by Kris Neville
He reached his home and his wife kissed him on the cheek. “Hard day at the palace, dear?” she asked.
“Quite hard,” Nob said. “Lots of work for after supper.”
“It just isn’t fair,” complained his wife. She was a plump, pleasant little person and she worried continually about her husband’s health. “They shouldn’t make you work so hard.”
“But of course they should!” said Nob, a little astonished. “Don’t you remember what I told you? All the books say that during a war, a Prime Minister is a harried, harassed individual, weighed down by the enormous burden of state, unable to relax, tense with the numerous strains of high office.”
“It isn’t fair,” his wife repeated.
“No one said it was. But it’s extremely Earthlike.”
His wife shrugged her shoulders. “Well, of course, if it’s Earthlike, it must be right. Come eat supper, dear.”
AFTER eating, Nob attacked his mounds of paperwork. But soon he was yawning and his eyes burned. He turned to his wife, who was just finishing the dishes.
“My dear,” he said, “do you suppose you could help me?”
“Is it proper?” she asked.
“Oh, absolutely. The books state that the Prime Minister’s wife tries in every way possible to relieve her husband of the burden of power.”
“In that case, I’ll be happy to try.” She sat down in front of the great pile of papers. “But, dear, I don’t know anything about these matters.”
“Rely on instinct,” Nob answered, yawning. “That’s what I do.”
Flattered by the importance of her task, she set to work with a will.
Several hours later, she awakened her husband, who was slumbering on the couch.
“I’ve got them all finished except these,” she said. “In this one, I’m afraid I don’t understand that word.”
Nob glanced at the paper. “Oh, propaganda. That means giving the people the facts, whether true or false. It’s very important in any war.”
“I don’t see why.”
“It’s obvious. To have a genuine Earth-style war, you need ideological differences. That’s why we chose a dictatorship and the other continent chose a democracy. The job of propaganda is to keep us different.”
“I see,” she said dubiously. “Well, this other paper is from General Heglm of Security. He asks what you are doing about the spy situation. He says it’s very serious.”
“I had forgotten about that. He’s right, it’s reached a crisis point.” He put the paper in his pocket. “I’m going to take care of that personally, first thing in the morning.”
In the last few hours, his wife had made no less than eight Major Policy Decisions, twenty Codifications, eight Unifications, and three Clarifications. Nob didn’t bother to read them over. He trusted his wife’s good judgment and common sense.
He went to bed that night with the feeling of a job well done. And before he fell asleep, he figured out exactly what he would do about the spy situation.
THE next morning, Nob’s orders went out by all means of communication. The results were gratifyingly swift, since the people of the dictatorship were completely behind the war and dutifully loved and hated their Empress, in whose name the order was signed.
A typical scene took place in the clubcar of the Char-Xil express. The occupants of the car, twenty-three commuting businessmen, sealed the doors as soon as they received Nob’s order. The best-read among them, a salesman by the name of Thrang, was elected spokesman for the group.
“Boys,” said Thrang, “I guess I don’t have to tell you anything about the importance of this order. We all know what war is by now, don’t we?”
“We sure do!”
“War is hell!”
“The war that the enemy thrust on us!”
“The war to start all wars!”
“That’s right,” Thrang said. “And I guess we’ve all felt the pinch since the war started. Eh, boys?”
“I’ve done my part,” said a man named Draxil. “When the Prime Minister called for a cigarette shortage, I dumped twenty carloads of tobacco in the Hunto River. Now we got cigarette rationing!”
“That’s the spirit,” Thrang said. “I know for a fact that others among you have done the same with sugar, canned goods, butter, meat and a hundred items. Everything’s rationed now; everyone feels the pinch. But, boys, there’s still more we have to do. Now a spy situation has come up and it calls for quick action.”
“Haven’t we done enough?” groaned a clothing-store owner.
“It’s never enough! In time of war, Earth people give till it hurts—then give some more! They know that no sacrifice is too much, that nothing counts but the proper prosecution of the war.”
