Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  The average young man looked at some of the lettering on the charts and shook his head. He said, his voice hesitant, "Commissar Broz?"

  The other turned, frowning, not recognizing his caller and surprised to find him here without announcement. He said, "Yes, young man?"

  Josip presented his credentials again.

  Broz had heard of him. He hurried forth a chair, became expansive in manner. A cigar? A drink? A great pleasure to meet the Comrade Expediter. He had heard a great deal about the new experiment initiated by Comrade Jankez and ably assisted by Aleksander Kardelj. Happily, an expediter was not needed in the Transbalkanian Steel Complex. It was expanding in such wise as to be the astonishment of the world, both East and West.

  "Yes," Josip began glumly, "but--"

  Broz was back on his feet and to his wall of charts and graphs. "See here," he beamed expansively. "This curve is steel production. See how it zooms? A veritable Sputnik, eh? Our statistics show that we are rapidly surpassing even the most foremost of the Western powers."

  Josip Pekic said, almost apologetically in view of the other's enthusiasm. "That's what I came to discuss with you, Comrade. You see, I've been sitting around, ah, in the local wineshops, talking it over with the younger engineers and the men on the job."

  The other frowned at him. "Talking what over?"

  "This new policy of yours." Josip's voice was diffident.

  "You mean overtaking the steel production of the West, by utilizing all methods of production?" The commissar's voice dropped. "I warn you Comrade, the germ of this idea originated with Zoran Jankez himself. We are old comrades and friends from back before the revolution."

  "I'm sure you are," Josip said pessimistically, and suppressing an urge to bite at the skin of his thumb. "However ... well, I'm not so sure Number One will admit your program originated with him. At least, it hasn't worked out that way in the recent past when something soured."

  The other bug-eyed. He whispered, "That approaches cynical treason, Comrade."

  Josip half nodded, said discouragedly, "You forget. By Comrade Jankez's own orders I ... I can do no wrong. But so much for that. Now, well, this steel program. I'm afraid it's going to have to be scrapped."

  "Scrapped!" the Commissar of the Transbalkanian Steel Complex stared at his visitor as though the other was rabid. "You fool! Our steel progress is the astonishment of the world! Why, not only are our ultramodern plants, built largely with foreign assistance, working on a twenty-four hour a day basis, but thousands of secondary smelters, some so small as to be operated by a handful of comrade citizens, in backyard establishments, by schoolchildren, working smelters of but a few tons monthly capacity in the schoolyard, by--"

  * * * * *

  The newly created State Expediter held up a hand dispiritedly. "I know. I know. Thousands of these backyard smelters exist ... uh ... especially in parts of the country where there is neither ore nor fuel available."

  The commissar looked at him.

  The younger man said, his voice seemingly deprecating his words, "The schoolchildren, taking time off from their studies, of course, bring scrap iron to be smelted. And they bring whatever fuel they can find, often pilfered from railway yards. And the more scrap and fuel they bring, the more praise they get. Unfortunately, the so-called scrap often turns out to be kitchen utensils, farm tools, even, on at least on occasion, some railroad tracks, from a narrow gauge line running up to a lumbering project, not in use that time of the year. Sooner or later, Comrade Broz, the nation is going to have to replace those kitchen utensils and farm tools and all the rest of the scrap that isn't really quite scrap."

  The commissar began to protest heatedly, but Josip Pekic shook his head and tried to firm his less than dominating voice. "But even that's not the worst of it. Taking citizens away from their real occupations, or studies, and putting them to smelting steel where no ore exists. The worst of it is, so my young engineer friends tell me, that while the steel thus produced might have been a marvel back in the days of the Hittites, it hardly reaches specifications today. Perhaps it might be used ultimately to make simple farm tools such as hoes and rakes; if so, it would make quite an endless circle, because that is largely the source of the so-called steel to begin with--tools, utensils and such. But it hardly seems usable in modern industry."

  The commissar had gone pale with anger by now. He put his two fists on his desk and leaned upon them, staring down at his seated visitor. "Comrade," he bit out, "I warn you. Comrade Jankez is enthusiastic about my successes. Beyond that, not only is he an old comrade, but my brother-in-law as well."

