"No-o. Not within her own dimension. It just isn't mine. I want to be
something more important than a good mechanical photographer."
"Did it ever occur to you--" he began, and let it trail off as he
watched a formation of the odd Venusian batfish soar from the water
under the bow and sweep overhead to dive again in perfect alignment.
The ship swung. The long blue tongue of land came round on their right
and the harbor opened before them. There was a little grove of masts at
its depth clustered around what seemed to be docks, but he saw no town
on the shore behind.
"Think you can handle the language all right now?" asked Ann, a note of
banter in her question.
"If there hasn't been too much development in it since Tolstoia was
closed off. Communications thought a good many special terms might
have developed. What worries me more is the system of ideas. You were
lucky, not having to study Tolstoi. He had a philosophy, all right, but
I can't conceive how it could be translated into a practical method of
living, and neither can Vincent. Unless we do understand, it's going to
be hard to present a sympathetic picture."
"Photos are always sympathetic," said Ann. "The question is, do we want
to be? Let's go down and have a cup of coffee. The betting is there
won't be any where we're going."
The other two were in the cabin and the cup of coffee lasted until a
cessation of movement and a slight bump indicated they had arrived.
There was a bustle of gathering luggage; they went topside to find
the gangplank already laid to a dilapidated dock with holes in the
planking, alongside which little Tolstoian fishing-craft rose and
fell rhythmically to the swell. At the shore end of the dock a little
group of men in embroidered white smocks with square caps on their
heads looked on with an air of complete uninterest as the ambassadors
disbarked. There were four droshkies behind them; a house was visible
among drooping-branched Venusian trees.
* * * * *
Ann set her camera to automatic and hooked it to her belt as Lanzerotti
led the way along the dock. Three of the men detached themselves from
the group and waited. As the ambassadors approached, one of them
clasped his hands together, said, "Behrmann, Andrei Pavlich" and took
a step back. "Vikhranov, Nicolai Leonovich," said the second, and the
third, "Kazetzky, Pyotr Ilyich." He was a tall man, with a long, hooked
nose and an expression of deep melancholy.
Lanzerotti stepped forward. "We are the representatives of the
Interplanetary Council," he said. "My name is Vincent Lanzerotti with
the rank of ambassador. This is Mrs. Lanzerotti, and Miss Starnes, our
photographer and Mr. Heidekopfer, the official observer. We have a good
deal of baggage."
The three looked at each other. Behrmann was a short man with a broad
Slavic face. He said, "Bring it forward. Transportation has been
provided to the seat of the patriarch."
Heidekopfer remembered that somewhere in Tolstoi there was something
about not waiting on other people; also, that he was not going to have
as much difficulty with the language as he had feared. Behrmann's
accent was a little funny, but he put his sentences together in the
classical manner and with the right words. The sailors were loading
their baggage onto power-dollies. Vikhranov said, "The ambassador will
take the first droshky, with myself and Pyotr Ilyich. Andrei Pavlich
will accompany you in the second." He waved a hand toward Ann and
Heidekopfer.
As their guides led the way toward the vehicles, Heidekopfer said, "One
thing surprises me, if you don't mind a snap judgment. I would have
expected to find more of a city around your port."
Behrmann turned his head with a smile. "We have no cities," he said.
"They are destroyers of nature, and without communion with nature there
is no happiness."
That was good Tolstoi, all right, thought Heidekopfer, and said to
Ann, "They don't take very good care of their roads here, do they?"
"I should say not--and my mud-shedders are all nicely packed in
the baggage, too." She lifted a neatly clad foot that was already
plentifully marked with black Venusian mire. "Their trees are nice,
though, and look how even the rows in that field are." She aimed the
camera at it for a moment, and spoke to Behrmann in Russian; "Where are
the fishermen for the boats?"
"Oh, this is Thursday," he said, standing aside so she could get in the
droshky. "On this day they work in the fields. It is good to work in
the fields, and we have a law that all who follow other forms of work
shall do so for one day a week."
"That's not a bad law for an agricultural community," observed
Heidekopfer. "I suppose you are practically all agriculture? But
what do you do for manufactured articles--like shoes and glass and
newspapers?"
In the droshka ahead Vikhranov raised his hand; both drivers
shouted something like "Ya-ya!" simultaneously, cracked their whips
tremendously, and the procession was off along a dirt road in a
decidedly poor state of repair.
"I am not sure I understand your question," said Behrmann. "Shoes or
glass, when we want them we make them. As for newspapers, they are
forbidden by the word of the Master. I know there must be such things,
because they are mentioned, but I have never seen one and do not really
know what they are."
* * * * *
The road had begun to rise toward a cut in a range of low hills.
"Uh-huh," said Heidekopfer, "and I suppose radio falls under the
prohibition on newspapers. Well, let me put it this way; suppose
someone had an idea for a new kind of machine. Would he have to make
all the parts himself?"
"There is a law against machines. They interfere with simplicity."
"But doesn't anyone ever have an idea for a machine so brilliant that
he simply has to make it in spite of the law?"
"How could he? It is against the law."
"Do you mean that the law here is always obeyed?"
"Always. That is the superiority of Tolstoia to all other peoples.
Those who come to our happy country by accident never wish to leave
when they find that through the doctrines of the Master we have
established the brotherhood of men."
Ann gave a little giggle. "I know," said Heidekopfer rapidly in
English, "I think we can take that with a cellar full of salt." He
switched to Russian; "Then you have no crime?"
"In our happy country?" said Behrmann. "No. Look how beautiful is the
arrangement of the cows in that field?"
Heidekopfer sighed. Then he said, "Tell me something about the
government of your country. I don't want to be too inquisitive, but I
have to report on these things when I get back."
Behrmann's face flashed a frown. "It is hard to explain this to an
outsider, but we know of what you call government only from the works
of the Master, who spoke of it as it was in the old days, in the old
Russia, the holy Russia." He lifted a hand to his face, and Heidekopfer
was dumbfounded to see the man was wiping away a tear. "There is the
patriarch, but he is only the general secretary of the Supreme Soviet."
"Well, who makes the laws?"
"The Supreme Soviet."
"How are they elected--or chosen?"
"We all agree on them."
Heidekopfer was saved from going mad by a cry from Ann Starnes. They
had passed through the cut into the hills and now, as they swung
round the brow of one, a wide valley lay spread before them under the
soft Venusian light. It was dotted with little clumps of trees and
had houses here and there, mostly low and with curiously bound-down
thatched roofs. With the green fields and grazing animals, it made
a scene of truly pastoral beauty. Ann said, "Tell him to stop for a
minute, will you? I want to get this."