Ultima Thule
by
Dallas McCord Reynolds
Illustrated by John Schoenherr.
Analog Science Fact & Fiction
March 1961
[Transcriber’s Note: This text was produced from Analog Science Fact &
Fiction March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Illustration.]
At least he’d got far enough to wind up with a personal interview. It’s
one thing doing up an application and seeing it go onto an endless tape
and be fed into the maw of a machine and then to receive, in a matter of
moments, a neatly printed rejection. It’s another thing to receive an
appointment to be interviewed by a placement officer in the Commissariat
of Interplanetary Affairs, Department of Personnel. Ronny Bronston was
under no illusions. Nine out of ten men of his age annually made the same
application. Almost all were annually rejected. Statistically speaking
practically nobody ever got an interplanetary position. But he’d made step
one along the path of a lifetime ambition.
He stood at easy attention immediately inside the door. At the desk at the
far side of the room the placement officer was going through a sheaf of
papers. He looked up and said, “Ronald Bronston? Sit down. You’d like an
interplanetary assignment, eh? So would I.”
Ronny took the chair. For a moment he tried to appear alert, earnest,
ambitious but not _too_ ambitious, fearless, devoted to the cause, and
indispensable. For a moment. Then he gave it up and looked like Ronny
Bronston.
The other looked up and took him in. The personnel official saw a man of
averages. In the late twenties. Average height, weight and breadth.
Pleasant of face in an average sort of way, but not handsome. Less than
sharp in dress, hair inclined to be on the undisciplined side. Brown of
hair, dark of eye. In a crowd, inconspicuous. In short, Ronny Bronston.
The personnel officer grunted. He pushed a button, said something into his
order box. A card slid into the slot and he took it out and stared
gloomily at it.
“What’re your politics?” he said.
“Politics?” Ronny Bronston said. “I haven’t any politics. My father and
grandfather before me have been citizens of United Planets. There hasn’t
been any politics in our family for three generations.”
“Family?”
“None.”
The other grunted and marked the card. “Racial prejudices?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you have any racial prejudices? Any at all.”
“No.”
The personnel officer said, “Most people answer that way at first, these
days, but some don’t at second. For instance, suppose you had to have a
blood transfusion. Would you have any objection to it being blood donated
by, say, a Negro, a Chinese, or, say, a Jew?”
Ronny ticked it off on his fingers. “One of my greatgrandfathers was a
French _colon_ who married a Moroccan girl. The Moors are a blend of
Berber, Arab, Jew and Negro. Another of my greatgrandfathers was a
Hawaiian. They’re largely a blend of Polynesians, Japanese, Chinese and
Caucasians especially Portuguese. Another of my greatgrandfathers was
Irish, English and Scotch. He married a girl who was half Latvian, half
Russian.” Ronny wound it up. “Believe me, if I had a blood transfusion
from just anybody at all, the blood would feel right at home.”
The interviewer snorted, even as he marked the card. “That accounts for
three greatgrandfathers,” he said lightly. “You seem to have made a study
of your family tree. What was the other one?”
Rocky said expressionlessly, “A Texan.”
The secretary shrugged and looked at the card again. “Religion?”
“Reformed Agnostic,” Ronny said. This one was possibly where he ran into a
brick wall. Many of the planets had strong religious beliefs of one sort
or another. Some of them had state religions and you either belonged or
else.
“Is there any such church?” the personnel officer frowned.
“No. I’m a one-man member. I’m of the opinion that if there are any
greater-powers-that-be They’re keeping the fact from us. And if that’s the
way They want it, it’s Their business. If and when They want to contact
me—one of Their puppets dangling from a string—then I suppose They’ll do
it. Meanwhile, I’ll wait.”
The other said interestedly, “You think that if there is a Higher Power
and if It ever wants to get in touch with you, It will?”
“Um-m-m. In Its own good time. Sort of a _don’t call Me_, thing, _I’ll
call you_.”
The personnel officer said, “There have been a few revealed religions, you
know.”
“So they said, so they said. None of them have made much sense to me. If a
Super-Power wanted to contact man, it seems unlikely to me that it’d be
all wrapped up in a lot of complicated gobbledegook. It would all be very
clear indeed.”
The personnel officer sighed. He marked the card, stuck it back into the
slot in his order box and it disappeared.
He looked up at Ronny Bronston. “All right, that’s all.”
Ronny came to his feet. “Well, what happened?”
The other grinned at him sourly. “Darned if I know,” he said. “By the time
you get to the outer office, you’ll probably find out.” He scratched the
end of his nose and said, “I sometimes wonder what I’m doing here.”
Ronny thanked him, told him good-by, and left.
-------------------------------------
In the outer office a girl looked up from a card she’d just pulled from
her own order box. “Ronald Bronston?”
“That’s right.”
She handed the card to him. “You’re to go to the office of Ross Metaxa in
the Octagon, Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, Department of
Justice, Bureau of Investigation, Section G.”
In a lifetime spent in first preparing for United Planets employment and
then in working for the organization, Ronny Bronston had never been in the
Octagon Building. He’d seen photographs, Tri-Di broadcasts and he’d heard
several thousand jokes on various levels from pun to obscenity about
getting around in the building, but he’d never been there. For that
matter, he’d never been in Greater Washington before, other than a long
ago tourist trip. Population Statistics, his department, had its main
offices in New Copenhagen.
His card was evidently all that he needed for entry.
