The Rival Rigelians

VII

Natalie Wieliczka was saying, “We’re going to have to have at least one sizeable hospital in each city of over a hundred thousand, and at least a clinic in the smaller towns.”

Michael Dean looked at her wryly. He was seated at a heavy desk, littered with reports, graphs and receipts and was dressed in the colorful silks and furs of the highest class Genoese; he looked nothing so much as the middle years Henry the Eighth.

He grumbled, “Why come to me? I’m not the treasurer of this continent. Approach the governments involved. So you’ve got to the point where you need more hospitals. Fine, let them stick a new tax on the peasantry to finance them.”

Natalie said patiently, though wearily, “You know better than that, Mike. Taxes are leveled on wealth, not poverty.”

Mike Dean snorted. He was fond of Natalie Wieliczka, as everybody from the Pedagogue was fond of her, but of late she had been getting under his skin with her everlasting nagging for funds. He snorted. “Tell that to the peasants and the slums in town.”

“That the poor don’t pay taxes?” She raised her eyebrows. “They go through the motions, perhaps, but it’s an optical illusion. The powers that be—such as yourself—would like the poor to think that taxes were a big issue they had to be concerned about. Get them all steamed up worrying about taxes, so that their real troubles will be ignored.”

“You sound like a rabble rouser,” Mike Dean chuckled.

But she went on, doggedly. “Suppose it’s possible for a peasant or unskilled laborer, to get by on fifty crowns a day. Fine, you pay him one hundred crowns, and then tax him fifty. He thinks he’s paying taxes and gets all in a dither about their magnitude, but in actuality if taxes went up another ten crowns a day, you boys in the saddle would have to raise his pay. If his cost of living fell off, the governments you keep in power would undoubtedly raise his taxes to that extent. On an average, he gets a living wage, just enough to get by on, no more, no less, so taxes don’t really interest him.”

Mike Dean said dryly, “Save me your economics, Natalie. The fact of the matter is, Lou and I are in no position to finance a project as big as you’re talking about. We over-expanded, especially in textiles. Introducing the cotton gin was fine but things got steam rolling and before we knew it, we started producing cloth twice as fast as we can sell it. Everybody on this continent, who can afford a wardrobe, has a closet full of clothes.”

Natalie said impatiently, “Introduce fashion.”

“What?” He scowled at her.

She said, “I was joking, I suppose. But I’m surprised you haven’t already. Between you and Amschel Mayer, you’ve introduced just about every other gimmick that…”

“Wait a minute,” Dean said. “How do you mean, introduce fashion?”

“Fashion, fashion. Styles. So every woman on this continent has already got a closet full of clothes your textile products? Fine. Switch styles on them, drop the hemline five inches. Play it up in your publications. Have some of the big name theatrical people wear them. Introduce some fashion magazines. Make them feel as though they’re underprivileged if they can’t get a complete new wardrobe of the new styles.”

Dean was staring at her. “Zen! I think you’re right!”

Natalie muttered, “Forgive me, for I know not what I do.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, coming to her feet. She looked down at him and far in the back of her eyes there was an element of contempt. “Mike, we came here to develop this world, not just to exploit it.”

He looked up at her, defensively. “Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where one starts and the other ends.”

“In this particular case, it isn’t. My medical universities are at last beginning to turn out competent practitioners. I need those hospitals, Mike.”

“All right, all right, I’ll talk it over with Louis. Listen, Natalie, how about you taking a week or so off and getting this fashion thing going for us? Neither Louis nor I know…”

She snorted in fine disgust. “Some chance, you miserable cloddy. I can just see myself. Already I feel like a traitor to my sex.”

Mike Dean chuckled sourly. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying.”

A secretary entered. “The Honorable Rosetti.”

Dean said, “Oh good. Show him in, Lange.”

“At once, Honorable Dean.” Lange left.

Natalie looked after the underling. “What’s he cringing about?”

Dean shrugged. “It’s an attitude you develop when you’ve got possibly three hundred crowns to your name.”

She frowned at him. “I hope you don’t encourage it. Wasn’t the theory that on Genoa we were going to advance by utilizing man’s freedoms? Plekhanov and Chessman are the advocates of the iron fist.”

He shrugged again, uncomfortably. “You don’t have to encourage it. It comes automatically.” He stood as Louis Rosetti entered the room.

Rosetti, one of the older of the Pedagogue’s complement, smiled at Natalie. “Nice to see you, Doc. We don’t get together often enough.”

