The Mack Reynolds Megapack Read online

  Tog said, “I’ve heard the opinion before.”

  Jheru Bulchand pointed at Ronny with his pipe stem. “If its an organization, then none of that eliminating you did is valid. Your assassin could have been one of the women. He could have been one of the men you eliminated as too young—someone recently admitted to the Tommy Paine organization.”

  Ronny checked the last of his theories. “Why did Section G send six of its agents here?”

  “Nothing to do with Tommy Paine,” Bulchand said. “It’s a different sort of crisis.”

  “Just for my own satisfaction, what kind of crisis?”

  Bulchand sketched it quickly. “There are two Earth type planets in this solar system. Avalon was the first to be colonized and developed rapidly. After a couple of centuries, Avalonians went over and settled on Catalina. They eventually set up a government of their own. Now Avalon has a surplus of industrial products. Her economic system is such that she produces more than she can sell back to her own people. There’s a glut.”

  Tog said demurely, “So, of course, they want to dump it in Catalina.”

  Bulchand nodded. “In fact, they’re willing to give it away. They’ve offered to build railroads, turn over ships and aircraft, donate whole factories to Catalina’s slowly developing economy.”

  Ronny said, “Well, how does that call for Section G agents?”

  “Catalina has evoked Article Two of the UP Charter. No member planet of UP is to interfere with the internal political, socio-economic or religious affairs of another member planet. Avalon claims the Charter doesn’t apply since Catalina belongs to the same solar system and since she’s a former colony. We’re trying to smooth the whole thing over, before Avalon dreams up some excuse for military action.”

  Ronny stared at him. “I get the feeling every other sentence is being left out of your explanation. It just doesn’t make sense. In the first place, why is Avalon as anxious as all that to give away what sounds like a fantastic amount of goods?”

  “I told you, they have a glut. They’ve overproduced and, as a result, they’ve got a king-size depression on their hands, or will have unless they find markets.”

  “Well, why not trade with some of the planets that want her products?”

  Tog said as though reasoning with a youngster, “Planets outside her own solar system are too far away for it to be practical even if she had commodities they didn’t. She needs a nearby planet more backward than herself, a planet like Catalina.”

  “Well, that brings us to the more fantastic question. Why in the world doesn’t Catalina accept? It sounds to me like pure philanthropy on the part of Avalon.”

  Bulchand was wagging his pipe stem in a negative gesture. “Bronston, governments are never motivated by idealistic reasons. Individuals might be, and even small groups, but governments never. Governments, including that of Avalon, exist for the benefit of the class or classes that control them. The only things that motivate them are the interests of that class.”

  “Well, this sounds like an exception,” Ronny said argumentatively. “How can Catalina lose if the Avalonians grant them railroads, factories and all the rest of it?”

  Tog said, “Don’t you see, Ronny? It gives Avalon a foothold in the Catalina economy. When the locomotives wear out on the railroad, new engines, new parts, must be purchased. They won’t be available on Catalina because there will be no railroad industry because none will have ever grown up. Catalina manufacturers couldn’t compete with that initial free gift. They’ll be dependent on Avalon for future equipment. In the factories, when machines wear out, they will be replaceable only with the products of Avalon’s industry.”

  Bulchand said, “There’s an analogy in the early history of the United States. When its fledgling steel industry began, they set up a high tariff to protect it against British competition. The British were amazed and indignant, pointing out that they could sell American steel products at one third the local prices, if only allowed to do so. The United States said no thanks, it didn’t want to be tied, industrially, to Great Britain’s apron strings. And in a couple of decades American steel production passed England’s. In a couple of more decades American steel production was many times that of England’s and she was taking British markets away from her all over the globe.”

  “At any rate,” Ronny said, “it’s not a Tommy Paine matter.”

  Just for luck, though, Ronny and Tog double checked all over again on Bulchand’s efforts. They interviewed all six of the Section G agents. Each of them carried a silver badge that gleamed only for the individual who possessed it. All of which eliminated the possibility that Paine had assumed the identity of a Section G operative. So that was out.

