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diff --git a/40970-h.zip b/40970-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebbd7c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/40970-h.zip diff --git a/40970-h/40970-h.htm b/40970-h/40970-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6fbf4f --- /dev/null +++ b/40970-h/40970-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1533 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Exploiter's End, by James Causey. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Exploiter's End, by James Causey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Exploiter's End + +Author: James Causey + +Release Date: October 7, 2012 [EBook #40970] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLOITER'S END *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>EXPLOITER'S END</h1> + +<h2><i>by James Causey</i></h2> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 number +2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote"><p><i>PEOPLE OR TERMITES, IT'S ALL THE SAME.</i></p> + +<p><i>THERE'S A LIMIT TO HOW FAR YOU CAN DRIVE THEM!</i></p></div> + +<p>We time-studied the Term. It moved with a pliant, liquid grace, its four +arms flickering over the instrument panel, installing studs, tightening +screws, its antennae glowing with the lambent yellow that denoted an +agony of effort.</p> + +<p>"See?" Harvey's freckled face was smug. "He rates an easy hundred and +ten. Whoever took that first study—"</p> + +<p>"I took it," I said, squinting at the stop watch.</p> + +<p>You could hear him bite his lip. After only two weeks on the job, on a +strange planet ninety light-years from home, you don't tell your boss +he's cockeyed.</p> + +<p>The Term hurried. Its faceted termite eyes were expressionless diamonds, +but the antennae gleamed a desperate saffron. <i>If bugs could sweat</i>, I +thought wryly. Now the quartz panel installation. Those four arms moved +in a blinding frenzy.</p> + +<p>But the stop watch was faster. The second hand caught up with the Term. +It passed him. Rating: Seventy-four per cent.</p> + +<p>I tucked the clipboard under my arm, squeezed through the airlock, and +down the ramp. Harvey followed sullenly. The conveyor groaned on, +bringing up the next unit, a sleek little cruiser. The Term seized a +fifty-pound air wrench, fled up the ramp to the airlock.</p> + +<p>"A dozen feet back to the operation," I pointed out. "After the next job +he'll have to return forty feet. Then sixty. He's in the hole."</p> + +<p>Harvey looked at his shoes. John Barry, the trim superintendent, came +puffing down the line, his jowled face anxious about direct labor cost, +the way every good super should be. "Anything wrong, Jake?"</p> + +<p>"He can't cut it," I said.</p> + +<p>Barry frowned up through the airlock at the Term. Those antennae now +shone the soft sad purple of despair.</p> + +<p>We walked past the body jigs. The air was a haze of blue smoke, +punctuated with yellow splashes of flame from the electronic welding +guns. Terms scuttled like gigantic spiders over the great silver hulls, +their antennae glowing in a pattern of swift bright harmony, right on +standard, good cost. Harvey's face was rapt as he watched them. I said +harshly:</p> + +<p>"Give me your third Production Axiom."</p> + +<p>Harvey's shoulders squared. He said stiffly: "Beauty is functional. The +quintessence of grace is the clean, soaring beauty of a spaceship's +hull—"</p> + +<p>"Extrapolate, Harvey."</p> + +<p>His lips were tight. "What I see is ugly. Terms must be taught +individuality. What I see is a fascinating, deadly beauty—deadly +because it's useless. We must sublimate it, grind it down, hammer it out +into a useful pattern. Waste motion is a sin...."</p> + +<p>"Excellent."</p> + +<p>We turned into the administration lift, leaving the iron roar behind us, +and on the way up Harvey didn't say a word. I listened for the tinkle of +shattering ideals, and said patiently, "You're here to build spaceships. +To build them better and cheaper than Consolidated or Solar. Hell, we've +even set up a village for the Terms! Electricity, plumbing, luxuries +they wouldn't normally enjoy for the next million years—"</p> + +<p>"Will they fire him?" Harvey's voice was flat.</p> + +<p>My temper was shredding. "Four-day layoff. His third this month. Terms +kick in most of their salary for village maintenance. They can't afford +a part-time producer."</p> + +<p>I could see that Term read out of the gang, leaving the company village, +stoically, while his fellows played a wailing dirge of color on their +antennae. The farewell song. I could see him trudging over the windswept +peak of Cobalt Mountain, staring down at his native village, and shaking +with the impact of the <i>Stammverstand</i>, the tribe-mind, the ache and the +longing. A wheel, shaken out of orbit. The lonely cog, searching for its +lost slot. I could see that Term returning to his tribe. And how they'd +tear him to pieces because he was a thing apart, now, an alien.</p> + +<p>We walked down the gray corridor, past Psych, past the conference hall, +to the silver door marked <i>Methods and Standards</i>. Harvey's blue eyes +were remote, stubborn. I clapped him paternally on the shoulder. "Anyone +can call one wrong, lad. Forget it."</p> + +<p>Harvey slumped down at a computor, and I walked into my private office +and shut the door. Harvey's personnel dossier was in my desk. I.Q. 178, +fair. Stability quotient two point eight, very bad. Adaptability rating +point seven, borderline. Those idiots in Psych! Couldn't they +indoctrinate a new man properly?</p> + +<p>I waited.</p> + +<p>In a moment Harvey came in without knocking and said, "Mr. Eagan, I want +to quit."</p> + +<p>I took my time lighting a cigar, not raising my head.</p> + +<p>His defiant, pleading look.</p> + +<p>I blew smoke rings at the visicom and finally said, "Since you were +sixteen, you've dreamed of this. Elimination tests, the weeding out, ten +thousand other smart, hungry kids fighting you for this job." I tasted +the words. "When your contract's up you can write your own ticket +anywhere in the system."</p> + +<p>He blurted: "I came here full of ideas about the wonderful work +Amalgamated was doing to advance backward civilizations. Sure, the Terms +have a union. They're paid at standard galactic rates for spacecraft +assembly. But you make them live in that village. It costs to run that +village. You give it to them with one hand and take it back with the +other. All the time you're holding out the promise of racial +advancement, individuality, some day the Terms will reach the stars. +Nuts!"</p> + +<p>"That's Guild propaganda," I said softly.</p> + +<p>"The Guild is just a bogey you created to keep the Intersolar +Spacecrafters Union in line. There's a Venusport liner due in next week. +When it leaves I'll be on it!"</p> + +<p>I played Dutch Uncle. I told him he wasn't used to Terminorb's +one-and-a-half gravs, that this was just a hangover from the three to +five oxygen ratio he wasn't used to. But he said no. Finally I shrugged, +scribbled something on an AVO and handed it to him. "All right, Harvey," +I said mildly. "Take this down to Carmody, in Psych. He'll give you a +clearance."</p> + +<p>Harvey's face went white. "Since when do you go to Psych for a +clearance?"</p> + +<p>I pressed a stud under the desk and two Analysts came in. I told them +what to do and Harvey screamed; he fought and bit and clawed, he mouthed +unutterable things about what we were doing to the Terms until I chopped +him mercifully behind the ear.</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," panted one of the Analysts. "Obviously insufficient +indoctrination, sir. Would you mind if I spent an hour in Psych for +reorientation? He—he upset me."</p> + +<p>My eyes stung with pride. Sam had loyalty plus. "Sure thing, Sam. You'd +better go too, Barney. He said some pretty ugly things."</p> + +<p>They dragged Harvey out and I went over to the visicom, punched a +button. I was trembling with an icy rage as Carmody's lean hawk face +swam into view. "Hello, Jake," he said languidly. "How's Cost?"</p> + +<p>I told him curtly about Harvey. "Another weak sister," I rasped. "Can't +you screen them any more? Didn't you note his stability index? I'm going +to report this to Starza, Don."</p> + +<p>"Relax," Carmody smiled. "Those things happen, Jake. We'll do a few +gentle things with scalpel and narcosynthesis, and he'll be back in a +week, real eager, the perfect cost analyst."</p> + +<p>I'd never liked Carmody. He was so smug; he didn't realize the +<i>sacredness</i> of his position. I said coldly, "Put Miss Davis on."</p> + +<p>Carmody's grin was knowing. The screen flickered, and Fern's face came +into focus. Her moist red lips parted, and I shivered, looking at her, +even on a visicom screen. The shining glory of her hair, those cool +green eyes. Three months hadn't made a difference.</p> + +<p>"How was little old Earth?" I said awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"Wonderful!" She was radiant. "I'll see you for lunch."</p> + +<p>"Today's grievance day. Dinner?"</p> + +<p>"I promised Don," she said demurely.</p> + +<p>I swallowed hard. "How about the Term festival tomorrow night?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Don sort of asked—"</p> + +<p>I tried to laugh it off and Fern said she'd see me later and the screen +went blank and I sat there shaking.</p> + +<p>The screen flickered again. Starza's great moon face smiled at me and +said sweetly, "We're ready to start grieving."</p> + +<p>I picked up the time studies that were death sentences for two Terms, +and went down the hall to ulcer gulch, the conference room.</p> + +<p>Lure a termite away from his tribe. Promise him the stars. Make him bust +his thorax on an assembly line. He makes a wonderful worker, with +reflexes twice as fast as a human's, but he still isn't an individual. +Even when putting a spaceship together, he's still part of the tribe, +part of a glowing symphony of color and motion. That's bad for +production. Accent on individuality, that was the keynote. The Terms and +their union representatives could argue a grievance right to the letter +of the contract, but when it came to production standards we had them. +Terminorb IV was ninety light-years from the system, and the Terms +couldn't afford a home office time and motion analyst. It wasn't worth +it. Terms were expendable.