_Urgent! Class AA emergency for Universal Relief!
Stock market crash on planet Lyrane, where people live
by economy based on good deeds. Cause unknown. Suspect
galactical manipulators of watering stock._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kalgor, capital of the Galactic Empire, is not, as one would expect,
one solid city. As a matter of fact, it is more suburban and rural than
many farming planets.
The reason is obvious if but considered. The galactic government and
the equally large galactic businesses are so immense that they must be
distributed throughout the whole galaxy, with only the very cream of
the hierarchy located on Kalgor. Thus, each company would have only one
small building--but with a communication web that enfolded macroscopic
enterprises.
Universal Relief Incorporated was typical of this arrangement.
Although its warehouses and offices throughout the Empire could form a
megalopolis in themselves, the fountainhead on Kalgor was a two story
building.
In that building there was excitement. People were rushing
frantically--the teletypes chattered in a frenzy--the air was static
with urgency. It manifested itself in the quick jerky motions, in the
voices held just below the cracking point.
Universal Relief served the function that used to be handled by the Red
Cross. They were disaster rectifiers, succor and reconstruction was
their business. But they were a business--declaring annual, taxable
profits and dividends and, in general, a profit-seeking firm.
They received regular payments from planetary governments, much like
premiums with insurance, and in case of emergency they were to provide
complete relief as swiftly as possible. There was no chance for graft
in their business, for they were closely checked by the government and
competing organizations like Galactic Aid, their closest rival.
This business was now apparently faced with a crisis and its staff was
feverishly trying to cope with it.
Roald Gibbons, President of Universal Relief, was the only person not
affected--at least not apparently. His indolent posture, his quiet grey
eyes reflected nothing of the hectic activity.
This made Kim Roger nervous.
"I don't think you comprehend the seriousness of it, Mr. Gibbons," he
was saying.
"I am not thinking of the seriousness of it. I just want the facts."
"Very well, sir. Two days ago, the Lyranian stock market crashed."
"You will have to go back further than that. I can't possibly know the
history of all the planets in the Empire. That's what I pay you for.
Give me some background."
This little speech made Kim lose his clutching hold on his patience.
Roald Gibbons had just taken office after the death of his father, who
had managed the galactic firm for twenty years. By merely being the
boss's son, Roald had achieved the reputation of being an ignorant,
careless playboy. His professed ignorance of the planets confirmed, in
Kim's mind, this reputation.
With an effort, Kim resumed. "The planet of Lyrane, the only habitable
one in the system of Lyrane--Copernicus sector--was colonized by a
socio-economic sect for the purpose of testing its slightly radical
beliefs.
"This sect maintained that an individual should not be paid on the
basis of the work he did, but for the good deeds, or good thoughts
he had. A small stipend was paid for actual work or production, to
establish a workable basic economy and trade. This stipend was enough
to cover all the basic wants of the individual.
"To procure luxuries, a citizen had to use the money he received for
his good deeds or thoughts. Every time a man helped an old lady across
the street, or came up with a bit of philosophical wisdom, he could
record it with a central office and receive his luxury pay from the
government.
"The purpose of the system was to make people emphasize virtue and
quality in their lives. Instead of concentrating on profit for profit's
sake, they would have to consider the inherent rightness and beauty of
what they were doing."
"In such a system," Roald asked, "how could such a thing as a stock
market possibly develop?"
"Very simple, sir. This luxury pay, issued in a different currency
than the commodity pay, could be used in any way a person saw fit.
Some people naturally developed the idea of investing stock in a
particularly virtuous or intelligent person. Every time that person did
a good deed, the stockholders received a dividend from his luxury pay.
All of the scientists and philosophers, therefore, became corporations
in themselves, with as many as five thousand people holding stock in
one man."
"Sorry, Kim, but I don't get it. How could these incorporated
individuals get any luxury pay for themselves if they had to hand it
out to their stockholders?"
"The administration would allow for that. A person received luxury
pay in proportion to the number of stockholders that he claimed. The
government had to do this since they indirectly were investing in these
corporation-men--but I'll explain that later.
