Absorbed, Horsip was only vaguely aware of exclamations of astonishment from Moffis. When Horsip, skimming fast to get the highlights, which fit together like a well-made gun, finally came to the end, Moffis was just looking up.
“Well, Moffis,” said Horsip, “that does make unpleasant reading.”
“This is almost as bad. Would you believe that there is actually a planet where everything man-made is barred? And they’ve made the rule hold!”
“What do they eat?”
“Nuts and berries. Roots. Snigglers and wrettles. Thousand-bristled thread-spinners. Anything that’s natural.”
Horsip thought of the discipline that would have to be imposed to enforce such a rule. But the Earthmen had doubtless accomplished it by putting across a theory.
Horsip shook his head.
“This is worse. All these dictators arm themselves at top speed, while most of the other planets don’t arm at all—”
“Of course,” said Moffis, “the other planets shouldn’t have to arm. They have a right to look to the Fleet for protection.”
“Yes, but with this Control Commission, what use is the Fleet?”
Moffis said thoughtfully, “If the Fleet would just blow up the Control Commission . . .”
Horsip looked shocked.
“We couldn’t have that. That would be a . . .”
He paused, considering it, then shook his head.
“That would be a breakdown of discipline. We couldn’t have that—unless higher authority ordered it.”
Moffis nodded.
“Just let them order it soon.”
* * *
Before the eyes of Horsip and Moffis, the changes took place, and if the High Council was disturbed by it, they gave no sign. Day by day, the control of the Earthmen broadened and tightened. More and more planets fell under their sway, and instead of being slowed by the sheer bulk of Centrans who had to be persuaded to new ways, their progress seemed accelerated by the Centran respect for ideas. The Earthmen, apparently used to more stubborn argument, seemed to organize whole planets overnight. Only where the Holy Brotherhood was exceptionally strong, or the Earthmen very weak, were the Earthmen defeated. With these exceptions the peaceful conquest of Centra by Earth swept forward, with the differences amongst the Earthmen extended to the Centrans. Horsip and Moffis, aching for action, varied their monotonous scrutiny of reports by occasional visits to planets.
“Ah, yes, my son,” said a beaming priest, cracking his knuckles as he stood overlooking a spaceport where large numbers of dejected Earthmen were trooping out to waiting space-ships, “The Earthmen came, and the Earthmen went, and the planet is still the same, and the Brotherhood remains. Bad luck attended the Earthmen wherever they turned, dear me! The design of the Great One, I think, was plain in the way their factories burned down and their plans blew up, whatever they did. Would you believe it, they had a usurious scheme by which a person might squander money yet unearned on wasteful self-indulgence! They then aimed to sink wells deep in the ground to suck out the lamp oil reserved to future generations, and burn it up in a rush. If once they had got started, there is no telling what deviltry they might have brought to pass! But the Brethren were alert. We clung to them close, and inflicted on them the Judgment of the Great One. The loss the Earthmen suffered on this planet was fantastic! Look at the sorry crew! They may, of course, be back. We are busily spreading tales of their evil designs so the people will be ready. If truth were told, there were one or two little . . . er . . . instances of excessive zeal amongst our own people. . . . But in a good cause.”
“Phew,” said Moffis, when they were on their way again, “did you notice the look in that priest’s eye when he told about the Earthmen’s factories burning down? By the way, the back of his robe, along the edge, looked scorched.”
“It seemed to me,” said Horsip, “that every one of the Brotherhood smelled of smoke—except the saintly High Priest, himself, of course.”
“Yes, but what a crafty look his assistant had!”
Horsip nodded. “The Earthmen ran into it that time, all right.”
Horsip and Moffis then went over the latest batch of reports, and had any sense of pity for the Earthmen knocked to bits.
“Look at this. The Snard Soviet has got another planet.”
“So has Ganfre—and he’s armed to the teeth.”