</p> + +<p>Los Tichnat was committeeman at large for the Term local. He sat regally +at the head of the conference table, seven gleaming chitinous feet of +him, with his softly pulsating antennae and faceted eyes, and said in a +clicking, humorless voice, "The first item is a second-stage grievance. +Brother Nadkek, in final assembly, was laid off for one day. Reason: He +missed an operation. The grievance, of course, is a mere formality. You +will deny it."</p> + +<p>Dave Starza winked at me from behind horn-rimmed glasses. He sat like +some great bland Buddha, Director of Industrial Relations, genius in +outer psychology, ruthless, soft-spoken, anticipator of alien trends. He +said in that beautiful velvet voice, "Ordinarily, yes. In this case +Nadkek wished to ask his foreman about omitting a welding phase of the +operation. While the suggestion was declined, Nadkek showed unmistakable +initiative." Starza stressed the word. "We appreciate his interest in +the job. He will receive pay for the lost day."</p> + +<p>Around the table, antennae flashed amazed colors. A precedent had been +set. Interest in the job transcended even the Contract.</p> + +<p>"Management <i>sustains</i> the grievance?" Tichnat droned incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Of course," Starza said.</p> + +<p>Nadkek left the conference room, his antennae a puzzled mauve.</p> + +<p>"Next," Starza said pontifically.</p> + +<p>The next grievance was simply that a foreman had spoken harshly to a +Term. The Term resented it. In his tribe he had been a fighter, prime +guardian of the Queen-Mother. Fighters could not be reprimanded as could +spinners or workers.</p> + +<p>Starza and Tichnat split hairs while I dozed and thought about Fern.</p> + +<p>Starza finally promised to reprimand the foreman. It was lovely, the way +he thumped on the table, aflame with righteousness, his voice golden +thunder, the martyr, hurt by Tichnat's unfairness, yet so eager to +compromise, to be fair. The next grievance was work standards. Starza +looked at me. This one mattered. This was cost.</p> + +<p>I pulled out my study proofs, said, "Radnor, in final assembly. +Consistently in the hole. Rating, seventy-four percent—"</p> + +<p>"<i>The operation was too tight, Jake. Admit it!</i>"</p> + +<p>The thought uncoiled darkly, thundering and reverberating in the +horrified caverns of my brain.</p> + +<p>A thoughtcaster. So the Guild had thoughtcasters now. The Guild had +finally come.</p> + +<p>I sat in the dank silence, shaking. A drop of ice crawled slowly down my +temple. I stared around the conference table at Starza's frown, at those +Term faces, the great faceted eyes.</p> + +<p>"We gave this worker every chance," I said, licking my lips. "We put him +on another operation. He still couldn't cut it. Even though we've got +production to meet, we still give as many chances—"</p> + +<p>The thought slashed. It grew into a soundless roar.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>"<i>Stop it, Jake! Tell them how Amalgamated, under the cloak of +liberation, is strangling the Terms with an alien culture. Tell them +what a mockery their contract really is! Tell them about that Term you +condemned this morning!</i>"</p> + +<p>I fought it. Feeling the blood run from my lip, I fought it. I'd seen +strong men driven insane by a thoughtcaster within seconds. My stability +index was six point three. Damned high. I fought it. I got to my feet. +The room reeled. Those damned Term faces. The shining antennae. I +stumbled towards the door. The thought became a whiplash of molten fury.</p> + +<p>"<i>Uphold that grievance, Jake! Tell them the truth. Admit the standard +was impossible to meet—</i>"</p> + +<p>I slammed the door. The voice stopped.</p> + +<p>My skull was a shattered fly-wheel, a sunburst of agony. I was retching. +I stumbled down the corridor to Psych. Fern was there. I was screaming +at her. The Guild was here. They had thoughtcasters. My brain was +melting. Fern was white-faced. She had a hypo. I didn't feel it. The +last thing I saw was the glimmer of tears in her green eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"... the neuron flow." Starza's voice. "No two alike. Like fingerprints. +What a pity they can't refine the transmittal waves."</p> + +<p>I tried to open my eyes.</p> + +<p>"The Guild atomized Solar's plant on Proycon," Carmody's voice said +quietly. "It's just a question of time, Dave."</p> + +<p>"No," Starza said thoughtfully. "Proycon was a sweatshop. I think maybe +they're hinting that our production standards are a trifle rough. Look, +his eyelids fluttered. Bet you he takes refuge in amnesia."</p> + +<p>"You lose." My voice was an iron groan.</p> + +<p>We were in Starza's office. Carmody peered at me with a clinical eye. "I +took the liberty of narcosynthesis while you were out, Jake. You told us +all about it. How do you feel?"</p> + +<p>I told them how I felt, in spades.</p> + +<p>"I want my vacation now," I said. "I've accrued seven months. I'm going +to Venus," I said.</p> + +<p>"Now, now," Starza said. "Mustn't desert the sinking ship, Jake." I shut +my eyes. His voice was soothing oil. "Jake, the Guild as a whole doesn't +know of this plant. Guild agents are free-lancers, in the full sense of +the word. They exercise their own initiative, and only report to Guild +HQ when the job is done."</p> + +<p>"Then," Carmody said, "if we can find out who—"</p> + +<p>"Precisely." Starza's eyes were veiled. "Incidentally, Don, you've been +gone the last four days. Why?"</p> + +<p>Carmody regarded him steadily. "Recruiting. You knew that."</p> + +<p>"Yet you brought back only a dozen Terms."</p> + +<p>Carmody drew a slow deep breath. "Word's gotten around, Dave. The +tribes have finally forgotten their petty wars and united against a +common enemy. Us! Any Term that exhibits undesirable traits of +individuality is now destroyed. I think a dozen was a good haul."</p> + +<p>"You had the whole planet."</p> + +<p>Carmody's grin was diamond hard. "You think maybe I spent a few hours +under a Guild mind-control? Is that it?"</p> + +<p>Starza said, "On your way out, send Los Tichnat in."</p> + +<p>Carmody flushed. "Tichnat's the one and you know it! But if he's not—if +you haven't run down the spy by tomorrow—you can accept my resignation. +I saw what they left of Proycon."</p> + +<p>The door slammed behind him. Starza smiled at me. "What do you think, +Jake?"</p> + +<p>"Tichnat. The second I got out of there, the thoughtcaster stopped."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't mean a thing. They can beam through solid rock. Hundred-foot +radius."</p> + +<p>"No exploitation," I mused.</p> + +<p>"Fanatics," Starza said. "They'd impede the progress of man. Sacrifice +man's rightful place in the cosmos for the sake of—crawling things! +We'll fight them, Jake!"</p> + +<p>Tichnat entered. He stood stiffly before Starza's desk, his antennae a +cheerful emerald.</p> + +<p>Starza said carefully, "What do you know about the Guild?"</p> + +<p>"Impractical visionaries," Tichnat clicked. "Lovers of statis, +well-meaning fools. They approached me yesterday."</p> + +<p>A vein throbbed purple in Starza's forehead. Yet he kept his voice soft. +"And you didn't report it?"</p> + +<p>"And precipitate a crisis?" Tichnat sounded amused. "I was asked if my +people were being persecuted. Had I answered in the affirmative there +might have been repercussions, perhaps a sequel to Proycon. Oh yes, we +know of Proycon. Your foremen are sometimes indiscreet."</p> + +<p>"Who was the agent?" Starza breathed.</p> + +<p>"Should I tell you, and disrupt the status quo? You would destroy the +agent. In retaliation, the Guild might destroy this plant."</p> + +<p>"Impossible! Guild agents have no such authority—"</p> + +<p>"A chance I cannot afford to take." Tichnat was adamant.</p> + +<p>"Amalgamated," Starza prodded, "offers a standing reward of one hundred +thousand solar credits for apprehension of any Guild agent. Your village +could use those credits. You could equip an atomic lab. You could +maintain your own research staff—"</p> + +<p>"Stop it." The antennae throbbed brilliantly.</p> + +<p>"We are your friends, Tichnat."</p> + +<p>"Symbiosis, I believe is the word," Tichnat clicked dryly. "You need us. +We need your science. We need your terrifying concept of individuality. +We need to lose our old ways. The dance of harvest time. The +Queen-Mother. One by one the rituals drop away. The old life, the good +tribal life, is dying. You sift out us misfits who chafe at tribal +oneness, you offer us the planets!"</p> + +<p>The antennae flashed an angry scarlet. "You think to keep us chained a +millennium. A hundred years will suffice. We will leave you. We exiles +you have made, we who would be destroyed if we dared return to the +tribe, we shall rule this world! You aliens drive a hard bargain, but +the dream is worth it!"</p> + +<p>Prometheus, in a bug's body. The shining strength, and the dark terrible +pride.</p> + +<p>"It is no dream," Starza said gently. "But perhaps you go about +achieving it the wrong way. You still refuse to divulge the spy?"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry. Good day."</p> + +<p>Starza brooded after him.</p> + +<p>"He's a fool. But he's grasping mankind's concepts, Jake. I'd give my +right eye for a good semanticist! Basic English does it. <i>Self</i>, <i>want</i>, +<i>mine</i>, selfish ego-words, the cornerstones of grasping humanity. Sure, +we'll raise hell with their esthetic sense, but in the end they'll thank +us."</p> + +<p>I sat, worrying about a secret fanatic somewhere in the plant who, in +the holy interests of Mars-for-the-Martians, Terminorb-for-the-Terms, +might soon plant an atomic warhead in our body shop. I finally said, +"What are we going to <i>do</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Do?" Starza chuckled. "Why, slacken line speeds, lower production +standards, fifty percent at least. By tomorrow we'll be down to forty +jobs an hour. They want loose standards, we'll give it to them."