"The corporation-man lived off the original investments of
stockholders, with some of the stock solvent for sales. In this way,
the individual would profit from "good-doing" by receiving many new
investments."
"What is the social makeup of this Lyrane? It seems to me it would be
a lunatic fringe de luxe, with every hack writer, thaumaturgist, or
evangelist climbing aboard the gravy train."
"On the contrary, it is a social structure of the finest minds in the
galaxy. The rest are all weeded out. Although the motives of the system
are idealistic, they are enforced with a rigid practicality. They
demand quality and truth, and gauge it with the revealing yardstick of
public consumption and approval as measured in sales and polls."
Roald gazed out at the pastoral countryside surrounding this vital
little nub of a billion-credit business. He swung back to Kim, and
said, "But the basic difficulty would be determining just what a good
deed or thought is. How in God's name could they determine that,
when every act or word that anyone ever commits or utters is open to
judgment by so many different standards. For instance, what about the
case of the man who trespasses to save a person's life. How are you
going to rate that sort of thing?"
"Mr. Gibbons, I am an economist, not a philosopher. It is the wonder of
the galaxy that these people did establish and maintain this system, in
spite of obstacles such as you mentioned."
"All right, we'll discount the philosophical angle. I still don't
understand it. How about big business? How could that develop with this
system? They certainly need it to support a planet."
"That's the easiest part of it. People would use their luxury pay to
establish businesses. At these businesses men could work their five
hours a day to get their commodity pay. It was not only possible, but
mandatory that such businesses develop. There were two types: mass
production of commodities, with a regulated profit in commodity pay;
or specialization and production of fine merchandise that was sold at
cost, but which the government paid for in luxury pay in proportion to
its quality as thoroughly tested.
"However--all big businesses were closely controlled by the
government. They would grant franchises so that there would be no
cutthroat competition, and supply was regulated to meet demand.
Therefore, business itself was stable, and there was no opportunity
for speculating in its stock market. That left only the variable
corporation-men for actual stock market trading--and that is what
crashed.
"Let's take a writer, for example. He writes a book, and a publishing
house prints it. The people buy it--spending luxury pay. The publishing
house has to convert that luxury pay to commodity pay to cover costs
and payroll. They make no profit, the book being sold at cost.
"That book has to sell so many thousand copies to receive luxury pay
from the government. Then both the author and the publisher receive
luxury pay in proportion to its sales, which is the indication of its
merit. The luxury pay that the publisher receives goes in the pockets
of the executives. The luxury pay that the author receives--which is
much larger--goes to his stockholders.
"Since the author is the source of this transaction, the people invest
in him and not the publisher, for they can't get any great return from
investing in the publisher, but they can from the author.
"Actually, what the whole thing amounts to is a complete shift of
emphasis from big business and its speculations--which is what we've
always known--to individuals and the intangibles and variables of their
ideas and deeds."
"There is only one question left," Roald said. "The government doles
out all this luxury pay. Pray tell, where do they get it?"
"There are two parts to the government. There is the actual
administration, with its members drawing set salaries and unable to
draw luxury pay, to prevent graft; and then there is the Economics
Commission, which controls luxury pay.
"This Economics Commission is a business. They invest in galactic
corporations, such as ours, and make a profit. That's part of their
money. Then--and here's the secret--any time a book is written, or
fine merchandise produced, it must be sold on Lyrane at cost. But the
government sells it throughout the galaxy for a profit, and keeps that
profit to redistribute in luxury pay to Lyranian citizens.
"Anyway, the system finally blew up, and now we're holding a messy bag."
"But how could it? Why?"
"That's just it. Nobody knows what brought it about, but suddenly the
men who were corporations just stopped producing. They stopped doing
good deeds, stopped writing, stopped research, and what-not and,
consequently, stopped drawing luxury pay.
"Naturally, their stockholders got mad and wanted to sell, but
incorporated men couldn't liquidate and the values of the stocks
dropped to zero, along with the value of the luxury pay. The result was
a depression and a lot of angry people."
"A planetary depression is not such an outstanding emergency that it
should cause Universal Relief to be in such an uproar. I believe that
it is merely a Class B emergency, with complete regulations on proper
handling."
