The World Menders

He turned again to gaze glumly at the mountain scenery. He had unaccountably lost all interest in Branoff IV culture, and it was just occurring to him that for the first time since his arrival he was facing up to the job he was supposed to do.

He had been functioning routinely as a Cultural Survey officer, which was not his assignment. His assignment was to study IPR problems from the Cultural Survey point-of-view. He still didn’t understand what that meant, but he hoped that an awareness of what he was not supposed to do was a step in the right direction.

When finally he turned away he was startled to find Liano waiting, her dark eyes fixed on him expectantly. She held out a small drinking goblet, a lovely thing of gold with an engraved figure on one side, a warrior in his most terrible aspect mounted upon a leaping gril, a bundle of short spears held aloft with one hand while the other poised a spear for throwing.

“That’s marvelous!” Farrari exclaimed.

“Is it good—art?” she asked anxiously.

“It’s splendid art. Where did you get it?”

“An ol gave it to me—to my husband and me. I often wondered where he got it.”

Farrari fingered the goblet in abashed silence.

“We never thought about art,” she went on meditatively. “I suppose that was because we worked with the olz. This is the only thing I ever saw that was art.”

Farrari leaped to his feet and gripped her arm. “That’s it!”

She gazed at him in wonderment.

He released her and continued excitedly, “I’m supposed to be studying IPR problems from the CS point-of- view. The olz are the main IPR problem on this planet, and the olz don’t have any culture! Not in the limited sense of that word, certainly. No art, no music, no literature—no wonder I’ve been beating my head trying to figure out just what I should study. Now I see the answer: nothing. There can’t be a Cultural Survey point-of-view without culture.”

“Couldn’t you give the olz some culture?” Liano asked timidly.

“You can’t give people culture any more than you can ‘give’ them democracy. The olz wouldn’t be able to accept it if it were offered. They’re surrounded by culture, by a quite high level of culture, and they seem completely unaware of it.”

He walked with her as far as the records section, where Ganoff Strunk greeted Farrari with a grin and then thoughtfully watched Liano as she returned to her desk. “They tell me you’ve been bit by the language bug,” he said to Farrari. “Giving up culture?”

“Not entirely,” Farrari said. “Just a moment ago I thought up a new principle for your Field Manual 1048-K: ONLY AN EXCEPTIONALLY TALENTED PEOPLE CAN CULTIVATE A SENSE OF BEAUTY ON EMPTY STOMACHS.”

Strunk laughed merrily. “That’s good. That’s very good. Why don’t you submit it? Did you know that IPR pays a hefty bonus for each suggestion that gets into the manual? The next edition will certainly have a Cultural Survey section, and there’ll be a rare opportunity for someone to acquire wealth. The first edition of a new section includes all the truisms that any idiot could think up. After that it gets progressively more difficult to crack the thing.”

Farrari set his teeth and refrained from telling him what the IPR Bureau could do with its slogan bonuses. “That classification formula you mentioned. High-low and low-high and the rest of it. Political factors over technological factors—wasn’t that the way it went?”

Strunk nodded.

“I wonder if anyone in IPR is aware that the same result could be achieved with a formula that reflects the diffusion of culture through a society. On Branoff IV the lowest class, represented by the olz, doesn’t have any. The upper classes have it all. That’s certainly an unbalanced fraction.”

“Hm-m-m—yes.” Strunk’s bald head bobbed agreement; his eyes fixed on Farrari alertly. “That’s an interesting thought. As our political-technological formula improves, your cultural formula should also improve. Cause and effect.”

“Which is the cause and which is the effect?” Farrari demanded. Strunk’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting that an improvement in cultural dispersion would bring about a corresponding improvement in the political situation?”

“I don’t know, but why not? It’s easy to think up principles but infernally difficult to apply them.”

“Interplanetary Relations has been aware of that for some time,” Strunk said dryly.

“My hunch is that in every instance where your political-technological formula moves in the direction of improvement, there will be an accompanying improvement in the diffusion of culture.”

“That won’t get you much of an argument,” Strunk said. “THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF SOCIETY BRINGS ABOUT A CORRESPONDING DEMOCRATIZATION OF CULTURE. Of course. Another obvious truism. It’s like saying that daylight accompanies a sunrise. Why don’t you submit that one, too?” He guffawed heartily.

“Since we don’t know which is cause and which is effect, why not—THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF CULTURE BRINGS ABOUT A CORRESPONDING DEMOCRATIZATION OF SOCIETY.”

Strunk stopped laughing. “That smacks of heresy. Let’s see if there’s anything in the manual.”

He brought out his personal copy and began investigating likely references. Farrari went for his manual, and Liano scurried away to find hers, and the three of them sat around a table fretfully flipping pages and blearily skimming the fine print. Semar Kantz, the military expert, happened by, and, when the problem was explained to him he ventured the opinion that an equally sound theory could be based upon the democratization of military training. The three men were arguing noisily, with Liano listening in timid fascination, when Coordinator Paul strode into the room.

“I’ve had four complaints about the noise,” he announced. “What is going on here?”

“Farrari has this new theory,” Strunk said meekly. “We were checking to see if there’s anything in the manual, and then Kantz tossed his theory at us, and I suppose—”

“If you suppose theories that controversial should be discussed in a conference room, you’re right.” Paul pulled up a chair. “What is this new theory?”

Strunk explained, and the coordinator observed, “Cause and effect are tricky concepts. Your pair look to be trickier than most, but don’t let that discourage you. If you want to do a preliminary study, I’ll approve it. I’ll even recommend it.”

“That’s just what I want to do,” Farrari said. “How do I go about becoming an agent?”

The coordinator winced. “Agent? You’d have to undergo a strenuous program of training and indoctrination and testing before you could be considered, and you’d have to be tested thoroughly to find out whether you’re even qualified to enter the program. For both of these steps you’d need your coordinator’s approval, which you wouldn’t get, and if through some oversight you got past those steps, you’d need Peter Jorrul’s permission before you could enter the field, and that’s even harder to come by. No, Farrari, I won’t even discuss this with you. IPR personnel who come to us as potential agents have already taken those two steps, which eliminate nine candidates out of ten, and even so fewer than half of them qualify as agents. Your chances would be perhaps one in a hundred, and that wouldn’t justify the trouble of training you. Besides, you’re much too valuable to us in your own field. I’d be a fool to trade a good staff member for an agent of unknown quality.”

“I see.”

“Apart from that, making you an agent just to enable you to carry out this particular study would be a senseless risk and a stupid waste of time, because there’s nothing you could accomplish as an agent that you couldn’t accomplish better here at base. You can have every scrap of information you’ll need that trained and experienced agents can possibly ferret out for you. Any plan you have that’s at all reasonable will be put into effect by the same agents. What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

“Art is expression,” Farrari said slowly. “Art is communication. Art is—but what do the