At the sixth gate he dismissed his car and let it shoot back into the
traffic mess. He went up to one of the guard-guides and presented the
card.
The guide inspected it. “Section G of the Bureau of Investigation,” he
muttered. “Every day, something new. I never heard of it.”
“It’s probably some outfit in charge of cleaning the heads on space
liners.” Ronny said unhappily. He’d never heard of it either.
“Well, it’s no problem,” the guard-guide said. He summoned a three-wheel,
fed the co-ordinates into it from Ronny’s card, handed the card back and
flipped an easy salute. “You’ll soon know.”
The scooter slid into the Octagon’s hall traffic and proceeded up one
corridor, down another, twice taking to ascending ramps. Ronny had read
somewhere the total miles of corridors in the Octagon. He hadn’t believed
the figures at the time. Now he believed them. He must have traversed
several miles before they got to the Department of Justice alone. It was
another quarter mile to the Bureau of Investigation.
The scooter eventually came to a halt, waited long enough for Ronny to
dismount and then hurried back into the traffic.
He entered the office. A neatly uniformed reception girl with a harassed
and cynical eye looked up from her desk. “Ronald Bronston?” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Where’ve you been?” She had a snappy cuteness. “The commissioner has been
awaiting you. Go through that door and to your left.”
Ronny went through that door and to the left. There was another door,
inconspicuously lettered _Ross Metaxa, Commissioner, Section G_. Ronny
knocked and the door opened.
Ross Metaxa was going through a wad of papers. He looked up; a man in the
middle years, sour of expression, moist of eye as though he either drank
too much or slept too little.
“Sit down,” he said. “You’re Ronald Bronston, eh? What do they call you,
Ronny? It says here you’ve got a sense of humor. That’s one of the first
requirements in this lunatic department.”
Ronny sat down and tried to form some opinions of the other by his
appearance. He was reminded of nothing so much as the stereotype city
editor you saw in the historical romance Tri-Ds. All that was needed was
for Metaxa to start banging on buttons and yelling something about tearing
down the front page, whatever that meant.
Metaxa said, “It also says you have some queer hobbies. Judo, small
weapons target shooting, mountain climbing—” He looked up from the
reports. “Why does anybody climb mountains?”
Ronny said, “Nobody’s ever figured out.” That didn’t seem to be enough,
especially since Ross Metaxa was staring at him, so he added, “Possibly we
devotees keep doing it in hopes that someday somebody’ll find out.”
Ross Metaxa said sourly, “Not _too_ much humor, please. You don’t act as
though getting this position means much to you.”
Ronny said slowly, “I figured out some time ago that every young man on
Earth yearns for a job that will send him shuttling from one planet to
another. To achieve it they study, they sweat, they make all out efforts
to meet and suck up to anybody they think might help. Finally, when and if
they get an interview for one of the few openings, they spruce up in their
best clothes, put on their best party manners, present themselves as the
sincere, high I.Q., ambitious young men that they are—and then flunk their
chance. I decided I might as well be what I am.”
Ross Metaxa looked at him. “O.K.,” he said finally. “We’ll give you a
try.”
Ronny said blankly, “You mean I’ve got the job?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Probably,” Metaxa said. He yawned. “Do you know what Section G handles?”
“Well no, but as for me, just so I get off Earth and see some of the
galaxy.”
-------------------------------------
Metaxa had been sitting with his heels on his desk. Now he put them down
and reached a hand into a drawer to emerge with a brown bottle and two
glasses. “Do you drink?” he said.
“Of course.”
“Even during working hours?” Metaxa scowled.
“When occasion calls.”
“Good,” Metaxa said. He poured two drinks. “You’ll get your fill of seeing
the galaxy,” he said. “Not that there’s much to see. Man can settle only
Earth-type planets and after you’ve seen a couple of hundred you’ve seen
them all.”
Ronny sipped at his drink, then blinked reproachfully down into the glass.
Metaxa said, “Good, eh? A kind of tequila they make on Deneb Eight. Bunch
of Mexicans settled there.”
“What,” said Ronny hoarsely, “do they make it out of?”
“Lord only knows,” Metaxa said. “To get back to Section G. We’re
Interplanetary Security. In short, Department Cloak and Dagger. Would you
be willing to die for the United Planets, Bronston?”
That curve had come too fast. Ronny blinked again. “Only in emergency,” he
said. “Who’d want to kill me?”
Metaxa poured another drink. “Many of the people you’ll be working with,”
he said.
“Well, _why_? What will I be doing?”
“You’ll be representing United Planets,” Metaxa explained. “Representing
United Planets in cases where the local situation is such that the folks
you’re working among will be teed off at the organization.”
“Well, why are they members if they don’t like the UP?”
“That’s a good question,” Metaxa said. He yawned. “I guess I’ll have to go
into my speech.” He finished his drink. “Now, shut up till I give you some
background. You’re probably full of a lot of nonsense you picked up in
school.”
Ronny shut up. He’d expected more of an air of dedication in the Octagon
and in such ethereal departments as that of Interplanetary Justice,
however, he was in now and not adverse to picking up some sophistication
beyond the ken of the Earth-bound employees of UP.
The other’s voice took on a far away, albeit bored tone. “It seems that
most of the times man gets a really big idea, he goes off half cocked.
