The World Menders

IX

Farrari did not fully comprehend his blunder until after he returned to base. An IPR agent as the kru’s priest! Such a glittering opportunity should have clipped a few centuries from that two-thousand-year prognostication, and it had slipped away only because Cultural Survey AT/ 1 Cedd Farrari had not bothered to learn the Rasczian language.

He immediately commenced the complete Rasczian series and so immersed himself in the language that when he encountered Ganoff Strunk in the corridor one day the records chief stared at him and exclaimed, “I thought you were still in Scorv!”

Farrari said absently, “No…”

“I have copies for you of the teloids of the interior of the Life Temple. If I’d known you were here, I’d have sent them over.”

“I’ve already seen the place,” Farrari said.

“You’ve seen—” Strunk grinned. “I forgot. Of course—you were inside, you saw it first hand.”

“I saw it,” Farrari said slowly, “but I didn’t look at it. Strange, isn’t it? From the moment I first saw a teloid of the exterior of that temple I’ve wondered what it was like inside. Then when I unexpectedly found myself inside I never thought to look around.”

“I don’t blame you,” Strunk said. “If the priests suddenly hauled me in there with me not knowing what they were up to, I wouldn’t have had much interest in studying art. But it doesn’t matter—our krolc got some excellent shots, including a couple of your performance. Everyone has been admiring your bow. Stop by and pick them up.”

“I will,” Farrari promised.

But he did not feel like working. Impatiently he paced the cluttered confines of his workroom, disregarding tasks left untouched since his Scory adventure, and when he tired of that he went to one of the remote conference rooms and sat looking out at the dazzling sweep of mountain scenery. Liano Kurne found him there. Strunk had sent her to deliver the Life Temple teloids that Farrari had failed to call for; probably he had said, “Give these to Farrari,” and anyone else would have left them in his workroom. She searched the entire base for him so she could place them in his hand.

Farrari thanked her and said he’d look at them when he found time.

“They’re very interesting,” she said.

“I’m sure they are,” Farrari murmured politely. “It’s a very interesting place.”

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 olz have to express or communicate? I’d like to find out. At present the only link between the olz and their masters seems to be the zrilm whip, which is a rather one-way form of communication.”

“That may be truer than you realize. Did you know that there is no similarity whatsoever between their languages? That is, if you can call what remains of the ol speech a language, it seems to be atrophying out of existence. We think the olz were the original inhabitants of these valleys, and that the first strong nomadic tribe to find its way through the mountain passes enslaved them. Except for the farm and forest overseers and the mine supervisors, who are a special bilingual class, no one communicates with an ol or has any reason to. If any ol has ever learned as much as one word of Rasczian, it’s never come to our attention. This is a problem that could be close to the basis of all our problems, and we haven’t begun to cope with it because we have no idea of how to begin. Would culture provide any kind of a solution?”

Farrari shook his head. “I can’t see the rascz developing any interest in ol culture, and the culture of the rascz must be unthinkably remote to the olz. No, what I was wondering about was the extent to which the olz communicate with each other. Even the most primitive peoples develop diverse forms of art, and not infrequently the art is not only good, but surprisingly unprimitive. If the olz were once the masters of this land, they should have achieved some kind of minimal culture. What happened to it?”

“It must have atrophied along with their language. They have nothing very complicated to say to each other, and always the same people to say it to, and I suppose it’d be surprising if their means of communication, art or language, didn’t deterioriate. Linguistically they have now reached a point where they can get along with a few grunts and gestures. These are extremely expressive and complicated grunts and gestures, mind you. They aren’t the beginning of a language, but the end of one. The nuances are subtle and frightfully difficult to master. All of our agents have trouble learning ol.”

“How long would it take for an idea to spread from one end of the country to another?”

“Years,” the coordinator said bluntly. “There’s little contact even between neighboring communities unless the inhabitants happen to work the same fields.”

Farrari said thoughtfully, “Just for a beginning, this is what I’d like to know: Would the olz communicate if they had the means, the culture, or would they already have found the means if they had anything to communicate? I could best find that out by going among them and conducting experiments. For example, a very simple drawing—”

The coordinator was shaking his head emphatically. “We have twenty agents among the olz, risking their lives every moment of every day just by being olz. You can learn more from their reports in a week of study than you could with years of field work. A new agent among the olz, Farrari, has less than a fifty percent chance of survival.”

“All right,” Farrari said resignedly. “I’ll study the reports.”

The coordinator nodded and got to his feet.

“I could go with him,” Liano said timidly.

The coordinator whirled to face her, tense with incredulity, and for an instant he lost his poise—but only for an instant. He asked quietly, “You mean—the same role you had before?”

She nodded. “There wouldn’t be much for him to learn.”

“No,” the coordinator mused. “There wouldn’t be. You’d take charge of his indoctrination?”

Liano nodded excitedly.

“All right. Pick an unused room and draw what you need from supply.”

She hurried away, and it was Farrari’s turn to gape incredulously.

“What do you know about her?” the coordinator asked.

“I know her husband was killed.”

“That was only part of it. She was brutally mistreated. An ol lives in terror, Farrari, and too often that terror is justified. I hope you’ll never have to find that out from personal experience. I could order you to undergo this training, but I’d rather you did it as a favor to me. I’ll warn you—it may not be a pleasant experience. Liano hasn’t been fully rational since the tragedy happened, and she’s given to very strange moods and periods of partial, or even complete, catatonia. This is the first spark of interest she’s shown in anyone or anything. She’s a very special person, Farrari. I wonder if you have any idea how special.”

“I know she’s clairvoyant. When I first arrived—”

“I remember the incident. Will you help us? What I’m asking you to do is forget your theories, forget Cultural Survey, and work like the devil to acquire knowledge and skills that you’ll never have the slightest use for. To help Liano. Will you do it?”

Farrari nodded.

The coordinator gripped his arm and smiled at him. “You’re about to learn everything IPR has discovered about a kewl, who is the servant—slave, really—of a yilesc. It’ll be much more than you’ll probably want to know. The knowledge won’t do you any harm, and in some roundabout way it might even be useful to you. You’ll have to do your damndest, and work as though your life depended on it, because anything less than that might do Liano more harm than good. She’s had tragedy enough in her young life. Don’t let her down.”

“Do you mean that I can’t go into the field even if I do a good job?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. You aren’t training for the field. You’re helping a gifted girl regain her sanity. Your superior won’t be Jorrul, or anyone connected with the field team. It’ll be Dr. Garnt.” He paused. “Liano is a very special person. I wonder how she happened to become interested in you.” Farrari blushed, but the coordinator was soberly contemplating the far wall. “It might even be worth the risk if it would help Liano,” he said. He turned to Farrari again.

“First we’ll see how the indoctrination goes. And then—if Dr. Garnt feels that going into the field with you would help Liano—”

“And if Peter Jorrul approves,” Farrari added.

“If the doctor says it would help Liano, Jorrul isn’t going to stop you. He’ll ask you to do it. And when Jorrul asks someone to do something, it’s an order.”