The World Menders

III

Ingar Paul, a large, untidy man with a brilliantly tidy mind, greeted Farrari cordially, placed a chair for him, lit up a monstrous, hand-carved pipe—both artifact and habit were souvenirs of a primitive society he had once worked with and sat hack to compose himself for whatever problems the Cultural Survey trainee aimed at him.

Farrari allowed his gaze to linger briefly on the framed motto that hung on the wall just above the coordinator’s head. DEMOCRACY IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT IS THE SEVEREST FORM OF TYRANNY.

Paul exhaled gently. “Well, Farrani?”

“I have a confession to make, it though it probably won’t be news to you.”

Paul smiled. “Confession is said he healthful. I’m no authority on that, because to tell the truth I don’t often get to hear one. What do you want to confess?”

“I can’t figure out what it is I’m supposed to be doing,”

Paul’s smile broadened.

“My orders say I’m supposed to study IPR problems from the CS point-of-view,” Farrari went on.

“I know.”

“What does that mean?” Farrari demanded, momentarily forgetting his lowly AT/ I rank.

Coordinator Paul took no offense. “I have no idea what an IPR problem would look like from the CS point-of-view.”

“I don’t know what an IPR problem looks like, period.” Farrari said. “I’ve listened carefully to everything that goes on at the conferences, and talked with your specialists as much as I could, and it doesn’t seem to me that you have any problems. Unanswered questions, yes, but not problems. You’re just collecting information, and organizing it and studying it, and I suppose when you’ve finished someone will give this planet a classification number and that will he the end of it. Any problems you had were solved long before I came here.”

“Yes,” Paul murmured. “Yes—and no.” He continued to puff thoughtfully on his pipe. The silence lasted so long that Farrari became uneasy. “Yes—and no,” Paul said again. “I’d say that you’ve made yourself very useful here, Farrari. You’ve relieved the classification team of the necessity of writing reports on cultural matters—which has always been a headache. IPR men lack the training and interest. Your analysis of art by historical epochs was of tremendous assistance to the history section and to several other projects. Likewise your correlations of myths and literature with historical events. Several specialists are downright lyrical in their praise of the help you’ve given them. You’ve shown us that culture is a sort of common denominator to a great many areas of study, and in doing so you’ve made some highly valuable contributions.”

Farrari modestly murmured his thanks.

“I polled the entire classification team a month ago,” Paul said. “No one disapproved of your presence here, everyone thought the assignment of a CS man to an IPR team a good idea, and many were enthusiastic. You’ve done a job for us, you haven’t got in anyone’s way, and you’ve worked harmoniously whenever the interests of another specialist touched upon yours. I’ve said some nice things about you in my reports, and I expect to say more before you’re recalled. In short your worries, if you have any, are entirely without foundation.”

“Even so,” Farrari persisted, “I have the feeling that someone expects me to do something… something—”

“Significant?” Paul suggested. “Or maybe even dramatic?” He chuckled. “Ever hear of a world named Gurnil?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m surprised. Where IPR is concerned there is always a problem—THE problem. On Gurnil it went on for four hundred years. Then someone had a brainstorm and brought in a CS officer. Prior to that we’d always kept CS out until we’d certified a world nonhostile, meaning until it was eligible for Federation membership. The CS officer solved the Gurnil problem with a brilliant stroke that the Bureau doesn’t understand yet and probably never will. Immediately the Bureau requested CS men for all of its classification and direction teams. There weren’t enough to go around, which is why your class was jerked out of the academy before it finished its training. Bureau higher-ups are hopeful that Gurnil-type miracles will pop out all along the frontier. They won’t. The CS officer who solved the Gurnil problem was undoubtedly a veteran and the most brilliant man available. You youngsters aren’t about to pull off anything like that, but you can learn, you can acquire valuable experience, and you can help out with routine tasks that touch on your specialized knowledge. If once in a century, or once in a millennium, we get another Gurnil, that’s just an unexpected bonus. My advice: carry on as you have. You’re doing fine.”

“Thank you, sir. But what is THE problem?”

Paul’s fingers drummed thoughtfully on his desk. “Didn’t they issue you an IPR manual?”

“No, sir.”

“They should have.” He scribbled a memo and handed it to Farrari. “Take that to Graan. If he doesn’t have a manual in stock I’ll be shocked, and tell him he’s to loan you his personal copy until he gets one for you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“One moment, Farrari. Manual 1048-K is a mountain of fine print and capitalized nuggets of what the Bureau chooses to consider wisdom. I’m not giving you one with the idea that you’ll read it, because you won’t. At least, I hope you won’t. The contents are highly technical, and it takes a Bureau man several years to work his way through it. A little browsing in it won’t injure you—not much, anyway—but while you’re browsing never forget one thing: the entire manual concerns the Bureau’s dealings with people—with intelligent beings. That’s all, Farrari.”

Dazedly Farrari saluted and made his exit.

In Isa Graan’s office he exchanged his memo for a copy of PR Field Manual 1048-K. It was thick, oblong volume of some three thousand pages, zip-bound in tough, reinforced covers.

“So you think you’re ready for the Holy Word,” Graan drawled. “You’re agreeing not to remove the manual from this base without the coordinator’s permission, or divulge its contents or any part thereof to any unauthorized person or persons.”

“What’s the penalty?”

“No idea. As far as I know it’s never happened.”