Just one example. Remember when the ancient Hellenes exploded into the
Mediterranean? A score of different City-States began sending out
colonies, which in turn sprouted colonies of their own. Take Syracuse, on
Sicily. Hardly was she established than, bingo, she sent off colonists to
Southern Italy, and they in turn to Southern France, Corsica, the
Balearics. Greeks were exploding all over the place, largely without
adequate plans, without rhyme or reason. Take Alexander. Roamed off all
the way to India, founding cities and colonies of Greeks all along the
way.”
The older man shifted in his chair. “You wonder what I’m getting at, eh?
Well, much the same thing is happening in man’s explosion into space, now
that he has the ability to leave the solar system behind. Dashing off half
cocked, in all directions, he’s flowing out over this section of the
galaxy without plan, without rhyme or reason. I take that last back, he
has reasons all right—some of the screwiest. Religious reasons, racial
reasons, idealistic reasons, political reasons, altruistic reasons and
mercenary reasons.
“Inadequate ships, manned by small numbers of inadequate people, setting
out to find their own planets, to establish themselves on one of the
numberless uninhabited worlds that offer themselves to colonization and
exploitation.”
Ronny cleared his throat. “Well, isn’t that a good thing, sir?”
Ross Metaxa looked at him and grunted. “What difference does it make if
it’s good or not? It’s happening. We’re spreading our race out over tens
of hundreds of new worlds in the most haphazard fashion. As a result, we
of United Planets now have a chaotic mishmash on our hands. How we manage
to keep as many planets in the organization as we do, sometimes baffles
me. I suppose most of them are afraid to drop out, conscious of the
protection UP gives against each other.”
He picked up a report. “Here’s Monet, originally colonized by a bunch of
painters, writers, musicians and such. They had dreams of starting a new
race”—Metaxa snorted—“with everybody artists. They were all so impractical
that they even managed to crash their ship on landing. For three hundred
years they were uncontacted. What did they have in the way of government
by that time? A military theocracy, something like the Aztecs of
Pre-Conquest Mexico. A matriarchy, at that. And what’s their religion
based on? That of ancient Phoenicia including plenty of human sacrifice to
good old Moloch. What can United Planets do about it, now that they’ve
become a member? Work away very delicately, trying to get them to at least
eliminate the child sacrifice phase of their culture. Will they do it?
Hell no, not if they can help it. The Head Priestess and her clique are
afraid that if they don’t have the threat of sacrifice to hold over the
people, they’ll be overthrown.”
Ronny was surprised. “I’d never heard of a member planet like that.
Monet?”
Metaxa sighed. “No, of course not. You’ve got a lot to learn, Ronny, my
lad. First of all, what’re Articles One and Two of the United Planets
Charter?”
That was easy. Ronny recited. “Article One: _The United Planets
organization shall take no steps to interfere with the internal political,
socio-economic, or religious institutions of its member planets._ Article
Two: _No member planets of United Planets shall interfere with the
internal political, socioeconomic or religious institutions of any other
member planet._” He looked at the department head. “But what’s that got to
do with the fact that I was unfamiliar with even the existence of Monet?”
“Suppose one of the advanced planets, or even Earth itself,” Metaxa
growled, “openly discussed in magazines, on newscasts, or wherever, the
religious system of Monet. A howl would go up among the liberals, the
progressives, the do-gooders. And the howl would be heard on the other
advanced planets. Eventually, the citizen in the street on Monet would
hear about it and be affected. And before you knew it, a howl would go up
from Monet’s government. Why? Because the other planets would be
interfering with her internal affairs, simply by discussing them.”
“So what you mean is,” Ronny said, “part of our job is to keep information
about Monet’s government and religion from being discussed at all on other
member planets.”
“That’s right,” Metaxa nodded. “And that’s just one of our dirty little
jobs. One of many. Section G, believe me, gets them all. Which brings us
to your first assignment.”
-------------------------------------
Ronny inched forward in his chair. “It takes me into space?”
“It takes you into space all right,” Metaxa snorted. “At least it will
after a few months of indoctrination. I’m sending you out after a legend,
Ronny. You’re fresh, possibly you’ll get some ideas older men in the game
haven’t thought of.”
“A legend?”
“I’m sending you to look for Tommy Paine. Some members of the department
don’t think he exists. I do.”
“Tommy Paine?”
“A pseudonym that somebody hung on him way back before even my memory in
this Section. Did you ever hear of Thomas Paine in American history?”
“He wrote a pamphlet during the Revolutionary War, didn’t he?”
“ ‘Common Sense,’ ” Metaxa nodded. “But he was more than that. He was born
in England but went to America as a young man and his writings probably
did as much as anything to put over the revolt against the British. But
that wasn’t enough. When that revolution was successful he went back to
England and tried to start one there. The government almost caught him,
but he escaped and got to France where he participated in the French
Revolution.”
“He seemed to get around,” Ronny Bronston said.
“And so does this namesake of his. We’ve been trying to catch up with him
for some twenty years. How long before that he was active, we have no way
of knowing. It was some time before we became aware of the fact that half
the revolts, rebellions, revolutions and such that occur in the United
Planets have his dirty finger stirring around in them.”
“But you said some department members don’t believe in his existence.”
Metaxa grunted. “They’re working on the theory that no one man could do
all that Tommy Paine has laid to him. Possibly it’s true that he sometimes
gets the blame for accomplishments not his. Or, for that matter, possibly
he’s more than one person. I don’t know.”
“Well,” Ronny said hesitantly, “what’s an example of his activity?”
