The Rival Rigelians Read online

  Joe Chessman growled. “Some of the boys tell me you’ve had a few difficulties with this crumbling feudalism thing. In fact, didn’t Buchwald barely escape with his life when the barons on your southern continent united to suppress all chartered cities?”

  Mayer’s thin face had darkened. “Never fear, my dear Joseph, those barons responsible for shedding the blood of southern hemisphere elements of progress will shortly pay for their crimes.”

  “You’ve got military problems, too, then?” Barry Watson asked him. “It seemed to me you were suggesting that only we on Texcoco have had to resort to strong arm tactics.” There was an amused element in the younger man’s voice.

  Mayer’s eyes went to him in irritation. “Some of the free cities of Genoa are planning measures to regain their property and rights on the southern hemisphere. This has nothing to do with my team, except, of course, in so far as we might sell them supplies or equipment.”

  The lanky Watson laughed lowly. “You mean like selling them a few quick firing breech loaders and trench mortars?”

  Plekhanov muttered, “That will be enough, Barry.”

  But Mayer’s eyes had widened. “How did you know about that?” He whirled on Plekhanov. “You’re spying on me, trying to negate my work!”

  Plekhanov rumbled, “Don’t be a fool, Mayer. My team has neither the time nor interest to spy on you. We have our own work to do.”

  “Then how did you know—”

  Barry Watson said mildly, “I was doing some investigating in the ship’s library. I ran into evidence that you people had already used the blueprints for breech loaders and trench mortars.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t particularly interested.”

  Jerry Kennedy came to his feet and strolled over to the messroom bar. He said, “This seems to be an all-out spat rather than a conference to compare progress. Let’s try to clear the air a bit. Anybody for a drink? Natalie, you used to like dry sherry, didn’t you.”

  “Good heavens,” Natalie Wieliczka said. “Is there still sherry there? I’d quite forgotten about sherry.”

  Kennedy said, “Frankly, that’s the next thing I’m going to introduce to Genoa—some halfway decent guzzle. Do you know what those benighted heathens drink now? They ferment a berry and wind up with a sweetish wine that tastes something like blackberry cordial and runs about eight percent alcohol.”

  Watson grinned. “Make mine whiskey, Jerry. You’ve got no complaints. Our benighted heathens have a national beverage fermented from a plant similar to cactus. Ought to be drummed out of the human race.”

  Barry Watson had spoken idly, as had Kennedy, both forgetful of the two Tulan guards who were stationed at the doorway. One of the natives flushed slightly, but the other’s resentment was only deep in his eyes.

  Kennedy passed drinks around for everyone except the two Tulan soldiers and Amschel Mayer who shook his head in distaste. If only for a brief spell, some of the tenseness left the air while the men from Earth sipped their beverages.

  Jerry Kennedy looked down into the glass into which he had poured a hefty shot of cognac. “Mother’s milk,” he muttered. He looked across the table. “Well, you’ve heard our report. How go things on Texcoco?”

  “According to plan,” Plekhanov rumbled. He threw his double vodka down.

  Mayer snorted disbelief.

  Plekhanov said ungraciously, “Our prime effort is now the uniting of the total population into one strong whole—a super-state capable of accomplishing the goals set us by the Co-ordinator. Everything else we do is secondary to forming such a state.”

  Mayer sneered. “Undoubtedly this goal of yours, this super-state, is being established by force. Nothing else could do it.”

  “Not always,” Joe Chessman said. “Quite a few of the tribes join up on their own. Why not? The State has a great deal to offer them.”

  “Such as what?” Kennedy said mildly. He swirled his cognac in the large glass, smelled the bouquet and sighed.

  Chessman looked at him in irritation. “Such as advanced medicine, security from famine, military protection from more powerful nations. The opportunity for youth to get an education and find advancement in the State’s government, if they’ve got it on the ball.”

  “And what if they don’t have it on the ball?”

  Chessman growled. “What happens to such under any society? They get the dirty-end-of-the-stick jobs.” His eyes went from Kennedy to Mayer, and there was contempt in his expression. “Are you suggesting that you offer anything better on Genoa?”

