by Mike Resnick
“The mountains."
“And what did the miners do to the mountains when they were through mining?"
“Nothing,” said Tanayoka.
“You still don’t see it, do you?” said Consuela with a smile. “They restored them."
“Of course they did,” said Tanayoka. “Surely you’re not implying that . . ."
“Indeed I am,” said Consuela. “It’s the only other thing they did that they had not been doing for the thirty weeks that the aliens left them alone."
“But why should putting the land back the way we found it drive them into a frenzy? It doesn’t make any sense."
“Not to you and me,” said Consuela. “But it must make a lot of sense to an inhabitant of Beelzebub."
“It’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of!” said Tanayoka, throwing up his hands in frustration.
“No, but it’s probably the most alien thing you’ve ever heard of,” said Consuela. “You must remember not to think of aliens as good or bad, smart or stupid. The only word that properly defines them is different."
“But why would they object to our restoring the mountains?" persisted Tanayoka.
“I have absolutely no idea,” said Consuela “Can any race that reacts like that possibly be sentient?"
“I don’t know,” replied Consuela “And to be perfectly frank about it, at this moment I couldn’t possibly care less."
“But—"
“Please let me continue, Mr. Tanayoka. You brought me here to solve your problem. While there is always the possibility of error, I believe that I have solved it. But you must understand that the members of my profession are neither magicians nor omnipotent. It may take years or decades or even centuries to understand why they don’t mind having their land ripped to shreds but are enraged at its restoration, and it may take even longer to determine whether they are truly sentient beings. Psychology is hardly an exact science. But I think I have discovered how to guarantee your miners’ safety, and I trust I have bought the aliens enough time for future psychologists to answer all your questions about them. And now,” she concluded, “if you no longer have need of my services, I’d like to return home."
Four months later Tanayoka paid her a visit.
“You were right,” he said admiringly. “I don’t think the miners or I really believed it, but it worked. When they finished the next three mountains they left them just as they were, and there were no incidents at all."
“I’m gratified to know that everything worked out,” said Consuela.
“I think you’ll be further gratified to know that a team of three psychologists has been dispatched to Beelzebub to study the native population more thoroughly."
“Indeed I am,” said Consuela.
“While I’m here, may I take you to lunch, Mrs. Orta?” asked Tanayoka.
“I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’m a bit late making my rounds today."
Consuela shook his hand, walked down the corridor, stopped at a faucet to fill a small pan with water, then sighed and opened a door.
Inside, the Madcap was happily munching on its tail.
5. THE MERCHANTS
. . . As these worlds were assimilated into the budding financial empire of the Republic, it became the duty of the merchants, and more specifically the Department of Commerce and Trade, to bring monied economies into being on these planets. Perhaps the most important single person in the galaxy during this period was Kipchoge Ngana, whose complicity in the death of the Republic has been debated for millennia. . . .
—Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement
. . . Foremost of these was Kipchoge Ngana (884-971 G.E.), a ruthless financial and organizational genius who studiously avoided all publicity. It was he who fought tooth and nail against granting the most basic rights to non-human races, and who probably kept the stagnant and decrepit Republic alive and running long past its life expectancy . . .
—Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 8
Kipchoge Ngana leaned his chair back on two legs, put his feet on his desk, and sighed. Things had been going well, both for his department and the Republic. The Gross Galactic Product had doubled for the sixth decade in a row, the brief trade war with Darion III was over, and Man had never had it so good.
It was a strange feeling. He should have been smug and complacent, but instead he felt like a man waiting for the other shoe to drop and not having the slightest idea where it would be dropping from.
He glanced at his appointment calendar: two visits from minor officials in Cartography, a luncheon with a merchants’ organization from the newly settled Denebian colonies, and a planning conference within his own Department of Commerce and Trade. It was the last that was his specialty, and he was utterly convinced that no single facet of the Republic was quite so important.
Certainly they needed the Cartographers to decide upon the patterns of expansion, and the Pioneer Corps and Navy to open the planets up, and of course Psychology had become the darling of the popularizers of science. But all those came before the fact; each science and parascience had a definite job to do, and once their function was fulfilled, they moved on to the next world. After that, after the planet was made habitable, after the alien contacts had been made, after the Republic had made a commitment to the new world, it was up to the merchants, under the expert guidance of the Department of Commerce and Trade, to move in, to graft the world onto the sprawling economic structure of the galaxy, and to bring it firmly within the Republic’s sphere of financial influence.
The Republic had long since learned that military force was a last resort, to be used only in the most insoluble of situations. The trick—and this was Ngana’s specialty—was to introduce monied economies to the various worlds until they were so dependent upon continued commerce with the Republic that revolt and isolationism became the most repugnant and unfeasible of concepts.
On about a third of the sentient worlds, the problems had been slight, for economic structures already existed. It was the remaining worlds that wound up as Ngana’s pet projects. And he was very good at his work.