Metaxa picked up another report from the confusion of his desk. “Here’s
one only a month old. Dictator on the planet Megas. Kidnapped and forced
to resign. There’s still confusion but it looks as though a new type of
government will be formed now.”
“But how do they know it wasn’t just some dissatisfied citizens of Megas?”
“It seems as though the kidnap vehicle was an old fashioned Earth-type
helicopter. There were no such on Megas. So Section G suspects it’s a
possible Tommy Paine case. We could be wrong, of course. That’s why I say
the man’s in the way of being a legend. Perhaps the others are right and
he doesn’t even exist. I think he does, and if so, it’s our job to get him
and put him out of circulation.”
Ronny said slowly, “But why would that come under our jurisdiction? It
seems to me that it would be up to the police of whatever planet he was
on.”
Ross Metaxa looked thoughtfully at his brown bottle, shook his head and
returned it to its drawer. He looked at a desk watch. “Don’t read into the
United Planets organization more than there is. It’s a fragile institution
with practically no independent powers to wield. Every member planet is
jealous of its prerogatives, which is understandable. It’s no mistake that
Articles One and Two are the basic foundation of the Charter. No member
planet wants to be interfered with by any other or by United Planets as an
organization. They want to be left alone.
“Within our ranks we have planets with every religion known to man
throughout the ages. Everything ranging from primitive animism to the most
advanced philosophic ethic. We have every political system ever dreamed
of, and every socio-economic system. It can all be blamed on the crack-pot
manner in which we’re colonizing. Any minority, no matter how
small—religious, political, racial, or whatever—if it can collect the
funds to buy or rent a spacecraft, can dash off on its own, find a new
Earth-type planet and set up in business.
“Fine. One of the prime jobs of Section G is to carry out, to enforce,
Articles One and Two of the Charter. A planet with Buddhism as its state
religion, doesn’t want some die-hard Baptist missionary stirring up
controversy. A planet with a feudalistic socio-economic systems doesn’t
want some hot-shot interplanetary businessman coming in with some big deal
that would eventually cause the feudalistic nobility to be tossed onto the
ash heap. A planet with a dictatorship doesn’t want subversives from some
democracy trying to undermine their institutions—and vice versa.”
“And its our job to enforce all this, eh?” Ronny said.
“That’s right,” Metaxa told him sourly. “It’s not always the nicest job in
the system. However, if you believe in United Planets, an organization
attempting to co-ordinate in such manner as it can, the efforts of its
member planets, for the betterment of all, then you must accept Section G
and Interplanetary Security.”
Ronny Bronston thought about it.
Metaxa added, “That’s why one of the requirements of this job is that you
yourself be a citizen of United Planets, rather than of any individual
planet, have no religious affiliations, no political beliefs, and no
racial prejudices. You’ve got to be able to stand aloof.”
“Yeah,” Ronny said thoughtfully.
Ross Metaxa looked at his watch again and sighed wearily. “I’ll turn you
over to one of my assistants,” he said. “I’ll see you again, though,
before you leave.”
“Before I leave?” Ronny said, coming to his feet. “But where do I start
looking for this Tommy Paine?”
“How the hell would I know?” Ross Metaxa growled.
-------------------------------------
In the outer office, Ronny said to the receptionist, “Commissioner Metaxa
said for me to get in touch with Sid Jakes.”
She said, “I’m Irene Kasansky. Are you with us?”
Ronny said, “I beg your pardon?”
She said impatiently, “Are you going to be with the Section? If you are,
I’ve got to clear you with your old job. You were in statistics over in
New Copenhagen, weren’t you?”
Somehow it seemed far away now, the job he’d held for more than five
years. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, Commissioner Metaxa has given me an
appointment.”
She looked up at him. “Probably to look for Tommy Paine.”
He was taken aback. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“There was talk. This Section is pretty well integrated.” She grimaced,
but on her it looked good. “One big happy family. High interdepartmental
morale. That sort of jetsam.” She flicked some switches. “You’ll find
Supervisor Jakes through that door, one to your left, two to your right.”
He could have asked one _what_ to his left and two _what_ to his right,
but evidently Irene Kasansky thought he had enough information to get him
to his destination. She’d gone back to her work.
[Illustration.]
It was one turn to his left and two turns to his right. The door was
lettered simply _Sidney Jakes_. He knocked and a voice shouted happily,
“It’s open. It’s always open.”
Supervisor Jakes was as informal as his superior. His attire was on the
happy-go-lucky side, more suited for sports wear than a fairly high
ranking job in the ultra-staid Octagon.
He couldn’t have been much older than Ronny Bronston but he had a nervous
vitality about him that would have worn out the other in a few hours. He
jumped up and shook hands. “You must be Bronston. Call me Sid.” He waved a
hand at a typed report he’d been reading. “Now I’ve seen them all. They’ve
just applied for entry to United Planets. Republic. What a name, eh?”
“What?” Ronny said.
“Sit down, sit down.” He rushed Ronny to a chair, saw him seated, returned
to the desk and flicked an order box switch. “Irene,” he said, “do up a
badge for Ronny, will you? You’ve got his code, haven’t you? Good. Send it
over. Bronze, of course.”
Sid Jakes turned back to Ronny and grinned at him. He motioned to the
report again. “What a name for a planet. Republic. Bunch of screw-balls,
again. Out in the vicinity of Sirius. Based their system on Plato’s
_Republic_. Have to go the whole way. Don’t even speak Basic. Certainly
not. They speak Ancient Greek. That’s going to be a neat trick, finding
interpreters. How’d you like the Old Man?”