</p> + +<p>"But my <i>cost</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Obscenity your cost. Look, Jake, no matter how you set an operation up, +the Terms manage to work in some glittering little ritual. They <i>have</i> +to create beauty. Their esthetic sense must be fed. They can't adjust to +quick change. Supposing you cut line speeds by ten per cent. They +adjust, but it almost kills them. Then drop thirty per cent. Their +ritual loses timing, becomes discordant. What happens?"</p> + +<p>I blinked. "They go mad."</p> + +<p>"And our little Guild saboteur will be guilty of a few Term deaths. +He'll have violated a basic Guild tenet. He'll go home with his tail +between his legs. Catch?"</p> + +<p>I caught.</p> + +<p>By midafternoon we had the conveyor speeds down thirty per cent. The red +line on my cost chart soared precariously. The entire production line +slowed to a crawl. We waited.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock it happened. Three Terms in the body shop went mad. It +started a chain reaction throughout the trim line. Six more Terms ran +amuck and had to be destroyed. Final assembly became a shambles. Starza +called me on the visicom, delighted. "Our Guild agent played right into +our hands, Jake. In forcing a production slump he's harming the workers. +His next move will probably be a bluff."</p> + +<p>I wasn't so sure.</p> + +<p>That evening the executive dining room was choked with a tight, gnawing +tension. Department heads spoke in hushed whispers, eyes darting. The +man across the table could be a mindless-controlled, a Guild pawn. Smile +at him politely and keep your mouth shut. I ordered <i>thar</i>, a Terminorb +arthapod that was usually more delicious than Venusian lobster, but +tonight it tasted like broiled leather. It was like eating in a morgue.</p> + +<p>I saw Carmody, at the next table. I nodded coolly to him and he hitched +his chair over and said, "By the way, Jake, I'm sorry about Harvey. He's +going back to Earth next week."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"His stability index was too low," Carmody said smoothly. "Sure, we +could have given him the works, but you didn't want a robot."</p> + +<p>I said deliberately, "I needed that boy, Don."</p> + +<p>Carmody got up, his smile infinitely contemptuous. "We don't all have +your stability index, Jake."</p> + +<p>I stared after him, and the thought suddenly struck me that not once had +<i>I</i> considered quitting, ever. Somehow, the thought disturbed me.</p> + +<p>Abruptly the public address speaker boomed.</p> + +<p>"Attention," Starza's voice crackled. "To the Guild agent, wherever he +may be. Today you murdered thirty-seven Terms. Is this your altruism? Is +this your vaunted justice?" He went on, his voice like organ music, +sweeping away all doubt, making you proud and glad to be a part of +Amalgamated, part of Production, when quite suddenly his voice choked +off. Simultaneously another voice ripped through the hall. A cold ironic +whisper, lashing at the mind.</p> + +<p>"<i>Altruism, yes. But not as you conceive it. Today you passed your own +judgment. You have twenty-four hours to evacuate before this Plant is +destroyed. The verdict is final.</i>"</p> + +<p>The dining hall echoed with moans. Hands leaned to agonized temples. The +thoughtcaster again, on a wide band frequency. Through the pain I was +conscious of Starza's voice. The Guild was trying to bluff us. We +wouldn't let them. I stumbled out of the hall, my teeth chattering, took +the lift down to the first level, and got outside, to walk free in the +park.</p> + +<p>Here was Eden. Giant conifers and ferns wove a cool green pattern of +delight, and the laughter of the crystal fountains soothed. Terms had +fashioned this garden, had created a poem in living green, a quiet fugue +of <i>oneness</i>, each leaf blending exquisitely with the next, the unity, +the perfect whole. For one weak moment I let the pattern seep +insidiously into me, and then, ashamed, focused my eyes on that jarring +splash of white in the center of the garden. The ten-foot model of the +Amalgamated X-3M, squat with power, lifting on her stern jets. A symbol +of Amalgamated's strength, the indomitable spirit of mankind, beauty +born of pure utility. Oddly, a half-remembered poem of the Ancients +flitted through my brain:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Dirty British Coaster with her salt-caked smokestack,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Butting through the Channel on the mad March days—</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That was man.</p> + +<p>On an infinity of planets he had met resistance, through force, through +guile—even through beauty. And he had conquered. I drew a slow deep +breath and sat on one of the benches, staring up at the gigantic +horseshoe of the factory, hearing the muted hum of the atomics. +Twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>I tried to run through my axioms, and I was suddenly terrified. I +couldn't remember them! That damned thoughtcaster. Twice in one day. +Perhaps there was some gradual neural disintegration. My head hurt +terribly. Tomorrow I'd go to Psych for a checkup. I thought about that +marble villa in Venusport, and about my bank account. Not enough. +Another year, just one more year, and I could retire, at thirty-four. I +thought about the Venusian twilights, and the turquoise mists off the +Deeps, and wondered dully if I'd ever see Venus or the Earth again.</p> + +<p>I saw Fern, walking among the conifers, her face a pale mask of strain. +"You heard it, Jake?"</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>We sat in the aquamarine twilight, and Fern was shivering, and I put my +arm around her.</p> + +<p>"Looks like altruism is a relative thing," I said. "What <i>do</i> they +want?"</p> + +<p>"Uncontaminated Terms," she said bitterly. "No science, no stars, no +wars and no progress. A big beautiful planet-mind, the Term mind, +forever static, forever dead."</p> + +<p>"It's a bluff," I said. "Our little fanatic's stalling for time, hoping +to stampede us while he finds another way."</p> + +<p>"For example?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you think we insist on basic English for all Terms? Supposing a +foreman should start jabbering Terminese during an operation. The Terms +would revert, we'd have a line shutdown. They can't adjust—say!" A +random thought was nibbling at my brain. "Where was Carmody this +morning? Just before I reeled in?"</p> + +<p>Her fine brows knitted. "Why, he went—oh, Jake, surely you don't +think—?"</p> + +<p>"Went where?"</p> + +<p>"Down the hall. Towards Personnel."</p> + +<p>"Towards the conference hall, you mean. He never even examined Harvey!"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't necessary," she said uncomfortably. "Don just wanted to +verify his stability index."</p> + +<p>"Sure! So he stood outside the conference hall and put a whammy on me—"</p> + +<p>Fern was smiling. I scowled. "It fits. It has to be him."</p> + +<p>"Or Tichnat," she said. "Or Starza. Or me."</p> + +<p>I stared at her. "You'd do." My voice shook. "You were gone three +months. They could have got to you."</p> + +<p>Her rich, warm laughter sifted through the twilight, and I wanted to hit +her. "They did," she gurgled, "but I've decided to relent, Jake. I'll +spare the plant on one condition—that you take me to the Term festival +tomorrow night."</p> + +<p>I grunted. "Carmody working overtime, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"If the plant's still standing."</p> + +<p>I changed the subject.</p> + +<p>Two hours later Starza called a council of war.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The conference room was crammed with quivering executives. Starza +carefully let the tension build to a shrill crescendo before he said:</p> + +<p>"One of you gentlemen is a Guild mindless-controlled."</p> + +<p>Ragged silence. Starza's smile was very faint.</p> + +<p>"You gave us an ultimatum. But destroying this plant is an admission of +failure you're not willing to make—yet. You'll try another tack. You're +just beginning to discover that this environment we've created for the +Terms is superior to the primitive jungle. Tichnat!"</p> + +<p>Tichnat stepped forward. His antennae were a proud, brilliant gold.</p> + +<p>"Do you want a shutdown?" Starza asked softly.</p> + +<p>"Are we fools?" Tichnat clicked. "To lose what we've gained? To return +to our tribe? To be destroyed?"</p> + +<p>Starza's calm gaze caressed each face, probing. "You see? Stalemate. +Whoever you are, <i>you're bluffing</i>. Tomorrow our conveyor speeds return +to normal. You'll do nothing. You may try to agitate the Terms, but +they're satisfied—"</p> + +<p>One of the superintendents cleared his throat. "Look," he said +unsteadily, "sometimes you can't afford to call a bluff."</p> + +<p>Starza said pleasantly, "Any resignations will be accepted right now. +You can wait safely in the Term village until next week's freighter +arrives. No repercussions, I promise."</p> + +<p>The lie was blatant. Carmody stood by the door, his smile strained. It +was all too obvious what would happen to any resignees.</p> + +<p>"None?" Starza's brows rose. "I'm proud of you. That's it, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>The next day was a frenetic nightmare. My cost dropped, but it didn't +matter. That was one day when the best company man became a +clock-watcher. Line foremen, department heads, cracked under the strain, +and were summarily removed to Psych. Carmody and staff worked overtime.</p> + +<p>I toiled feverishly over operation schedules, the crazily fluctuating +cost charts. My headache was gone, but I still couldn't remember my +axioms! I felt guilty over not going to Psych, but there just wasn't the +time.</p> + +<p>Hell, <i>I'd</i> never needed indoctrination. I was an Amalgamated man +through and through. Finally I grabbed an engineering manual, leafed +angrily through it—and sat there, empty and shaking.