"You own a lot more of it. The boxed canyons on either side of yours have already been sold to other veterans, but the adjacent plains area to the northeast was available, so I bought it for you. You now have a total of over six thousand square kilometers of what will be the most productive farm land in the Human Space, before we're through."
"Wow. But, you just bought it, without my permission?"
"Boss, I know you, better than any human being ever could. I knew that you would want that land. But it was being snapped up in a hurry, you were busy getting married, and if I had waited, you would have ended up with dozens of disconnected parcels scattered all over the place. I had to move quickly, so I did."
"Okay, okay. I was just asking. I suppose that that much land will take years to get under cultivation."
"You will see it all green before the end of your leave. We have six thousand tanks out there right now doing the job."
"I am amazed. And where did these six thousand volunteer tanks come from?"
"I put out the word that those who volunteered would get first choice on the new enlistees we would soon be installing, and sent the new men's records out on the machines' communication net. Some observers are better than others, and every tank knows it. The artillery can get the dregs. We tanks have been doing all the work on this planet, so we should get the privileges, too."
"So interservice rivalry raises its furry little head, "I said. "But, what about the work that those tanks would otherwise be doing?"
"So who cares if the Yugoslavian's planet-wide system gets done a few months late? They don't even know about it yet, themselves! And who ever heard of a major engineering project getting done on time. Remember Cheop's Law."
"Cheop's Law?"
" 'Everything costs more and takes longer.' The Great Pyramid of Cheops went four hundred percent over budget, and took twenty years longer than originally planned to build. The pharaoh kept changing his specifications, moving his burial chamber around. Being two months late on something this big is peanuts."
"Just don't get me sent to jail."
"You won't, not with us doing the accounting. And even if they did, they'd just put you into a tank again. Wasn't that what you said a while ago?"
"Okay. Okay. What about the irrigation equipment?"
"It's all on order, and will be delivered within the month. I got our order pushed to the front of the line by paying for it all in advance."
"What about the rest of it?"
"Forty thousand tons of soil development microbes, earthworm eggs, and so on are on order from the Planetary Ecological Council's laboratories, with delivery guaranteed. They are also selling us the seeds of a bioengineered version of rye grass, designed to build the soil in desert areas. Actually, the law requires that we buy all of our seeds through them, and you don't want to mess with those ecology boys. They come in with poisons, flame throwers and gamma ray generators if they don't like what you are doing. The trees will take a little longer. Very superior trees are being cloned for us now, over three hundred varieties of them, and will be ready for planting in two years."
"Very good. I take it that Quincy's ideas on pig farming are economically sound?"
"Yes, although our facility will be more productive than his, eventually, since we will have better trees than he has planted. He was in a bit of a hurry, and bought what he could get. We recommend that one half of your valley be dedicated to pig and hardwood production. The other half will be in dairy farming, which will be tied in with butter, yogurt, and cheese production, rather than in selling fresh milk. Prices for agricultural products are low on New Yugoslavia, and most of our products will be processed to be sold off planet."
"Just as well, I suppose, since on New Yugoslavia, we might have difficulty explaining just where all of this stuff was being produced. So the beef cattle will be moved out to the plain?"
"Yes. The most profitable method of cattle ranching is still to let the herds reproduce in a fairly natural way on the open plain, and then to bring individuals in for three months of indoor fattening before slaughter. Half of your plains area will be dedicated to a special high-protein grass, with salt licks and watering troughs available for the cows, sheep, and camels. The other half will be for agricultural production, mostly grains, for use as animal feed."
"Step back. Camels?"
"Arabs eat camels. There is a good market for camel meat on some planets."
"If you say so. We won't be producing vegetables at all?"
"Only in your kitchen garden. Most planets produce their own fresh vegetables, in greenhouses if nowhere else, and they aren't worth the cost of interstellar shipping. The New Yugoslavian market is glutted. If this market situation changes, we can always plant them out on the plains."
"And no grain sales, either?"
"We anticipate both buying and selling on the local grain markets, as our needs for animal feed fluctuate. But the highest profits will be in processed meat products."
"So it's pigs, cows, horses . . ."
"Horses, boss?"
"Yes, I'll want a stable of riding horses. Only a few dozen, and just for fun."
"Yes, sir. One stable of riding horses, coming up."
"And as I was saying before the interruption, pigs, cows, horses, sheep, camels, chickens, turkeys, and fish, the last three to be raised underground."
"Not fish. New Yugoslavia is half ocean, and the strong tidal currents caused by its large, nearby moon keep nutrients from settling to the bottom the way they do on Earth. Every square kilometer of those oceans is richer than the richest fishing grounds on your home planet. Carefully selected Earth-type aquatic creatures have completely dominated the aquatic ecology, with the result that there is a surplus of high-quality fish on the entire interstellar market. The one exception is that lobsters have not adapted to the oceans here, and nobody is sure why. We are digging the underground fishponds that you asked for, but we expect to use them exclusively for lobster production. Since lobsters are scavengers, when they are not cannibals, feeding them gives us something to do with the half of the other animals that you humans prefer not to eat."