Ronny said, dazed at the conversational barrage, “Old Man? Oh, you mean
Commissioner Metaxa.”
“Sure, sure,” Sid grinned, perching himself on the edge of the desk. “Did
he give you that drink of tequila during working hours routine? He’d like
to poison every new agent we get. What a character.”
The grin was infectious. Ronny said carefully, “Well, I did think his
method of hiring a new man was a little—cavalier.”
“Cavalier, yet,” Sid Jakes chortled. “Look, don’t get the Old Man wrong.
He knows what he’s doing. He always knows what he’s doing.”
“But he took me on after only two or three minutes conversation.”
Jakes cocked his head to one side. “Oh? You think so? When did you first
apply for interplanetary assignment, Ronny?”
“I don’t know, about three years ago.”
Jakes nodded. “Well, depend on it, you’ve been under observation for that
length of time. At any one period, Section G is investigating possibly a
thousand potential agents. We need men but qualifications are high.”
He hopped down from his position, sped around to the other side of the
desk and lowered himself into his chair. “Don’t get the wrong idea,
though. You’re not in. You’re on probation. Whatever the assignment the
Old Man gave you, you’ve got to carry it out successfully before you’re
full fledged.” He flicked the order-box switch and said, “Irene, where the
devil’s Ronny’s badge?”
Ronny Bronston heard the office girl’s voice answer snappishly.
“All right, all right,” Jakes said. “I love you, too. Send it in when it
comes.” He turned to Ronny. “What _is_ your assignment?”
“He wants me to go looking for some firebrand nicknamed Tommy Paine. I’m
supposed to arrest him. The commissioner said you’d give me details.”
-------------------------------------
Sid Jakes’ face went serious. He puckered up his lips. “Wow, that’ll be a
neat trick to pull off,” he said. He flicked the order-box switch again.
Irene’s voice snapped something before he could say anything and Sid Jakes
grinned and said, “O.K., O.K., darling, but if this is the way you’re
going to be I won’t marry you. Then what will the children say? Besides,
that’s not what I called about. Have ballistics do up a model H gun for
Ronny, will you? Be sure it’s adjusted to his code.”
He flicked off the order box and turned back to Ronny. “I understand
you’re familiar with hand guns. It’s in this report on you.”
Ronny nodded. He was just beginning to adjust to this free-wheeling
character. “What will I need a gun for?”
Jakes laughed. “Heavens to Betsy, you babe in the woods. Do you realize
this Tommy Paine character has supposedly stirred up a couple of score
wars, revolutions and revolts? Not to speak of having laid in his lap two
or three dozen assassinations. He’s a quick lad with a gun. A regular
Nihilist.”
“Nihilist?”
Jakes chuckled. “When you’ve been in this Section for a while, you’ll be
familiar with every screwball outfit man has ever dreamed up. The
Nihilists were a European group, mostly Russian, back in the Nineteenth
Century. They believed that by bumping off a few Grand Dukes and a Czar or
so they could force the ruling class to grant reforms. Sometimes they were
pretty ingenious. Blew up trains, that sort of thing.”
“Look here,” Ronny said, “what motivates this Paine fellow? What’s he get
out of all this trouble he stirs up?”
“Search me. Nobody seems to know. Some think he’s a mental case. For one
thing, he’s not consistent.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he’ll go to one planet and break his back trying to overthrow, say,
feudalism. Then, possibly after being successful, he goes to another
planet and devotes his energies to establishing the same socio-economic
system.”
Ronny assimilated that. “You’re one of those who believes he exists?”
“Oh, he exists all right, all right,” Sid Jakes said happily. “Matter of
fact, I almost ran into him a few years ago.”
Ronny leaned forward. “I guess I ought to know about it. The more
information I have, the better.”
“Sure, sure,” Jakes said. “This deal of mine was on one of the Aldebaran
planets. A bunch of nature boys had settled there.”
“Nature boys?”
“Um-m-m. Back to nature. The trouble with the human race is that it’s got
too far away from nature. So a whole flock of them landed on this planet.
They call it Mother, of all things. They landed and set up a primitive
society. Absolute stone age. No metals. Lived by the chase and by picking
berries, wild fruit, that sort of thing. Not even any agriculture. Wore
skins. Bows and arrows were the nearest thing they allowed themselves in
the way of mechanical devices.”
“Good grief,” Ronny said.
“It was a laugh,” Jakes told him. “I was assigned there as Section G
representative with the UP organization. Picture it. We had to wear skins
for clothes. We had to confine ourselves to two or three long houses.
Something like the American Iroquois lived in before Columbus. Their
society on Mother was based on primitive communism. The clan, the phratry,
the tribe. Their religion was mostly a matter of knocking into everybody’s
head that any progress was taboo. Oh, it was great.”
“Well, were they happy?”
“What’s happiness? I suppose they were as happy as anybody ever averages.
Frankly, I didn’t mind the assignment. Lots of fishing, lots of hunting.”
Ronny said, “Well, where does Tommy Paine come in?”
“He snuck up on us. Started way back in the boondocks away from any of the
larger primitive settlements. Went around putting himself over as a holy
man. Cured people of various things from gangrene to eye diseases. Given
antibiotics and such, you can imagine how successful he was.”
“Well, what harm did he do?”