</p> + +<p>I'd gone insane.</p> + +<p>The words were gibberish. Oh, I could read them all right, but they +didn't make <i>sense</i>. What a filthy trick. Semantic block, Starza would +call it. I kept staring at the meaningless words, conscious of a tearing +sense of loss. And I wanted to cry.</p> + +<p>Six o'clock was zero hour.</p> + +<p>Six o'clock came, and the factory held its collective breath while +nothing happened.</p> + +<p>At six-thirty Starza made a long speech over the public address. About +the selfless spirit of man, helping the Terms reach the stars, about how +we would never admit defeat, and about how, after tonight, the Term +festival would be discontinued. The Terms had adopted mankind's culture, +they had no further need of their effete native customs.</p> + +<p>At seven, Fern and I were walking past Administration towards the +lighted square-mile enclosure of the Term village. Fern had never seen a +festival.</p> + +<p>"A throwback," I said, "to their old tribal days. Their harvest, when +they pay tribute to the Queen-Mother and pray for good crops and work +well done. It's their yearly substitute for <i>Stammverstand</i>. Back in the +native villages, whenever a Term's in trouble, he goes to the council +hut and the others join him in a silent, group telepathy. But we've just +about weaned them, angel! They'll be individuals soon."</p> + +<p>We walked down the deserted row of Term huts, past the council hall, to +the great stone amphitheatre, and sat with the other execs. Fern was +very gay and cheerful, but I kept thinking about my axioms, trying to +bring them back to life. I felt dead, all dead inside.</p> + +<p>Starza came up, frowning, and I congratulated him.</p> + +<p>"It's too pat, Jake, it worries me. Where's Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"Setting up those semantic reaction tests you gave him," Fern said.</p> + +<p>"But I never gave him—"</p> + +<p>Abruptly the lights snuffed out. At one end of the arena loomed a +twelve-foot statue of a bloated Term, limned in a soft pale glow. The +Queen-Mother.</p> + +<p>The hush. Then the radiance.</p> + +<p>Slowly the Terms filed into the arena, rank upon rank of living flame. +First the fighters, their antennae shining crimson and splendid against +the tall night. Then the twins glows of blue that denoted the spinners, +the weavers. The golden blaze of the harvesters. The lambent colors +crept through the air like a mood, like a dream, and deepened into a +shimmering cataract of rainbow fire, a paean of light and glory that +whirled and spun in a joyous rhythm as old as the race itself.</p> + +<p>Then—chaos.</p> + +<p>A blinding flare cascaded from the six-foot antennae of the statue. The +radiance grew, brighter than an atomic flare, more terrible than the +sun. The Terms stood frozen. Beside me, Starza swore.</p> + +<p>This wasn't in the script.</p> + +<p>That colossal voice.</p> + +<p>Ear-snapping clicks, and liquid vowels. Terminese. The forbidden tongue. +The voice blared. I caught most of it.</p> + +<p>"<i>Children, you have sinned. You are defiled with the taint of alien +monsters. You have failed the Queen-Mother. Return, my children, return +to your tribes. Return to the tabernacle of unity, the one-in-all, the +Queen-Mother! For in death there is life, and there is joy in +immolation. Return!</i>"</p> + +<p>Lastly, the climax. That last shattering hunk of propaganda that would +have been so tritely amusing if it hadn't been so terrifying.</p> + +<p>"<i>You have nothing to lose but your chains.</i>"</p> + +<p>The giant antennae faded to a liquid silver. The silver of hope, of +forgiveness.</p> + +<p>For a moment I was blind. I felt Fern trembling against me. The execs +were chattering like frightened sheep. Then I could see. I saw Starza. +He was moving down the aisle, cursing in a tight, dull monotone.</p> + +<p>I followed him down into the arena. The Terms stood shriveled, mute. +Starza was fumbling at the base of the statue, and he said in a thick +horrible voice, "Look." The loudspeaker. The coiled wiring.</p> + +<p>The Terms stirred.</p> + +<p>Starza leaped to the lap of the statue. He bawled, "Listen! This is +sacrilege! You have been victims of a hoax—"</p> + +<p>Not listening, they filed in silent groups out of the arena. Their +antennae were the color of ashes. Starza jumped down. He pounded after +them. He was shouting at Los Tichnat.</p> + +<p>"I know," Tichnat droned. He kept walking. "You are right. It does not +matter that you are right. The Queen-Mother called."</p> + +<p>"Listen," Starza mouthed. "It was a fraud, a trick. You can't—"</p> + +<p>"We must." Tichnat paused. For a long moment the great faceted eyes +stared somberly. "It was a splendid dream, the thing you offered us. But +this is the final reality. And yours is but a dream."</p> + +<p>He tramped stolidly on, after the others. The council hall door closed.</p> + +<p>Starza clawed at the door. It opened. He was too late. They sat silently +around the great table, the faceted eyes dead, the antennae coruscating +indigo, now green, now rose. Communion. The meshing of minds. Starza +shouted at them. Stillness.</p> + +<p>Starza looked blindly at me. He was shaking. "Carmody," he said. +"Carmody knows the Term mind. He can do something. Come on," he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>We found Carmody in his quarters, methodically packing. His eyebrows +rose as we burst in. "Did you gentlemen ever try knocking?"</p> + +<p>Starza just looked at him. Carmody drew a long breath. "You'll find my +resignation on your desk, Dave."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" Starza's voice was very soft.</p> + +<p>"It's only a question of time," Carmody said. "Call it the rat deserting +the ship if you like, but I'm through."</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>Starza was smiling, a fat man's smile. "So you really think you can pull +it off," he whispered.</p> + +<p>Carmody shrugged, and Starza calmly took out a sonic pistol and shot him +in the belly.</p> + +<p>A sonic blast hemorrhages. It rends the capillaries, ploughs the flesh +into a flaccid collection of shattered nerve fibers and ruined arteries. +It's a rotten way to die.</p> + +<p>Starza watched Carmody thrash himself to death on the floor. I turned +away.</p> + +<p>"For the record, Jake, he made a full confession. We both heard him."</p> + +<p>"Just for the record," I said.</p> + +<p>"It had to be him," Starza said. "That thoughtcaster blast yesterday +morning made reference to your study on the Term. Only Harvey and +Carmody knew about that. It couldn't have been Harvey. He cut his throat +this morning.</p> + +<p>"I've decided," Starza said. "This is a Type L planet, after all. The +natives are chronically unstable. Hostile, in fact. Pursuant to Solar +Regulation 3, we have the right to enforce martial law. It should be six +months before an investigation. Meanwhile—"</p> + +<p>"We'll get production," I said.</p> + +<p>"We'll get production." He wiped his forehead, relaxed. "I'll send in a +full report tonight. Better turn in, Jake," he said kindly. "I'll need +you in the morning."</p> + +<p>I turned in.</p> + +<p>You lie awake, staring into the blackness. It gnaws.</p> + +<p>My head throbbed. I should have felt a triumphant relief, but I could +not remember my axioms, and I felt a sick dull hate for the thing the +Guild spy Carmody had done to me. What happens when you strip a man of +everything he believes in?</p> + +<p>He remembers other things.</p> + +<p>Those memories came trooping back like ghosts and I fought them, +sweating, but they came. Once upon a time, there was a starry-eyed young +engineer who started out to set the galaxy on fire. But he got +squeamish, somewhere along the way. So Carmody operated on him. Carmody +did things to his brain, made a good production man out of him.</p> + +<p>I remembered now.</p> + +<p>That time I had argued with Starza about standards, nine years ago. And +I had resigned. And Starza sent me to Psych.</p> + +<p>Good old Carmody.</p> + +<p>There never would be a white marble villa on Venus. It was a harmless +dream, a substitute for what I had lost. But it didn't matter! Those +superimposed patterns had been removed, that thoughtcaster had crippled +my thinking, but, by Heaven, I was still an Amalgamated man! They +couldn't take that away.</p> + +<p>But Starza had been wrong about Carmody.</p> + +<p>Nothing definite. But when you dedicate your life into extrapolating +curves, frozen chunks of time and motion, into the thunder of jets +lifting Amalgamated ships from Terminorb, your mind becomes a very +efficient analogue computor, if you know how to use. I used it now. I +fed little things, facts, variables, into that computor, and it told me +three times. Probability: sixty percent at least.</p> + +<p>I got up, dressed stiffly. I was trembling. I could still serve, after +all.</p> + +<p>I took the lift up to Administration, and walked down that long gray +corridor on leaden feet towards the illuminated rectangle of Starza's +office.</p> + +<p>I opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Hello, darling," Fern said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She was unhurriedly burning Starza's report. Starza sat mutely in his +chair, head tilted back at an impossible angle, staring at nothing.</p> + +<p>"It had to be you." I had never felt so tired. "You would have destroyed +the plant, wouldn't you? Only I showed you another way. Make the Terms +revert. And you had that hypo all ready when I reeled into Psych." I +moved towards her carefully. "You're so damned altruistic. A Guild +mindless-controlled," I said.</p> + +<p>Fern's smile was compassionate. She methodically ground the ashes to +powder, lifted that calm green gaze.</p> + +<p>"Stupid words to frighten children, Jake. Yes, they kidnapped me. I +never reached Earth, three months ago. I was indoctrinated—oh, they +didn't have far to go. <i>Each race to its own fulfillment.</i>" Her eyes +were shining. "Look out the window."