Moffis put the report down, and Horsip frowned and massaged his chin.
Moffis said, “You see what I mean. He didn’t hold anything back.”
“But,” said Horsip, “what does it mean?”
Moffis nodded. “That’s it.”
Horsip said, “Let’s see that.”
Moffis handed it to him. Horsip sat back, scowling, and leafed through the report.
“It appears to me, Moffis, that Smith has already been through a lot of things we’ve never dreamed of.”
“Yes, but with Smith putting his solution to our problems into action, maybe now we will experience these things.”
“H’m. I wonder what a ‘depression’ is?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like the sound of it. It may not bother Smith, but it doesn’t sound good to me.”
“Whoever made up this report should have had the sense to find out what the words he put in the report meant.”
“A lot of these reports don’t add up, even with explanations. Here, let’s have that one. . . . Now, here in back—here we are. ‘Depression: A state of acutely depressed business conditions. In a “depression,” there is no money. Except for the urgent necessities, the means of production are idle. Nearly everyone is filled with gloom and despair. The future looks dismal. People kill themselves from lack of hope. Objects worth large sums of money can be had cheaply by anyone with the money to buy them. But nobody has any money.’ ” Moffis looked up. “That’s a depression.”
Horsip said fervently, “It doesn’t sound good.”
“No,” said Moffis, “but how does the money disappear? Here, under ‘Boom,’ it says, ‘Exuberant state of the economy. Everyone has money. Prices are high, but no one hesitates to buy, as everyone expects conditions to be even better in the future.’ ”
Horsip shook his head. “This is as hard to figure out as an ‘installment loan contract.’ ”
“And it’s only the beginning. Here, for instance, we have a report titled ‘Hairwire Finetuning of Planetary Economic Systems.’ I haven’t found a complete sentence in it anywhere I can understand. My mind sort of slides over the surface, and can’t get a grip.”
“This is another interview with an Earthman?”
“Yes, this one is a famous economics professor. He even impresses the Earthmen.”
Moffis reached into his stack of reports, and pulled out another sheaf. “Listen to this. ‘Economic Systems—Their Sabotage and Overthrow. How to Do It.’ Take a look at this.”
After the first three sentences, Horsip had an attack of chills, but he read through to the end.
Moffis said, “How do you like that one?”
Horsip reread the summary, then looked up.
“Do you notice, Moffis, that when one of our men interviews an Earthman, he comes away talking like the Earthman? Here, for instance, our man is describing what’s the best thing to blow up. That’s all right, because this interview was his job, and he’s summarizing it. But listen to this: ‘By this stage, the capitalists and their lackeys will lie awake nights drenched in sweat and shaking with fear. In their nightmare, they see the Revolution approach.’ And so on. What’s this?”
“Let’s see that,” said Moffis. He looked it over, frowning. “I didn’t notice that when I was reading it. I suppose after reading that interview, this seemed mild by comparison. It’s as if this Earthman had a bad case of something, and our man caught it from him.”
“Let’s see that first report again—the one on production. . . . Let’s see, now.” Horsip settled back, and turned to the summary. “Here we are. ‘In summary, then, the important thing is, produce. Turn out the goods so fast and in such quantity that poverty and need are overwhelmed, swamped. Then, if too much is produced, the price goes down so anyone can buy the goods, and there is no harm done. Produce! That’s the important thing! From high production, everybody profits.’ ”
Moffis sat up. “You’re right! He caught it too!”
Horsip, scowling, weighed the reports in his hands.
“All these Earthmen, each with his special theory, are spread out through the Integral Union. That much we foresaw. But now—you remember, our men are supposed to make more fanatical ‘reporters’ than the Earth reporters who taught them. Apparently an Earthman can convince our people, and then they are stronger believers than he was. Can that be?”
Moffis was thinking it over. He said, “But, in that case . . .” And that was as far as he got, because at this point he stared across the room and stopped talking.
Horsip said, “Well, whether it’s so or not, there’s nothing we can do but improve the information network, hang on tight, and hope the High Council has some plan for taking care of this.”
