ever heard before; fully half the audience walked out before the evening was completed, while most of those who remained gave the orchestra—and, by implication, the composers—a standing ovation. When questioned, opinions were split right down the middle. Rostikol, perhaps the greatest conductor ever seen on Deluros VIII, claimed that it was a work of absolute genius; to his mind there was no doubt that the Greenies were intelligent, quite probably more intelligent than Man. Malor, the uncrowned king of the serious composers, found it interesting but incomprehensible. And Kirkelund, foremost of the critics from the alien culture of Canphor VII, found it a hideous cacophony of sound indicating nothing more than random selection of discordant and atonal thematic material, hardly the type of music on which to base a case for intelligence.
The seven members of the Oligarchy, as well as the Military, were completely noncommittal, awaiting a decision from Psychology. Psychology was leaning toward a statement declaring the Greenies to be a sentient race, but still wasn't ready to make it without further data. Ulice decided that she couldn't wait any longer, and two days later the Department of Alien Affairs publicly proclaimed that the Greenies were intelligent and every effort would now be made to evacuate them from Bareimus III prior to its sun going nova. She had her executive assistants make out the proper requisition forms and sent them to the various branches of the Oligarchy from which she required assistance.
The first to reply was Treasury. It had placed the money in escrow, but was not prepared to relinquish it on the say-so of a woman who possessed virtually no experience or expertise in the field of alien psychology. Next to report was the Military. They were still more than willing to help, but their hands were tied until the Oligarchic Council gave them its written approval. Psychology responded with a scream of rage. What right did Ulice Ston think she had to preempt
...With more than one million worlds under Oligarchic control, it was inevitable that the news media
should take on new power and authority. For the most part this power was used to educate and inform the public, but there were occasional abuses, such as the notorious affair in the Aldebaran system, where the duly-elected Coordinator, Gile Cobart (5406-5469 G.E.), was denied all access to... —
His problem, like that of all political leaders, was the media. His approach to his problem, which made up in forcefulness what it lacked in originality, was to strike out against his critics, castigating them whenever possible and trying to rally public opinion to his side. And in the Aldebaran system, unlike most other worlds where trusts and monopolies were outlawed, he had only one enemy: ASOC, the Aldebaran System of Communications. ASOC controlled, in whole or in part, every newstape, every video and holo channel, and every one of the old-style newspapers. And ASOC didn't like Cobart any better than he liked it. There had never been much love between the two. During the past election, ASOC had thrown up its hands in dismay at the slate of candidates offered, refused to endorse any of them for Coordinator, and sat on the sidelines as the people elected Cobart with a mere twenty-nine percent of the vote. But while he may have had minimal support, once in office he began gathering a maximum of power about him. He was forced to hold, tacitly at least, to the laws of the Oligarchy. But the laws were vaguely worded in many instances, and any man hungry for power could find ample ways to get around them. Such a man was Gile Cobart.
First came a systematic centralization of government. Aldebaran VII was made the capital world of the system, and the seventeen other planets became mere economic satellites. The plights of the native aliens on Aldebaran II, IV, V, and XIII were shunted aside, though given ample lip service. Soon the petty accouterments of dictatorship— brilliantly uniformed bodyguards, refusal to speak to the press, denial of voting rights to previously enfranchised portions of the population, trials of political enemies—began to take shape and form.
Only ASOC stood against him, and he felt it his duty—and his pleasure—to publicly attack ASOC at every opportunity.
ASOC and its chairman, Jorg Bomin, viewed neither the attacks nor the attacker with equanimity. The corporation was the biggest in the system, and its assets were almost as great as the planetary assets of Aldebaran VII. If Cobart had been looking for an opponent worthy of his time and efforts, he couldn't have picked a better one.
Every day Bomin's stations, tapes and papers would attack Cobart and his policies. Every afternoon one
of Cobart's spokesmen would respond with varying degrees of hostility. The battle between the non-free press and the non-free government was reaching a fever pitch when Bomin called his board of directors into session.
He didn't make a very heroic picture, standing there before them. In an age where Man's average height was well over six feet, he barely reached five; in a society where a man's economic and social standing could usually be determined by the fashion of his clothes, he dressed more plainly than the most common of menials; in a profession where style was at least as important as substance, he was bald and underweight and spoke with a slight lisp. In fact, the only thing he had to recommend him was that he always delivered the goods.
He'd been delivering the goods for ASOC for quite some time now. Beginning as a lower-level executive, he had swiftly climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, stomping on as few sets of fingers as possible in the process. Once in full control, he had properly ascertained that tape and periodical distribution held the key to all nonvideo media, and had built up a system-wide distribution empire that rivaled ASOC's control of the airwaves. Never once did he allow ASOC to branch out into any non-media-related investments; excess capital, and there was a lot of it, was funneled back into existing corporate enterprises; more newspapers, more newstapes, more stations, more distributional outlets. ASOC and Bomin were totally self- sufficient entities, continually feeding on themselves, always growing but always controlled.
“Gentlemen,” he said, after taking a sip of water, “I won't mince words. The Coordinator has requested a private meeting with me tomorrow evening. There can be precious little doubt as to the subject matter of this interview. He will almost certainly threaten to nationalize ASOC. I will just as certainly refuse to yield to any threats he may make. Are there any questions?” He waited an appropriate length of time, and, when he had determined that no one had anything to say, he continued:
“I will assume that your silence can be taken to imply full support of my position. I had hoped for, and would have accepted, nothing less. However, you must realize that I cannot simply reject his demand and walk out. To do so would be totally ineffective, and would hardly be likely to improve our position. After all, he must know that my reaction will be negative just as surely as you knew it. Therefore, I feel that we can expect something in the nature of a threat to our continued existence. After all, if he can't own ASOC himself, his next step will doubtless be to destroy it.” “There's no legal way he can do it,” said one of the board members. “There was no legal way he could both try and sentence Pollart last week, but I notice that he seems to have accomplished it,” replied Bomin mildly. “We can go to the Oligarchy,” said another. “Indeed we can,” said Bomin. “However, if he denies his threat, how are we to prove otherwise? I have