</p> + +<p>Numbly, I moved past her. I stared. In the distant blackness, a column +of living flame flickered up the slope of Cobalt Mountain. Ice-green, +ruby, silver and blue. The Terms were leaving.</p> + +<p>"They're not ready for individuality yet," Fern breathed. "In a million +years perhaps. Not now. They're going home."</p> + +<p>"To die."</p> + +<p>"The race will live. Individuality isn't the penultimate, darling. +You'll find out." I moved towards her. "You've got a very tough mind, +Jake. You'll make a wonderful Guild agent—"</p> + +<p>I got both hands on her throat.</p> + +<p>Fern moved. Her right arm was a snake striking, and a steel strength +lifted me, turning, against one and a half gravities, and the floor +wavered up to hit me in the face. Something broke. I tasted blood.</p> + +<p>Through the agony, I moved. I crawled towards her.</p> + +<p>"They gave me six weeks of hand combat under two gravs," she said. "Soon +you'll be one of us, Jake. One of the Guild!"</p> + +<p>I stared up at her in a dull horror. I kept crawling.</p> + +<p>"We'll heal you," Fern said. "We'll give you back the dream. We may even +work together! Maybe I'll fall in love with you again, who knows?" Her +eyes were brimming. She took out a sonic pistol. "It's all right, +darling. I'll adjust it for knockout. In three hours we'll be on a Guild +flier. Please, darling," she said, and I kept crawling. And Fern's smile +was a benediction as she pulled the trigger.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Exploiter's End, by James Causey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLOITER'S END *** + +***** This file should be named 40970-h.htm or 40970-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/7/40970/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Exploiter's End + +Author: James Causey + +Release Date: October 7, 2012 [EBook #40970] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLOITER'S END *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + EXPLOITER'S END + + _by James Causey_ + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 +number 2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _PEOPLE OR TERMITES, IT'S ALL THE SAME._ + +_THERE'S A LIMIT TO HOW FAR YOU CAN DRIVE THEM!_] + +[Illustration] + + +We time-studied the Term. It moved with a pliant, liquid grace, its four +arms flickering over the instrument panel, installing studs, tightening +screws, its antennae glowing with the lambent yellow that denoted an +agony of effort. + +"See?" Harvey's freckled face was smug. "He rates an easy hundred and +ten. Whoever took that first study--" + +"I took it," I said, squinting at the stop watch. + +You could hear him bite his lip. After only two weeks on the job, on a +strange planet ninety light-years from home, you don't tell your boss +he's cockeyed. + +The Term hurried. Its faceted termite eyes were expressionless diamonds, +but the antennae gleamed a desperate saffron. _If bugs could sweat_, I +thought wryly. Now the quartz panel installation. Those four arms moved +in a blinding frenzy. + +But the stop watch was faster. The second hand caught up with the Term. +It passed him. Rating: Seventy-four per cent. + +I tucked the clipboard under my arm, squeezed through the airlock, and +down the ramp. Harvey followed sullenly. The conveyor groaned on, +bringing up the next unit, a sleek little cruiser. The Term seized a +fifty-pound air wrench, fled up the ramp to the airlock. + +"A dozen feet back to the operation," I pointed out. "After the next job +he'll have to return forty feet. Then sixty. He's in the hole." + +Harvey looked at his shoes. John Barry, the trim superintendent, came +puffing down the line, his jowled face anxious about direct labor cost, +the way every good super should be. "Anything wrong, Jake?" + +"He can't cut it," I said. + +Barry frowned up through the airlock at the Term. Those antennae now +shone the soft sad purple of despair. + +We walked past the body jigs. The air was a haze of blue smoke, +punctuated with yellow splashes of flame from the electronic welding +guns. Terms scuttled like gigantic spiders over the great silver hulls, +their antennae glowing in a pattern of swift bright harmony, right on +standard, good cost. Harvey's face was rapt as he watched them. I said +harshly: + +"Give me your third Production Axiom." + +Harvey's shoulders squared. He said stiffly: "Beauty is functional. The +quintessence of grace is the clean, soaring beauty of a spaceship's +hull--" + +"Extrapolate, Harvey." + +His lips were tight. "What I see is ugly. Terms must be taught +individuality. What I see is a fascinating, deadly beauty--deadly +because it's useless. We must sublimate it, grind it down, hammer it out +into a useful pattern. Waste motion is a sin...." + +"Excellent." + +We turned into the administration lift, leaving the iron roar behind us, +and on the way up Harvey didn't say a word. I listened for the tinkle of +shattering ideals, and said patiently, "You're here to build spaceships. +To build them better and cheaper than Consolidated or Solar. Hell, we've +even set up a village for the Terms! Electricity, plumbing, luxuries +they wouldn't normally enjoy for the next million years--" + +"Will they fire him?" Harvey's voice was flat. + +My temper was shredding. "Four-day layoff. His third this month. Terms +kick in most of their salary for village maintenance. They can't afford +a part-time producer." + +I could see that Term read out of the gang, leaving the company village, +stoically, while his fellows played a wailing dirge of color on their +antennae. The farewell song. I could see him trudging over the windswept +peak of Cobalt Mountain, staring down at his native village, and shaking +with the impact of the _Stammverstand_, the tribe-mind, the ache and the +longing. A wheel, shaken out of orbit. The lonely cog, searching for its +lost slot. I could see that Term returning to his tribe. And how they'd +tear him to pieces because he was a thing apart, now, an alien. + +We walked down the gray corridor, past Psych, past the conference hall, +to the silver door marked _Methods and Standards_. Harvey's blue eyes +were remote, stubborn. I clapped him paternally on the shoulder. "Anyone +can call one wrong, lad. Forget it." + +Harvey slumped down at a computor, and I walked into my private office +and shut the door. Harvey's personnel dossier was in my desk. I.Q. 178, +fair. Stability quotient two point eight, very bad. Adaptability rating +point seven, borderline. Those idiots in Psych! Couldn't they +indoctrinate a new man properly? + +I waited. + +In a moment Harvey came in without knocking and said, "Mr. Eagan, I want +to quit." + +I took my time lighting a cigar, not raising my head. + +His defiant, pleading look. + +I blew smoke rings at the visicom and finally said, "Since you were +sixteen, you've dreamed of this. Elimination tests, the weeding out, ten +thousand other smart, hungry kids fighting you for this job." I tasted +the words. "When your contract's up you can write your own ticket +anywhere in the system." + +He blurted: "I came here full of ideas about the wonderful work +Amalgamated was doing to advance backward civilizations. Sure, the Terms +have a union. They're paid at standard galactic rates for spacecraft +assembly. But you make them live in that village. It costs to run that +village. You give it to them with one hand and take it back with the +other. All the time you're holding out the promise of racial +advancement, individuality, some day the Terms will reach the stars. +Nuts!" + +"That's Guild propaganda," I said softly. + +"The Guild is just a bogey you created to keep the Intersolar +Spacecrafters Union in line. There's a Venusport liner due in next week. +When it leaves I'll be on it!" + +I played Dutch Uncle. I told him he wasn't used to Terminorb's +one-and-a-half gravs, that this was just a hangover from the three to +five oxygen ratio he wasn't used to. But he said no. Finally I shrugged, +scribbled something on an AVO and handed it to him. "All right, Harvey," +I said mildly. "Take this down to Carmody, in Psych. He'll give you a +clearance." + +Harvey's face went white. "Since when do you go to Psych for a +clearance?" + +I pressed a stud under the desk and two Analysts came in. I told them +what to do and Harvey screamed; he fought and bit and clawed, he mouthed +unutterable things about what we were doing to the Terms until I chopped +him mercifully behind the ear. + +"Poor devil," panted one of the Analysts. "Obviously insufficient +indoctrination, sir. Would you mind if I spent an hour in Psych for +reorientation? He--he upset me." + +My eyes stung with pride. Sam had loyalty plus. "Sure thing, Sam. You'd +better go too, Barney. He said some pretty ugly things." + +[Illustration] + +They dragged Harvey out and I went over to the visicom, punched a +button. I was trembling with an icy rage as Carmody's lean hawk face +swam into view. "Hello, Jake," he said languidly. "How's Cost?" + +I told him curtly about Harvey. "Another weak sister," I rasped. "Can't +you screen them any more? Didn't you note his stability index? I'm going +to report this to Starza, Don." + +"Relax," Carmody smiled. "Those things happen, Jake. We'll do a few +gentle things with scalpel and narcosynthesis, and he'll be back in a +week, real eager, the perfect cost analyst." + +I'd never liked Carmody. He was so smug; he didn't realize the +_sacredness_ of his position. I said coldly, "Put Miss Davis on." + +Carmody's grin was knowing. The screen flickered, and Fern's face came +into focus. Her moist red lips parted, and I shivered, looking at her, +even on a visicom screen. The shining glory of her hair, those cool +green eyes. Three months hadn't made a difference. + +"How was little old Earth?" I said awkwardly. + +"Wonderful!" She was radiant. "I'll see you for lunch." + +"Today's grievance day. Dinner?" + +"I promised Don," she said demurely. + +I swallowed hard. "How about the Term festival tomorrow night?" + +"Well, Don sort of asked--" + +I tried to laugh it off and Fern said she'd see me later and the screen +went blank and I sat there shaking. + +The screen flickered again. Starza's great moon face smiled at me and +said sweetly, "We're ready to start grieving." + +I