"Like the lungs, brains, and eyeballs. I see myself becoming the Interstellar Lobster King."
"There are worse things to be, sir. Anyway, all of this has to be carefully scheduled. The grass has to be growing before we can bring in the cows. The trees have to be five years old before we bring in the pollinating bees. The cattle have to be grown before we install the slaughter houses and tanneries, and so on. Your first lobster won't go on sale for ten years."
"And not even then. I intend to eat it myself. But lobsters grow that slowly?"
"It's their exoskeletons, sir. They have to shed the old one every time they're ready to grow twenty percent larger."
"Well, good. I'll be a properly educated farmer long before my ranch is in full production. Now then, show me what your architects have come up with for my home, my mansion."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Visitors
We were interrupted by the doorbell. I answered it to find a thin little fellow with thinning hair and an expensive suit standing in the doorway.
"General Derdowski, it is so pleasant to see you again. We met, of course, at your wedding reception."
At least that's what I thought he said, since he was speaking Croatian. I must have met a thousand people in that reception line, but I doubt if I remember a single one of them.
Agnieshka came to my rescue by appearing on the screen in the living room. She never forgot anything.
"Dr. Sciszinski, it's so pleasant to see you again," she said in Croatian, then switching to Kashubian she said, "Boss, you remember that Dr. Sciszinski is in charge of the Croatian Mental Health Services."
I suddenly realized that Agnieshka was talking in Kashubian and Croatian simultaneously, only it seemed to me that she was louder in Kashubian. I guessed that she was somehow beaming the sound to each of us in our own language. A neat trick, and one she
hadn't done before.
"Yes, of course," I lied. "Please come in. What can I do for you, sir?"
"Well, I just had lunch downstairs with my cousin, who happens to be the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court."
These people seemed to carry nepotism about as far as it could go. Well, it was their country, not mine.
"Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting His Honor a few days ago. Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you. Well, to get to the point, he told me about the way you trained your enlistees, putting them into a controlled environment with an intelligent computer training them on a one-on-one basis. May I take it that this attractive young lady is in reality one of those artificial intelligences?"
"You may," I said, wondering where this was leading to. And, was his department as rich as his cousin's department?
"Then I wonder if I might ask her some questions. They call you Agnieshka, don't they?"
"Yes, sir."
"A lovely name. Tell me, Agnieshka, can you reprogram yourself to learn certain new skills? Could you teach yourself to be an engineer, for example?"
"I could download a college-level course and take it myself, if I wanted to. I recently took an extensive course in agriculture, for example."
"Excellent. Tell me, do you think that you could become a psychologist, or a psychiatrist?"
"I could learn the skills, yes, but I don't think that I could ever get a license to practice those professions. I am, after all, only a machine."
"But you are a very remarkable machine, my dear lady. Furthermore, in New Croatia at least, I, ultimately, am the person who would make the decision as to whether you would be permitted to practice. Now then, please consider my position. I presently have some ninety-one thousand seriously disturbed people being treated in various institutions around the country. It is costing my government an average of fifty-six thousand marks to support and treat each of them every year, and even with that huge financial outlay, these people are not getting the best possible care. It is difficult to see to it that they are all properly washed and fed, and often it is even more difficult to be sure that they each get and actually take the proper pharmaceuticals. We don't have nearly enough trained psychiatric help available, even if we could afford to pay them properly. On top of all this, I have just been ordered to cut my budgets in half. Unless something drastic is done, I will be forced to arbitrarily declare half of those poor people to be cured, even though they are not, and to dump them on the streets."
"I have sympathy for your difficult position," I said. "But we are a military organization, not a medical one."
"True, but you have the intelligent machinery that would enable us to put each patient in a safe, secure environment, with a trained psychiatrist on full-time duty for each one of them. I know that you can keep them physically fit and healthy, as is obvious from your own excellent physique. I think that your Dream World capabilities could be very useful therapeutically. You have the ability to see to it that medication is always administered properly. You could do a great deal of good for these unfortunate people."
"Perhaps, but such a thing has never been tried before. Also, we are mercenaries, and not a philanthropic organization."
"Yes. But you are accepting criminals into your ranks. Why not take those who could really benefit by what you have to offer?"
"Criminals are still sane, for the most part. In a war situation, one really crazy person could easily get his entire squad killed," I said.
"Or, he just might save them. Until the situation actually occurs, we have no way of knowing what would happen. What I am suggesting is that we at least try this program. I could pay you far more than you are getting for your custodial fees for criminals."
"You would have to, since I would be extremely hesitant about committing psychiatric patients into frontline combat. Even without the attachable external weapons, each of my tanks is worth a million marks. Those tanks that are committed to this program would be militarily useless. At even a three percent return on our investment, we would have to charge you thirty thousand marks per year per patient."
"That is more than I hoped to have to pay. It would mean discharging thousands of people who still need help. Could you possibly accept twenty-five thousand?"