Kim was so earnest in his reply that he leaned over and almost rubbed
noses with his superior. "On the contrary, sir. There are other
factors, so it's not so simple. This Lyranian system has been working
for ten years now, and the Lyranians want desperately for it to
succeed. They are almost fanatics on it, trying to prove the value of
their system so that other planets will adopt it--which God forbid.
"Naturally, the resentment against the corporation-men for betraying
them has turned into hatred, with murder, riots and a civil war in
the offing. Yes, their politics were unitary and stable until this
emergency, but you'd be surprised at the number of political factions
that can be formed and develop hostilities in a period of crisis."
"Could it be an attempt by some faction to seize power?"
"Impossible. The way it was set up, political power was not desirable,
being unprofitable and mostly drudgery. If they upset the apple-cart,
the balance was so fine only chaos would result and there would be
nothing to take power over. The only reason parties have developed now
is due to differing views on how to rectify the situation, and blaming
different things for being responsible. But no power motive."
"Very well then, the situation is a Class A emergency, but we've
handled them before."
Kim allowed one fleeting sigh of despair. He had thought for a while
that this Roald could take hold, could be competent, but--
"If you have ever consulted our financial records, sir," he said with
heavy sarcasm, "you would find that our largest contribution comes
from Lyrane. They have established our organization as tops in the
good-deeds field, and nearly every person on Lyrane has stock in us,
along with a sizable payment since we threw a high premium at them,
fearing just this eventuality."
Roald appeared thoughtful, then said, "Well, continue with standard
procedures for a Class A emergency. I'll see what can be done."
Kim made one last desperate appeal. "I firmly believe that this should
be a Class AA emergency!"
"Your field of specialization is overriding your business sense, Kim.
You are fascinated, as an economist, by this Lyrane system, and you
would like to see us put it back on its feet so you economists would
have a live experiment to observe. I'm sorry, but it isn't practical.
You know how fantastically expensive a Class AA is, and no one planet
is about to get it."
Kim cowered mentally. This wasn't the indolent playboy, but the Old
Man, giving him a good dressing down. He left the office with restored
faith, but a faith that was interlaced with doubt in regard to Roald
Gibbons.
Roald appeared to Kim to be uninformed and incompetent; but on the
contrary, he had learned the business thoroughly from his father. There
was one division of the company that he knew especially well.
This division was known to only a few people in the company, and no
one outside knew it existed. Roald managed this special division, and
left the rest of the management to the routine procedures and junior
executives.
While the rest of the company was in a state of organized hysteria,
with great ships loading from the massive warehouses of food, medicine,
and other relief supplies, and heaving into the sky bound for Lyrane,
Roald was having a quiet conference with the members of his special
division.
Roald's father had known that the cheapest way to relieve an emergency
was to alleviate the causes behind it, unless it were a natural
disaster. For this reason, he had organized a corps of special agents
to penetrate behind the scenes to straighten out the causes and cut
short the emergencies that Universal Relief had to pay for.
"Apparently there is a definite force operating on Lyrane," Roald was
saying to his elite corps, "that caused these men, who had been living
by the standards of that civilization and becoming rich from it, to
cease the activity which they had profited by."
"Could it be a religious doctrine?" one of them asked.
"Possibly. It could be anything. The fact is we don't know--and we
should. So we're going to Lyrane. For the Main Office, this is a Class
A; but for us it is a Class AA!"
* * * * *
Erol Garbin sat on the cool stone terrace of the mountain lodge, gazing
out over the small valley with the golden orange sun of Lyrane setting
behind the mountains. The cool evening breeze gently rearranged his
white hair and brushed over the creased forehead and the worried eyes.
He looked up to see his daughter come out on to the terrace. She was a
comely young woman of slight build and apparently sensitive nature as
vivified in her piquant features. He gave her a wistful smile, at which
she rushed into his arms and buried her head in his shoulder, which was
still powerful despite his age. Her body quivered with muffled sobs.
"Yma, my dearest Yma," he said tenderly. "Why didn't you marry, so
that you would have none of this? You could be leading your own life,
instead of bearing my burden."