picked up the time studies that were death sentences for two Terms, +and went down the hall to ulcer gulch, the conference room. + +Lure a termite away from his tribe. Promise him the stars. Make him bust +his thorax on an assembly line. He makes a wonderful worker, with +reflexes twice as fast as a human's, but he still isn't an individual. +Even when putting a spaceship together, he's still part of the tribe, +part of a glowing symphony of color and motion. That's bad for +production. Accent on individuality, that was the keynote. The Terms and +their union representatives could argue a grievance right to the letter +of the contract, but when it came to production standards we had them. +Terminorb IV was ninety light-years from the system, and the Terms +couldn't afford a home office time and motion analyst. It wasn't worth +it. Terms were expendable. + +Los Tichnat was committeeman at large for the Term local. He sat regally +at the head of the conference table, seven gleaming chitinous feet of +him, with his softly pulsating antennae and faceted eyes, and said in a +clicking, humorless voice, "The first item is a second-stage grievance. +Brother Nadkek, in final assembly, was laid off for one day. Reason: He +missed an operation. The grievance, of course, is a mere formality. You +will deny it." + +Dave Starza winked at me from behind horn-rimmed glasses. He sat like +some great bland Buddha, Director of Industrial Relations, genius in +outer psychology, ruthless, soft-spoken, anticipator of alien trends. He +said in that beautiful velvet voice, "Ordinarily, yes. In this case +Nadkek wished to ask his foreman about omitting a welding phase of the +operation. While the suggestion was declined, Nadkek showed unmistakable +initiative." Starza stressed the word. "We appreciate his interest in +the job. He will receive pay for the lost day." + +Around the table, antennae flashed amazed colors. A precedent had been +set. Interest in the job transcended even the Contract. + +"Management _sustains_ the grievance?" Tichnat droned incredulously. + +"Of course," Starza said. + +Nadkek left the conference room, his antennae a puzzled mauve. + +"Next," Starza said pontifically. + +The next grievance was simply that a foreman had spoken harshly to a +Term. The Term resented it. In his tribe he had been a fighter, prime +guardian of the Queen-Mother. Fighters could not be reprimanded as could +spinners or workers. + +Starza and Tichnat split hairs while I dozed and thought about Fern. + +Starza finally promised to reprimand the foreman. It was lovely, the way +he thumped on the table, aflame with righteousness, his voice golden +thunder, the martyr, hurt by Tichnat's unfairness, yet so eager to +compromise, to be fair. The next grievance was work standards. Starza +looked at me. This one mattered. This was cost. + +I pulled out my study proofs, said, "Radnor, in final assembly. +Consistently in the hole. Rating, seventy-four percent--" + +"_The operation was too tight, Jake. Admit it!_" + +The thought uncoiled darkly, thundering and reverberating in the +horrified caverns of my brain. + +A thoughtcaster. So the Guild had thoughtcasters now. The Guild had +finally come. + +I sat in the dank silence, shaking. A drop of ice crawled slowly down my +temple. I stared around the conference table at Starza's frown, at those +Term faces, the great faceted eyes. + +"We gave this worker every chance," I said, licking my lips. "We put him +on another operation. He still couldn't cut it. Even though we've got +production to meet, we still give as many chances--" + +The thought slashed. It grew into a soundless roar. + +"_Stop it, Jake! Tell them how Amalgamated, under the cloak of +liberation, is strangling the Terms with an alien culture. Tell them +what a mockery their contract really is! Tell them about that Term you +condemned this morning!_" + +I fought it. Feeling the blood run from my lip, I fought it. I'd seen +strong men driven insane by a thoughtcaster within seconds. My stability +index was six point three. Damned high. I fought it. I got to my feet. +The room reeled. Those damned Term faces. The shining antennae. I +stumbled towards the door. The thought became a whiplash of molten fury. + +"_Uphold that grievance, Jake! Tell them the truth. Admit the standard +was impossible to meet--_" + +I slammed the door. The voice stopped. + +My skull was a shattered fly-wheel, a sunburst of agony. I was retching. +I stumbled down the corridor to Psych. Fern was there. I was screaming +at her. The Guild was here. They had thoughtcasters. My brain was +melting. Fern was white-faced. She had a hypo. I didn't feel it. The +last thing I saw was the glimmer of tears in her green eyes. + + * * * * * + +"... the neuron flow." Starza's voice. "No two alike. Like fingerprints. +What a pity they can't refine the transmittal waves." + +I tried to open my eyes. + +"The Guild atomized Solar's plant on Proycon," Carmody's voice said +quietly. "It's just a question of time, Dave." + +"No," Starza said thoughtfully. "Proycon was a sweatshop. I think maybe +they're hinting that our production standards are a trifle rough. Look, +his eyelids fluttered. Bet you he takes refuge in amnesia." + +"You lose." My voice was an iron groan. + +We were in Starza's office. Carmody peered at me with a clinical eye. "I +took the liberty of narcosynthesis while you were out, Jake. You told us +all about it. How do you feel?" + +I told them how I felt, in spades. + +"I want my vacation now," I said. "I've accrued seven months. I'm going +to Venus," I said. + +"Now, now," Starza said. "Mustn't desert the sinking ship, Jake." I shut +my eyes. His voice was soothing oil. "Jake, the Guild as a whole doesn't +know of this plant. Guild agents are free-lancers, in the full sense of +the word. They exercise their own initiative, and only report to Guild +HQ when the job is done." + +"Then," Carmody said, "if we can find out who--" + +"Precisely." Starza's eyes were veiled. "Incidentally, Don, you've been +gone the last four days. Why?" + +Carmody regarded him steadily. "Recruiting. You knew that." + +"Yet you brought back only a dozen Terms." + +Carmody drew a slow deep breath. "Word's gotten around, Dave. The +tribes have finally forgotten their petty wars and united against a +common enemy. Us! Any Term that exhibits undesirable traits of +individuality is now destroyed. I think a dozen was a good haul." + +"You had the whole planet." + +Carmody's grin was diamond hard. "You think maybe I spent a few hours +under a Guild mind-control? Is that it?" + +Starza said, "On your way out, send Los Tichnat in." + +Carmody flushed. "Tichnat's the one and you know it! But if he's not--if +you haven't run down the spy by tomorrow--you can accept my resignation. +I saw what they left of Proycon." + +The door slammed behind him. Starza smiled at me. "What do you think, +Jake?" + +"Tichnat. The second I got out of there, the thoughtcaster stopped." + +"Doesn't mean a thing. They can beam through solid rock. Hundred-foot +radius." + +"No exploitation," I mused. + +"Fanatics," Starza said. "They'd impede the progress of man. Sacrifice +man's rightful place in the cosmos for the sake of--crawling things! +We'll fight them, Jake!" + +Tichnat entered. He stood stiffly before Starza's desk, his antennae a +cheerful emerald. + +Starza said carefully, "What do you know about the Guild?" + +"Impractical visionaries," Tichnat clicked. "Lovers of statis, +well-meaning fools. They approached me yesterday." + +A vein throbbed purple in Starza's forehead. Yet he kept his voice soft. +"And you didn't report it?" + +"And precipitate a crisis?" Tichnat sounded amused. "I was asked if my +people were being persecuted. Had I answered in the affirmative there +might have been repercussions, perhaps a sequel to Proycon. Oh yes, we +know of Proycon. Your foremen are sometimes indiscreet." + +"Who was the agent?" Starza breathed. + +"Should I tell you, and disrupt the status quo? You would destroy the +agent. In retaliation, the Guild might destroy this plant." + +"Impossible! Guild agents have no such authority--" + +"A chance I cannot afford to take." Tichnat was adamant. + +"Amalgamated," Starza prodded, "offers a standing reward of one hundred +thousand solar credits for apprehension of any Guild agent. Your village +could use those credits. You could equip an atomic lab. You could +maintain your own research staff--" + +"Stop it." The antennae throbbed brilliantly. + +"We are your friends, Tichnat." + +"Symbiosis, I believe is the word," Tichnat clicked dryly. "You need us. +We need your science. We need your terrifying concept of individuality. +We need to lose our old ways. The dance of harvest time. The +Queen-Mother. One by one the rituals drop away. The old life, the good +tribal life, is dying. You sift out us misfits who chafe at tribal +oneness, you offer us the planets!" + +The antennae flashed an angry scarlet. "You think to keep us chained a +millennium. A hundred years will suffice. We will leave you. We exiles +you have made, we who would be destroyed if we dared return to the +tribe, we shall rule this world! You aliens drive a hard bargain, but +the dream is worth it!" + +Prometheus, in a bug's body. The shining strength, and the dark terrible +pride. + +"It is no dream," Starza said gently. "But perhaps you go about +achieving it the wrong way. You still refuse to divulge the spy?" + +"I am sorry. Good day." + +Starza brooded after him. + +"He's a fool. But he's grasping mankind's concepts, Jake. I'd give my +right eye for a good semanticist! Basic English does it. _Self_, _want_, +_mine_, selfish ego-words, the cornerstones of grasping humanity. Sure, +we'll raise hell with their esthetic sense, but in the end they'll thank +us." + +I sat, worrying about a secret fanatic somewhere in the plant who, in +the holy interests of Mars-for-the-Martians, Terminorb-for-the-Terms, +might soon plant an atomic warhead in our body shop. I finally said, +"What are we going to _do_?" + +"Do?" Starza chuckled. "Why, slacken line speeds, lower production +standards, fifty percent at least. By tomorrow we'll be down to forty +jobs an