Inferno: A Chronicle of a Distant World (The Galactic Comedy) Page 7

  "Mr. President," said Cartright, when the men had been ushered into a large meeting room in the presidential palace, "this is not what we had in mind when we warned you about tribalism."

  "Have there been any outbreaks of tribalism lately?" asked Barioke calmly.

  "Yes," said Jeffrey Samuels, a former naval commander who had retired to a huge farm about thirty miles south of Romulus.

  "Oh?" said Barioke. "And who is the guilty party?"

  "The government, sir," said Samuels.

  "Mr. Samuels, if you were a jason, I could have you executed for making such a statement," said Barioke without raising his voice. "As you are a Man, I shall overlook it." He paused and stared at Samuels. "This one time."

  "And since you are not a Man, I shall overlook your threat this one time," shot back Samuels.

  "Gentlemen, this meeting is over," said Barioke. "You are guests on Faligor, and if you will not behave as guests, I will not listen to you."

  "Please, Mr. President," said Cartright hastily. "I am sure Mr. Samuels meant no offense. It is essential that this meeting take place. We have only Faligor's best interests at heart."

  "Did you mean to offend, Mr. Samuels?" asked Barioke.

  Samuel glared at Cartright for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I did not, Mr. President."

  "And if you knew you had caused offense, you would certainly apologize, would you not?" continued Barioke.

  "I apologize," said Samuels softly.

  "Very well, then," said the president. "Now, Mr. Cartright, what have you come to discuss?"

  "Mr. President, this world has been without a constitution or an election for too long. The rights of the citizenry are being eroded almost daily. We cannot force you to change, but we strongly urge that you consider the consequences of your actions."

  "The consequences are quite clear," replied Barioke. "Where there was tribalism, now there is none. Where there was unrest, now the cities are quiet. Where there was inequity, now there is equality."

  "Do you really believe that?" demanded Samuels.

  "You have made us a society of laws," responded Barioke. "If you can show me a place where they are being broken, I will order the army there immediately to set matters right."

  Samuel got to his feet. "He has no intention of listening to us, Arthur, and I, for one, am not going to waste my breath talking to him. We're going to have to get the Republic involved in this."

  He walked out the door, and Cartright was left to apologize for his behavior and steer the conversation back on track. Barioke listened patiently for almost two hours, made an occasional comment, thanked the Men for their concern, and finally dismissed them.

  That evening Jeffrey Samuels was found dead behind a human restaurant in Romulus. The police ruled it an attack by an unknown assailant, and released evidence to indicate that the murderer was a mole. The next morning a mole shopkeeper was arrested, charged with the murder, and executed before noon without a trial, while Samuels' family received a note of condolence personally signed by the president.

  Cartright decided that Barioke had to be stopped, and contacted those officials within the Republic with whom he had remained in touch. Most expressed regret that they were unable to help him, since Faligor was neither a protectorate nor a member world; a few were genuinely amused that his carefully-constructed Utopia was falling apart and he had to beg them for help. But whether amused or regretful, the result was the same: Faligor would have to solve its problems on its own.

  Within weeks a jason journalist released a story that Barioke had funneled millions of credits into a private account on the nearby world of Talisman. He was arrested that afternoon, but not before evidence of his story was mailed to hundreds of Men and government officials.

  Barioke went on video two nights later to deny the charges, declared that any stories impugning the integrity of the office of the president or its present occupant was an act of treason, and declared the matter closed. Nevertheless, a trio of Enkoti lawyers went to Talisman the next morning to institute proceedings to freeze Barioke's bank account until it could be determined whether the money had been misappropriated. As soon as word of their efforts reached him, Barioke flew to Talisman to defend his ownership of the funds.

  And that evening, a large, round, familiar, fur-covered face appeared on every video channel.

  "Good evening, citizens," it said in the Maringo dialect. "I have an announcement to make that is of major importance to every inhabitant of Faligor, no matter what his tribe or race." Gama Labu paused and smiled into the cameras. "As of sunset this evening, the army has taken temporary control of the government, and I will be the acting president until the constitution has been restored and we can once again hold free elections. William Barioke broke his covenant with the people of Faligor, and will face criminal charges if he returns to the planet."

  Labu waited for the import of his statements to sink in, then continued: "The long dark era of tyranny and repression has ended. Never again will one tribe be favored over another. Never again will you have cause to fear your government. As a first step toward planetary unity, I have ordered that the body of the late prime minister, Robert August Tantram II, be exhumed and reunited with his ancestors in the Enkoti city of Romulus."

  There were cheers from behind the camera, and Cartright, watching from his home, realized for the first time that Labu was addressing a live audience as well as an electronic one.

  "I am only a soldier," he concluded. "My pleasures are few and simple. Most of you who know me"—he grinned self-consciously—"will attest to that. I have neither the training nor the desire to rule Faligor. I repeat: the military will step aside as soon as the new constitution goes into effect and we can hold elections. The darkness is about to end; tomorrow Faligor will shine in the sunlight once more."