  Mayer said, “Already on most of Genoa it is a matter of free competition. The person with ability is able to profit by it.”

  Joe Chessman grunted sour amusement. “Of course, it doesn’t help to be the son of a wealthy merchant or a big politician—or, better still, a member of the Pedagogue’s complement.”

  Plekhanov took over. “In any society the natural leaders come to the top in much the same manner as the big ones come to the top in a bin of potatoes; they just work their way up.”

  Jerry Kennedy had finished with savoring the aroma of his cognac. He threw the drink back, then said easily, “At least those at the top can claim they’re the biggest potatoes. They’ve been doing it down through the ages. Remember back in the twentieth century when Hitler and his gang announced they were the big potatoes in Germany and men of Einstein’s stature fled the country—being small potatoes, I suppose.”

  Amschel Mayer said impatiently, “We continue to get away from the subject. Pray go on, my dear Leonid. You say you are forcibly uniting all Texcoco, requiring all to join this super-state of yours.”

  “We are uniting all Texcoco,” Plekhanov corrected with a scowl at the other’s prodding. “Not always by force. And that is by no means our only effort. We are weeding out the most intelligent of the assimilated peoples and educating them as rapidly as possible. We’ve introduced iron...”

  “And use it chiefly for weapons,” Natalie said lowly. She had been looking at Barry Watson, as though wondering at the changes ten years had wrought in him.

  Plekhanov switched his scowl to her. “We’ve also introduced antibiotics, Doctor Wieliczka, and other medicines. And a field agriculture.” He looked back to Kennedy. “We’re rapidly building roads...”

  “Military roads,” Kennedy mused, looking down into his empty glass.

  “...to all sections of the State. We’ve made a beginning in naval science and, of course, haven’t ignored the arts.”

  “On the face of it,” Mayer nodded, “hardly approaching what we have accomplished on Genoa.”

  Plekhanov rumbled indignantly. “We started two ethnic periods behind you. Even the Tulans, our most advanced people, were still using bronze, but your Genoese had iron and even gunpowder. Our advance is a bit slow to get moving Mayer, but when it begins to roll—”

  Mayer gave his characteristic snort. “A free people need never worry about being passed by a subjected one.”

  Barry Watson came to his feet and made his way over to the bar. He picked up a bottle of whiskey that Kennedy had opened earlier, and poured himself another slug. He looked back over his shoulder at Amschel Mayer. “It’s interesting the way you throw about that term free. Just what type of government do you sponsor?”

  Mayer snapped. “Our team does not interfere in governmental forms, Watson. The various nations are free to adapt to whatever local conditions decree. They range from some under feudalistic domination to countries with varying degrees of republican democracy. Our base of operations in the eastern hemisphere is probably the most advanced of all the chartered cities on Genoa. It amounts to a city-state somewhat similar to Florence during the Renaissance.”

  “And your team finds itself in the position of the Medici, I assume.”

  “You might use that analogy. The Medici might have been, well, tyrants of Florence, dominating her finances and trade as well as her political government, but they were benevolent tyrants.”

  “Yeah,” Watson grinned. “T
he thing about a benevolent tyranny, though, is that it’s up to the tyrants to decide what’s benevolent. I’m not so sure there’s a great basic difference between your governing of Genoa and ours of Texcoco.”

  “Don’t be a yoke,” Mayer snapped. “We are granting the Genoese political freedoms as fast as they can assimilate them.”

  Joe Chessman growled, “But I imagine it’s surprising to find how slowly they can assimilate. A moment ago you said they were free to form any government they wished. Now you say you feed them what you call freedom, only so fast as they can assimilate it.”

  “Obviously, we encourage them along whatever path we think will most quickly develop their economy,” Mayer argued. “That’s what we’ve been sent here to do. We stimulate competition, encourage all progress, political as well as economic.”

