arts.”
“On the face of it,” Mayer nodded, “hardly approaching what we have accomplished on Genoa.”
Plekhanov rumbled indignantly. “We started two ethnic periods behind you. Even the Tulans, our most advanced people, were still using bronze, but your 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 passed by a subjected one.”
Barry Watson came to his feet and made his way over to the bar. He picked up a bottle of whiskey that Kennedy had opened earlier, and poured himself another slug. He looked back over his shoulder at Amschel Mayer. “It’s interesting the way you throw about that term
Mayer snapped. “Our team does not interfere in governmental forms, Watson. The various nations are free to adapt to whatever local conditions decree. They range from some under feudalistic domination to countries with varying degrees of republican democracy. Our base of operations in the eastern hemisphere is probably the most advanced of all the chartered cities on Genoa. 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 assume.”
“You might use that analogy. 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.”
“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.”
“Don’t be a yoke,” Mayer snapped. “We are granting the Genoese political freedoms as fast as they can assimilate them.”
Joe Chessman growled, “But I imagine it’s surprising to find how slowly they can assimilate. A moment ago you said they were free to form any government they wished. Now you say you feed them what you call freedom, only so fast as they can assimilate it.”
“Obviously, we encourage them along whatever path we think will most quickly develop their economy,” Mayer argued. “That’s what we’ve been sent here to do. We stimulate competition, encourage all progress, political as well as economic.”
Plekhanov lumbered to his feet and joined Kennedy at the bar. He growled at the other team head. “Amschel, obviously we are getting nowhere with this conference. I propose we adjourn to meet again at the end of the second decade.”
Kennedy poured the other another shot of vodka, and filled his own glass again.
Amschel Mayer said, “I suppose it would be futile to suggest you give up this impossible totalitarian scheme of yours and reunite the expedition.”
Plekhanov merely grunted his disgust.
Barry Watson said, “You might remember that it was your idea in the first place. It’s too late to change now.”
Jerry Kennedy said, “One thing.” He frowned and swirled his cognac in the big glass. “What stand have you taken on giving your planet immortality?”
No one noticed the two Tulan men at arms shoot startled looks at each other.
“Immortality?” Chessman grunted. “We haven’t got it to give.”
“You know what I mean. It wouldn’t take long to extend the life span double or triple the present,” Jerry Kennedy said.
Amschel Mayer pursed his thin lips. “At this stage progress is faster with the generations closer together. A man is pressed when he knows he has only twenty or thirty years of peak efficiency. We on Earth are inclined to settle back and take life as it comes. For instance, you younger men are all past the century mark, but none have bothered to get married as yet.”
Barry Watson shot a look at Natalie, who flushed slightly. “Plenty of time for that,” he grinned.
“That’s what I mean,” Mayer said. “But a Texcocan or Genoese feels pressed to wed in his twenties, or earlier, to get his family under way.”
“There’s another element,” Plekhanov muttered. He tossed his straight drink back, stiff wristed. “The more the natives progress, the more nearly they will equal our abilities. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to our overall plans. As it is now, their abilities taper off at sixty and they reach senility at seventy or eighty. I think until the end we should keep it this way.”
“A cold blooded view,” Kennedy said. “If we extend their life expectancy, their best men would live to be of additional use to planet development.”
“But they would not have our dreams,” Plekhanov rumbled. “Such men might try to subvert us, and, just possibly, might succeed.”
“I think Leonid is right,” Mayer admitted with reluctance.
It was obvious that the discussion was going to continue for at least a time. Barry Watson got Natalie Wieliczka’s eye and made a motion toward the ship’s library with his head. She looked about the others, then nodded very slightly. Barry drifted, unnoticed, from the lounge and waited for her behind some of the tape racks. She wasn’t long in coming.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s been a long time, Polack,” he told her softly. “Ten years.”
Natalie looked up into his face. “Yes.”
He let his arms go down and around her. “I’ve come up here, oh a dozen times on research. Thought maybe I’d run into you.”
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time here in the library,” she said lowly. “We just didn’t coincide.”
He kissed her. For a moment, a briefest of moments, her lips were tense. Then they relaxed.
She said, “Oh, Barry. So long a time. So long.”
He held her away from him for a moment and looked into her face. “You haven’t changed your mind?”
She shook her head, mute.
He said, “Like you say, ten years is forever. You sure you haven’t found yourself a…a Genoese, to…to pass the hours?”
She shook her head.
There was a teasing element in his voice now. “Or Jerry Kennedy, or Mike Dean, one of our own group?”
She shook her head still once again and took a deep breath. “No. Nobody, Barry.”
He kissed her and let his right hand drift lower down her back. He pressed her closer. She stiffened slightly but didn’t resist.
Barry Watson looked at her questioningly. “You’re tired, Natalie.”
She gave a little snort of deprecation. “Isn’t Isobel Sanchez? What does an M.D. do when she is the sole competent doctor on a whole planet? One doctor, one billion patients.”
He laughed lowly. “What
She said, “Why, I’ve established three medical universities, one on each continent. I’m trying to teach teachers. I get one going and move on to the third. Then back to the first.” She paused and took a deep breath as though in frustration.
“And?”
“And by the time I’ve made the complete circuit, they’ve got back to powdering frogs for medicine, murmuring incantations and spells, and bleeding their patients. I have to start all over.” She shook her head. “Perhaps I’m using the wrong method. I wish Isobel Sanchez had come up. I’d like to confer with her. What is she doing? What
He grinned at her. “You can let nine hundred million, nine hundred thousand of them go to pot and work on what’s left.”
She frowned at him.
He said, a shade of impatience at the trend of talk in his voice, “Isobel isn’t bothering with anybody except