  Josip Pekic nodded, unenthusiastically, and his voice continued to quiver. "So the trained engineers under you, have already warned me. However, Comrade Broz, you are ... well, no longer Commissar of the Steel Complex. My report has already gone in to Comrades Jankez and Kardelj."

  * * * * *

  The knock came at the door in the middle of the night as Aleksander Kardelj had always thought it would.

  From those early days of his Party career, when his ambitions had sent him climbing, pushing, tripping up others, on his way to the top, he had expected it eventually.

  Oh, his had been a different approach, on the surface, an easygoing, laughing, gentler approach than one usually connected with members of the Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Party, but it made very little difference in the very long view. When one fell from the heights, he fell just as hard, whether or not he was noted for his sympathetic easy humor.

  The fact was, Aleksander Kardelj was not asleep when the fist pounded at his door shortly after midnight. He had but recently turned off, with a shaking hand, the Telly-Phone, after a less than pleasant conversation with President of the United Balkan Soviet Republics, Zoran Jankez.

  For the past ten years, Kardelj had been able to placate Zoran Jankez, even though Number One be at the peak of one of his surly rages, rages which seemed to be coming with increasing frequency of late. As the socio-economic system of the People's Democratic Dictatorship became increasingly complicated, as industrialization with its modern automation mushroomed in a geometric progression, the comparative simplicity of governing which applied in the past, was strictly of yesteryear. It had been one thing, rifle and grenades in hand, to seize the government, after a devastating war in which the nation had been leveled, and even to maintain it for a time, over illiterate peasants and unskilled proletarians. But industrialization calls for a highly educated element of scientists and technicians, nor does it stop there. One of sub-mentality can operate a shovel in a field, or even do a simple operation on an endless assembly line in a factory. But practically all workers must be highly skilled workers in the age of automation, and there is little room for the illiterate. The populace of the People's Dictatorship was no longer a dumb, driven herd, and their problems were no longer simple ones.

  Yes, Number One was increasingly subject to his rages these days. It was Aleksander Kardelj's deepest belief that Jankez was finding himself out of his depth. He no longer was capable of understanding the problems which his planning bodies brought to his attention. And he who is confused, be he ditchdigger or dictator, is a man emotionally upset.

  Zoran Jankez's face had come onto the Telly-Phone screen already enraged. He had snapped to his right-hand man, "Kardelj! Do you realize what that ... that idiot of yours has been up to now?"

  Inwardly, Kardelj had winced. His superior had been mountingly difficult of late, and particularly these past few days. He said now, cajolingly, "Zoran, I--"

  "Don't call me Zoran, Kardelj! And please preserve me from your sickening attempts to fawn, in view of your treacherous recommendations of recent months." He was so infuriated that his heavy jowls shook.

  Kardelj had never seen him this furious. He said placatingly, "Comrade Jankez, I had already come to the conclusion that I should consult you on the desirability of revoking this young troublemaker's credentials and removing him from the--"

  "I am not
interested in what you were going to do, Kardelj. I am already in the process of ending this traitor's activities. I should have known, when you revealed he was the son of Ljubo Pekic, that he was an enemy of the State, deep within. I know the Pekic blood. It was I who put Ljubo to the question. Stubborn, wrong headed, a vicious foe of the revolution. And his son takes after him."

  Kardelj had enough courage left to say, "Comrade, it would seem to me that young Pekic is a tanglefoot, but not a conscious traitor. I--"

  "Don't call me comrade, Kardelj!" Number One roared. "I know your inner motivation. The reason you brought this agent provocateur, this Trotskyite wrecker, to this position of ridiculous power. The two of you are in conspiracy to undermine my authority. This will be brought before the Secretariat of the Executive Committee, Kardelj. You've gone too far, this time!"

  Aleksander Kardelj had his shortcomings but he was no coward. He said, wryly, "Very well, sir. But would you tell me what Josip Pekic has done now? My office has had no report on him for some time."