  They checked the four crew members, but there was no doubt there, either. The craft had been far away at the time of the assassination on New Delos.

  On the third day, Ronny Bronston, disgusted, knocked on the door of Tog’s hotel room. The door screen lit up and Tog, looking out at him said, “Oh, come on in, Ronny, I was just talking to Earth.”

  He entered.

  Tog had set up her Section G communicator on a desk top and Sid Jakes’ grinning face was in the tiny, brilliant screen. Ronny approached close enough for the other to take him in.

  Jakes said happily, “Hi, Ronny, no luck, eh?”

  Ronny shook his head, trying not to let his face portray his feelings of defeat. This after all was a probationary assignment, and the supervisor had the power to send Ronny Bronston back to the drudgery of his office job at Population Statistics.

  “Still working on it. I suppose it’s a matter of returning to New Delos and grinding away at the forty-eight employees of the UP there.”

  Sid Jakes pursed his lips. “I don’t know. Possibly this whole thing was a false alarm. At any rate, there seems to be a hotter case on the fire. If our local agents have it straight, Paine is about to pull one of his coups on Kropotkin. This is a top-top-secret, of course, one of the few times we’ve ever detected him before the act.”

  Ronny was suddenly alert, his fatigue of disgust of but a moment ago, completely forgotten. “Where?” he said.

  “Kropotkin,” Jakes said. “One of the most backward planets in UP and seemingly a setup for Paine’s sort of trouble making. The authorities, if you can use the term applied to Kropotkin, are already complaining, threatening to invoke Article One of the Charter, or to resign from UP.” Jake looked at Tog again. “Do you know Kropotkin, Lee Chang?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve heard of it, rather vaguely. Named after some old anarchist, I believe.”

  “That’s the place. One of the few anarchist societies in UP. You don’t hear much from them.” He turned to Ronny again. “I think that’s your bet. Hop to it, boy. We’re going to catch this Tommy Paine guy, or organization, or whatever, soon or United Planets is going to know it. We can’t keep the lid on indefinitely. If word gets around of his activities, then we’ll lose member planets like Christmas trees shedding needles after New Year’s.” He grinned widely. “That’s sounds like a neat trick, eh?”

  * * * *

  Ronny Bronston had got to the point where he avoided controversial subjects with Tog even when provoked and she had a sneaky little way of provoking arguments. They had only one really knock down and drag-out verbal battle on the way to Kropotkin.

  It had started innocently enough after dinner on the space liner on which they had taken passage for the first part of the trip. To kill time they were playing Battle Chess with its larger board and added contingents of pawns and castles.

  Ronny said idly, “You know, in spite of the fact that I’m a third generation United Planets citizen and employee, I’m just beginning to realize how far out some of our member planets are. I had no idea before.”

  She frowned in concentration, before moving. She was advancing her men in echelon attack, taking losses in exchange for territory and trying to pen him up in such small space that he couldn’t maneuver.

  She s
aid, “How do you mean?”

  Ronny lifted and dropped a shoulder. “Well, New Delos and its theocracy, for instance, and Shangri-La and Mother and some of the other planets with extremes in government of socio-economic system. I hadn’t the vaguest idea about such places.”

  She made a deprecating sound. “You should see Amazonia, or, for that matter, the Orwellian State.”

  “Amazonia,” he said, “does that mean what it sounds like it does?”

  She made her move and settled back in satisfaction. Her pawns were in such position that his bishops were both unusable. He’d tried to play a phalanx game in the early stages of her attack, but she’d broken through, rolling up his left flank after sacrificing a castle and a knight.

  “Certainly does,” she said. “A fairly recently colonized planet. A few thousand feminists no men at all—moved onto it a few centuries ago. And it’s still an out and out matriarchy.”

  Ronny cleared his throat delicately. “Without men…ah, how did they continue several centuries?”

