"And then, after sniffing it over carefully, he turned and spat it
right back in our faces. We can't afford mistakes like this, Braun.
Earth needs the money too badly. It's our only means of support, and we
can't let a fish like Krieg get off the hook."
"There are other fish around, Sir."
Steen's face took on an angry look. "Of course there are. But none
with the potentialities that Krieg showed. Don't you realize that ever
since that sad day when Earth realized that she was a has-been, she's
had to take advantage of every single opportunity offered her, just to
keep alive? Oh, they were clever, those ancient ones who realized that
if a civilization is to be kept together, it must have a myth. And so
they gave our civilization its myth--that of Earth, the Great Ancestral
Home. Just accidentally, it also offered Earth a means of retaining at
least a part of her power."
Steen waved his hands in the air. "From an economic viewpoint it was
nice too. Only the very wealthy could afford an Earth burial, and so it
became a means of hidden, graduated taxation--Earth soaked the rich and
ignored the poor, and cut her overt taxes while doing so. Burial became
so costly that it helped break up the huge estates, it helped leaven
out the wealth. Our propaganda was sharpened to the point where we
could take a man like Anderman and drive him all of his life towards an
almost unattainable goal, force him to expend his tremendous energies
in the accumulation of great wealth, extending the frontiers of the
Galaxy as he did so, building up our civilization's strength in the
process, and then, in the end, make him turn all of his wealth over to
Earth in one form or another. Oh, I tell you, Braun, those ancient ones
were clever."
The tirade halted. The air hung silent for a moment, and the twittering
of a nearby bird could be heard.
"They were very, very clever. They gave us all the tools, and somehow
we've failed to use them correctly. What was it, Braun? What did we do,
or fail to do, that let Krieg get away from us?"
Braun frowned. "I don't know, Sir. Perhaps he just changed his mind
about Earth."
Steen snorted. "Impossible! He's had too many years' exposure to our
propaganda for that. He can no more give up his dream of burial in
Manhattan than he can give up his very personality. No, Braun, I think
we just underestimated the man. Somewhere along the line he had an
idea, he saw something that we failed to see."