Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  After the Secretary of Agriculture had made his exit, the president felt a twinge of remorse. Why had he humiliated the man? Not because it gave him a sense of power—that was ridiculous. He was already the most powerful man on the planet. The main reason was anger, not at Hayes, who was a nice guy, but at the impossible frustrations of the job. Hayes must know this, too, to put up with it as long as he had. Hayes respected him and forgave him these outbursts.

  I hate to do it, the president thought.

  But damn it, beyond the emotional level, he had to see that things were done right. It was his responsibility to see that things were done right. Every mistake was his mistake, not some minor secretary’s mistake. Those idiots didn’t understand that. Well, by God, he’d pound it into them, he’d make them sweat, he’d make them work harder than they believed possible. The only way to get perfection was to insist on it.

  And try to get good men; it was impossible. There were no good men. They were out somewhere making money. Try to get the good ones to work for you—just you try! Except for Rosy. All the rest, they might stay a month, two months, then in would come their letters of resignation—health, personal affairs, irresistible offers—those were the excuses they gave. In private, in confidence, they would tell you: We can’t afford working for you; it doesn’t pay enough money.

  Money, that’s all they thought of. So the Senate is prevailed upon to increase the appropriations for the staff. And it still isn’t enough. So you wind up overpaying incompetents.

  The president was well off, himself, by most standards: not rich, certainly. There were many richer people in York, even in Lephong. His wife had a good head for investments: land, small businesses. It was natural, a trait that ran in her family. One big mistake she had made, and he told her so when she made it, was in not buying the York Times when it was up for sale ten years ago. She could have got her father to underwrite it. If she’d have done what I told her then, I wouldn’t have all this trouble with Felton today.

  Hell, he thought. I, personally, don’t know anything about money but its color. Many’s the time we didn’t know where the next meal was coming from when I was a kid. I suffered in college, too, when the kids with rich parents were taking girls out every night. I don’t know anything about money, but I’m not wasteful. Some people even call me tight.

  The following morning, Secretary Hayes presented himself at the appointed hour to brief Raleigh on the agricultural problems of Elanth. He had worked over the presentation until long after midnight, polishing it, committing statistics to memory. He was terrified that he would forget them. Secretary Hayes was no Rosy MacDonald when it came to this aspect of public relations. Important figures would leave him at the critical moment or come out garbled to prove exactly the opposite of what he intended to prove. This insecurity, coupled with loss of sleep, did nothing for the secretary’s confidence. With him was an assistant carrying a chart board and briefing charts. In extreme necessity, the assistant would be ready to supply the missing figures that eluded the secretary’s memory.

  The two secretaries exchanged pleasantries while the board was set up and the charts installed.

  “I’m very glad,” said Hayes, “for the opportunity of this private briefing. It’s a much better plan, this one of yours, than our own—which was to have a full staff presentation in the Agriculture Auditorium.”

  The assistant, having completed arrangements, stepped back and viewed the results. “Ready any time, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

  “I suppose he may as well go,” said Raleigh.

  The assistant, who was under orders to report the conversation in detail to President Houston, was reluctant to leave.

  “You do have all the information yourself?” asked Raleigh. “I did ask for a private briefing; by that I meant, just you and I. To hit an informal note. I find there is less constraint when talks are held, not as diplomatic things, but just discussions between two interested people.”

  “Quite right,” said Hayes.

  “Please go, Reg. I’ll let you know when we finish, so you can pick the charts up.” Secretary Hayes’s palms were moist already and he was filled with undefined fear and acute nervousness.

  “You have a very responsible position in the government,” said Raleigh when the assistant was at the door. “You have been on the presidential staff for some time, I take it.”

  “Since he was Mayor of York, sir,” said Hayes.

  “What sort of a fellow is he?”

  “The president?” said Hayes. “One of the most exceptional people it has ever been my privilege to know. President Houston is a very complicated man, but a very fine man. He’s made enemies, as most of us have; but he is solidly backed in the latest polls by almost seventy percent of the electorate. I think that proves the point right there. What little real opposition there is to him comes from Lephong, and it’s politically motivated. You know how such things are, sir.”

  “I should say that seventy percent is an excellent popularity rating,” said Raleigh. “By the way, would it be possible for me to see copies of these polls you spoke about? The types of questions asked, things like that. I take it you’re referring to some private polls?”

  “I didn’t bring them with me this morning,” said Hayes. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t actually seen them myself. He read us some excerpts at a recent cabinet meeting.”

  Raleigh settled back. “No reason I shouldn’t see them, is there? You did bring the subject up. There wouldn’t be any reason not to let me see them, would there?”

  Hayes, trapped by the question, sought escape. What would the president say about releasing the polls? Hayes could see no harm in it, but God alone knew how Houston would react to the request. Suppose, in fact, there was actually something wrong with the polls, suppose they really didn’t prove what the president said they had. Then they’d all be in a pretty pickle. Why had he ever brought that subject up in the first place? “I’m sure there wouldn’t be any objection, sir. If you were to ask him for them—”

  “Would you mind doing that for me?” Raleigh asked. “Next time you see him, which I imagine will be right after this briefing, just ask him to send them over to me.”

