was colonized by Christian Scientists. If some planet seems about to interfere with the affairs of some other, then we take the most aggressive step in our power. We send the fleet, in all its might, to go into protective orbit about the threatened world. Never has actual combat ensued, the warning is sufficient. The UP fleet, needless to say, could blow the strongest planet into nothingness within split seconds. It has never had occasion to, obviously.”
Teucer glared at him. “Why’d you bother to come, then? You aren’t willing to help us! You’ll stand by and let a billion men and more be treated like slaves, like zombies, like…”
Guy said mildly, “I haven’t been on Amazonia very long, admittedly, but from what I’ve seen you have a surprisingly advanced technology. This is by no means one of the have-not worlds.”
“Yes!” Teucer snarled. “And why? Because we men produce it. We slave our lives away and don’t even have a voice in the nardy government that shoves us around like we were children. You don’t know what it’s like, Thomas! Why’d you bother to come?”
“I’ll answer that,” Guy said cautiously. “First of all, realize that although the UP Charter ties the hands of the Octagon when an appeal like yours comes through—there have been others, the United Planets is not composed exclusively of Utopias. Though our hands are legally tied, we are not insensitive to your situation. I am, of course, incognito. I landed in the guise of an expediter from the Department of Interplanetary Trade, to arrange a deal between Amazonia and Avalon. My real job is to locate you people and get the full story.”
“But what good can it possibly do us?”
Guy Thomas said very carefully, “You never know. Just out of curiosity, what is it you need to promote your cause? Money? I never heard of a revolutionary organization that didn’t need money.”
“Money?” Teucer grunted bitterly. “We don’t use money here.”
“That’s right, one of you mentioned that. How do you carry on exchange? There’s always some equivalent to money.”
“Not on Amazonia. There is no exchange. We keep telling you, this is the most far-out dictatorship you ever ran into in all your United Planets.”
Guy was frowning puzzlement at him. He said, “On anarchist planets, such as Kropotkin, yes. I can understand no medium of exchange. They utilize simple barter. But an advanced world such as Amazonia?”
The scarecrow of a man wrenched a wallet from a purselike affair that hung from his belt. He pulled a plastic card forth and shook it at the agent from Earth. “I work, see? Every hour I put in is credited to me in the computers. Every time I spend something, I put this card up against the credit screen and the amount is deducted.”
“What amount?” Guy said. “You said you didn’t have money.”
Suppose I want to buy a camera. They’ve figured out just how long it took to produce that camera, the number of hours to extract the aluminum in its body, the time to grind the lenses, everything. The total number of hours involved. Say it’s two hours. Then it costs me two hours of my time—I work in sewage disposal—to buy the camera. The computers keep track of the whole thing.”
Guy said, “Well, suppose you wanted to buy a hovercar, something like that which would take hundreds of hours to produce?”
“What do you think? The computers won’t let me buy it until I’ve saved up that number of hours.”
Guy was frowning. “You say you work in the sanitary system. But suppose another man was a…well, research chemist, a highly trained scientist. How would he be awarded these hour credits?”
“Exactly the same,” Zeke said in disgust. “The smartest man in the country doesn’t get anything more for his time, than the dumbest moron. In fact, he gets less, if you want to look at it that way. The moron gets taken care of for free, the big brain has to work if he wants to eat.”
Guy thought about it for awhile. “There’s no way for you to get ahead, really, eh? What’s your initiative? Why bother to try at all?”
“Initiative!” Zeke said, still bitterly. “Our initiative is that we like to eat.”
A window was beginning to gray with the first of dawn.
Guy, shaking his head, finished his wine and said, “There’s a lot still to go over but I suppose it’ll have to wait until I meet this Damon of yours. How can we get in touch with each other?”
“Where are you staying?” Zeke said.
Guy told him.
“One of those semi-prisons for single men,” Teucer sneered.
“Thus far,” Guy told him, “it’s been quite comfortable.”
“Jails can be comfortable, but they’re still jails.”
Zeke said, “All right, all right, Teucer. We can’t convert him all at once. Listen, Guy, I don’t know if we can contact you there or not. I don’t know what kind of guard they’ve got over you. We’ll find out; we’ve got spies everywhere. But you can always reach us here. This is one of our drops. If anything happens to this place, here’s the address of another.” He handed Guy a paper. “Memorize it, and destroy it. We take every precaution we can, but I guess you can be trusted. I guess you’re more up on these things than we are.”
Guy said, “Why do you guess that?”
Zeke looked at him. “I get the impression this isn’t the first assignment of this type you’ve been on.”
Guy said nothing to that.
Zeke said, “The first impression you give is kind of ineffectual, but if you look below the surface…”
Guy Thomas shrugged and came to his feet. “You can trust me,” he said. “I’d better be getting back.”
“You’ve got a shooter, eh? You said you winged whoever it was tried to crisp you.”
“Yes,” I’m armed.”
“How’d you ever get it past those custom mopsies? They’ve got a reputation.”
“We’ve got ways,” Guy said shortly.
Zeke saw him to the door.
Before leaving, Guy said, “How many men do you have in your organization, Zeke?”
The other hesitated. “Active? Thousands, tens of thousands. I mean real members of the Sons of Liberty. But inactive sympathizers who’ll rally round when the time comes? At least half the population. Half the men, that is.”
Guy said slowly, “How many of them are like Teucer?”
Zeke scowled, uncomprehending. “What’s the matter with Teucer?”
Guy said, “He’s not the most educated type in the world, and he’s on the emotional side. I’ve seen revolutionary organizations before, Zeke. In the clutch, you want…”
“Aw, Teucer’s all right. You got to get used to him.”
“How many have you got like Teucer?” Guy repeated. Zeke rubbed the bottom of his chin with a beefy paw. “Too many,” he growled. He opened the door for the Octagon operative. “He’s from Lybia,” he added. “On the run from the police over there. We’re hiding him out temporarily, till we can figure where to use him.” As a safety measure, Guy took a different route home, and covered the distance considerably more cautiously than he had in coming.
His gun was handy to his fingers, and he stopped at each street crossing, looking both ways. He wanted no repetition of the ambush of a couple of hours earlier. Pure luck had saved him there and pure luck seldom blesses you twice running.
The slower pace he had to take, to eliminate any further chance of attempted assassination, conflicted with his need to get back to his quarters before full dawn. He agonized, but there was nothing for it.
By the time he reached the sanctuary, it was too light to attempt to scale the wall to his window. Too great a chance that he would be spotted.
He marched deliberately up to the door through which the major had ushered him, some hours earlier, grasped the knob and pushed his way through. Again he was surprised at the lack of guard, or even lock. To hear the major and the others, a man wasn’t safe in the vicinity of a warrior who had less than three husbands in her home. How did this jibe with the fact that this building full of bachelors was so easily entered?
He started up the stairway to the second floor where his small suite was located.
A voice tittered, “Oh, good heavens! Where have you been, darling?” It was Podner Bates, coming down.
Guy said, making his voice grumpy, “I couldn’t sleep. I decided to take a walk.”
“A walk! Artimis! Dear boy, don’t you realize your freedom isn’t worth a nicker, not a flicker, out on those streets? Suppose some young warrior had spotted you?”