  "What he has done! You fool, you traitorous fool, have you kept no record at all? He has been in the Macedonian area where my virgin lands program has been in full swing."

  Kardelj cleared his throat at this point.

  Jankez continued roaring. "The past three years, admittedly, the weather has been such, the confounded rains failing to arrive on schedule, that we have had our troubles. But this fool! This blundering traitorous idiot!"

  "What has he done?" Kardelj asked, intrigued in spite of his position of danger.

  "For all practical purposes he's ordered the whole program reversed. Something about a sandbowl developing, whatever that is supposed to mean. Something about introducing contour plowing, whatever nonsense that is. And even reforesting some areas. Some nonsense about watersheds. He evidently has blinded and misled the very men I had in charge. They are supporting him, openly."

  Jankez, Kardelj knew, had been a miner as a youth, with no experience whatsoever on the soil. However, the virgin lands project had been his pet. He envisioned hundreds upon thousands of square miles of maize, corn as the Americans called it. This in turn would feed vast herds of cattle and swine so that ultimately the United Balkan Soviet Republics would have the highest meat consumption in the world.

  Number One was raging on. Something about a conspiracy on the part of those who surrounded him. A conspiracy to overthrow him, Zoran Jankez, and betray the revolution to the Western powers, but he, Zoran Jankez, had been through this sort of plot before. He, Zoran Jankez, knew the answers to such situations.

  Aleksander Kardelj grinned humorously, wryly, and reached to flick off the screen. He twisted a cigarette into the small pipelike holder, lit it and waited for the inevitable.

  It was shortly after that the knock came on his door.

  * * * * *

  Zoran Jankez sat at his desk in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a heavy military revolver close to his right hand, a half empty liter of sljivovica and a water tumbler, to his left. Red of eye, he pored over endless reports from his agents, occasionally taking time out to growl a command into his desk mike. Tired he was, from the long sleepless hours he was putting in, but Number One was in his element. As he had told that incompetent, Kardelj, he had been through this thing before. It was no mistake that he was Number One.

  After a time he put a beefy hand down on the reports. He could feel the rage coming upon him. Of late, he realized, there most certainly had developed a plot to undermine his health by constant frustrations. Was there no one, no one at all, to take some of these trivialities off his shoulders? Must he do everything in the People's Democratic Dictatorship? Make every decision and see it through?

  He snapped into the mike, "Give me Lazar Jovanovic." And then, when the police head's shaven poll appeared in the screen of the Telly-Phone, "Comrade, I am giving you one last chance. Produce this traitor, Josip Pekic, within the next twenty-four hours, or answer to me." He glared at the other, whose face had tightened in fear. "I begin to doubt the sincerity of your efforts, in this, Comrade Jovanovic."

  "But ... but, Comrade, I--"

  "That's all!" Number One snapped. He flicked off the instrument, then glowered at it for a full minute. If Jovanovic couldn't locate Pekic, he'd find someone who could. It was maddening that the pipsqueak had seemingly disappeared. To this point, seeking him had progressed in secret. There had been too much favorable publicity churned out in the early days of the expediter scheme to reverse matters to the point of having a public hue and cry. It was being done on the q.t.

  But! Number One raged inwardly, if his police couldn't find the criminal soon enough, a full-scale hunt and purge could well enough be launched. There was more to all this than met the eye. Oh, he, Zoran Jankez had been through it before, though long years had lapsed since it had been necessary. The traitors, the secret conspiracies, and then the required purges to clean the Party ranks still once again.

  The gentle summons of his Telly-Phone tinkled, and he flicked it on with a rough brush of his hand.

  And there was the youthful face of Josip Pekic, currently being sought high and low by the full strength of the Internal Affairs Secretariat. Youthful, yes, but even as he stared his astonishment, Zoran Jankez could see that the past months had wrought their changes on the other's face. It was more mature, bore more of strain and weariness.

  Before Jankez found his voice. Josip Pekic said diffidently, "I ... I understand you've been, well ... looking for me, sir."