There was, for example, Balok VII, a small world possessed of a totally self-reliant society relatively low on the evolutionary scale, but sentient nonetheless. The natives, vaguely humanoid in type, were completely herbivorous, and the continual search for the vast quantities of food they needed to sustain themselves prevented them from developing many other skills. There was some attempt at farming, but the climate was too uncertain for crops to be depended upon, and the economy never developed beyond a one-for-one trading stage.
Ngana had looked the world over, ordered in some twenty thousand “agrarian assistants,” and quintupled the amount of available food in three years’ time, never once extracting any payment or promise of payment from the natives, and never once allowing them to discover the methods the Republic used to multiply the food supply. At the end of three years a noticeable increase in the population took place, and the agricultural equipment was then sold or leased to private interests within the Republic.
It functioned for five more years, and then, at a word from Ngana, all “assistance” came to a halt. Amid hoarse outcries of misery, disease raised its ugly head, and the Republic sent in free medical supplies. After six months, the flow of supplies stopped.
The supplies were then sold to the Republic’s merchants, who rented out the agricultural machinery to the natives in exchange for harvests of certain crops, and after the first payments were made on the machinery, the medical supplies were sold on credit against future crops.
Within five more years the natives of Balok VII had need of neither equipment nor medicine, being quite capable of manufacturing their own, but by that time they had a growing agricultural economy, and the first paper Republic credits had already been introduced into the society, with which they purchased newer and better farming machines. And, of course, the continuous introduction of more advanced equipment ensured the production of more and more c
rops, with the Republic as the only interested speculator.
That had been easy. Korus XVI was a little more difficult. It held a race of silicon-based life forms that inhaled ammonia, excreted a carbon compound, and had a very viable economy that was based predominantly on rare metals. The inhabitants were quite happy to be isolated from the mainstream of the Republic’s commerce and evinced no desire to trade with any race other than their own.
Ngana authorized fifty merchants to artificially reproduce the rarest of the rare metals that formed the staple of Korus XVI’s financial structure and to flood the planet with them, trading them to private individuals for elements that were of equivalent value to Man. Fifty percent of the merchants’ profits went back into continuous market flooding, until the various coins of the Korusian realm became all but worthless. The remaining fifty percent of the profits were applied to “saving” the Korusian economy by putting it into synchronization with that of the Republic, for which the merchants were granted fifty years of exclusive trading rights to the planet.
Within a decade, Korus XVI had been added to the list of the Republic’s economic satellites.
Now and again a planet would attempt to withdraw from economic association with the Republic; rarely was it successful.
Total trade embargo was the first means of reprisal. If this proved unsatisfactory, any medium of financial exchange used by the planet could be duplicated in huge quantities by the merchants in charge of commerce in that particular system.
Except for fissionable materials, which were in ever-increasing demand across the galaxy, there was nothing so rare that Man couldn’t spare a planetload of it to push an unruly economic entity back into line: diamonds, rare earths, drugs, grain, whatever an independent-minded planet held near and dear, would immediately be made worthless.
Most economies, whether natural or imposed by the Republic, dealt in essentially artificial mediums of exchange, made valuable only by the populace’s confidence in them. There were a few worlds, however, where this did not hold true. If, for example, World X prized apples above all else, and apples were the prime medium of exchange, to be eaten when accumulated, introducing more apples into the society wasn’t about to turn it into an economic entity that the Republic could influence and deal with. But finding something that destroyed apple crops, and then reintroducing them through the Republic’s merchants, usually did the trick.
Yes, Ngana knew his job, and knew it well. More than four thousand sentient races had been discovered, and well over fifteen hundred of them were already integral cogs in the Republic’s vast economic machinery. By the time he retired, Ngana expected to see that figure more than double.
But in the meantime, he was uneasy, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason for it. He’d been feeling apprehensive for more than a year now, filled with vague doubts about the wisdom of assimilating so many races so quickly. He did not fear any strivings for economic independence; such problems could and would be dealt with quickly and efficiently. It was something else, something he sensed was more far-reaching, but it was like a glimmer of light he could see only out of the corner of his eye; when he turned full face to it, it was gone.
A buzzer sounded on his desk, and he pressed a button that activated the inter-office communicator. It was Renyan, the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, his immediate superior. The gray-haired visage on the small screen looked troubled.
“Kip,” said Renyan, “cancel everything you have on for today and get over to my office right away."
“Something serious?” asked Ngana
“Very."
“On my way,” said Ngana, flicking off the intercom. He debated taking a pocket computer, but decided that the meeting would probably be on record if he needed to go over anything later. Five minutes found him seated at a large oval table with Renyan and an elderly woman he didn’t recognize.
“Kip,” said Renyan, “I’d like you to meet Miss Agatha Moore, a member of our trade commission to Lodin XI. Miss Moore, it seems, is the bearer of rather grim tidings."
“Well, what can we do for you, Miss Moore?” asked Ngana.
