simmons, prepare an orgy.”
Un-Man and Other Novellas Page 11
