The colonel nodded, his face expressionless. “And yet, such a road would be of great benefit.”
“They will wish to build it. But they will be unable. As the carouser wishes to mount the steps, but his limbs will not function.”
“And yet, if your work chiefs had their peasants to do the work—”
“Their peasants would not do it for my men, even if my men had permission to cross the border. Their peasants leave their crops only on threat of the lash. There is no profit for them in it.”
The colonel said, in a thoughtful voice, “What would happen if they were offered pay?”
“Their kings will not deprive themselves, and their treasuries are as disordered as everything else.”
“What if you paid them?”
The Iatulon looked at him flatly.
“You suggest that I pay out of my treasury to build their road?”
The colonel said courteously, “It would be presumptuous of me to make such a suggestion. But it occurs to me to wonder what would happen if you did?”
The Iatulon stared, started to get up, then paused. He gave a low exclamation. Finally he looked at the colonel in astonished respect.
“Truly, Yel Den Garoujik, the man who thinks of such a plan thinks deep thoughts.”
Courteously, the colonel said, “It merely seemed to me that such a road might be a benefit to the planet. I thought you would appreciate its virtues.”
“You need say no more, Yel Den Garoujik. And when the time comes to vote, count on me to favor the rest camp for the Star Men.”
IX
From Mardukash, the colonel moved on to Sil, then Yarum, then Garanzol, and in each of these places, good order reigned, and the colonel was listened to respectfully by rulers whose trend of thought followed the same pattern as the Iatulon’s. Each was in turn angered, then wide-eyed, at the thought of subsidizing a road for his neighbors.
In each of these petty kingdoms, Roberts and Hammell found the people content, the troops loyal and alert, and the storehouses full.
Roberts, when not out gathering firsthand information, spent some time wondering about the colonel’s plan. The basic idea seemed plain enough: The colonel intended that the best-organized kingdoms should combine in building a great Royal Road that would benefit all the kingdoms by providing a better route than the hazardous sea journey.
But why should the richer kings suddenly turn into philanthropists? And what good did all this do for Garoujik Construction and PDA? Roberts, puzzled, watched to see what would happen next.
When the well-organized kingdoms had been visited, the colonel had Roberts land at yet another Visitors’ Campground, and this time Roberts reported that while the people seemed reasonably content, there were signs everywhere of inefficiency.
“Be specific,” said the colonel.
“Well, sir,” said Roberts, “first, you’ve got to give the guards at the gate a little something extra to ‘oil the hinges,’ in order to get in or out. Second, under the usual robes, the people wear the usual loose blouse and long loose trousers. But in this place, they sell a flat leather pouch you wear on a harness under the rest of your clothes. That’s on account of pickpockets. When we asked one of the merchants, ‘What about the guards?’ he looked at us as if we were crazy, and said, ‘The pickpockets divide with them.’ Third, the public storehouses in the city are alive with rats. It seems that the Great Zaragol pays a bounty on every hundred rat tails that are brought in from the royal warehouses. The people in charge of the royal warehouses don’t get any salary; they’re supposed to live on the bonuses, and the more diligent they are, they more they get. It sounds good, but they can’t trap rats in the warehouses unless there are rats in the warehouses, and we saw one of these people toss a piece of meat to a cat, take a quick look around, then bash the cat’s head in and flip it over the wall.”
“What do the people think of these things?”
Roberts shrugged. ” ‘So it has always been. So it will always be.'”
“Where do they get their food when the royal storehouses run out?”
“There are private storehouses that seem better managed, but they’re always low by the end of the year. Then the Great Zaragol puts the squeeze on the farmers for ‘trying to starve the people.’ He can generally wring something out of them so everyone gets through to the next harvest. If not, there’s a famine, and that lowers the population, so the next year’s food supply will feed the remainder.”
The colonel said somberly, “What about the army?”
“What soldiers we saw seemed tough and good-natured. It’s hard to judge without knowing more, but it looked as if the men were probably good fighters, but not well organized.”
“This fits with what PDA told us,” said the colonel. “Well, the thing is now in motion. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it, and see how it goes.”
Roberts said politely, “Speaking as just a new recruit, sir, who doesn’t know much, what are we supposed to keep an eye on?”
The colonel smiled. “Since we are inside this ship, Roberts, where PDAs receptors are being fed a thoroughly falsified picture, I suppose we can be frank.”
“Yes, sir,” said Roberts.
“When a clandestine organization can’t hope to get its goal achieved directly, what do you suppose it does?”
Roberts groped mentally. “Apparently, it will have to go about it indirectly.”
“For instance?”
“Well, ambush the opposition, tie up his communications, create diversions, wear him out with false alarms—”
The colonel nodded. “That’s an armed military opposition. Suppose we consider the case of a few men who wish to reorganize a planet, and are forbidden to use force or large-scale bribery?”
“That’s exactly what I don’t see.”
“They may be able to do it with an idea.”
“Sir, that sounds good, but—”
“An idea that offers the locals a visible real or apparent gain, but that has as an inescapable by-product the starting of a chain of events that the majority of the locals do not realize. Those who do realize it may attempt to block it, but they will be silenced by the majority, who see only the immediate gain. The resulting chain of events is like a chemical reaction, Roberts, and although exact details are impossible to predict, the overall ‘reaction’ proceeds inexorably, to the final products—unless a new ‘reaction’—a different chain of events—is started by the intervention of some new factor.”
Roberts said hesitantly, “Sir . . . isn’t that pretty theoretical?”
“Very. In practice, the problem, of course, is to find some idea that will appeal to the locals for their own reasons, and that incidentally will start the desired chain of events.”
“Such a chain of events has been started here?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t see it.”
“You will.”
Roberts said wryly, “The Interstellar Patrol doesn’t give information away, does it?”
The colonel smiled. “The Interstellar Patrol gives practically nothing away.”
Roberts nodded.
“However,” said the colonel, “when you’ve learned a little more about it, you will also see that the Patrol places very few restrictions on what you can earn.”
Roberts said exasperatedly, “Sir, what is the Interstellar Patrol?”
“That is a piece of information that you will have to earn.”
“And just how do I earn it?”
“By discovering the way to find the answer.”
Roberts smiled. “And I suppose if I wanted to get rich, I could achieve that, too, if I could first figure out what mysterious thing to do to achieve it.”
The colonel shrugged. “You don’t have to achieve that. As far as that’s concerned, you, Hammell, and Morrissey, are rich.”
“You mean, rich in companionship, or some such thing?”
“No,” said the colonel, “I mean rich in money.”
“This is news to me.”
“Then you don’t understand how the Patrol works. When we take something, we pay for it. When you three men came on board, you brought along a gadget far in advance of anything we had in that line, and that promises to be extremely useful—if something of a headache. But, if someone else had discovered this and used it against us, it would have been much more than a headache; hence, you have brought us something extremely valuable. In return, you are given a large money reward. This is only fair.”
Roberts said dazedly, “This can be drawn on?”
“Whenever you want, when you’re not on assignment to a specific duty.”
“It was Morrissey who actually worked out the device—”
“In apportioning the amount of the payment, all facts available to us and to SymComp were carefully considered. But bear in mind, you brought the device into the Patrol, intentionally or not, and this weighs heavily with us.”
Roberts turned away, then paused, the colonel’s words playing themselves over in his mind. ” ‘SymComp?’ What’s that?”