Birthright

phase of their jobs.”

“But thereis nothing else!” said Tanayoka.

“Yes, there is,” said Consuela. “Look around you, Mr. Tanayoka, and tell me what you see.”

“The mountains.”

“And what did the miners do to the mountains when they were through mining?” “Nothing,” said Tanayoka.

“You still don't see it, do you?” said Consuela with a smile.'They restored them.' “Of course they did,” said Tanayoka. “Surely you're not implying that...” “Indeed I am,” said Consuela. “It's the only other thing they did that they had not been doing for the thirty weeks that the aliens left them alone.” “But why should putting the land back the way we found it drive them into a frenzy? It doesn't make any sense.”

“Not to you and me,” said Consuela. “But it must make a lot of sense to an inhabitant of Beelzebub.” “It's the stupidest thing I ever heard of!” said Tanayoka, throwing up his hands in frustration. “No, but it's probably the most alien thing you've ever heard of,” said Consuela. “You must remember not to think of aliens as good or bad, smart or stupid. The only word that properly defines them is different.'

“But why would they object to our restoring the mountains?” persisted Tanayoka. “I have absolutely no idea,” said Consuela “Can any race that reacts like that possibly be sentient?” “I don't know,” replied Consuela “And to be perfectly frank about it, at this moment I couldn't possibly care less.”

“But—”

“Please let me continue, Mr. Tanayoka. You brought me here to solve your problem. While there is always the possibility of error, I believe that I have solved it. But you must understand that the members of my profession are neither magicians nor omnipotent. It may take years or decades or even centuries to understand why they don't mind having their land ripped to shreds but are enraged at its restoration, and it may take even longer to determine whether they are truly sentient beings. Psychology is hardly an exact science. But I think I have discovered how to guarantee your miners’ safety, and I trust I have bought the aliens enough time for future psychologists to answer all your questions about them. And now,” she concluded, “if you no longer have need of my services, I'd like to return home.” Four months later Tanayoka paid her a visit. “You were right,” he said admiringly. “I don't think the miners or I really believed it, but it worked. When they finished the next three mountains they left them just as they were, and there were no incidents at all.”

“I'm gratified to know that everything worked out,” said Consuela.

“I think you'll be further gratified to know that a team of three psychologists has been dispatched to Beelzebub to study the native population more thoroughly.” “Indeed I am,” said Consuela.

“While I'm here, may I take you to lunch, Mrs. Orta?” asked Tanayoka. “I'd love to, but I'm afraid I'm a bit late making my rounds today.” Consuela shook his hand, walked down the corridor, stopped at a faucet to fill a small pan with water, then sighed and opened a door.

Inside, the Madcap was happily munching on its tail. 5: THE MERCHANTS

...As these worlds were assimilated into the budding financial empire of the Republic, it became the duty of the merchants, and more specifically the Department of Commerce and Trade, to bring monied economies into being on these planets. Perhaps the most important single person in the galaxy during this period was Kipchoge Ngana, whose complicity in the death of the Republic has been debated for millennia....

—Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement ...Foremost of these was Kipchoge Ngana (884- G.E.), a ruthless financial and organizational genius who studiously avoided all publicity. It was he who fought tooth and nail against granting the most basic rights to non-human races, and who probably kept the stagnant and decrepit Republic alive and running long past its life expectancy... —Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 8

Kipchoge Ngana leaned his chair back on two legs, put his feet on his desk, and sighed. Things had been going well, both for his department and the Republic. The Gross Galactic Product had doubled for the sixth decade in a row, the brief trade war with Darion III was over, and Man had never had it so good. It was a strange feeling. He should have been smug and complacent, but instead he felt like a man waiting for the other shoe to drop and not having the slightest idea where it would be dropping from. He glanced at his appointment calendar: two visits from minor officials in Cartography, a luncheon with a merchants’ organization from the newly settled Denebian colonies, and a planning conference within his own Department of Commerce and Trade. It was the last that was his specialty, and he was utterly convinced that no single facet of the Republic was quite so important. Certainly they needed the Cartographers to decide upon the patterns of expansion, and the Pioneer Corps and Navy to open the planets up, and of course Psychology had become the darling of the popularizers of science. But all those came before the fact; each science and parascience had a definite job to do, and once their function was fulfilled, they moved on to the next world. After that, after the planet was made habitable, after the alien contacts had been made, after the Republic had made a commitment to the new world, it was up to the merchants, under the expert guidance of the Department of Commerce and Trade, to move in, to graft the world onto the sprawling economic structure of the galaxy, and to bring it firmly within the Republic's sphere of financial influence. The Republic had long since learned that military force was a last resort, to be used only in the most

insoluble of situations. The trick—and this was Ngana's specialty—was to introduce monied economies

to the various worlds until they were so dependent upon continued commerce with the Republic that revolt and isolationism became the most repugnant and unfeasible of concepts. On about a third of the sentient worlds, the problems had been slight, for economic structures already existed. It was the remaining worlds that wound up as Ngana's pet projects. And he was very good at his work.

There was, for example, Balok VII, a small world possessed of a totally self-reliant society relatively low on the evolutionary scale, but sentient nonetheless. The natives, vaguely humanoid in type, were completely herbivorous, and the continual search for the vast quantities of food they needed to sustain themselves prevented them from developing many other skills. There was some attempt at farming, but the climate was too uncertain for crops to be depended upon, and the economy never developed beyond a one-for-one trading stage.

Ngana had looked the world over, ordered in some twenty thousand “agrarian assistants,” and quintupled the amount of available food in three years’ time, never once extracting any payment or promise of payment from the natives, and never once allowing them to discover the methods the Republic used to multiply the food supply. At the end of three years a noticeable increase in the population took place, and the agricultural equipment was then sold or leased to private interests within the Republic. It functioned for five more years, and then, at a word from Ngana, all “assistance” came to a halt. Amid hoarse outcries of misery, disease raised its ugly head, and the Republic sent in free medical supplies. After six months, the flow of supplies stopped. The supplies were then sold to the Republic's merchants, who rented out the agricultural machinery to the natives in exchange for harvests of certain crops, and after the first payments were made on the machinery, the medical supplies were sold on credit against future crops. Within five more years the natives of Balok VII had need of neither equipment nor medicine, being quite capable of manufacturing their own, but by that time they had a growing agricultural economy, and the first paper Republic credits had already been introduced into the society, with which they purchased newer and better farming machines. And, of course, the continuous introduction of more advanced equipment ensured the production of more and more crops, with the Republic as the only interested speculator.

That had been easy. Korus XVI was a little more difficult. It held a race of silicon-based life forms that inhaled ammonia, excreted a carbon compound, and had a very viable economy that was based predominantly on rare metals. The inhabitants were quite happy to be isolated from the mainstream of the Republic's commerce and evinced no desire to trade with any race other than their own. Ngana authorized fifty merchants to artificially reproduce the rarest of the rare metals that formed the staple of Korus XVI's financial