“Hello, Louis,” she said wanly. “Not much time for social life.”

Dean said, “It’s not as nice as all that to see her. She’s trying to shake us down for enough to pay off this city-state’s national debt.”

Rosetti looked at her. “Why don’t you get after Mayer and Kennedy for a change? Didn’t Mike tell you we were hurting?”

“It wouldn’t be a change, Louis. I’m doing the same on their continent as I am here. If anything, my program is somewhat ahead over there.”

Dean said, “What’s up, Louis? I thought you were working on that series of distilleries.”

“Distilleries!” Natalie said.

Mike Dean looked at her impatiently. “What’s wrong with distilleries? It’s not as though we’re introducing alcohol. They’ve always had wine here.”

She shook her head. “I suppose it’s none of my affair. It seems to me, though, that we could first devote a few factories to medicinal products before getting around to stronger guzzle.”

Louis Rosetti, who was dressed in much the same manner as his colleague, made a motion toward the next room with his head. “Presbyter Doul is out there.”

“Who?”

“Doul, the Temple monk. He’s taking a dim view of our production of rum and vodka.”

“Is there a back way out of here?” Natalie said. “I’m having enough trouble with the Temple without tangling with any of them ranking as high as Presbyter.”

Mike Dean led her to a rear door, then said to Rosetti with a sigh, “Show him in, Louis. We’re going to have to play this carefully. Anybody as high in the hierarchy as this is not flat.”

Louis Rosetti went back to the anteroom to return with a thin-faced, fox-like individual dressed in the dark robes of a Temple monk, but beneath them the rich garb of an upper-class Genoese of the highest income bracket.

Mike Dean went through the motions involved in a visit of such a dignitary, winding up with Presbyter Doul in the room’s most comfortable chair.

The newcomer eyed him thoughtfully, as Dean returned to his desk, and Louis Rosetti found a seat of his own. The two Earthmen were wary.

Doul said, “You adapt quickly and well to our ways, my son.”

Dean said carefully, “But your ways are our ways, Your Holiness.”

The Temple hierarch said, “I wonder. It was first widely thought that you came from Bari, on the eastern continent, but upon inquiry to our associate Temple there, it seems as though on their part they were of the opinion that you and your equal numbers on the eastern continent had come from here.”

“Our equal numbers?” Rosetti said cautiously. The presbyter looked at him. “Yes, such as Honorable Mayer and his associates.”

“Our connections with Amschel Mayer are on a business level,” Dean said.

“So I understand. Very profitably so, but perhaps on other levels as well. Levels not quite clear to myself and my holy brothers of the Temple.”

Dean shook his head, as though lacking understanding. He was on delicate ground now.

The other shrugged thin shoulders. “However, your origins are not of present concern.” He paused. “Perhaps you are aware of the fact that my position involves the holy product of the vine, that I administer the holy production and distribution of this gift of the Supreme.”

Louis Rosetti nodded. “We have been so informed, Your Holiness. In fact, if I understand correctly, your family has had this, ah, monopoly for at least a century. Your position is hereditary.”

The Temple hierarch’s eyes had narrowed again. “Do you see fit to criticize the method by which the Temple administers the holy gift of wine?”

Rosetti held up his hands, as though in horror. “Certainly not, Your Holiness.”

“Very well. Then let this be understood. These new products you have introduced”—he made a face of disgust—“what are their names? Rum, vodka, gin, whiskey. All of them vile imitations of the holy product of the vine, gift of the Supreme to be used in sacred ceremony and only during selected holy days.”

Mike Dean said, “But Your Holiness, these distilled products are not imitations of wine, they are new, ah, discoveries. Wine is, admittedly, the monopoly of the Temple. We would not dream of, ah, attempting to intrude on your, ah, income in this field. But our distilled products, which, as you know, have been received with enthusiasm…”

The presbyter cut him off by banging his fist against the arm of his chair. “Enthusiasm indeed! These vile brews are consumed night and day, every day, by all who can afford them! My secretaries estimate that literally millions are flowing into your coffers.”

Dean tried to placate him. “Your Holiness, it is true that in the past the peasants and unskilled workers were issued wine only on special religious holidays. But the aristocracy and the other better-to-do elements of society, including Temple personnel, were free to drink on any occasion.”

The other glared. “Do you find free to criticize our institutions? Is it not well known that those whom the Supreme has seen fit to place in high position have such heavy burdens upon their shoulders that it is needful for them to seek peace by resort to the holy product of the grape?”