  "Looking for you!" the Party head bleated, his rage ebbing in all but uncontrollably. For a moment he couldn't find words.

  Pekic said, his voice jittering, "I had some research to do. You see, sir, this ... this project you and Kardelj started me off on--"

  "I had nothing to do with it! It was Kardelj's scheme, confound his idiocy!" Number One all but screamed.

  "Oh? Well ... well, I had gathered the opinion that both of you concurred. Anyway, like I say, the project from the first didn't come off quite the way it started. I ... well ... we, were thinking in terms of finding out why waiters were surly, why workers and professionals and even officials tried to, uh, beat the rap, pass the buck, look out for themselves and the devil take the hindmost, and all those Americanisms that Kardelj is always using."

  Jankez simmered, but let the other go on. Undoubtedly, his police chief, Lazar Jovanovic was even now tracing the call, and this young traitor would soon be under wraps where he could do no more damage to the economy of the People's Democratic Dictatorship.

  "But, well, I found it wasn't just a matter of waiters, and truckdrivers and such. It ... well ... ran all the way from top to bottom. So, I finally felt as though I was sort of butting my head against the wall. I thought I better start at ... kind of ... fundamentals, so I began researching the manner in which the governments of the West handled some of these matters."

  "Ah," Jankez said as smoothly as he was able to get out. "Ah. And?" This fool was hanging himself.

  The younger man frowned in unhappy puzzlement. "Frankly, I was surprised. I have, of course, read Western propaganda to the extent I could get hold of it in Zagurest, and listened to the Voice of the West on the wireless. I was also, obviously, familiar with our own propaganda. Frankly ... well ... I had reserved my opinion in both cases."

  * * * * *

  This in itself was treason, but Number One managed to get out, almost encouragingly, "What are you driving at, Josip Pekic?"

  "I found in one Western country that the government was actually paying its peasants, that is, farmers, not to plant crops. The same government subsidized other crops, keeping the prices up to the point where they were hard put to compete on the international markets."

  Young Pekic made a moue, as though in puzzlement. "In other countries, in South America for instance, where the standard of living is possibly the lowest in the West and they need funds desperately to develop themselves, the governments build up large armies, although few of them have had any sort of
warfare at all for over a century and have no threat of war."

  "What is all this about?" Number One growled. Surely, Lazar Jovanovic was on the idiot traitor's trail by now.

  Josip took a deep breath and hurried on nervously. "They've got other contradictions that seem unbelievable. For instance, their steel industry will be running at half capacity, in spite of the fact that millions of their citizens have unfulfilled needs, involving steel. Things like cars, refrigerators, stoves. In fact, in their so-called recessions, they'll actually close down perfectly good, modern factories, and throw their people out of employment, at the very time that there are millions of people who need that factory's product."

  Josip said reasonably, "Why, sir, I've come to the conclusion that the West has some of the same problems we have. And the main one is politicians."

  "What? What do you mean?"

  "Just that," Josip said with dogged glumness. "I ... well, I don't know about the old days. A hundred, even fifty years ago, but as society becomes more complicated, more intricate, I simply don't think politicians are capable of directing it. The main problems are those of production and distribution of all the things our science and industry have learned to turn out. And politicians, all over the world, seem to foul it up."

  Zoran Jankez growled ominously, "Are you suggesting that I am incompetent to direct the United Balkan Soviet Republics?"

  "Yes, sir," Josip said brightly, as though the other had encouraged him. "That's what I mean. You or any other politician. Industry should be run by trained, competent technicians, scientists, industrialists--and to some extent, maybe, by the consumers, but not by politicians. By definition, politicians know about politics, not industry. But somehow, in the modern world, governments seem to be taking over the running of industry and even agriculture. They aren't doing such a good job, sir."

  Jankez finally exploded. "Where are you calling from, Pekic?" he demanded. "You're under arrest!"

  Josip Pekic cleared his throat, apologetically. "No, sir," he said. "Remember? I'm the average Transbalkanian citizen. And it is to be assumed I'd, well ... react the way any other would. The difference is, I had the opportunity. I'm in Switzerland."