He became aware that Moffis was watching someone thread his way through the desks of busy workers and team supervisors, striding fast toward their slightly raised cubicle at the corner of the room. Horsip recognized Nokkel, the Security Chief.
Nokkel, looking as if he were suffering from a bad case of indigestion, opened the door of the cubicle, stepped in, and saluted.
Horsip studied Nokkel’s expression, and returned the salute.
“Sir,” said Nokkel, “we’ve turned up a communist cell in the Communications Section. And I—we—don’t know what to . . .”
Horsip glanced out at the room full of desks and apparently busy individuals, where an intense silence suddenly reigned.
Horsip smiled, and spoke so his voice would carry. “Good news, Nokkel! That’s fine work! Have a seat, and we’ll work out the details.”
The morbid interest on the watching faces turned to boredom, and the volume of noise in the room started to return to normal.
Horsip growled in a low voice, “Pull up a chair, Nokkel. Now, what’s this? Let’s have the details, and keep your voice down.”
* * *
Nokkel leaned forward on the edge of his chair.
“Sir, what happened is that we got a tip from one of the men in the Communications Section that something suspicious was going on. We’ve used a new . . . ah . . . ‘bug’ and we’ve got evidence against the assistant chief of the section, two of the shift supervisors, and three of the men. The six are members of a ‘cell,’ and the leader is one of the men. He reports to someone else, and we’re trying to trace that down, but we haven’t got it worked out yet. They use ‘drops,’ code words, transmitters, something called ‘microdots,’ and ciphers that have driven my best men half out of their heads—and, well, frankly, sir, it’s a mess. Somewhere there’s an Earthman giving them instructions, but we don’t know how he gets the information to them. We can’t leave them where they are, because they will eventually trace down our sources and expose them to their own people. Moreover, they’re trying to recruit new members. So we’ve got to stop them. On the other hand, if we close in now, we won’t find out who they’re reporting to, and it may be someone high in our own organization. We’d shift them onto less important work, but if we do they’ll know we’ve found out. Every minute they’re where they are, they do damage. But we don’t dare touch them, because they’re our only link to someone who may be doing more damage yet.”
Horsip glanced at Moffis, who looked serious, and said nothing.
“So,” said Horsip, turning to Nokkel, “you need to know what to do about this ‘communist cell,’ is that it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Horsip again had that melting-ice sensation he’d had back on Earth.
Nokkel said jitterily, “I have the feeling that once I rip the cover off, there’s no telling what we’ll find. I’d have trusted these men anywhere. But they’re all corrupt. My own assistants could be in on this. The whole organization could be . . .”
Horsip watched Nokkel alertly.
Nokkel gave a shuddering sigh. “No matter what you do, you can’t beat the Earthmen. Some of those ciphers—I tried to show my men how to do it, but I got in a worse mess than they were in. You can’t win. They’re too smart. You—”
Horsip spoke confidently.
“You’re overstrained, Nokkel. Now, don’t worry about beating the Earthmen. It’s true, they’re clever, but they work against each other. Just bear in mind, there are a lot more of us, and we don’t work against each other.”
“But that’s just it! Now we do. We—”
“Keep your voice down.” Horsip looked into Nokkel’s eyes. “All this is part of a great plan worked out by the High Council, Nokkel. It looks as if the Earthmen are making progress. But you know the High Council. The Earthmen see deep, but the Council sees deeper. Now, I can’t tell you what the plan is. I don’t claim to know more than a small part of it. But I can tell you the Earthmen are like a newly caught wild molk running around in a pasture. The molk looks ferocious. He is ferocious. But the herdsmen are watching him, and when the right time comes, they will throw out the tangle-ropes, and the molk will go down. Now, when I say we don’t work against each other, naturally I mean our top men. Our top men are just like one man. But what of the leadership of the Earthmen? They are working in all directions. They are wasting their strength strangling each other. They can’t win, Nokkel. Their strength is subtracted from each other. Not so with the High Council. Our strength is one, united, all working in the same direction. You and I may have a difficult time, but that doesn’t matter. We will win in the end.”