“I didn’t say he did any harm. But in that manner he made himself awfully
popular. Then he’d pull some trick like showing them how to smelt iron,
and distribute some corn and wheat seed around and plant the idea of
agriculture. The local witch doctors would try to give him a hard time,
but the people figured he was a holy man.”
“Well, what happened finally?” Ronny wasn’t following too well.
“Communications being what they were, before he’d been discovered by the
central organization—they had a kind of Council of Tribes which met once a
year—he’d planted so many ideas that they couldn’t be stopped. The young
people’d never go back to flint knives, once introduced to iron. We went
looking for friend Tommy Paine, but he got wind of it and took off. We
even found where he’d hidden his little space cruiser. Oh, it was Paine,
all right, all right.”
“But what harm did he do? I don’t understand,” Ronny scowled.
“He threw the whole shebang on its ear. Last I heard, the planet had
broken up into three main camps. They were whaling away at each other like
the Assyrians and Egyptians. Iron weapons, chariots, domesticated horses.
Agriculture was sweeping the planet. Population was exploding. Men were
making slaves out of each other, to put them to work. Oh, it was a mess
from the viewpoint of the original nature boys.”
A red light flickered on his desk and Sid Jakes opened a delivery drawer
and dipped his hand into it. It emerged with a flat wallet. He tossed it
to Ronny Bronston.
“Here you are. Your badge.”
Ronny opened the wallet and examined it. He’d never seen one before, but
for that matter he’d never heard of Section G before that morning. It was
a simple enough bronze badge. It said on it, merely, _Ronald Bronston,
Section G, Bureau of Investigation, United Planets_.
Sid Jakes explained. “You’ll get co-operation with that through the
Justice Department anywhere you go. We’ll brief you further on procedure
during indoctrination. You in turn, of course, are to co-operate with any
other agent of Section G. You’re under orders of anyone with”—his hand
snaked into a pocket and emerged with a wallet similar to Ronny’s—“a
silver badge, carried by a First Grade Agent, or a gold one of Supervisor
rank.”
Ronny noted that his badge wasn’t really bronze. It had a certain sheen, a
brightness.
Jakes said, “Here, look at this.” He tossed his own badge to the new man.
Ronny looked down at it in surprise. The gold had gone dull.
Jakes laughed. “Now give me yours.”
Ronny got up and walked over to him and handed it over. As soon as the
other man’s hand touched it, the bronze lost its sheen.
Jakes handed it back. “See, it’s tuned to you alone,” he said. “And mine
is tuned to my code. Nobody can swipe a Section G badge and impersonate an
agent. If anybody ever shows you a badge that doesn’t have its sheen, you
know he’s a fake. Neat trick, eh?”
“Very neat,” Ronny admitted. He returned the other’s gold badge. “Look, to
get back to this Tommy Paine.”
But the red light flickered again and Jakes brought forth from the
delivery drawer a hand gun complete with shoulder harness. “Nasty weapon,”
he said. “But we’d better go on down to the armory and show you its
workings.”
He stood up. “Oh, yes, don’t let me forget to give you a communicator. A
real gizmo. About as big as a woman’s vanity case. Puts you in immediate
contact with the nearest Section G office, no matter how near or far away
it is. Or, if you wish, in contact with our offices here in the Octagon.
Very neat trick.”
He led Ronny from his office and down the corridors beyond to an elevator.
He said happily, “This is a crazy outfit, this Section G. You’ll probably
love it. Everybody does.”
-------------------------------------
Ronny learned to love Section G—in moderation.
He was initially taken aback by the existence of the organization at all.
He’d known, of course, of the Department of Justice and even of the Bureau
of Investigation, but Section G was hush-hush and not even United Planets
publications ever mentioned it.
The problems involved in remaining hush-hush weren’t as great as all that.
The very magnitude of the UP which involved more than two thousand member
planets, allowed of departments and bureaus hidden away in the endless
stretches of red tape.
In fact, although Ronny Bronston had spent the better part of his life,
thus far, in studying for a place in the organization, and then working in
the Population Statistics Department for some years, he was only now
beginning to get the over-all picture of the workings of the mushrooming,
chaotic United Planets organization.
It was Earth’s largest industry by far. In fact, for all practical
purposes it was her only major industry. Tourism, yes, but even that, in a
way, was related to the United Planets organization. Millions of visitors
whose ancestors had once emigrated from the mother planet, streamed back
in racial nostalgia. Streamed back to see the continents and oceans, the
Arctic and the Antarctic, the Amazon River and Mount Everest, the Sahara
and New York City, the ruins of Rome and Athens, the Vatican, the Louvre
and the Hermitage.
But the populace of Earth, in its hundreds of millions were largely
citizens of United Planets and worked in the organization and with its
auxiliaries such as the Space Forces.
Section G? To his surprise, Ronny found that Ross Metaxa’s small section
of the Bureau of Investigation seemed almost as great a secret within the
Bureau as it was to the man in the street. At one period, Ronny wondered
if it were possible that this was a department which had been lost in the
wilderness of boondoggling that goes on in any great bureaucracy. Had
Section G been set up a century or so ago and then forgotten by those who
had originally thought there was a need for it? In the same way that it is
usually more difficult to get a statute off the lawbooks than it was
originally to pass it, in the same manner eliminating an office, with its
employees can prove more difficult than originally establishing it.