Dean held up a hand, placatingly. “Your Holiness, it is not the desire of myself and my business associates to intrude on the Temple.”

“Intrude! My revenues have been cut in half! And what is this new disgusting beverage, ale, so cheap that the most poverty stricken can afford to indulge in it and do so even on feast days, holy days, when wine is traditional?”

Rosetti cleared his throat. “That was the point, Your Holiness. The poor also need their release from their daily pressures. Ale can provide it, at little cost.”

“At my expense! That is, of course, at the expense of the Temple.”

Dean said, gently, “Your Holiness, it is not our desire to antagonize you.” He picked up a quill, dipped it into his ink pot, wrote rapidly on a piece of paper. “Would it help if I made a contribution of…of one million crowns to your, ah, personal account as Presbyter in charge of administering the production and distribution of the, ah, holy product of the vine?”

“One…million…crowns?”

Dean handed him the check.

The Temple father frowned at it. “What is this?”

“A new institution, Your Holiness. If you will present that at any of our recently established banking houses, it will be honored.”

Doul scowled at the paper. “I have heard mention of this new institution. And you say this is in value a million crowns?”

“Gold crowns, Your Holiness. A contribution made in recognition of your unfailing labors on behalf of the Temple.” Dean found it impossible to keep an edge of sarcasm from his voice.

The other’s eyes had narrowed again. He began to say something, but then closed his thin lips to a tight line. He came to his feet. “Very well, my sons.” He looked from one of the Earthmen to the other. “Undoubtedly, some meditation on the issues involved is in order.”

Dean and Rosetti stood as well. In great ceremony, they saw their visitor to the door.

When they returned to their places, Louis Rosetti was scowling in thought. “You sure that was a good idea, Mike?”

His companion pulled a snowy handkerchief from an inner pocket and wiped his forehead. “I don’t know. That molly has had the wine monopoly tied up in his family so long that they think any guzzle is their private preserve.”

Rosetti said, “The question is, will he stay bribed?”

“I hope long enough for our new drinks to become so popular he won’t be able to blow the whistle on us.”

“But suppose he does?”

Dean grinned at him. “A million crowns is a lot of money. That check was made out to Presbyter Doul, personally. When he cashes it, we will have the check. Supposedly, temple monks take the oath of poverty. Our friend Doul is going to look very sick indeed if, on making the charges against us, there are some counter-charges of misappropriating of funds.”

Louis Rosetti looked at him doubtfully. “I hope you’re not getting too fancy, Mike.”

Mike Dean laughed it away.

Amschel Mayer was incensed.

“What’s got into Buchwald and MacDonald?” he spat.

Jerry Kennedy, attired as was his superior in fur trimmed Genoese robes, signaled one of the servants for a refilling of his glass. Then he shugged.

“I suppose it’s partly our own fault,” he said lightly. He sipped the wine the servant had poured from a long-necked dusty bottle and made a mental note to buy up the rest of this vintage for his cellars before young Mannerheim or someone else did.

“Our fault!” Mayer glared. He shook the report he held in his right hand at the other.

The old boy was getting decreasingly tolerant as the years went by, Kennedy decided. He said soothingly, “You sent Peter and Fred over there to speed up local development. Well, that’s what they’re doing.”

“Are you insane?” Mayer squirmed in his chair. “Did you read this radiogram? They’ve squeezed out all my holdings in rubber, the fastest growing industry on the southern continent. Why, millions are involved. Who do they think they are?”

Kennedy put down his glass and chuckled. “See here, Amschel, we’re developing this planet by encouraging free competition. Our contention is that under such socio-economic systems the best men are brought to the lead and benefit all society by the advances they make.”

“Sol What has this got to do with MacDonald and Buchwald betraying my interests.?”

“Don’t you see? Using your own theory, you have been set back by someone more efficiently competitive. Fred and Peter saw an opening and, in keeping with your instructions, moved in. It’s just coincidence that the rubber they took over was your property rather than some Genoese operator’s. If you were open to a loss there, then if they hadn’t taken over someone else could have. Possibly Baron Leonar, or even Russ.”

“That reminds me,” Mayer snapped. “Our Honorable Russ is getting too big for his britches in petroleum. Did you know he’s established a laboratory in Amerus? Has a hundred or more chemists working on new products.”

Jerry Kennedy finished his wine and motioned to the servant to fill his glass still once again. He said to his older companion, “Fine.”

“Fine! What do you mean? Dean is our man in petroleum.”

