“Forty-three,” said Williamson in a surprised voice.
And I would guess that everyone in it knows about Etla and are sympathetic toward its plight. They would consider it a world under constant quarantine, but they do everything they can to help it..
“They certainly do!” Williamson broke in. “Our man was on one of the outlying planets of the Empire for only two days before he was sent to the Central world for a audience with the Big Chief. But he had time to see what the people thought of Etla. There are pictures of the suffering Etlans practically everywhere he looked. In places they out-numbered commercial advertising, and it is a charity to which the Imperial Government gives full support! These look like being very nice people, Doctor.
“I’m sure they are, Captain,” Conway said savagely. “But don’t you think it a trifle odd that the combined charity of forty-three inhabited systems can only run to sending one ship every ten years…
Williamson opened his mouth, closed it, and looked thoughtful. The whole room was silent except for the muted, incoming messages. Then suddenly, from behind Conway , Stillman swore and said thickly, “I see what he’s getting at, sir. We’ve got to take off at once. . .
Williamson’s eyes flicked from Conway to Stillman and back again. He murmured, “One could be temporary insanity, but two represents a trend.. .”
Three seconds later recall instructions were going out to all personnel, their urgency emphasized by the ear-splitting howl of the General Alarm siren. When every order which had been issued only minutes ago had been reversed, Williamson turned to Conway again.
“Go on, Doctor,” he said grimly. “I think I’m beginning to see it, too.
Conway sighed thankfully and began to talk.
Etla had begun as a normal colony world, with a single space field to land the initial equipment and colonists, then towns had been set up convenient to natural resources and the planetary population had increased nicely. But then they must have been hit by a wave of disease, or a succession of diseases, which had threatened to wipe them out. Hearing of their plight the citizens of the Empire had rallied round, as people do when their friends are in trouble, and soon help began to arrive.
It must have started in a small way but built up quickly as news of the colony’s distress got around. But so far as the Etlans were concerned the assistance stayed small.
The odd, un-missed pennies of a whole planetary population added up to a respectable amount, and when scores of worlds were contributing the amount was something which could not be ignored by the Imperial government, or by the Emperor himself. Because even in those days the
Empire must have grown too big and the inevitable rot had set in at its core. More and more revenue was needed to maintain the Empire, and! or to maintain the Emperor and his court in the luxury to which they felt entitled. It was natural to assume that they might tell themselves that charity began at home, and appropriate a large part of these funds for their own use. Then gradually, as the Etlan charity was publicized and encouraged, these funds became an essential part of the administration’s income.
That was how it had begun.
Etla was placed in strict quarantine, even though nobody in their right mind would have wanted to go there anyway. But then a calamity threatened, the Etlans through their own unaided efforts must have begun to cure themselves. The lucrative source of revenue looked like drying up. Something had to be done, quickly.
From withholding the aid which would have cured them it was only a small matter ethically, the administration must have told itself, to keep the Etlans sick by introducing a few relatively harmless diseases from time to time. The diseases would have to be photogenic, of course, to have the maximum effect on the kind-hearted citizenry-disfiguring diseases, for the most part, or those which left the sufferer crippled or deformed. And steps had to be taken to ensure that the supply of suffering natives did not fall off, so that the techniques of gynecology and child care on Etla were well advanced.