hour. They want loose standards, we'll give it to them." + +"But my _cost_?" + +"Obscenity your cost. Look, Jake, no matter how you set an operation up, +the Terms manage to work in some glittering little ritual. They _have_ +to create beauty. Their esthetic sense must be fed. They can't adjust to +quick change. Supposing you cut line speeds by ten per cent. They +adjust, but it almost kills them. Then drop thirty per cent. Their +ritual loses timing, becomes discordant. What happens?" + +I blinked. "They go mad." + +"And our little Guild saboteur will be guilty of a few Term deaths. +He'll have violated a basic Guild tenet. He'll go home with his tail +between his legs. Catch?" + +I caught. + +By midafternoon we had the conveyor speeds down thirty per cent. The red +line on my cost chart soared precariously. The entire production line +slowed to a crawl. We waited. + +At five o'clock it happened. Three Terms in the body shop went mad. It +started a chain reaction throughout the trim line. Six more Terms ran +amuck and had to be destroyed. Final assembly became a shambles. Starza +called me on the visicom, delighted. "Our Guild agent played right into +our hands, Jake. In forcing a production slump he's harming the workers. +His next move will probably be a bluff." + +I wasn't so sure. + +That evening the executive dining room was choked with a tight, gnawing +tension. Department heads spoke in hushed whispers, eyes darting. The +man across the table could be a mindless-controlled, a Guild pawn. Smile +at him politely and keep your mouth shut. I ordered _thar_, a Terminorb +arthapod that was usually more delicious than Venusian lobster, but +tonight it tasted like broiled leather. It was like eating in a morgue. + +I saw Carmody, at the next table. I nodded coolly to him and he hitched +his chair over and said, "By the way, Jake, I'm sorry about Harvey. He's +going back to Earth next week." + +"Why?" + +"His stability index was too low," Carmody said smoothly. "Sure, we +could have given him the works, but you didn't want a robot." + +I said deliberately, "I needed that boy, Don." + +Carmody got up, his smile infinitely contemptuous. "We don't all have +your stability index, Jake." + +I stared after him, and the thought suddenly struck me that not once had +_I_ considered quitting, ever. Somehow, the thought disturbed me. + +Abruptly the public address speaker boomed. + +"Attention," Starza's voice crackled. "To the Guild agent, wherever he +may be. Today you murdered thirty-seven Terms. Is this your altruism? Is +this your vaunted justice?" He went on, his voice like organ music, +sweeping away all doubt, making you proud and glad to be a part of +Amalgamated, part of Production, when quite suddenly his voice choked +off. Simultaneously another voice ripped through the hall. A cold ironic +whisper, lashing at the mind. + +"_Altruism, yes. But not as you conceive it. Today you passed your own +judgment. You have twenty-four hours to evacuate before this Plant is +destroyed. The verdict is final._" + +The dining hall echoed with moans. Hands leaned to agonized temples. The +thoughtcaster again, on a wide band frequency. Through the pain I was +conscious of Starza's voice. The Guild was trying to bluff us. We +wouldn't let them. I stumbled out of the hall, my teeth chattering, took +the lift down to the first level, and got outside, to walk free in the +park. + +Here was Eden. Giant conifers and ferns wove a cool green pattern of +delight, and the laughter of the crystal fountains soothed. Terms had +fashioned this garden, had created a poem in living green, a quiet fugue +of _oneness_, each leaf blending exquisitely with the next, the unity, +the perfect whole. For one weak moment I let the pattern seep +insidiously into me, and then, ashamed, focused my eyes on that jarring +splash of white in the center of the garden. The ten-foot model of the +Amalgamated X-3M, squat with power, lifting on her stern jets. A symbol +of Amalgamated's strength, the indomitable spirit of mankind, beauty +born of pure utility. Oddly, a half-remembered poem of the Ancients +flitted through my brain: + + _Dirty British Coaster with her salt-caked smokestack, + Butting through the Channel on the mad March days--_ + +That was man. + +On an infinity of planets he had met resistance, through force, through +guile--even through beauty. And he had conquered. I drew a slow deep +breath and sat on one of the benches, staring up at the gigantic +horseshoe of the factory, hearing the muted hum of the atomics. +Twenty-four hours. + +I tried to run through my axioms, and I was suddenly terrified. I +couldn't remember them! That damned thoughtcaster. Twice in one day. +Perhaps there was some gradual neural disintegration. My head hurt +terribly. Tomorrow I'd go to Psych for a checkup. I thought about that +marble villa in Venusport, and about my bank account. Not enough. +Another year, just one more year, and I could retire, at thirty-four. I +thought about the Venusian twilights, and the turquoise mists off the +Deeps, and wondered dully if I'd ever see Venus or the Earth again. + +I saw Fern, walking among the conifers, her face a pale mask of strain. +"You heard it, Jake?" + +I nodded. + +We sat in the aquamarine twilight, and Fern was shivering, and I put my +arm around her. + +"Looks like altruism is a relative thing," I said. "What _do_ they +want?" + +"Uncontaminated Terms," she said bitterly. "No science, no stars, no +wars and no progress. A big beautiful planet-mind, the Term mind, +forever static, forever dead." + +"It's a bluff," I said. "Our little fanatic's stalling for time, hoping +to stampede us while he finds another way." + +"For example?" + +"Why do you think we insist on basic English for all Terms? Supposing a +foreman should start jabbering Terminese during an operation. The Terms +would revert, we'd have a line shutdown. They can't adjust--say!" A +random thought was nibbling at my brain. "Where was Carmody this +morning? Just before I reeled in?" + +Her fine brows knitted. "Why, he went--oh, Jake, surely you don't +think--?" + +"Went where?" + +"Down the hall. Towards Personnel." + +"Towards the conference hall, you mean. He never even examined Harvey!" + +"It wasn't necessary," she said uncomfortably. "Don just wanted to +verify his stability index." + +"Sure! So he stood outside the conference hall and put a whammy on me--" + +Fern was smiling. I scowled. "It fits. It has to be him." + +"Or Tichnat," she said. "Or Starza. Or me." + +I stared at her. "You'd do." My voice shook. "You were gone three +months. They could have got to you." + +Her rich, warm laughter sifted through the twilight, and I wanted to hit +her. "They did," she gurgled, "but I've decided to relent, Jake. I'll +spare the plant on one condition--that you take me to the Term festival +tomorrow night." + +I grunted. "Carmody working overtime, I suppose?" + +"If the plant's still standing." + +I changed the subject. + +Two hours later Starza called a council of war. + + * * * * * + +The conference room was crammed with quivering executives. Starza +carefully let the tension build to a shrill crescendo before he said: + +"One of you gentlemen is a Guild mindless-controlled." + +Ragged silence. Starza's smile was very faint. + +"You gave us an ultimatum. But destroying this plant is an admission of +failure you're not willing to make--yet. You'll try another tack. You're +just beginning to discover that this environment we've created for the +Terms is superior to the primitive jungle. Tichnat!" + +Tichnat stepped forward. His antennae were a proud, brilliant gold. + +"Do you want a shutdown?" Starza asked softly. + +"Are we fools?" Tichnat clicked. "To lose what we've gained? To return +to our tribe? To be destroyed?" + +Starza's calm gaze caressed each face, probing. "You see? Stalemate. +Whoever you are, _you're bluffing_. Tomorrow our conveyor speeds return +to normal. You'll do nothing. You may try to agitate the Terms, but +they're satisfied--" + +One of the superintendents cleared his throat. "Look," he said +unsteadily, "sometimes you can't afford to call a bluff." + +Starza said pleasantly, "Any resignations will be accepted right now. +You can wait safely in the Term village until next week's freighter +arrives. No repercussions, I promise." + +The lie was blatant. Carmody stood by the door, his smile strained. It +was all too obvious what would happen to any resignees. + +"None?" Starza's brows rose. "I'm proud of you. That's it, gentlemen." + +The next day was a frenetic nightmare. My cost dropped, but it didn't +matter. That was one day when the best company man became a +clock-watcher. Line foremen, department heads, cracked under the strain, +and were summarily removed to Psych. Carmody and staff worked overtime. + +[Illustration] + +I toiled feverishly over operation schedules, the crazily fluctuating +cost charts. My headache was gone, but I still couldn't remember my +axioms! I felt guilty over not going to Psych, but there just wasn't the +time. + +Hell, _I'd_ never needed indoctrination. I was an Amalgamated man +through and through. Finally I grabbed an engineering manual, leafed +angrily through it--and sat there, empty and shaking. + +I'd gone insane. + +The words were gibberish. Oh, I could read them all right, but they +didn't make _sense_. What a filthy trick. Semantic block, Starza would +call it. I kept staring at the meaningless words, conscious of a tearing +sense of loss. And I wanted to cry. + +Six o'clock was zero hour. + +Six o'clock came, and the factory held its collective breath while +nothing happened. + +At six-thirty Starza made a long speech over the public address. About +the selfless spirit of man, helping the Terms reach the stars, about how +we would never admit defeat, and about how, after tonight, the Term +festival would be discontinued. The Terms had adopted mankind's culture, +they had no further need of their effete native customs. + +At seven, Fern and I were walking past Administration towards the +lighted square-mile enclosure of the Term village. Fern had never seen a +festival. + +"A throwback," I said, "to their old tribal days. Their