  Plekhanov lumbered to his feet and joined Kennedy at the bar. He growled at the other team head. “Amschel, obviously we are getting nowhere with this conference. I propose we adjourn to meet again at the end of the second decade.”

  Kennedy poured the other another shot of vodka, and filled his own glass again.

  Amschel Mayer said, “I suppose it would be futile to suggest you give up this impossible totalitarian scheme of yours and reunite the expedition.”

  Plekhanov merely grunted his disgust.

  Barry Watson said, “You might remember that it was your idea in the first place. It’s too late to change now.”

  Jerry Kennedy said, “One thing.” He frowned and swirled his cognac in the big glass. “What stand have you taken on giving your planet immortality?”

  No one noticed the two Tulan men at arms shoot startled looks at each other.

  “Immortality?” Chessman grunted. “We haven’t got it to give.”

  “You know what I mean. It wouldn’t take long to extend the life span double or triple the present,” Jerry Kennedy said.

  Amschel Mayer pursed his thin lips. “At this stage progress is faster with the generations closer together. A man is pressed when he knows he has only twenty or thirty years of peak efficiency. We on Earth are inclined to settle back and take life as it comes. For instance, you younger men are all past the century mark, but none have bothered to get married as yet.”

  Barry Watson shot a look at Natalie, who flushed slightly. “Plenty of time for that,” he grinned.

  “That’s what I mean,” Mayer said. “But a Texcocan or Genoese feels pressed to wed in his twenties, or earlier, to get his family under way.”

  “There’s another element,” Plekhanov muttered. He tossed his straight drink back, stiff wristed. “The more the natives progress, the more nearly they will equal our abilities. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to our overall plans. As it is now, their abilities taper off at sixty and they reach senility at seventy or eighty. I think until the end we should keep it this way.”

  “A cold blooded view,” Kennedy said. “If we extend their life expectancy, their best men would live to be of additional use to planet development.”

  “But they would not have our dreams,” Plekhanov rumbled. “Such men might try to subvert us, and, just possibly, might succeed.”

  “I think Leonid is right,” Mayer admitted with reluctance.

  * * * *

  It was obvious that the discussion was going to continue for at least a time. Barry Watson got Natalie Wieliczka’s eye and made a motion toward the ship’s library with his head. She looked about the others, then nodded very slightly. Barry drifted, unnoticed, from the lounge and waited for her behind some of the tape racks. She wasn’t long in coming.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s been a long time, Polack,” he told her softly. “Ten years.”

  Natalie looked up into his face. “Yes.”

  He let his arms go down and around her. “I’ve come up here, oh a dozen times on research. Thought maybe I’d run into you.”

  “I’ve spent quite a bit of time here in the library,” she said lowly. “We just didn’t coincide.”

  He kissed her. For a moment, a briefest of moments, her lips were tense. Then they relaxed.

  She said, “Oh, Barry. So long a time. So long.”

  He held her away from him for a moment and looked into her face. “You haven’t changed your mind?”

  She shook her head, mute.

  He said, “Like you say, ten years is forever. You sure you haven’t found yourself a... a Genoese, to... to pass the hours?”

  She shook her head.

  There was a teasing element in his voice now. “Or Jerry Kennedy, or Mike Dean, one of our own group?”

  She shook her head still once again and took a deep breath. “No. Nobody, Barry.”

  He kissed her and let his right hand drift lower down her back. He pressed her closer. She stiffened slightly but didn’t resist.

  Barry Watson looked at her questioningly. “You’re tired, Natalie.”

  She gave a little snort of deprecation. “Isn’t Isobel Sanchez? What does an M.D. do when she is the sole competent doctor on a whole planet? One doctor, one billion patients.”

  He laughed lowly. “What do you do? I have a sneaking suspicion not exactly what Isobel has come up with.”

  She said, “Why, I’ve established three medical universities, one on each continent. I’m trying to teach teachers. I get one going and move on to the third. Then back to the first.” She paused and took a deep breath as though in frustration.

  “And?”

