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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40970 ***
+
+                         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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40970 ***