I sighed. "If you want to salute," I told him, "if it makes you
_happier_ to salute, you go right ahead. But don't call me 'Sir.' That
would make me an officer, and I wouldn't like being an officer. I've
met too many of them."
It didn't make him angry. He wasn't anything except subservient and
awed and anxious to please. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said.
I searched in my pockets for a cigarette and found a cup of them and
stuck one into my mouth. The Captain was right there with a light, so
I took it from him. Then I offered him a cigarette. He thanked me as
if it had been a full set of Crown Jewels.
What difference did it make whether or not he called me "Sir"? I was
still God to him, and there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Did you want something, Mr. Carboy?" he asked me, puffing on the
cigarette.
I nodded. "Now that we're getting close," I told him, "I want to know
as much about the place as possible. I've had a full hypno, but a
hypno's only as good as the facts in it, and the facts that reach
Earth may be exaggerated, modified, distorted or even out of date."
"Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said eagerly. I wondered if, when he was through
with the cigarette, he would keep the butt as a souvenir. He might
even frame it, I told myself. After all, I'd given it to him, hadn't
I? The magnificent Mr. Carboy, who almost acts like an ordinary human
being, had actually given a poor, respectful spaceship Captain a
cigarette.
It made me want to butt holes in the bulkheads. Not that I hadn't had
time to get used to the treatment; every man in my corps gets a full
dose of awe and respect from the services, from Government officials
and even from the United Cabinets. The only reason we don't get it
from the man in the street is that the man in the street--unless he
happens to be a very special man in a very unusual street--doesn't
know the corps exists. Which is a definite relief, by the way; at
least, off the job, I'm no more than Ephraim Carboy, citizen.
I took a puff on my cigarette, and the Captain followed suit, very
respectfully. I felt like screaming at him but I kept my voice polite.
"The war's definitely over, isn't it?" I said.
He shrugged. "That depends, Mr. Carboy," he said. "The armies have
surrendered, and the treaty's been signed. That happened even before
we left Earth--three or four weeks ago. But whether you could say the
war was over ... well, Mr Carboy, that depends."
"Guerrillas," I said.
He nodded. "Wohlen's a jungle world, mostly," he said. "Sixty per cent
water, of course, but outside of that there are a few cities, two
spaceports, and the rest--eighty or ninety per cent of the land
area--nothing but jungle. A few roads running from city to city, but
that's all."
"Of course," I said. He was being careful and accurate. I wondered
what he thought I'd do if I caught him in a mistake. Make a magic pass
and explode him like a bomb, probably. I took in some more smoke,
wondering whether the Captain thought I had psi powers--which, of
course, I didn't; no need for them in my work--and musing sourly on
how long it would take before the job was done and I was on my way
back home.
Then again, I told myself, there was always the chance of getting
killed. And in the mood I found myself, the idea of a peaceful,
unrespectful death was very pleasant.
For a second or two, anyhow.
"The Government holds the cities," the Captain was saying, "and
essential trade services--spaceports, that sort of thing. But a small
band of men can last for a long time out there in the wilds."
"Living off the country," I said.
He nodded again. "Wohlen's nine-nines Earth normals," he said. "But
you know that already."
"I know all of this," I said. "I'm just trying to update it a little,
if I can."
"Oh," he said. "Oh, certainly, S ... uh ... Mr. Carboy."
I sighed and puffed on the cigarette and waited for him to go on.
After all, what else was there to do?
* * * * *
For a wonder, the hypno had been just about accurate. That was
helpful; if I'd heard some new and surprising facts from the Captain
it would have thrown all the other information I had into doubt. Now I
could be pretty sure of what I was getting into.
By the time we landed, the Captain was through and I was running over
the main points in my head, for a last-minute check.
Wohlen, settled in the eighty-fifth year of the Explosion, had
established a Parliamentary form of government, set up generally along
the usual model: bicameral, elective and pretty slow. Trade relations
with Earth and with the six other inhabited planets had been set up as
rapidly as possible, and Wohlen had become a full member of the Comity
within thirty years.
Matters had then rolled along with comparative smoothness for some
time. But some sort of explosion was inevitable--it always
happens--and, very recently, that nice Parliamentary government had
blown up in everybody's face.
The setup seemed to be reminiscent of something, but it was a little
while before I got it: the ancient South American states, in the
pre-Space days, before the United Cabinets managed to unify Earth once
and for all. There'd been an election on Wohlen and the loser hadn't
bowed gracefully out of the picture to set up a Loyal Opposition.
Instead, he'd gone back on his hind legs, accused the winner of all
sorts of horrible things--some of which, for all I knew, might even be
true--and had declared Wohlen's independence of the Comity. Which
meant, in effect, independence from all forms of interplanetary law.
Of course, he had no right to make a proclamation of any sort. But
he'd made it, and he was going to get the right to enforce it. That
was how William F. Sergeant's army was formed; Sergeant, still making
proclamations, gathered a good-sized group of men and marched on the
capital, New Didymus. The established government countered with and
army of its own, and for eight months, neither side could gain a
really decisive advantage.
Then the Government forces, rallying after a minor defeat near a place
known as Andrew's Farm, defeated an attacking force, captured Sergeant
and two of his top generals, and just kept going from there. The
treaty was signed within eight days.
Unfortunately, some of Sergeant's supporters had been hunters and
woodsmen--
Ordinarily, a guerrilla movement, if it doesn't grind to a halt of
its own accord, can be stopped within a few weeks. Where a world is
mostly cities, small towns, and so forth, and only a little jungle,
the bands can be bottled up and destroyed. And most guerrillas aren't
very experienced in their work; a small band of men lost in the woods
can't do much damage.