“Look here, if Russ can develop the industry faster than Mike Dean, let him go ahead. That’s all to our advantage.”

Mayer leaned forward and tapped his assistant emphatically on the knee. “Look here, yourself, Jerome Kennedy. At this stage, we don’t want things getting out of our hands. A culture is in the hands of those who control the wealth; the means of production, distribution, communication. Theirs is the real power. I’ve made a point of spacing our team about the whole planet. Gunther is in mines, Dean heads petroleum among other things, MacDonald shipping, Buchwald steel, Rosetti distilling, Doctor Wieliczka medicine, and so forth. As fast as this planet can assimilate, we push new inventions, new techniques, often whole new sciences, into use. Meanwhile, you and I sit back and dominate it all through the strongest of power mediums, finance.”

Jerry Kennedy nodded. “I wouldn’t worry about old man Russ taking over Dean’s domination of oil, though. Mike’s got the support of all the Pedagogue’s resources behind him. Besides, we’ve got to let these Genoese get into the act. The more the economy expands, the more capable men we need. As it is, I think we’re already spread a little too thin.”

Amschel Mayer had dropped the subject. He was reading the radiogram again and scowling his anger. “This cooks MacDonald and Buchwald. I’ll break them.”

His assistant took another pull at his drink, and raised his eyebrows. “How do you mean?”

“I’m not going to put up with my subordinates going against my interests.”

“In this case, what can you do about it? Business is business.”

“You hold quite a bit of their paper, don’t you?” The older man’s voice held a sly quality.

“You know that. Most of our team’s finances funnel through my hands.”

“We’ll close them out. They’ve become too concerned with their wealth. They’ve forgotten why the Pedagogue was sent here. I’ll break them, Jerry. They’ll come crawling. Perhaps I’ll send them back to the Pedagogue. Make them stay aboard as a permanent crew.”

Kennedy shrugged. “Well, Peter MacDonald is going to hate that. He’s developed into quite a high playboy—gourmet food, women, one of the most lavish estates on the southern continent.”

“Ha!” Mayer snorted. “Let him go back to ship’s rations and crews’ quarters.”

A servant entered the lushly furnished room and announced: “The Honorable Gunther calling on the Honorables Mayer and Kennedy.”

“Show him in, of course,” Mayer ordered. Martin Gunther, for once his calm ruffled, hurried into the room. “Rykov,” he blurted. “He’s disappeared. The barons have probably got him!”

Amschel Mayer shot to his feet. “That’s the end,” he swore shrilly. “Only in the west have the barons held out. I thought we’d slowly wear them down, take over their powers bit by bit. But this does it. This means we fight!”

He spun to Kennedy.

“Jerry, make preparations to take a trip out to the Pedagogue. You know the extent of Genoa’s industrial progress. Seek out the most advanced weapons this technology could produce.”

Kennedy put down his glass, and came to his own feet, shocked by Gunther’s words. “But, Amschel, do you think it’s wise to start an intercontinental war? Remember, we’ve been helping to industrialize the west, too. It’s almost as advanced as our continent. Their war potential isn’t weak.”

“Nevertheless,” Mayer snapped, “we’ve got to break the backs of the barons and the Temple monks. Get messages off to Baron Leonar and young Mannerheim, to Russ and Olderman. We’ll want them to put pressure on their local politicians. What we need is a continental alliance for this war.”

Gunther said, “Should I get in touch with Rosetti and Dean? They’re still over there.”

Mayer hesitated. “No,” he said. “Well keep Mike and Louis informed but they’d better stay where they are. We’ll still want our men in the basic positions of higher power when we’ve won.”

“They might get hurt,” Gunther scowled. “The barons might get them too. I’m not so sure about their cover. The Temple’s got a lot of strings out. They might know we’re all interconnected.”

“Nonsense. Mike and Louis can take care of themselves.”

Jerry Kennedy was upset. He was not by nature a man of violence. He said, “Are you sure about this war, chief? Isn’t a conflict of this size apt to hold up our overall plans?”

“Of course not,” Mayer scoffed. “Man makes his greatest progress under pressure. A major war will unite the nations of both the western continent and this one as nothing else could. Both will push their development to the utmost.”

He added, thoughtfully, “Which reminds me. It might be a good idea for us to begin accumulating interests in such industries as will be affected by a war economy.”

Jerry Kennedy chuckled at him. “Merchant of death.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kennedy said. “Something I read about on an historical tape.”