  Tog suppressed her amusement. “Artificial insemination, at first, so I understand. They brought their, ah, supply with them. But then there were boys among the first generation on the new planet and even the Amazonians weren’t up to cold bloodedly butchering their children. So they merely enslaved them. Nice girls.”

  Ronny stared at her. “You mean all men are automatically slaves on this planet?”

  “That’s right.”

  Ronny made an improperly thought out move, trying to bring up a castle to reinforce his collapsing flank. He said, “UP allows anybody to join evidently,” and there was disgust in his voice.

  “Why not?” she said mildly.

  “Well, there should be some standards.”

  Tog moved quickly, dominating with a knight several squares he couldn’t afford to lose. She looked up at him, her dark eyes sparking. “The point of UP is to include all the planets. That way at least conflict can be avoided and some exchange of science, industrial techniques and cultural gains take place. And you must remember that while in power practically no socio-economic system will admit to the fact that it could possibly change for the better. But actually there is nothing less stable. Socio-economic systems are almost always in a condition of flux. Planets such as Amazonia might for a time seem so brutal in their methods as to exclude their right to civilized intercourse with the rest. However, one of these days there’ll be a change—or one of these centuries. They all change, sooner or later.” She added softly, “Even Han.”

  “Han?” Ronny said.

  Her voice was quiet. “Where I was born, Ronny. Colonized from China in the very early days. In fact, I spent my childhood in a commune.” She said musingly, “The party bureaucrats thought their system an impregnable, unchangeable one. Your move.”

  Ronny was fascinated. “And what happened?” He was in full retreat now, and with nowhere to go, his pieces pinned up for the slaughter. He moved a pawn to try and open up his queen.

  “Why don’t you concede?” she said. “Tommy Paine happened.”

  “Paine!”

  “Uh-huh. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it some time.” She pressed closer with her own queen.

  He stared disgustedly at the board. “Well, that’s what I mean,” he muttered. “I had no idea there were so many varieties of crackpot politico-economic systems among the UP membership.”

  “They’re not necessarily crackpot,” she protested mildly. “Just at different stages of development.”

  “Not crackpot!” he said. “Here we are heading for a planet named Kropotkin which evidently practices anarchy.”

  “Your move,” she said. “What’s wrong with anarchism?”

  He glowered at her, in outraged disgust. Was it absolutely impossible for him to say anything without her disagreement?

  Tog said mildly, “The anarchistic ethic is one of the highest man has ever developed.” She added, after a moment of pretty consideration. “Unfortunately, admittedly, it hasn’t been practical to put to practice. It will be interesting to see how they have done on Kropotkin.”

  “Anarchist ethic, yes,” Ronny snapped. “I’m no student of the movement but the way I understand it, there isn’t any.”

  Tog smiled sweetly. “The belief upon which they base their teachings is that no man is capable of judging another.”

  Ronny cast his eyes ceilingward. “O.K., I give up!”

  She began rapidly resetting the pieces. “Another game?” she said brightly.

  “Hey! I didn’t mean the game! I was just about to counterattack.”

  “Ha!” she said.

  * * * *

  The Section G agent on Kropotkin was named Hideka Yamamoto, but he was on a field tour and wouldn’t be back for several days. However, there wasn’t especially any great hurry so far as Ronny Bronston and Tog Lee Chang Chu knew. They got themselves organized in the rather rustic equivalent of a hotel, which was located fairly near UP headquarters, and took up the usual problems of arranging for local exchange, meals, means of transportation and such necessities.

  It was a greater problem than usual. In fact, hadn’t it been for the presence of the UP organization, which had already gone through all this the hard way, some of the difficulties would have been all but insurmountable.

  For instance, there was no local exchange. There was no medium of exchange at all. Evidently simple barter was the rule.

  In the hotel—if it could be called a hotel—lobby, Ronny Bronston looked at Tog. “Anarchism!” he said. “Oh, great. The highest ethic of all. And what’s the means of transportation on this wonderful planet? The horse. And how are we going to get a couple of horses with no means of exchange?”