The clothing-store owner nodded vehemently. “If it’s Earthly, it’s good enough for me. So what can we do about this spy situation?”
“That is for us to decide here and now,” Thrang said. “According to the Prime Minister, our dictatorship cannot boast a single act of espionage or sabotage done to it since the beginning of the war. The Chief of Security is alarmed. It’s his job to keep all spies under surveillance. Since there are none, his department has lost all morale, which, in turn, affects the other departments.”
“Do we really need spies?”
“They serve a vital purpose,” Thrang explained. “All the books agree on this. Spies keep a country alert, on its toes, eternally vigilant. Through sabotage, they cut down on arms production, which otherwise would grow absurdly large, since it has priority over everything else. They supply Security with subjects for Interrogation, Confession, Brainwashing and Re-indoctrination. This in turn supplies data for the enemy propaganda machine, which in turn supplies material for our counter-propaganda machine.”
DRAXIL looked awed. “I didn’t know it was so complicated.”
“That’s the beauty of the Earth War,” Thrang said. “Stupendous yet delicate complications, completely interrelated. Leave out one seemingly unimportant detail and the whole structure collapses.”
“Those Terrans!” Draxil said, shaking his head in admiration.
“Now to work. Boys, I’m calling for volunteers. Who’ll be a spy?”
No one responded.
“Really now!” said Thrang. “That’s no attitude to take. Come on, some of you must be harboring treasonous thoughts. Don’t be ashamed of it. Remember, it takes all kinds to make a war.”
Little Herg, a zipper salesman from Xcoth, cleared his throat. “I have a cousin who’s Minister of War for the Allies.”
“An excellent motive for subversion!” Thrang cried.
“I rather thought it was,” the zipper salesman said, pleased. “Yes, I believe I can handle the job.”
“Splendid!” Thrang said.
By then, the train had arrived at the station. The doors were unsealed, allowing the commuters to leave for their jobs. Thrang watched the zipper salesman depart, then hurried into the crowd. In a moment, he found a tall man wearing a slouch hat and dark glasses. On his lapel was a silver badge which read Secret Police.
“See that man?” Thrang asked, pointing to the zipper salesman.
“You bet,” the Secret Policeman said.
“He’s a spy! A dirty spy! Quick, after him!”
“He’s being watched,” said the Secret Policeman laconically.
“I just wanted to make sure,” Thrang said, and started to walk off.
He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned. The Secret Policeman had been joined by two tall men in slouch hats and dark glasses. They wore badges that said Storm Troopers.
“You’re under arrest,” said the Secret Policeman.
“Why? What have I done?”
“Not a thing, as far as we know,” said a Storm Trooper. “Not a single solitary thing. That’s why we’re arresting you.”
“Arbitrary police powers,” the Secret Policeman explained. “Suspension of search warrants and habeas corpus. Invasion of privacy. War, you kn
ow. Come along quietly, sir. You have a special and very important part to play in the war effort.”
“What’s that?”
“You have been arbitrarily selected as Martyr,” said the Secret Policeman.
Head held high, Thrang marched proudly to his destiny.
THE whole of Mala took to war with a will. Soon books began to appear on the stalls: War and You for the masses, The Erotic Release of War for the elite, The Inherent Will to Destroy for philosophers, and War and Civilization for scholars. Volumes of personal experiences sold well. Among them was an account of daring sabotage by a former zipper salesman, and the dramatic story of the Martyrdom of Thrang.
War eliminated a thousand old institutions and unburdened the people of the heavy hand of tradition. War demonstrated clearly that everything was as temporary as a match-flash except Art and Man, because cities, buildings, parks, vehicles, hills, museums, monuments were as whispers of dust after the bombers had gone.
Among the proletariat, the prevailing opinion was voiced by Zun, who was quoted as saying at a war plant party, “Well, there ain’t nothin’ in the stores I can buy. But I never made so much money in my life!”