But that wasn’t it. In spite of the informality, the unconventional
brashness of its personnel on all levels, and the seeming chaos in which
its tasks were done, Section G was no make-work project set up to provide
juicy jobs for the relatives of high ranking officials. To the contrary,
it didn’t take long in the Section before anybody with open eyes could see
that Ross Metaxa was privy to the decisions made by the upper echelons of
UP.
Ronny Bronston came to the conclusion that the appointment he’d received
was putting him in a higher bracket of the UP hierarchy than he’d at first
imagined.
His indoctrination course was a strain such as he’d never known in school
years. Ross Metaxa was evidently of the opinion that a man could
assimilate concentrated information at a rate several times faster than
any professional educator ever dreamed possible. No threats were made, but
Ronny realized that he could be dropped even more quickly than he’d seemed
to have been taken on. There were no classes, to either push or retard the
rate of study. He worked with a series of tutors, and pushed himself. The
tutors were almost invariably Section G agents, temporarily in Greater
Washington between assignments, or for briefing on this phase or that of
their work.
Even as he studied, Ronny Bronston kept the eventual assignment, at which
he was to prove himself, in mind. He made a point of inquiring of each
agent he met, about Tommy Paine.
The name was known to all, but no two reacted in the same manner. Several
of them even brushed the whole matter aside as pure legend. _Nobody_ could
accomplish all the trouble that Tommy Paine had supposedly stirred up.
To one of these, Ronny said plaintively, “See here, the Old Man believes
in him, Sid Jakes believes in him. My final appointment depends on
arresting him. How can I ever secure this job, if I’m chasing a myth?”
The other shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve got my own problems. O.K., now,
let’s run over this question of Napoleonic law. There are at least two
hundred planets that base their legal system on it.”
But the majority of his fellow employees in Section G had strong enough
opinions on the interplanetary firebrand. Three or four even claimed to
have seen him fleetingly, although no two descriptions jibed. That, of
course, could be explained. The man could resort to plastic surgery and
other disguise.
Theories there were in plenty, some of them going back long years, and
some of them pure fable.
-------------------------------------
“Look,” Ronny said in disgust one day after a particularly unbelievable
siege with two agents recently returned from a trouble spot in a planetary
system that involved three aggressive worlds which revolved about the same
sun. “Look, it’s impossible for one man to accomplish all this. He’s
blamed for half the _coups d’états_, revolts and upheavals that have taken
place for the past quarter century. It’s obvious nonsense. Why, a
revolutionist usually spends the greater part of his life toppling a
government. Then, once it’s toppled, he spends the rest of his life trying
to set up a new government—and he’s usually unsuccessful.”
One of the others was shaking his head negatively. “You don’t understand
this Tommy Paine’s system, Bronston.”
“You sure don’t,” the other agent, a Nigerian, grinned widely. “I’ve been
on planets where he’d operated.”
Ronny leaned forward. The three of them were having a beer in a part of
the city once called Baltimore. “You have?” he said. “Tell me about it,
eh? The more background I get on this guy, the better.”
“Sure. And this’ll give you an idea of how he operates, how he can get so
much trouble done. Well, I was on this planet Goshen, understand? It had
kind of a strange history. A bunch of colonists went out there, oh, four
or five centuries ago. Pretty healthy expedition, as such outfits go.
Bright young people, lots of equipment, lots of know-how and books. Well,
through sheer bad luck everything went wrong from the beginning.
Everything. Before they got set up at all they had an explosion that
killed off all their communications technicians. They lost contact with
the outside. O.K. Within a couple of centuries they’d gotten into a state
of chattel slavery. Pretty well organized, but static. Kind of an Athenian
Democracy on top, a hierarchy, but nineteen people out of twenty were
slaves, and I mean real slaves, like animals. They were at this stage when
a scout ship from the UP Space Forces discovered them and, of course, they
joined up.”
“Where does Tommy Paine come in?” Ronny said. He signaled to a waiter for
more beer.
“He comes in a few years later. I was the Section G agent on Goshen,
understand? No planet was keener about Articles One and Two of the UP
Charter. The hierarchy understood well enough that if their people ever
came to know about more advanced socio-economic systems it’d be the end of
Goshen’s Golden Age. So they allowed practically no intercourse. No
contact whatsoever between UP personnel and anyone outside the upper
class, understand? All right. That’s where Tommy Paine came in. It
couldn’t have taken him more than a couple of months at most.”
Ronny Bronston was fascinated. “What’d he do?”
“He introduced the steam engine, and then left.”
Ronny was looking at him blankly. “Steam engine?”
“That and the fly shuttle and the spinning jenny,” the Nigerian said.
“That Goshen hierarchy never knew what hit them.”
Ronny was still blank. The waiter came up with the steins of beer, and
Ronny took one and drained half of it without taking his eyes from the
storyteller.
The other agent took it up. “Don’t you see? Their system was based on
chattel slavery, hand labor. Given machinery and it collapses. Chattel
slavery isn’t practical in a mechanized society. Too expensive a labor
force, for one thing. Besides, you need an educated man and one with some
initiative—qualities that few slaves possess—to run an industrial
society.”
Ronny finished his beer. “Smart cooky, isn’t he?”
“He’s smart all right. But I’ve got a still better example of his fouling
up a whole planetary socio-economic system in a matter of weeks. A friend
of mine was working on a planet with a highly-developed feudalism. Barons,
lords, dukes, counts and no-accounts, all stashed safely away in castles
and fortresses up on the top of hills. The serfs down below did all the
work in the fields, provided servants, artisans and foot soldiers for the
continual fighting that the aristocracy carried on. Very similar to Europe
back in the Dark Ages.”