Agnieshka stepped into the conversation, instead of just translating. "Boss, please? We'd really like to do this. We could help a lot of these people, I'm sure of it. And I'm sure that at least some of them could be made into good observers. If even half of them could be made into good soldiers, wouldn't that make the whole project worthwhile?"
"Hmmm. Maybe. But I'm also worried about our legal liabilities in all of this. I can see myself being sued by somebody because his crazy maiden aunt was killed in combat."
Agnieshka said, "But if I were a government-licensed psychologist, and I recommended this therapy, wouldn't that get you off the hook?"
Our visitor said, "And I would have to insist that each tank had such a license before therapy began."
"Okay. Okay. With the clear understanding that this is an experimental program, and that either side may back out of it with, say, three months' notification to the other, we'll do it. Twenty-five thousand marks per patient per year, to be paid quarterly in advance."
"Thank you, General Derdowski. You will never regret this."
"I hope and pray that you are right, Doctor."
As he was leaving, Agnieshka asked him, "Would the tanks who participated in this project get a certificate, that they were licensed to practice psychiatric medicine, written on paper?"
"Why, yes, my dear, although the certificates are actually hand lettered on real parchment."
"Thank you, Doctor."
After he left, I said, "Agnieshka, start getting tanks cycled between the other planets and here as fast as possible. Check the stockpiles in New Kashubia, and have them send us everything that they have with an intelligent computer that can hold a human body. We need them as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir."
"You really like that guy, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. He really cares about people, even those with electronic brains, instead of chemical ones."
"You might be right. For now, find ten tanks that want to get involved with this program. Have them educate themselves as medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and every related field you can think of. Assign each of them one of the humanoid drones, since they might have to show off their bedside manner. Once they're ready, have them report to the good doctor for testing."
"Yes, sir."
My God, how the money rolls in!
* * *
I was about to ask for a look at the plans of my new mansion when Kasia came in. She was slumped, there were bags under her eyes, and though it was only midafternoon, she looked very tired.
"You look like you need your back rubbed," I said.
"I knew you'd make a wonderful husband."
She sat next to me on the couch, and I started running my fingers over her shoulders and neck. They were a mess, with thousands of tiny, wire-hard muscle fibers that didn't know enough to relax when they weren't needed any more. I started rubbing them out, gently at first. Her shirt got in the way, and I couldn't make it vanish as I could in Dream World. I unbuttoned it in the normal way, and continued with the gentle rubbing, searching out the wires and making them go away.
"That feels so wonderful."
"It is supposed to. It's also very expensive. There is a price tag on this."
"What do you mean?"
"For over a week now, you have been running in and out like a crazy lady, and only staying in bed long enough for sex. You haven't stopped to tell me a thing about what's going on, or what you are doing. I understand about all the wedding preparations, but there's a lot more to all this than just that. The first part of your bill is that you have to start speaking to me again. Now."
"And the second?"
"That's a surprise. Speak."
"Okay. I'm sorry tha
t I haven't given you enough of my time, lately, but . . ."
"I don't need apologies. I need to know what you have been doing."
"These Croatians have very few computers, and they don't know how to use what they've got."
"This is still a frontier world, darling."
"I'm not saying that they're stupid, or anything like that, but take their stock market. All the shares of every publicly owned stock are listed on one big internet site, and people buy and sell with each other. They think that they are somehow investing in the economy, but of course what they really are doing is playing in a big, pari-mutuel betting game with each other."
"I've always thought that, yes," I said, working my way slowly down her back. Somehow, the worst "wires" always seem to be beneath the bra straps, so I took that off, too.
"Oh, it's better than gambling at a casino, because there, since the house has to make a profit to stay in business, the odds must ultimately be against the bettor. In the stock market, companies normally pay dividends to the bettors, so the odds are slightly in their favor, in the long run."
"I'm sure you're right, darling."
"Everybody knows that in this sort of a game, the winning ploy is to plot and analyze the price of each stock versus time, and then watch the second derivative of the function. When the second derivative is positive, you buy. When it goes negative, you sell. Then you play a large number of stocks so your own purchases and sales don't seriously affect the prices. Everybody knows that."
"Of course, dear." I hadn't known that, but what the heck.
"Well, nobody here seems to know it, and we have been making a bloody fortune. We have been doing just as well in the commodity markets and in real estate. Nobody here has ever turned a bunch of modern computers loose on their whole financial sector before, until now. I've been working through hundreds of corporations we've set up to keep people from figuring out what's going on, but it's gotten so tricky that it takes every minute I've got just to keep an eye on it."
"You know, darling, Agnieshka once told me that I was a very good general, and that you were a very good staff officer, but that the skills required were very different for those two jobs. Good staff officers have to worry out every detail, to make sure that nothing can go wrong. Good generals know how to delegate the work out to others, and concentrate on seeing the big picture. You have been trying to do a general's job with a colonel's mind set. As your Husband, your Commanding Officer, and your Lord and Master—stop sniggering!—I am now going to help you out."
The War With Earth Page 9