In the universities, professors boned up on the subject in order to fit themselves for Chairs of War that were sure to be endowed. All they had to do was wait until the recent crop of war profiteers were taxed into becoming philanthropists, or driven to it by the sense of guilt that the books assured them they would feel.
Armies grew. Soldiers learned to paint, salute, curse, appreciate home cooking, play poker, and fit themselves in every way for the post-war civilian life. They broadened themselves with travel and got a welcome vacation from home and hearth.
War, the Malans agreed, was certainly one of the cleverest of Earth institutions and as educational as it was entertaining.
“NOPE,” Beliakoff was saying, “you wouldn’t like Ran-hachi Prison, not one little bit. It’s on Mercury, you know, in the twilight zone. You blister by day and you freeze by night. Only two men have escaped from Ran-hachi in the last hundred years, and one of them figured his curve wrong and flipped into Sol.”
“What about the other one?” Kelly asked, perspiring lightly.
“His gyros fused. He was bound straight for the Coal Sack. Take him a couple of thousand years to get there, at his speed,” Beliakoff finished dreamily. “No, Johnny, you wouldn’t like Ran-hachi.”
“Okay, okay,” Kelly said. “The death penalty would be better.”
“They give that only as a measure of extreme clemency,” Beliakoff said with gloomy Slavic satisfaction.
“Enough! We’ll straighten out Mala.” There was more hope than conviction in Kelly’s voice. “Thar she lies, off to starboard.”
Mala was a tiny blue and brown sphere, suddenly growing larger in their screens.
Their radio blared on the emergency channel.
Kelly swore. “That’s the Galactic patrol boat from Azolith. What’s he doing here?”
“Blockade,” said Beliakoff. “Standard practice to quarantine a planet at war. We can’t touch down legally until the war’s declared over.”
“Nuts. We’re going down.” Kelly touched the controls and the freighter began to descend into the interdicted area.
“Attention, freighter!” the radio blasted. “This is the interdictory ship Moth. Heave to and identify yourself.”
Beliakoff answered promptly in the Propendium language. “Let’s see ’em unscramble that,” he said to Kelly. They continued their descent.
After a while, a voice from the patrol boat said in Propendium, “Attention, freighter! You are entering an interdicted area. Heave to at once and prepare to be boarded.”
“I can’t understand your vile North Propendium accent,” Beliakoff bellowed, in a broad South Propendium dialect. “If you people can’t speak a man’s language, don’t clutter up the ether with your ridiculous chatter. I know you long-haul trampers and I’ll be damned if I’ll give you any air, water, food, or anything else. If you can’t stock that stuff like any normal, decent—”
“This area is interdicted,” the patrol boat broke in, speaking now with a broad South Propendium accent.
“Hell,” Beliakoff grumbled. “They’ve got themselves a robot linguist.”
“—under direct orders from the patrol boat Moth. Heave to at once, freighter, and prepare to be boarded and inspected.”
BELIAKOFF glanced at the planet looming large beneath them. He gestured at the power control to Kelly and said, “Hello! Hello! Do you read me? Your message is not coming across. Do you read me?”
“Stop or we’ll fire!”
Beliakoff nodded. Kelly kicked in all the jets and they plummeted toward the surface. With his pilot’s sixth sense, Kelly changed course abruptly. A blast seared past them, sealing a starboard tube for good. Then they were in the atmosphere, traveling too fast, the hull glowing red with friction. The heavy cruiser, built only for spatial maneuvering, broke off its pursuit curve.
“All right, freighter. This means your license. You gotta leave sometime.”
Beliakoff shut off the radio. Kelly fired the braking jets and began to spiral in for a landing.
As they circled, Beliakoff saw the shattered rubble and ruin where cities had been. He saw highways filled with military columns, and, at the distant edge of the horizon, a fleet of military planes winging their way to a fresh target.
“What a mess!” he said. Kelly nodded glumly.
They touched down and opened the hatches. Already a crowd of Malans had gathered. A few artists had set up their easels and were busy painting the freighter, not because it was lovely, but because it was Terran, which was better.