harvest, when +they pay tribute to the Queen-Mother and pray for good crops and work +well done. It's their yearly substitute for _Stammverstand_. Back in the +native villages, whenever a Term's in trouble, he goes to the council +hut and the others join him in a silent, group telepathy. But we've just +about weaned them, angel! They'll be individuals soon." + +We walked down the deserted row of Term huts, past the council hall, to +the great stone amphitheatre, and sat with the other execs. Fern was +very gay and cheerful, but I kept thinking about my axioms, trying to +bring them back to life. I felt dead, all dead inside. + +Starza came up, frowning, and I congratulated him. + +"It's too pat, Jake, it worries me. Where's Carmody?" + +"Setting up those semantic reaction tests you gave him," Fern said. + +"But I never gave him--" + +Abruptly the lights snuffed out. At one end of the arena loomed a +twelve-foot statue of a bloated Term, limned in a soft pale glow. The +Queen-Mother. + +The hush. Then the radiance. + +Slowly the Terms filed into the arena, rank upon rank of living flame. +First the fighters, their antennae shining crimson and splendid against +the tall night. Then the twins glows of blue that denoted the spinners, +the weavers. The golden blaze of the harvesters. The lambent colors +crept through the air like a mood, like a dream, and deepened into a +shimmering cataract of rainbow fire, a paean of light and glory that +whirled and spun in a joyous rhythm as old as the race itself. + +Then--chaos. + +A blinding flare cascaded from the six-foot antennae of the statue. The +radiance grew, brighter than an atomic flare, more terrible than the +sun. The Terms stood frozen. Beside me, Starza swore. + +This wasn't in the script. + +That colossal voice. + +Ear-snapping clicks, and liquid vowels. Terminese. The forbidden tongue. +The voice blared. I caught most of it. + +"_Children, you have sinned. You are defiled with the taint of alien +monsters. You have failed the Queen-Mother. Return, my children, return +to your tribes. Return to the tabernacle of unity, the one-in-all, the +Queen-Mother! For in death there is life, and there is joy in +immolation. Return!_" + +Lastly, the climax. That last shattering hunk of propaganda that would +have been so tritely amusing if it hadn't been so terrifying. + +"_You have nothing to lose but your chains._" + +The giant antennae faded to a liquid silver. The silver of hope, of +forgiveness. + +For a moment I was blind. I felt Fern trembling against me. The execs +were chattering like frightened sheep. Then I could see. I saw Starza. +He was moving down the aisle, cursing in a tight, dull monotone. + +I followed him down into the arena. The Terms stood shriveled, mute. +Starza was fumbling at the base of the statue, and he said in a thick +horrible voice, "Look." The loudspeaker. The coiled wiring. + +The Terms stirred. + +Starza leaped to the lap of the statue. He bawled, "Listen! This is +sacrilege! You have been victims of a hoax--" + +Not listening, they filed in silent groups out of the arena. Their +antennae were the color of ashes. Starza jumped down. He pounded after +them. He was shouting at Los Tichnat. + +"I know," Tichnat droned. He kept walking. "You are right. It does not +matter that you are right. The Queen-Mother called." + +"Listen," Starza mouthed. "It was a fraud, a trick. You can't--" + +"We must." Tichnat paused. For a long moment the great faceted eyes +stared somberly. "It was a splendid dream, the thing you offered us. But +this is the final reality. And yours is but a dream." + +He tramped stolidly on, after the others. The council hall door closed. + +Starza clawed at the door. It opened. He was too late. They sat silently +around the great table, the faceted eyes dead, the antennae coruscating +indigo, now green, now rose. Communion. The meshing of minds. Starza +shouted at them. Stillness. + +Starza looked blindly at me. He was shaking. "Carmody," he said. +"Carmody knows the Term mind. He can do something. Come on," he said. + + * * * * * + +We found Carmody in his quarters, methodically packing. His eyebrows +rose as we burst in. "Did you gentlemen ever try knocking?" + +Starza just looked at him. Carmody drew a long breath. "You'll find my +resignation on your desk, Dave." + +"Ah?" Starza's voice was very soft. + +"It's only a question of time," Carmody said. "Call it the rat deserting +the ship if you like, but I'm through." + +Starza was smiling, a fat man's smile. "So you really think you can pull +it off," he whispered. + +Carmody shrugged, and Starza calmly took out a sonic pistol and shot him +in the belly. + +A sonic blast hemorrhages. It rends the capillaries, ploughs the flesh +into a flaccid collection of shattered nerve fibers and ruined arteries. +It's a rotten way to die. + +Starza watched Carmody thrash himself to death on the floor. I turned +away. + +"For the record, Jake, he made a full confession. We both heard him." + +"Just for the record," I said. + +"It had to be him," Starza said. "That thoughtcaster blast yesterday +morning made reference to your study on the Term. Only Harvey and +Carmody knew about that. It couldn't have been Harvey. He cut his throat +this morning. + +"I've decided," Starza said. "This is a Type L planet, after all. The +natives are chronically unstable. Hostile, in fact. Pursuant to Solar +Regulation 3, we have the right to enforce martial law. It should be six +months before an investigation. Meanwhile--" + +"We'll get production," I said. + +"We'll get production." He wiped his forehead, relaxed. "I'll send in a +full report tonight. Better turn in, Jake," he said kindly. "I'll need +you in the morning." + +I turned in. + +You lie awake, staring into the blackness. It gnaws. + +My head throbbed. I should have felt a triumphant relief, but I could +not remember my axioms, and I felt a sick dull hate for the thing the +Guild spy Carmody had done to me. What happens when you strip a man of +everything he believes in? + +He remembers other things. + +Those memories came trooping back like ghosts and I fought them, +sweating, but they came. Once upon a time, there was a starry-eyed young +engineer who started out to set the galaxy on fire. But he got +squeamish, somewhere along the way. So Carmody operated on him. Carmody +did things to his brain, made a good production man out of him. + +I remembered now. + +That time I had argued with Starza about standards, nine years ago. And +I had resigned. And Starza sent me to Psych. + +Good old Carmody. + +There never would be a white marble villa on Venus. It was a harmless +dream, a substitute for what I had lost. But it didn't matter! Those +superimposed patterns had been removed, that thoughtcaster had crippled +my thinking, but, by Heaven, I was still an Amalgamated man! They +couldn't take that away. + +But Starza had been wrong about Carmody. + +Nothing definite. But when you dedicate your life into extrapolating +curves, frozen chunks of time and motion, into the thunder of jets +lifting Amalgamated ships from Terminorb, your mind becomes a very +efficient analogue computor, if you know how to use. I used it now. I +fed little things, facts, variables, into that computor, and it told me +three times. Probability: sixty percent at least. + +I got up, dressed stiffly. I was trembling. I could still serve, after +all. + +I took the lift up to Administration, and walked down that long gray +corridor on leaden feet towards the illuminated rectangle of Starza's +office. + +I opened the door. + +"Hello, darling," Fern said. + + * * * * * + +She was unhurriedly burning Starza's report. Starza sat mutely in his +chair, head tilted back at an impossible angle, staring at nothing. + +"It had to be you." I had never felt so tired. "You would have destroyed +the plant, wouldn't you? Only I showed you another way. Make the Terms +revert. And you had that hypo all ready when I reeled into Psych." I +moved towards her carefully. "You're so damned altruistic. A Guild +mindless-controlled," I said. + +Fern's smile was compassionate. She methodically ground the ashes to +powder, lifted that calm green gaze. + +"Stupid words to frighten children, Jake. Yes, they kidnapped me. I +never reached Earth, three months ago. I was indoctrinated--oh, they +didn't have far to go. _Each race to its own fulfillment._" Her eyes +were shining. "Look out the window." + +Numbly, I moved past her. I stared. In the distant blackness, a column +of living flame flickered up the slope of Cobalt Mountain. Ice-green, +ruby, silver and blue. The Terms were leaving. + +"They're not ready for individuality yet," Fern breathed. "In a million +years perhaps. Not now. They're going home." + +"To die." + +"The race will live. Individuality isn't the penultimate, darling. +You'll find out." I moved towards her. "You've got a very tough mind, +Jake. You'll make a wonderful Guild agent--" + +I got both hands on her throat. + +Fern moved. Her right arm was a snake striking, and a steel strength +lifted me, turning, against one and a half gravities, and the floor +wavered up to hit me in the face. Something broke. I tasted blood. + +Through the agony, I moved. I crawled towards her. + +"They gave me six weeks of hand combat under two gravs," she said. "Soon +you'll be one of us, Jake. One of the Guild!" + +I stared up at her in a dull horror. I kept crawling. + +"We'll heal you," Fern said. "We'll give you back the dream. We may even +work together! Maybe I'll fall in love with you again, who knows?" Her +eyes were brimming. She took out a sonic pistol. "It's all right, +darling. I'll adjust it for knockout. In three hours we'll be on a Guild +flier. Please, darling," she said, and I kept crawling. And Fern's smile +was a benediction as she pulled the trigger. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Exploiter's End, by James Causey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPLOITER'S END *** + +***** This file should be named 40970.txt or 40970.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/7/40970/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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