  Well, who ever would have thought that a fat clown would be Faligor's savior? mused Cartright. Yet maybe, just maybe, it could once again become the Diamond of the Outer Frontier.

  8.

  Dear Susan:

  I'm sorry it has been so long since I've written to you, but things have been rather hectic here. It's springtime and the flowers are blooming, everything has become green again after the long rains, and as I write this birds are singing just outside my window, but nevertheless I am afraid you would no longer recognize our beloved Faligor.

  I know you must be following the events here with much interest, but since the press is under as much control as all other aspects of life on this planet, I thought I would write you while the mail service is still functional. I apologize for not answering your last two subspace messages, but since I cannot be sure who might be monitoring my replies I thought it best to go back to the old tried-and-true method of putting pen to paper.

  It appears that you were right and I was wrong about President Labu. But of course, you must know that by now. If the press is reporting one-tenth of what he's done here, you must wonder why any of us have stayed on.

  I'll grant him this: he fooled us all at first. The old bread and circuses routine. He was a big, bumbling friendly clown who seemed to go out of his way to be the butt of every joke, and to always shrug the laughter off good-naturedly. He did indeed disinter poor old Bobby and bury him with his ancestors. It was only some months later that I found out that what I just wrote was the literal truth: all 302 Enkoti sitates are now buried beneath the ground.

  Still, Labu sponsored enormous public festivals during his first three months in office. He not only befriended any officials from the Republic that he could entice to his mansion, but also the Canphorites, the Lodinites, and every other alien race that he thought might be willing to give him money and arms to maintain his independence from the Republic.

  Even when it became apparent that he was not the buffoon he seemed, his methods were so transparent that no one thought him a serious threat. You remember that holograph that appeared all over the Republic? Let me tell you how it came to pass.

 
Labu had some of his officials circulate rumors that the Republic was trying to manipulate his administration, and that we were urging him to erect trade barriers against all non-Republic worlds. This, of course, was totally false, but it's just the kind of thing the Canphorites would believe, and they complained bitterly about it. Labu invited them to take the matter up with his few remaining human advisors, who assured the Canphorites that these were malicious lies, and that no one was attempting to influence how Labu ran his government. The Canphorites, of course, demanded proof, and Labu suggested that a public display of his unquestioned authority would solve the problem.

  He's a sly devil, and he hit upon a demonstration that would publicly humiliate us, which is why you saw the holo of six elderly humans, all in formal dress, carrying Labu in a sedan chair up to the podium from which he made his speech asserting that no one but Gama Labu ruled Faligor. Had they known just how long he would carry on about it, I doubt that any of the six men in question would have participated, but they thought they were pouring water on a fire. (Labu has this remarkable and hitherto unguessed-at capacity of turning water into oil.)

  Then there was the Massacre. Again, it began simply enough. A number of Labu's thugs robbed some of the moles' shops in Romulus, and then hit Remus the next week. The moles and the Enkoti protested, and Labu used those protests as a pretext for declaring martial law in the twin cities, tripling the military presence there, and issuing an order that effectively suspended all civil rights: anyone suspected of being a thief was to be shot on sight, or incarcerated without a trial.

  At first the Enkoti were willing to put up with this, since the streets were literally not safe to walk in—but then Labu's soldiers started shooting any Enkoti caught walking after dark. Also, hundreds of moles were imprisoned, and their shops were taken over by Labu's thugs.

  And then came the night when something like 700 Enkoti held a torchlight parade to the spot where the sitates had been buried, to pay homage to them, and Labu's thugs killed every last one of them.

  I realize I keep using the word "thug", which is a generic term, but these are generic enforcers. Labu has gathered the discontented, the lawless, and the power-hungry about him without regard to tribe (except that none of them are Enkoti), has drafted them into the army, and has systematically used them to loot Enkoti farms and businesses.

  Then there is the matter of Colonel George Witherspoon. If you haven't heard of him yet, you soon will.

  Witherspoon is a gifted soldier, yet he was demoted three times during his career in the Republic's army: once for cruelty to soldiers serving under him, once for refusing to obey a direct order, and once for lying under oath during a friend's court martial. About eight years ago he was cashiered out of the service; it had something to do with a rape and murder that never came to trial. Since then he has wandered the Rim, the Spiral Arm, and the Inner Frontier as a mercenary, usually in the service of alien armies.

  Somehow he came to Labu's attention, the two hit it off, and though he holds no official military title and is merely listed as one of Labu's many advisors, he has quickly become the second most powerful being on the planet. He is the one who determines what arms the military will buy, how best to deploy the army to prevent insurrection, which planetary governments to placate and which to ignore. It's rumored that he's also building a space fleet, and that he has acquired some 30 ships already.

  And how, I hear you ask, can an undeveloped agricultural world pay for such things?

  Well, first of all, Labu has kept control of the mines—and woe betide the jason who isn't willing to work in them when ordered to. That provides Gama Labu with the bulk of his hard currency.

  Also, he has been charging missionaries of all races and religions exorbitant fees to set up shop here, which most of them have been willing to pay.