  She tinkled laughter.

  “All right,” he said. “You’re the Man Friday. You find out the details and handle them. I’m going out to take a look around the town—if you can call this a town.”

  “It’s the capital of Kropotkin,” Tog said placatingly, though with a mocking background in her tone. “Name of Bakunin. And very pleasant, too, from what little I’ve seen. Not a bit of smog, industrial fumes, street dirt, street noises—”

  “How could there be?” he injected disgustedly. “There isn’t any industry, there aren’t any cars, and for all practical purposes, no streets. The houses are a quarter of a mile or so apart.”

  She laughed at him again. “City boy,” she said. “Go on out there and enjoy nature a little. It’ll do you good. Anybody who has cooped himself up in that one big city, Earth, all his life ought to enjoy seeing what the great outdoors looks like.”

  He looked at her and grinned. She was cute as a pixie, and there were no two ways about that. He wondered for a moment what kind of a wife she’d make. And then shuddered inwardly. Life would be one big contradiction of anything he’d managed to get out of his trap.

  He strolled idly along what was little more than a country path and it came to him that there were probably few worlds in the whole UP where he’d have been prone to do this within the first few hours he’d been on the planet. He would have been afraid, elsewhere, of anything from footpads to police, from unknown vehicles to unknown traffic laws. There was something bewildering about being an Earthling and being set down suddenly in New Delos or on Avalon.

  Here, somehow, he already had a feeling of peace.

  Evidently, although Bakunin was supposedly a city, its populace tilled their fields and provided themselves with their own food. He could see no signs of stores or warehouses. And the UP building, which was no great edifice itself, was the only thing in town which looked even remotely like a governmental building.

  Bakunin was neat. Clean as a pin, as the expression went. Ronny was vaguely reminded of a historical Tri-Di romance he’d once seen. It had been laid in ancient times in a community of the Amish in old Pennsylvania.

  He approached one of the wooden houses. The things would have been priceless on Earth as an antique to be erected as a museum in some cr
owded park. For that matter it would have been priceless for the wood it contained. Evidently, the planet Kropotkin still had considerable virgin forest.

  An old-timer smoking a pipe, sat on the cottage’s front step. He nodded politely.

  Ronny stopped. He might as well try to get a little of the feel of the place. He said courteously, “A pleasant evening.”

  The old-timer nodded. “As evenings should be after a fruitful day’s toil. Sit down, comrade. You must be from the United Planets. Have you ever seen Earth?”

  Ronny accepted the invitation and felt a soothing calm descend upon him almost immediately. An almost disturbingly pleasant calm. He said, “I was born on Earth.”

  “Ai?” the old man said. “Tell me. The books say that Kropotkin is an Earth type planet within what they call a few degrees. But is it? Is Kropotkin truly like the mother planet?”

  Ronny looked about him. He’d seen some of this world as the shuttle rocket had brought them down from the passing liner. The forests, the lakes, the rivers, and the great sections untouched by man’s hands. Now he saw the areas between homes, the neat fields, the signs of human toil—the toil of hands, not machines.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid not. This is how Earth must once have been. But no longer.”

  The other nodded. “Our total population is but a few million,” he said. Then, “I would like to see the mother planet, but I suppose I never shall.”

  Ronny said diplomatically, “I have seen little of Kropotkin thus far but I am not so sure but that I might not be happy to stay here, rather than ever return to Earth.”

  The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe by striking it against the heel of a work-gnarled hand. He looked about him thoughtfully and said, “Yes, perhaps you’re right. I am an old man and life has been good. I suppose I should be glad that I’ll unlikely live to see Kropotkin change.”

  “Change? You plan changes?”

  The old man looked at him and there seemed to be a very faint bitterness, politely suppressed. “I wouldn’t say we planned them, comrade. Certainly not we of the older generation. But the trend toward change is already to be seen by anyone who wishes to look, and our institutions won’t long be able to stand. But, of course, if you’re from United Planets you would know more of this than I.”