Soon Horsip was reading a report of disasters and calamities that were hard to believe until he realized this was about that planet he had heard of before—where everything man-made was banned. Wide-eyed, he read:
. . . as no food had been stored, this frost in the Radigg region was a disaster. Coming on top of the floods, which have occurred periodically throughout the planet’s history, they aggravated the food shortage into a famine. Meanwhile, the planetary government issued assurances that all would be well. As the famine worsened, a delegation of leading citizens demanded a return to systematic storage of food, at least. The planetary government assured the delegation that the Bounty of Nature could be relied on, and that all man’s troubles had come from eating artificial food, artificially raised by man. The tilling of the soil was unnatural, the government asserted, man having been meant to find his food in the field like other animals. If there was need, Nature would provide. If Nature did not seem to provide, then it was because the population was too high, and the thing to do was to let Nature adjust the population downward. The result of this pronouncement was revolution, and the planet, its population considerably shrunken, has returned to traditional Centran methods. Although it was only one particular kind of Earthman who caused the trouble, the population now does not like Earthmen, and in the past month two innocent tourists have been dipped in hot tar, while another was only barely rescued from being thrown headfirst into a volcano. The planet was a popular stop on the Nature-Lover’s Tour before the food ran out, but . . .
There was the whack of paper on a desk top, and Horsip turned to see Moffis shake his head.
“No matter what you say, these Earthmen have increased production. They do it on the ‘free-enterprise’ planets. They do it on the dictator planets. They make a fantastic increase.”
“But,” said Horsip, “they aren’t looking very far ahead. The waste is terrific.”
“That isn’t going to help us when we run into this concentration of space-ships.”
“But they don’t agree with each other.”
“Let’s hope they never do. They’re going to be as big as the Fleet soon.”
Horsip nodded moodily, and pulled a fresh report off the stack: “Disaster on Bibedebop.”
“Ah,” he murmured, “that’s where they minimize work and maximize pleasure.” He opened up the report, to read of whole sections of the population stupefied by drugs while others stole their possessions. He read of an arrangement whereby volunteers tried out new drugs without charge for a generous drug-manufacturing cartel operating out of Dictator Ganfre’s home planet. There were so many volunteers that distillery owners and beer-parlor operators were virtuously trying to end the arrangement. Meanwhile, the cartel was testing a superhallucinant that provided the illusion of fulfilling the user’s wants so vividly there seemed no need to really fulfill them. To get a satisfying banquet, it was only necessary to snort up the nose a quarter teaspoonful of green powder. So why bother with food? As the population starved and the cartel’s scientists methodically took notes, something else came along:
. . . wave after wave of Mikerils, without warning, each successive wave more powerful than the last, struck the main population centers . . .
Horsip, startled, read a grisly description that brought back the fears of childhood. But then he relaxed. . . . After all, this was the account given by the survivors of a tremendous overuse of hallucinants.
Horsip turned to the next report. This told of ” . . . an amalgamation of these worlds that would have seemed unlikely only a short time ago. The various varieties of planetary Soviets, for instance, are now combining with the Snard Soviet against the Free Planets Union, formed to resist the National Racist Planetary Alliance dominated by Dictator Ganfre. Ganfre, meanwhile, is successfully wooing more planets that are alarmed by the conglomeration of soviets. Confronted by these gigantic combinations, the Free Planets Union has formed an alliance with the agrarian planets still uncommitted, but it is unknown how the balance of power will be affected by . . .”
Horsip read on, report after report, and when he finished he shook his head, pulled over a blank sheet of paper, and began to write:
To the High Council:
Sirs:
I send herewith summaries of reports which describe typical situations we are now facing.
I again urge the use of force in the greatest possible strength, to smash the armed combinations now formed within the Integral Union. I urge the use of the Fleet, reinforced to the maximum possible extent regardless of dangers elsewhere, in a surprise attack against either Ganfre or Snard. Immediately following the elimination of this opponent, I urge that the Fleet at once be placed in the most favorable position to attack with its full remaining strength the other combination, whether headed by Snard or Ganfre.