"Impractical visionaries," Tichnat clicked. "Lovers of statis,
well-meaning fools. They approached me yesterday."
A vein throbbed purple in Starza's forehead. Yet he kept his voice soft.
"And you didn't report it?"
"And precipitate a crisis?" Tichnat sounded amused. "I was asked if my
people were being persecuted. Had I answered in the affirmative there
might have been repercussions, perhaps a sequel to Proycon. Oh yes, we
know of Proycon. Your foremen are sometimes indiscreet."
"Who was the agent?" Starza breathed.
"Should I tell you, and disrupt the status quo? You would destroy the
agent. In retaliation, the Guild might destroy this plant."
"Impossible! Guild agents have no such authority--"
"A chance I cannot afford to take." Tichnat was adamant.
"Amalgamated," Starza prodded, "offers a standing reward of one hundred
thousand solar credits for apprehension of any Guild agent. Your village
could use those credits. You could equip an atomic lab. You could
maintain your own research staff--"
"Stop it." The antennae throbbed brilliantly.
"We are your friends, Tichnat."
"Symbiosis, I believe is the word," Tichnat clicked dryly. "You need us.
We need your science. We need your terrifying concept of individuality.
We need to lose our old ways. The dance of harvest time. The
Queen-Mother. One by one the rituals drop away. The old life, the good
tribal life, is dying. You sift out us misfits who chafe at tribal
oneness, you offer us the planets!"
The antennae flashed an angry scarlet. "You think to keep us chained a
millennium. A hundred years will suffice. We will leave you. We exiles
you have made, we who would be destroyed if we dared return to the
tribe, we shall rule this world! You aliens drive a hard bargain, but
the dream is worth it!"
Prometheus, in a bug's body. The shining strength, and the dark terrible
pride.
"It is no dream," Starza said gently. "But perhaps you go about
achieving it the wrong way. You still refuse to divulge the spy?"
"I am sorry. Good day."
Starza brooded after him.
"He's a fool. But he's grasping mankind's concepts, Jake. I'd give my
right eye for a good semanticist! Basic English does it. _Self_, _want_,
_mine_, selfish ego-words, the cornerstones of grasping humanity. Sure,
we'll raise hell with their esthetic sense, but in the end they'll thank
us."
I sat, worrying about a secret fanatic somewhere in the plant who, in
the holy interests of Mars-for-the-Martians, Terminorb-for-the-Terms,
might soon plant an atomic warhead in our body shop. I finally said,
"What are we going to _do_?"
"Do?" Starza chuckled. "Why, slacken line speeds, lower production
standards, fifty percent at least. By tomorrow we'll be down to forty
jobs an hour. They want loose standards, we'll give it to them."
"But my _cost_?"
"Obscenity your cost. Look, Jake, no matter how you set an operation up,
the Terms manage to work in some glittering little ritual. They _have_
to create beauty. Their esthetic sense must be fed. They can't adjust to
quick change. Supposing you cut line speeds by ten per cent. They
adjust, but it almost kills them. Then drop thirty per cent. Their
ritual loses timing, becomes discordant. What happens?"