"You are no burden, Father. You are my life. And now that your life is
threatened--"
He knew what had upset her. He had heard the newscasts too--yes, the
video still operated, controlled by the people. He had heard the names
of his old friends--Fredrikson, Tomlin, Masschau--all dead by violence.
"Why do you keep silent?" his daughter asked with a little child's
pleading. "Where is the protection you were offered? Why don't you
tell the people?" The world was mad and destructive in the eyes of the
child--the woman who was a child in the face of this dilemma.
He gently quieted her with a large, steady hand that pressed her head
to him.
"It would do no good. Arnson tried it."
She looked up with hope in her eyes.
"He spoke to a special meeting of his stockholders and tried to tell
them. They scorned it as a wild fantasy to excuse his betrayal. They
issued him an ultimatum--work! He said that they would have to believe
him; he couldn't work. They killed him."
The hope slid away and her eyes assumed the depths of despair and
bitterness.
Despair for the future, and bitterness for the past. And she thought of
the past--for she dared not think of the future.
Where does violence start, she wondered. Trace it to its roots; what's
its source, what's its manifestation?
It starts with one man and an idea. Many men may have had the same
idea, but it takes one man to express it at the right time, to apply
it. Then the planning, by many or by one.
And, finally, the last step is persuasion. The man who had the original
idea must convince others. He must indoctrinate them with this new
concept so that they believe. No more.
For once a man, who has been a stable entity in a stable organization,
develops and believes a strange and contradictory idea--the result is
inevitable. Misunderstanding, resentment, hate, violence. The cycle
carries on from there with its own momentum.
And the people who are swept up in it, and that may include anyone
from the most innocent to the perpetrator himself, are as helpless to
control its outcome as are the atoms helpless to control the nova they
started in a sun.
So this violence on Lyrane had begun, with one man, then a group of
men, and then had come the misunderstanding, resentment, hate, violence
cycle. It manifested itself in the offices of Universal Relief as a
logical study in sociology and economics.
But to Yma Garbin and her father, it was pure hell.
When had it all started, and when would it end?
Did it start that first day when an orphanage in the capital city
burned to the ground, and not one of the many philanthropists made a
move or an offer to aid or restore?
Yes, that was when it started for the public, but it had really started
in midnight conversations in locked rooms. Words, an idea, then the
act--and who is to say which is more real?
But there was no questioning the reality of what she had seen at
Tomlin's house. That was yesterday.
Tomlin, the greatest living biochemist in the empire, was nothing but a
sad, huddled corpse. His beautiful mansion was slashed and looted, and
then fired to the ground. The air was filled with the odor of burning,
of death--but especially the mentally sickening, defeating odor of
violence.
This was true of the whole planet, especially in the cities. The great
houses beseiged by furious mobs, shattered. Night full of stray shots
and casual death. Every man with that cold gleam in his eye when he
looked at even his best friend.
"Did you cause it?"
Yma lay in her father's arms, her mind reeling through this wax works
of personal horror and death.
This scene was interrupted by a gyro landing on the lawn.
* * * * *
Erol watched it curiously; his daughter, tensely. A man emerged and
strode towards them. He was a young man, with good and intelligent
features, and Erol felt no fear.
"Dr. Garbin," the man addressed him, "I'm delighted to find you. I
tried to see others--I was always too late." He paused, then said, "If
anyone should be able to tell me what has happened, you should."
A slight suspicion showed in Erol's face while Yma looked as wary as an
animal.
"If I can help you in any way, sir, I shall be delighted," Erol said.
The young man sat down. His eyes told of bewilderment and horror, and
Erol guessed that he had been in the cities.
"My name is Florin Brite," the man said after a long silence. "I was a
student of Tomlin, the biochemist, who was, I believe, your friend. I
left over a year ago to study at the Institute of Klynos. I heard of
trouble here and grabbed the first ship home.
"I never dreamed I'd find such violence.
"When I tried to find out what happened, I only found that all the
great men that I knew were murdered, or in hiding."
"How did you find where I was?" Erol asked.
"I talked to one of Tomlin's servants, an old fellow--scared silly--but
he remembered me and he told me."