  “And by the time I’ve made the complete circuit, they’ve got back to powdering frogs for medicine, murmuring incantations and spells, and bleeding their patients. I have to start all over.” She shook her head. “Perhaps I’m using the wrong method. I wish Isobel Sanchez had come up. I’d like to confer with her. What is she doing? What can you do when you are one and you have a billion patients?”

  He grinned at her. “You can let nine hundred million, nine hundred thousand of them go to pot and work on what’s left.”

  She frowned at him.

  He said, a shade of impatience at the trend of talk in his voice, “Isobel isn’t bothering with anybody except our Tulans. She’s had them build a swanky hospital. She’s training a handful of them, or, rather, letting them train themselves.” He chuckled sourly. “She has a knack for picking the best looking physical specimens to become her male nurses cum interns. Old Leonid must be blind. At any rate, she’s introduced antibiotics and so forth. Actually, her glamour boys learn fast. She’s letting them get into the Pedagogue’s tapes as fast as they can assimilate them.”

  Natalie said thoughtfully, “I’ve got to get more basic medical books into print.”

  He kissed her again. “Zen take this fling, Polack. Let those cloddies in the lounge talk shop. How about us?”

  “How do you mean, Barry?”

  “Just that. It’s been ten years, Polack. Are we going to let it be another ten?”

  She frowned at him, lacking understanding. “But you’re on Texcoco and I’m on Genoa, Barry. What can we do?”

  He was impatient. “Look, let’s not be a couple of flats. You have access to your team’s space lighter, I have access to ours. Fine. Let’s make a date. I’ll tell old Plekhanov I’ve got to check up on the differences between the Theban and Macedonian phalanxes, and why it was the Romans were able to take the Macedonians a couple of hundred years after Alexander. Meanwhile, you can tell Amschel that there’s a new epidemic or something, and you have to come up here for a few day’s study.”

  “A few days?”

  “Sure. We’ll have a real party. There’s still lots of Earthside liquor on board and...”

  She was shaking her head, hard. “No. Oh, no, Barry. That’s not what we want!”

  He scowled at her. “Ten years is a long time, Natalie. I’m a man, not a robot. It’s what I want. Do you love me or not?”

  She turned from him abruptly and ran back toward the lounge.

  “Hey!” he called. “Don’t be drivel happy.” />
  Natt Roberts entered the library. He looked back over his shoulder at the retreating Natalie. “What’s the matter?” he said.

  Barry Watson swore under his breath. “Nothing,” he said.

  Roberts shrugged. “The team’s getting ready to leave,” he said. “Plekhanov wants to know where you are.”

  “I’m coming,” Watson snarled.

  * * * *

  Later, in the space lighter heading back for Genoa, Amschel Mayer said speculatively, “Did you notice anything about Leonid Plekhanov?”

  Jerry Kennedy was piloting. He said, “He seems the same irascible old bird he’s always been.”

  Natalie’s mind was on other things. “A bit tired,” she said. “But we’re all that. Both teams.”

  But the group leader wasn’t to be put off. “It seems to me he’s become a touch power mad. Could the pressures he’s under cause his mind to slip? Obviously, all isn’t peaches and cream in that attempt of his to achieve world government on Texcoco.”

  “Well,” Kennedy muttered, “all isn’t peaches and cream with us, either. The barons are far from licked, especially in the west.” He changed the subject. “By the way, that banking deal went through in Pola. I was able to get control.”

  “Fine,” Mayer chuckled. “You must be quite the richest man in the city. There is a certain stimulation in this financial game, Jerry, isn’t there?”

  “Uh huh,” Jerry told him. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a marked deck.”

  “Marked deck?” Natalie said, frowning.

  “That’s right. It’s handy that gold is the medium of exchange on Genoa,” Jerry said. “Especially in view of the fact that we have a machine on the ship capable of changing metals.”

  CHAPTER VI

  LEONID PLEKHANOV, Joseph Chessman, Barry Watson, Khan Reif and several of the Tulan army staff stood on a knoll overlooking a valley of several square miles. A valley dominated on all sides but the sea by steep mountain ranges.