A Malan stepped forward, grinning. “Well,” he asked, “what do you think of it?”
“Of what?”
“Our war, of course. You must have noticed!”
“Oh, yes, we noticed,” Beliakoff said.
“A real intercontinental war complete with ideological differences,” the man stated proudly. “Just like the civilized planets have. You must admit it’s Earthlike.”
“Exceedingly Earthlike,” Kelly said. “Now take us to whoever’s in charge—quick!”
THE conference with Nob at the Imperial Palace began well. The Prime Minister was overjoyed that real Earthmen had come to witness their war. He knew very well that, by Earth standards, it was a pretty small war. A beginner’s war, really. But they were trying. Some day, with more know-how, with better equipment, they would be able to produce a war that would match anyone’s.
“We were hampered from the start,” Nob apologized, “by not knowing how to produce atomic fission.”
“That must have been confining,” Kelly said, and Beliakoff winced.
“It was. Dynamite and nitroglycerin just don’t have the same grandeur and finality. The scale of demolition seems insignificant. But if you will come with me, gentlemen, I have something here which may interest you.”
Nob ushered the Earthmen ahead of him so he could copy their loose-jointed, rolling walk.
“Here!” he said, darting ahead and opening a door. “Behold!”
The Earthmen saw, upon an ivory pedestal, a small model of an atomic bomb.
“We worked until we mastered it at last,” Nob said proudly. “With any luck, we’ll be in production within the month and using them within the year. Now I think I can safely say that Mala has come of age!”
Beliakoff said, “No.”
“No, what?”
“No atom bombs.”
“But it’s Earthlike to use atomic bombs. Why—”
“This war has to end at once,” Kelly said.
“You’re joking!” protested Nob, looking intently at the Earthmen. But he saw at once that they were deadly serious. He groaned and sat down.
Nob was faced with a moral dilemma of fearful proportions. On the one hand, war was a typical Terran institution, an extremely important one, an institution clearly worthy of emulatio
n by the people of Mala. But on the other hand, this Terran institution was being refuted, denied, in fact, by two typical Terrans.
The problem was insoluble for him. And Nob remembered that, when an ultimate crisis is at hand, that is the moment for the supreme authority to step in.
“We must discuss this with the Empress,” he said.
HE LED them to Jusa’s chambers, knocked and opened the door. Half a dozen vases shattered around them.
“On your knees, pigs!” Jusa shrilled. “You, Nob, have you brought the diamonds?”
“I knew I forgot something.”
“Forgot them! Then how dare you show your face?” Jusa stamped her small foot. “And these peasants—who are they? I’ve a good mind to lock them up, especially that grinning red-headed ape.”
Kelly’s grin became a trifle strained.
“These are Earthmen, Your Majesty,” Nob said. “Genuine Earthmen!”
“Really?” breathed Jusa.
“Really,” said Nob.
“Oh, golly,” Jusa said, losing all her painfully acquired imperial pose and becoming a frightened, albeit lovely, young girl.
“Your Majesty—” Beliakoff began.
“Just call me Jusa. My gosh! Real Earthmen! I never met a real Earthman before. I wish you had let me know in advance. My hair—”
“Is beautiful, just like yourself,” Kelly said.
“I’m so glad. I think your hair is beautiful, too.”
Kelly turned brick-red. “You’re not supposed to say that, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Jusa said. “But I’m willing to learn. What should I have—”
“Excuse me,” Beliakoff broke in sourly. “Your Majesty, we’ve come to ask you to stop the war.”
“You don’t mean it!” Jusa turned bewilderedly to Kelly.
“Have to do it, honey,” Kelly said softly. “You folks just aren’t ready for a war yet.”
Jusa’s eyes flashed and she began to regain a little of her imperial pose. “But of course we are! Look at what we’ve done. Go over our battlefields, look at our cities, interrogate our refugees. You’ll find that everything has been done in strict accordance with the rules. We’re as ready for war as anyone!”