But a small group of woodsmen, on a planet that consists mostly of
jungle, is another matter. Those men knew the ground, were capable of
living off the country with a minimum of effort, and knew just where
to strike to tie up roads and transportation, halt essential on-planet
services and, in general, raise merry hell with a planet's economy.
So the Wohlen government called Earth and the United Cabinets started
hunting. Of course they came up with our corps--the troubleshooters,
the unorthodox boys, the Holy Idols. And the corps fished around and
came up with me.
I didn't really mind: a vacation tends to get boring after a week or
two anyhow. I've got no family ties I care to keep up, and few enough
close friends. Most of us are like that; I imagine it's in the nature
of the job.
It was a relief to get back into action, even if it meant putting up
with the kowtowing I always got.
When I stepped out onto the spaceport grounds, as a matter of fact, I
was feeling pretty good. It took just ten seconds for that to change.
The President himself was waiting, as close to the pits as he could
get. He was a chubby, red-faced little man, and he beamed at me as if
he were Santa Claus. "Mr. Carboy," he said in a voice that needed
roughage badly. "I'm so glad you're here. I'm sure you'll be able to
do something about the situation."
"I'll try," I said, feeling foolish. This was no place for a
conversation--especially not with the head of the Government.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll succeed," he told me brightly. "After all, Mr.
Carboy, we've heard of your ... ah ... group. Oh, yes. Your fame is ...
ah ... universal."
"Sure," I said. "I'll do my best. But the less I'm seen talking to
you, the better."
"Nevertheless," he said. "If we need to meet--"
"If we do," I said, "there's a set of signals in the daily papers.
Your Intelligence should know all about that, Mr. President."
"Ah," he said. "Of course. Certainly. Well, Mr. Carboy, I do want to
tell you how glad I am--"
"So am I," I said. "Good-by."
The trouble with the democratic process is that a group of people
picked at random can elect some silly leaders. That's been happening
ever since ancient Greece, I imagine, and it'll go on happening. It
may not be fatal, but it's annoying.
My job, for instance, was to prop up this foolish little man. I had to
work against a group of guerrillas who were even more democratic, from
all I'd heard, and who seemed to have a great deal of common,
ordinary brains. Of course, I wasn't doing it for the President--it
was for the Comity as a whole, and it needed to be done.
But I can't honestly say that that made me feel any better about the
job.
* * * * *
I was driven out of the city right after I'd packed up my
supplies--two days' food and water in a rude knapsack, a call-radio
and some other special devices I didn't think I was going to need.
But, I told myself, you never know ... there was even a suicide
device, just in case. I packed it away and forgot about it.
The city was an oasis in the middle of jungle, with white clean
buildings and static-cleaned streets and walks. It didn't seem to have
a park, but, then, it didn't need one. There was plenty of park
outside.
The beautiful street became a poor one half a mile out of the city,
and degenerated into a rough trail for ground vehicles soon after
that. "How many people are there on this planet?" I asked my driver.
He never took his eyes from the road. "Two and a half million, last
census," he said, with great respect.
That explained things, of course. As the population grew, the cities
would expand and the forests would go under. It had happened on Earth,
and on every settled planet. As recently as 1850, for instance, large
tracts of New York City, where I make my home, were farm and forest;
why, in 1960 the population was only about eight million, and they
thought the place had reached its height.
Wohlen had only begun its drive to citify the planet. Give it another
hundred and fifty years and the guerrillas couldn't exist, for simple
lack of any place to hide and to live independently.
Unfortunately, the Government didn't have a hundred and fifty years.
Judging from what I'd seen, the Government didn't have a hundred and
fifty days. Rationing was in force at all the markets we'd passed on
the way out, and there seemed to be a lot of cops. That's always a bad
sign; it means normal processes are beginning to break down and
anarchy is creeping in.
I thought about it. Three months was an outside limit. If I couldn't
finish the job in three months, it might as well never be finished.
It's always nice to have a deadline, I told myself.
The car stopped at a place in the road that looked like any other
place in the road. I got out, adjusted my knapsack and started away
from the road, into the jungle that bordered it. The hypno I'd taken
had told me there were farms scattered through the jungle, but I
didn't know exactly where, and I didn't even want to find out. The
knapsack was heavy, but I decided I could stand the weight.
In five minutes I was surrounded by jungle, without any quick way to
tell me where the road had been. There was a trail, and maybe human
beings had used it, but it was no more than a scratch in the
vegetation.
That was green, like Earth's, and mostly spiny. I managed to scratch
myself twice and then I learned to duck. After that the time went by
slowly. I just kept walking, without much of an idea where I was
going. After a couple of hours I was good and lost, which was just
what I wanted. It was starting to get dark, so I took the opportunity
of building a fire. I dug in my knapsack and found some food and
started to cook it. I was still watching it heat up when I heard the
noise behind me.
Those boys were good. He'd sneaked up through the jungle and come
within a foot of me without my hearing him. I jumped up just as if I
hadn't expected him and whirled around to face him.
He had his heater out and was covering me with it. I didn't reach for
anything; I just watched him. He was a big man, almost as tall as I
was and solidly built, with a jaw like a bulldog's and tiny, sparkling
eyes. His voice was like rusted iron. "Relax," he told me. "I'm not
burning you down, Mister. Not yet."