Farrari scrawled his signature. “I’m not sure that I’m ready for quite this much of the Holy Word,” he said ruefully. “I suppose you people have to memorize it.”

“It only seems that way,” Graan said.

Farrari opened the cover. On the first inside page he read, “DEMOCRACY IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT IS THE SEVEREST FORM OF TYRANNY.” He glanced at the wall behind Graan, where the same motto hung. “It just occurred to me,” he said, “that thing is on display in every room in the base—except my rooms.”

“Regulations say every room,” Graan said. “It kind of seemed that we were turning your rooms over to the Cultural Survey, and we didn’t know but what CS had a motto of its own, so we took ours down.”

“I see.” Farrari turned a handful of pages and peered dubiously at the fine print. He flipped another page and saw a framed block of large, black capital letters. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A FORM OF GOVERNMENT. IT IS A STATE OF MIND. PEOPLE CANNOT BE PLACED ARBITRARILY IN A STATE OF MIND.

“I don’t suppose there’s an abridged version,” Farrari said wistfully. He turned another handful of pages. ONE MEASURE OF THE URGENCY OF REVOLUTION IS THE FREEDOM THE PEOPLE HAVE, COMPARED WITH THE FREEDOM THEY WANT.

“It’s very carefully organized,” Graan said. “Here—the table of contents is at the back. History of the Bureau, Basic Principles, Classification Data, Specimen Cases—that’s half the manual, includes all the classic cases and representative examples of every classification. Then Procedures, and so on.”

“Where would I find instructions for classifying this planet?”

Graan patted the manual. “Actually, this is classroom stuff. I doubt that any IPR team has to calculate a classification ratio these days. We send all of our data to headquarters, it’s fed into a special computer, and someone reads off the classification. The ticklish problem is in compiling the data—not to overlook anything. In simple terms, the classification is political factors over technological factors. It reads like a fraction. The smaller the fraction, the healthier the situation—what we call a low-high condition—and with proper evolution the technological factor ascends and the political factor descends. One over one hundred would mean pure democracy and the highest technological level. The computer rarely gives us whole numbers, though-1.3785 over 99.7481 would round off at 1/100 for convenient reference.”

“What about Branoff IV?”

“It’ll be the opposite—a nasty variant of a high-low condition. The God-Emperor, a small class of intermarrying nobility, military establishment mainly aimed at keeping the population in check, and the majority of the emperor’s subjects in a state of slavery. Politically somewhere in the high eighties. Considering the level of culture the technology is surprisingly weak. Not even ten on the revised scale—say 87/8. The Bureau is certain to oh-oh the planet.”

“What does that mean?”

“Observation only. It’ll be at least a couple of millennia before we really can go to work here.”

“And what is the Bureau’s problem—THE problem?”

“Our mission,” Graan said slowly, “is to raise the technological level, and to reduce the political factor to a point where all of the population can benefit from the technological advances. Ultimately, to achieve a minimal level then democracy, which would make the planet eligible for Federation membership. THE problem, from which all of our other problems derive, is that this must be achieved by the people themselves. History has recorded many instances where outside forces have artificially raised a level of technology and imposed a democracy on a population. The result is inevitably catastrophic. Democracy imposed from without—”

Farrari groaned.

“Something similar could be said for technology imposed from without,” Graan went on. “THE problem is to somehow move the people toward the achievement of these things by themselves, without any apparent outside intervention. This means that the Bureau has to work with the local population completely unaware of its existence. If its presence is so much as suspected, it must withdraw for years, maybe centuries, and then make a fresh start. Needless to say, the Bureau proceeds cautiously in even its small endeavors. THE problem is never exactly the same twice, because intelligent beings are so damned inventive. That’s why the manual is so thick—why there are so many specimen cases. What works wonderfully well on one world may not work at all on another where conditions seem to be similar. The first thing an IPR man has to learn is that he’s dealing with people, and people can be confidently relied upon not to conform to any preconceived pattern.”

“Coordinator Paul just told me something like that.”

“Then that makes it official,” Graan said with a grin. “You’ll also find it mentioned once or twice in the manual.”

Farrari carried the manual to his quarters and flopped down on his bed to read. The contents seemed either distressingly boring or appallingly technical, and the fine print quickly gave him a headache. For a time he amused himself by flipping the pages rapidly and reading the succinct messages that flashed at him in capitals.

THE BUREAU DOES NOT CREATE REVOLUTION. IT CREATES THE NECESSITY FOR REVOLUTION. GIVEN THAT NECESSITY, THE NATIVE POPULATIONS ARE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF HANDLING THE REVOLUTION.

FUNDAMENTAL TO ANY DEMOCRACY IS THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO BE WRONG. NO DEMOCRACY HAS SURVIVED THE ABOLISHMENT OF THAT PRINCIPLE.

DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN TOUTED AS A SYSTEM UNDER WHICH ANY MAN CAN BE KING. SUCH A SYSTEM WOULD NOT BE DEMOCRATIC, BUT ANARCHIC. IN A DEMOCRACY, NO MAN CAN BE KING.

… OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE …

Farrari zipped the covers and pushed the manual aside.

PEOPLE. All of these words concerned intelligent beings who were born, attained maturity, loved, or through some related process, reproduced their kind, tasted joy and sorrow, health and sickness, and died, thus advancing their civilizations a fractional point up the technological scale and down the political scale. Or perhaps, in one of the retrogressions that must occur, sending it stumbling in the wrong direction.