  “It’s a little out of my own special field of responsibility,” said Hayes, hedging as best he could. He was not anxious to bring the request to the president’s attention.

  “There isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t ask him, is there? You’re a top member of his administration. Unless there’s some reason I shouldn’t see the polls—”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing like that.”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be,” finished Raleigh.

  “We have nothing to hide,” continued Hayes. He had got himself, inexplicably, deeper into a predicament with consequences that he was not sure he understood. “Everything we have, all you need to do is ask for it. I want to assure you of that, sir, of our complete, one hundred percent cooperation.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that you would deliberately try to hide anything from me.” Raleigh stood and went to the window. The silence lengthened. Raleigh now had Hayes sufficiently uncertain and uncomfortable to proceed with the interview. He had also learned that Hayes was afraid of Houston: a yes man, sent on an errand, as far removed from policy as the second moon. Well, now to tear him apart, politely, piece by piece. Without letting Hayes in on the secret of what was being done to him, of course. Find out what he really knows.

  “I suppose the polls aren’t important,” Raleigh said after a minute. “Please go on with your briefing, Mr. Secretary. I’ll listen quietly, maybe ask a question now and then. If I detect you’re a little nervous, please don’t be. This is just routine, to give me some insight into the overall economy. I’m not trying to trip you up or embarrass you. Please go on.”

  Secretary Hayes, shaken, went to the briefing charts. His mind was blank.

  Raleigh, rather than seating himself, roamed the room. “I like to move about,” he
explained, “while I listen. I don’t get much exercise. It won’t bother you, will it? If it bothers you, just say so.”

  It was driving Hayes to distraction. “Do whatever you wish, sir,” he said. “I’ll just start in here. Chart I, as you can see, shows the increase in farm produce, selected farm produce, actually, for the past thirty years. You’ll notice some plateaus and the little dip right here at the end.” Raleigh was not looking. “Right here,” Hayes said. “Well, we can explain this little dip by reference to Chart II, which concerns production of a typical zone, in this case, Farm Zone A.” Hayes dropped the first briefing chart as he attempted to remove it. He bent to recover the chart from the carpet and murmured an apology: “Staff was supposed to have made these on flip cards—”

  “Why don’t we just ignore the charts?” said Raleigh. “I think you find them distracting. I know I do. Suppose we just sit here and talk.”

  The last thing in Elanth Hayes wanted was to be divorced from the reassuring security of the carefully prepared presentation and especially from the multitude of statistics on the charts. Without them, and without the assistant, he was entirely at a loss. Now he was being forced back on his own memory completely. “I’ll get collected in just a minute, sir,” he said.

  “Please don’t be nervous. I see nothing at all to be nervous about. Here, you just sit down here. Would you like a drink? No? Feel free to smoke if you wish. I see, from your fingers, you smoke a lot. I used to be a nervous smoker, myself, a few years ago. I finally gave it up.” Raleigh maneuvered Hayes to a comfortable chair. “You just sit there. I’ll sit over here.”

  For the next five minutes, Raleigh diverted the conversation into social channels. He talked about the trivia of his own daily life and solicited family details from Hayes. When the man was quite relaxed, Raleigh said casually:

  “I’ve read that farm production, overall, is down some six percent. Farm Zone A is holding its own, or just about, whereas in the other three Zones, the decline is running to eight percent, or maybe a shade more. That’s an almost ten percent drop, there, and I find it hard to see the reason for it.”

  “Once you take the seasonal factors into account,” said Hayes, “it runs quite a bit less, sir.”

  “I was reading,” said Raleigh, “in a column by a man named Fenton . . . Felton . . . some name like that, that the problem is becoming rather critical in Farm Zone C. As I understand it, the Elanthian volunteer workers are defecting at a quite high rate. That’s something to be worried about, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t believe anything Jack Felton writes,” said Hayes. “That man is a notorious malcontent and the most unreliable reporter I have ever read. They shouldn’t even let people like that be a reporter. That man hates the president. Hates him, literally and violently. And there’s no reason for it at all. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that that man is being paid to write what he does—paid by political opponents of the president. He should be investigated, and he just shouldn’t be allowed to write those columns like he does.”

  “Oh? I’m very surprised to hear you say that. I just trustingly assumed, naively assumed, that because the Times printed him—well, I guess that just goes to show you that you can’t believe anything. You don’t suspect he has something on the management of the Times, do you? Maybe he knows where a skeleton is buried?”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” said Hayes. “The president has often wondered why a paper like the Times, one of his most vigorous supporters, would run that man’s column. You’re probably right. I’ll go along with that.”

  Raleigh was evidently pleased to have rooted out an unreliable source of information. “Then, of course, we can just ignore what Mr. Felton says. There really aren’t any massive defections.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Hayes, growing more confident, “I prepared some of those charts over there for the purpose of giving lie to that kind of rumor. I have all the statistical data which proves conclusively that the mass defections, so called, are nothing but a figment of spiteful imagination.”