“Not a thing,” said Agatha Moore. “But it’s just possible that I can do something for you. Or, at least, prepare you for something that’s going to be done to you."
Ngana shot a quick look at Renyan, who just raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“Are you speaking about me personally?” asked Ngana.
“I’m afraid not,” said Miss Moore. “I refer to you only insofar as you are a member of the Republic. And,” she added thoughtfully, “because your consummate skill at your job has created the problem."
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you at all, Miss Moore,” said Ngana, running his fingers through his wiry black hair.
“If you were aware of what I was going to say, I wouldn’t be here speaking to you,” said Agatha Moore rather primly.
“I apologize,” said Ngana. “Please continue."
“Mr. Ngana, I am no psychologist, and I don’t imagine you are either. However, it shouldn’t take a master of that field to realize what’s going on."
Ngana looked at Renyan again, convinced that this was about to become some kind of elaborate joke.
“To continue,” said Miss Moore, “let me ask you exactly what your specialty is, Mr. Ngana."
“My job is to create favorable economic conditions among alien civilizations and to open their planets up for trade with the Republic’s merchants."
“In other words, you develop undeveloped planets and give them all the economic benefits that accrue to the Republic’s member worlds."
“That is essentially correct,” said Ngana.
“Are you aware of the GGP for the past twelve months?"
“1,600.4 trillion credits or thereabouts,” said Ngana.
“1,600.369 to be precise,” said Miss Moore. “And are you aware of what portion of that product is due directly to the output of nonhuman worlds and populations?"
“No, I am not."
“988.321 trillion credits,” said Miss Moore. “Does that imply something to you?"
“Only that we’ve done a hell of a good job incorporating them into the economy,’’ said Ngana.
“That’s your side of the coin,” said Miss Moore. “They, on the other hand, seem to feel that they’re economic slaves.’’
“Meaning?"
“Meaning they feel that if they’re to supply such a large proportion of the Republic’s capital, they want a share of the profits. Or, to be more precise, they want immediate enfranchisement."
“The other shoe,” said Ngana glumly.
“What?” asked Renyan.
“Nothing,” he replied. “How do you know this is so?"
“In your work, you deal with figures,” said Miss Moore. “In mine, I deal with people, human and nonhuman alike. At a convention on Lodin XI, this was the prime topic of discussion among the alien members present, nor did they seem intent on hiding their feelings or their purposes. They want value received for their economic contributions to the Republic."
“So they want a piece of the action, do they?” asked Ngana. “How well organized are they?"
“Very,” said Miss Moore. “As I said, Mr. Ngana, you’ve done your job too well. They now possess an economic club—a club you gave them—to threaten us with."
“Have we any corroborative reports?” Ngana asked Renyan.
“I’ve had feelers out all day,” said Renyan, “and while the movement seems to be in its infancy, it definitely exists."
“Have you contacted Psychology yet?"
“No, Kip,” said Renyan. “I thought we’d better discus all our options first."
“I’ll begin by assuming that the Republic isn’t crazy about the notion of giving four hundred billion aliens the vote,” said Ngana wryly. “Which means whatever action we decide upon must be aimed at preventing this movement from coming to fruition, correct?"
“May I remind you that i
t was only twenty-six hundred years ago that your own race was held in a slavery more severe than the economic bonds you now shackle these worlds with?” said Miss Moore.
“Your point is noted,” said Ngana, “although my own ancestors never left the African continent until long after the American Civil War. And, to be honest with you, Miss Moore, if I were an inhabitant of the Denebian colonies, or Lodin XI, or any other recently assimilated world, I’d be very much in favor of complete and immediate enfranchisement, just as I would have been were I an American slave centuries ago. But I am neither. I am a ranking member of the Republic, charged with perpetuating the interests of my employer. Or to be blunt, I’m one of the Haves. The Have-nots’ arguments appeal to me emotionally, but I run my job with my intellect, not with my heart. And if Man is to fulfill whatever destiny he has in the galaxy and claim whatever birthright is his, he’ll reach his goal a lot sooner if he does not allow all of his achievements to become subservient to some alien’s notion of fair play and morality, or even his own such notion."
“How noble!” said Miss Moore sarcastically.
“Nobility is a drag on the market. I’m paid for solving problems, not for moralizing them away. I’m sorry that you don’t admire my ethics; but on the other hand, I don’t think too much of your pragmatism."
“Kip,” broke in Renyan hastily, “wait in the anteroom for me, and check out the ramifications of the problem with Psychology. I’ll be with you shortly."
Ngana took his leave, walked to the plush anteroom, and sat down. Renyan walked out a few minutes later, looking somewhat flustered.
“You know, Kip,” he began, “when I called you in we had only one crisis on our hands. Now we have two."
“Oh?"
“She wants our jobs."
“Both of them?"
“Yours, for saying what you did; and mine, for not firing you on the spot."
“She’s just a trivial old lady,” said Ngana.
“A rich, politically potent, trivial old lady,” corrected Renyan.