  But his greatest source of funding comes from his own Treasury. An economics student who has since emigrated to Spica II told me that when the Treasury Secretary informed Labu that there wasn't enough money to pay for all the military hardware he wanted, Labu fired him and hired the first jason who agreed to keep the mint churning out money around the clock. So now Labu has his toys, but the average price for a canister of beer has risen from just two credits to 3400 credits in less than three months, and the price of meat went up even more. So along with everything else, we seem to be facing hyper-inflation.

  All that you probably know. It is a matter of record.

  What follows is not recorded anywhere, and probably never will be. I cannot confirm most of it first-hand, but there are too many stories, too many missing people, for it to be totally false.

  I said that Labu "fired" his Treasury Secretary, and that is the official story. Yet three different jasons I know have told me that Labu personally decapitated him after subjecting him to three days of torture. I asked them how they knew. Two simply stopped talking about it and changed the subject; the third tells me that he saw the decapitated head in the refrigerator of Labu's mansion.

  Then there is the Government Science Bureau. I don't know what its original purpose was, since it was a gift of Bobby's to Romulus after we'd set him up as president. I assume it carried on various experiments dealing with agriculture and mining, but for all I know it was intended for medical research on laboratory animals.

  I don't know what its current purpose is, but I can make a guess, because I was in Romulus one night last week on business, and I heard the most hideous screams coming from the upper levels. I immediately went by to see what was causing the commotion, but the military was stationed at all the doors and wouldn't let me in.

  I have been told, though I haven't seen it with my own eyes, that a huge truck pulls up to the rear of the building each day. No one sees what it carts away, but the stench is said to be awful.

  There is still no constitution, of course, and while Labu publicly encourages debate, those who take him up on it tend to vanish and are never seen again.

  I don't know how it all happened, Susan. We studied the mistakes of our colonial ventures and tried to correct them. We kept the military out. We did nothing that could possibly offend the jasons. We not only gave them health care and modern agriculture methods, we set up mines that have virtually supported the entire planet. If we favored the Enkoti, we made it clear that it was only temporary, until the rest of the world caught up with them. We helped them draft a constitution that would serve as a model for any world in the galaxy.

  And yet, since they achieved independence and self rule, Faligor has had only two presidents, one a tyrant and the other a madman. The people voted in the first, and welcomed the second as if he were a hero come to liberate them.

  And suddenly, in one short decade, Faligor has ceased to be a noble experiment, and has become instead a police state run by a ruler who can neither read nor write.

  How did it come to this? Am I to blame? And if so, what did I do wrong?

  And, more to the point, how can I make it right again?

  So far Labu has been very circumspect in his treatment of humans, but none of us think that it will last, even with the unspoken threat of reprisal by the Republic. Witherspoon has convinced him that the Republic will never interfere with events on Faligor, and I have a sinking feeling that he is right. We lobbied so long and so hard for them to leave the development of Faligor in our hands, I think they will stay away, even if Men start feeling the brunt of Labu's madness, simply to prove a point to future social architects: if you don't want the military at the start, don't expect it to come in and rescue you after you've made a mess of things.

  Still we remain, living our lives day by day, hoping that the madman will come to his senses and fearful that he will not. Each day brings some new abuse, some new barbarism, some hideous rumor made all the more hideous by the fact that we cannot disprove it, and yet we remain here. I don't think anyone believes it will be Johnny Ramsey's "Diamond of the Outer Frontier" anytime soon, but somehow or other we've got to put Faligor on the
right track once again.

  I think what keeps us here, those of us who haven't left, is our love of the jasons. They are such decent people, with such potential. They have no idea how to combat something like Gama Labu, and so we must do it for them, or at least show them the way. I still have difficulty believing that a Labu, or even a Barioke, could come from the same race that gave us a Disanko or even an ineffective but lovable ruler like Bobby.

  I know I'm rambling, Susan, but it's not safe to say these things aloud. You never know who might be listening, and who might report you to Labu's thugs for money, for position, or—more likely—for the release of a loved one from the hundreds of prisons that have sprung up like weeds across the countryside.

  I don't wish to unduly disturb you, but this may be the last letter I am able to write. Oh, not that anything will happen to me personally . . . but there is daily talk that off-planet mail service may be shut down, at least until Labu can set up a screening board to censor our letters. That's likely to take him a lifetime and then some, so few of his followers can read. The problem is that those who can read, and think for themselves, are not inclined to share their thoughts, at least not publicly—nor can I bring myself to blame them, since here I am, locked in my room with the windows covered, writing to someone who cannot possibly do anything about the situation.

  I think about you often, and I miss you, as do we all. But this must not be construed as a plea for help, or for you to return. It's our problem, and we'll solve it. As for you, you're much better off where you are, and I hope by now you've found an insect bald and rotund enough to be named after me.

  Love,

  Arthur

  9.

  The morning after he wrote his letter to Susan Beddoes, a squadron of armed, uniformed jasons came to Arthur Cartright's house and placed him under arrest. Within an hour he had been taken to the jail in Remus, holographed, fingerprinted, retinagrammed, and placed in a cell. His demands to know why he was being incarcerated went unheeded.