  “I appreciate having that information, but I don’t think we need waste our valuable time going into it further. I’m satisfied on this point. Let’s turn to something else that’s bothered me. It does seem to me you’re beginning to get caught in some kind of a mild inflation.”

  The major point of the briefing having been so easily and yet so magnificently accomplished, Hayes felt elation: Felton’s credibility was destroyed. I told the President we should meet the issue head-on and discredit the man.

  “Inflation,” said Hayes, “is a rather strong word, Mr. Secretary.” He was glad to get agriculture out of the way entirely. The ordeal was nearing an end, was actually becoming enjoyable. “Prices on the index went up last month only about seven-tenths of one percent, less than a penny on the dollar. Selective factors accounted for it. We’ve had a long history of price stability, and this minor increase is no cause for concern. I can assure you, Mr. Secretary, Elanth is as stable as a rock, economically.”

  “I assume the seven-tenths of a percent includes not only increases in agricultural prices, but also increases in things like housing, office equipment, machine tools, services, transportation—”

  “Yes, sir. That’s the total increase we’re talking about, including everything.”

  “So,” said Raleigh, “food prices have gone up, say, fifteen to twenty percent and the rest of the prices have stayed pretty steady.”

  Hayes sought desperately for some way to avoid that damning admission. He was instantly alert, perspiring. His hand went for a cigarette and while he lighted it, he practiced frantic thinking. “I don’t have the latest breakdown, just the overall figures. Food prices have gone up a little bit, but I’m sure nothing like the figures you mention, nothing at all like that.”

  “Mrs. Hayes hasn’t mentioned that things are more expensive in the stores—things like, oh, milk, eggs, meat, produce? Not a word to you, eh?”

  Hayes was squirming uncomfortably. He could hardly lie on this point with professional ease; Mrs. Hayes had indeed discussed the food budget with him. Repeatedly.

  “I think most housewives feel some adjustment is actually required,” Secretary Hayes said. “Now there may be a few people who don’t understand the situation, but the average consumer is a pretty intelligent person. The president gets a lot of letters from housewives on this point. And you would be surprised, yes, surprised, at the number of them who agree with his policies and who come right out and say that they don’t mind paying a penny or two more in the store, if that means they support his policies. It’s not the problem, at all, that you’re trying to read into it.”

  Raleigh walked over to the window and looked out on the city. “I’m sure it isn’t the problem right now. Obviously, a minor concern all around. I was just trying to get a general feel for the economy. I’ll take it up with the president, just to clarify my own thinking.” He turned and returned to his chair. Secretary Hayes, having escaped, relaxed warily.

  “It just seemed to me,” Raleigh continued, “that labor people might, oh, make outrageous demands for wage increases just because of this little temporary adjustment—say if the price index went up another point or two. That would constitute a real inflationary threat, wouldn’t it? Then you’d be in real trouble, wouldn’t you? But this isn’t your field. We were talking about the reasons for agriculture prices going up so sharply. Perhaps there have been a few Elanthian volunteers who just got tired of helping out and just quit. That would account for it, wouldn’t it?”

  “We do have a minor problem,” Secretary Hayes admitted; an admission he had not really intended to make and which he feared he could not sell as being due solely to seasonal variations.

  “As I understand it,” said Raleigh, “the Elanthians, when the first settlers arrived, really pitched in and helped you build both York and Lephong.”

  “You must understand,” said Hayes, “that they are a very backward culture.
They did, in fact, help us—they were a tremendous help, in fact. Of course, they have no engineering talent at all. You wouldn’t expect that.”

  “You wouldn’t?” asked Raleigh mildly.

  “What I mean is, the culture is very primitive. They just aren’t interested in things like that. They’re perhaps a hundred thousand years behind us, culturally. Some people say they’re actually decadent, and our archaeologists have found rather fantastic buried ruins, very old—But whatever it is, the Elanthians are a long, long way behind us now. So you wouldn’t expect them to be much good with engineering and machinery. They did the manual labor. They did it, I think, really for the reason they always give, that they genuinely enjoyed helping us. Now, when the cities were built, our own labor people took over: running the machines, maintaining them. The Elanthians weren’t interested at all in that aspect of it. But they still wanted to help us. So we let them help out on the farm—in non-skilled, stoop labor categories, as it were.”

  As Raleigh listened, he thought with satisfaction that once you could get a man talking, all you needed to do was listen. He would talk on and on in hopes of forestalling embarrassing questions.

  “This accounts,” continued Hayes, “for the fact we’ve been slow to produce agricultural machinery. It’s freed our factory personnel and our engineers and designers for the production of some of the amenities of life. I’m not saying, now, that the very short work week we’ve presently got, or the somewhat pampered labor force, which doesn’t know what hard work means, is all to the good. Far from that. It would present us with a very serious problem if we’d have to draft some of those people for these long-hour, stoop-labor jobs. Of course, there’s no thought of that. We’ve still plenty of Elanthian volunteers who like nothing better than to help us. It’s almost a basic part of their psychology or their, I guess you might say, philosophy or their religion. And, of course, there is just nothing we wouldn’t do for them in return. Absolutely nothing.