“So?” Ronny said. “I’d think that’d be a deal that would take centuries to
change.”
The Section G agent laughed. “Tommy Paine stayed just long enough to
introduce gunpowder. That was the end of those impregnable castles up on
the hills.”
“What gets me,” Ronny said slowly, “is his motivation.”
The other two both grunted agreement to that.
-------------------------------------
Toward the end of his indoctrination studies, Ronny appeared one morning
at the Octagon Section G offices and before Irene Kasansky. Watching her
fingers fly, listening to her voice rapping and snapping, O.K.-ing and
rejecting, he came to the conclusion that automation could go just so far
in office work and then you were thrown back on the hands of the efficient
secretary. Irene was a one-woman office staff.
She looked up at him. “Hello, Ronny. Thought you’d be off on your
assignment by now. Got any clues on Tommy Paine?”
“No,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see the commissioner.”
“About what?” She flicked a switch. When a light flickered on one of her
order boxes, she said into it, “No,” emphatically, and turned back to him.
“He said he wanted to see me again before I took off.”
She fiddled some more, finally said, “All right, Ronny. Tell him he’s got
time for five minutes with you.”
“Five minutes!”
“Then he’s got an appointment with the Commissioner of Interplanetary
Culture,” she said. “You’d better hurry along.”
Ronny Bronston retraced the route of his first visit here. How long ago?
It already seemed ages since his probationary appointment. Your life
changed fast when you were in Section G.
Ross Metaxa’s brown bottle, or its twin, was sitting on his desk and he
was staring at it glumly. He looked up and scowled.
“Ronald Bronston,” Ronny said. “Irene Kasansky told me to say I could have
five minutes with you, then you have an appointment with the Commissioner
of Interplanetary Culture.”
“I remember you,” Metaxa said. “Have a drink. Interplanetary Culture, ha!
The Xanadu Folk Dance Troupe. They dance nude. They’ve been touring the
whole UP. Roaring success everywhere, obviously. Now they’re assigned to
Virtue, a planet settled by a bunch of Fundamentalists. They want the
troupe to wear Mother Hubbards. The Xanadu outfit is in a tizzy. They’ve
been insulted. They claim they’re the most modest members of UP, that
nudity has nothing to do with modesty. The government of Virtue said
that’s fine but they wear Mother Hubbards or they don’t dance. Xanadu says
it’ll withdraw from United Planets.”
Ronny Bronston said painfully, “Why not let them?”
Ross Metaxa poured himself a Denebian tequila, offered his subordinate a
drink again with a motion of the bottle. Ronny shook his head.
Metaxa said, “If we didn’t take steps to soothe these things over, there
wouldn’t be any United Planets. In any given century every member in the
organization threatens to resign at least once. Even Earth. And then
what’d happen? You’d have interplanetary war before you knew it. What’d
you want, Ronny?”
“I’m about set to take up my search for this Tommy Paine.”
“Ah, yes, Tommy Paine. If you catch him, there are a dozen planets where
he’d be eligible for the death sentence.”
Ronny cleared his throat. “There must be. What I wanted was the file on
him, sir.”
“File?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got to the point where I want to cram up on everything we
have on him. So far, all I’ve got is verbal information from individual
agents and from Supervisor Jakes.”
“Don’t be silly, Ronny. There isn’t any file on Tommy Paine.”
Ronny just looked at the other.
Ross Metaxa said impatiently, “The very knowledge of the existence of the
man is top secret. Isn’t that obvious? Suppose some reporter got the story
and printed it. If our member planets knew there was such a man and that
we haven’t been able to scotch him, why they’d drop out of UP so fast the
computers couldn’t keep up with it. There’s not one planet in ten that
feels secure enough to lay itself open to subversion. Why some of our
planets are so far down the ladder of social evolution they live under
primitive tribal society; their leaders, their wise men and witch-doctors,
whatever you call them, are scared someone will come along and establish
chattel slavery. Those planets that have a system based on slavery are
scared to death of developing feudalism, and those that have feudalism are
afraid of _creeping capitalism_. Those with an anarchistic basis—and we
have several—are afraid of being subverted to statism, and those who have
a highly developed government are afraid of anarchism. The socio-economic
systems based on private ownership of property hate the very idea of
socialism or communism, and vice versa, and those planets with state
capitalism hate them both.”
[Illustration.]
He glared at Ronny. “What do you think the purpose of this Section is,
Bronston? Our job is to keep our member planets from being afraid of each
other. If they found that Tommy Paine and his group, if he’s got a group,
were buzzing through the system subverting everything they can foul up,
they’d drop out of UP and set up quarantines that a space mite couldn’t
get through. No sir, there is no file on Tommy Paine and there never will
be. And if any news of him spreads to the outside, this Section will
emphatically deny he exists. I hope that’s clear.”
“Well, yes sir,” Ronny said. The commissioner had been all but roaring
toward the end.
The order box clicked on Ross Metaxa’s desk and he said loudly, “What?”
“Don’t yell at me,” Irene snapped back. “Ronny’s five minutes are up.
You’ve got an appointment. I’m getting tired of this job. It’s a
mad-house. I’m going to quit and get a job with Interplanetary Finance.”