Adaptation Part 7

Mayer glared but suddenly reversed himself. "Let's settle down and become more sensible. This is the first conference of the five we have scheduled. Ten years have elapsed. Actually, of course, we've had some idea of each other's progress since team members occasionally meet on trips back here to the _Pedagogue_ to consult the library. I am afraid, my dear Leonid, that your theories on industrialization are rapidly being proven inaccurate."

"Nonsense!"

Mayer said smoothly, "In the decade past, my team's efforts have more than tripled the Genoese industrial potential. Last week one of our steams.h.i.+ps crossed the second ocean. We've located petroleum and the first wells are going down. We've introduced a dozen crops that had disappeared through misadventure to the original colonists. And, oh yes, our first railroad is scheduled to begin running between Bari and Ronda next spring. There are six new universities and in the next decade I expect fifty more."

"Very good, indeed," Plekhanov grumbled.

"Only a beginning. The breath of compet.i.tion, of unharnessed enterprise is sweeping Genoa. Feudalism crumbles. Customs, mores and traditions that have held up progress for a century or more are now on their way out."

Joe Chessman growled, "Some of the boys tell me you've had a few difficulties with this crumbling feudalism thing. In fact, didn't Buchwald barely escape with his life when the barons on your western continent united to suppress all chartered cities?"

Mayer's thin face darkened. "Never fear, my dear Joseph, those barons responsible for shedding the blood of western hemisphere elements of progress will shortly pay for their crimes."

"You've got military problems too, then?" Barry Watson asked.

Mayer's eyes went to him in irritation. "Some of the free cities of Genoa are planning measures to regain their property and rights on the western hemisphere. This has nothing to do with my team, except, of course, in so far as they might sell them supplies or equipment."

The lanky Watson laughed lowly, "You mean like selling them a few quick-firing breech-loaders and trench mortars?"

Plekhanov muttered, "That'll be enough, Barry."

But Mayer's eyes had widened. "How did you know?" He whirled on Plekhanov. "You're spying on my efforts, trying to negate my work!"

Plekhanov rumbled, "Don't be a fool, Mayer. My team has neither the time nor interest to spy on you."

"Then how did you know--"

Barry Watson said mildly, "I was doing some investigation in the s.h.i.+p's library. I ran into evidence that you people had already used the blueprints for breech-loaders and mortars."

Jerry Kennedy came to his feet and rambled over to the messroom's bar.

"This seems to be all out spat, rather than a conference to compare progress," he said. "Anybody for a drink? Frankly, that's the next thing I'm going to introduce to Genoa, some halfway decent likker. Do you know what those benighted heathens drink now?"

Watson grinned. "Make mine whisky, Jerry. You've no complaints. Our benighted heathens have a national beverage fermented from a plant similar to cactus. Ought to be drummed out of the human race."

He spoke idly, forgetful of the Tulan guards stationed at the doorway.

Kennedy pa.s.sed drinks around for everyone save Mayer, who shook his head in distaste. If only for a brief spell, some of the tenseness left the air while the men from Earth sipped their beverages.

Jerry Kennedy said, "Well, you've heard our report. How go things on Texcoco?"

"According to plan," Plekhanov rumbled.

Mayer snorted.

Plekhanov said ungraciously, "Our prime effort is now the uniting of the total population into one strong whole, a super-state capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng the goals set us by the Co-ordinator."

Mayer sneered, "Undoubtedly, this goal of yours, this super-state, is being established by force."

"Not always," Joe Chessman said. "Quite a few of the tribes join up on their own. Why not? The State has a lot to offer."

"Such as what?" Kennedy said mildly.

Chessman looked at him in irritation. "Such as advanced medicine, security from famine, military protection from more powerful nations.

The opportunity for youth to get an education and find advancement in the State's government--if they've got it on the ball."

"And what happens if they don't _have it on the ball_?"

Chessman growled, "What happens to such under any society? They get the dirty-end-of-the-stick jobs." His eyes went from Kennedy to Mayer. "Are you suggesting you offer anything better?"

Mayer said, "Already on most of Genoa it is a matter of free compet.i.tion. The person with ability is able to profit from it."

Joe Chessman grunted sour amus.e.m.e.nt. "Of course, it doesn't help to be the son of a wealthy merchant or a big politician."

Plekhanov took over. "In _any_ society the natural leaders come to the top in much the same manner as the big ones come to the top in a bin of potatoes, they just work their way up."

Jerry Kennedy finished his drink and said easily, "At least, those at the top can claim they're the biggest potatoes. Remember back in the twentieth century when Hitler and his gang announced they were the big potatoes in Germany and men of Einstein's stature fled the country--being small potatoes, I suppose."

Amschel Mayer said, "We're getting away from the point. Pray go on, my dear Leonid. You say you are forcibly uniting all Texcoco."

"We are uniting all Texcoco," Plekhanov corrected with a scowl. "Not always by force. And that is by no means our only effort. We are ferreting out the most intelligent of the a.s.similated peoples and educating them as rapidly as possible. We've introduced iron ..."

"And use it chiefly for weapons," Kennedy murmured.

"... Antibiotics and other medicines, a field agriculture, are rapidly building roads ..."

"Military roads," Kennedy mused.

"... To all sections of the State, have made a beginning in naval science, and, of course, haven't ignored the arts."

"On the face of it," Mayer nodded, "hardly approaching Genoa."

Plekhanov rumbled indignantly, "We started two ethnic periods behind you. Even the Tulans were still using bronze, but the Genoese had iron and even gunpowder. Our advance is a bit slow to get moving, Mayer, but when it begins to roll--"

Mayer gave his characteristic snort. "A free people need never worry about being pa.s.sed by a subjected one."

Barry Watson made himself another drink and while doing so looked over his shoulder at Amschel Mayer. "It's interesting the way you throw about that term _free_. Just what type of government do you sponsor?"

Mayer snapped, "Our team does not interfere in governmental forms, Watson. The various nations are free to adapt to whatever local conditions obtain. They range from some under feudalistic domination to countries with varying degrees of republican democracy. Our base of operations in the southern hemisphere is probably the most advanced of all the chartered cities, Barry. It amounts to a city-state somewhat similar to Florence during the Renaissance."

"And your team finds itself in the position of the Medici, I imagine."

"You might use that a.n.a.logy. The Medici might have been, well, tyrants of Florence, dominating her finances and trade as well as her political government, but they were benevolent tyrants."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Yeah," Watson grinned. "The thing about a benevolent tyranny, though, is that it's up to the tyrants to decide what's benevolent. I'm not so sure there's a great basic difference between your governing of Genoa and ours of Texcoco."