Monument. Lloyd Biggle jr.
May I have another?”
Obrien would reach for his Simplified Astrogation. “All right. Your ship’s velocity is fifty thousand units and the position is the same as before. Calculate the amount of fuel needed to reach Planet X and go into orbit.”
“Yes, yes! And—this problem? Is my solution correct?”
“How the devil would I know?” Obrien would mutter as he returned to his lecture.
Whenever he caught Banu asleep, which was often, he would snarl at him, “Banu! What are those attorneys’ names?”
Banu would blink himself awake and recite flawlessly: “Klarouse, Hraanl, Picrawley, McLindorffer and Webluston, city of Schwalofro, world of Schwala, Sector 9138.”
Obrien fervently offered thanks for small favors. He had a mathematical genius who solved problems he didn’t understand, and a mnemonic genius who remembered things spoken while he was asleep—which was fortunate, because sleeping was what he did the most of. Banu seemed never to forget anything, though he understood so little of what he remembered that mining his memory could be an involved and frustrating process.
The rest of his students were uncomplicated morons.
“Attorneys—” Obrien began.
He doubled up suddenly, clutching his abdomen. Fornri and Dalla hurried to him, but he shook them off, straightened up, wiped the perspiration from his face, and continued.
“One day you’re going to need attorneys more than you need air to breathe, and that law firm wasn’t afraid to take on a world government for me. It won’t be afraid to take on a Federation of Worlds for you, but you may have trouble finding it—it’s been a long time, and the names may have changed.
“Attorneys cost money, which you don’t understand, but you may understand this. Look!”
He unwrapped a piece of cloth and displayed a handful of magnificent crystals. “Take a good look,” he told the gaping class.
“They’re retron crystals. They make interstellar travel possible, and they’re rare enough and valuable enough so they can be changed for monetary credits at any financial center in the galaxy.”
An altercation broke out at the rear of the class, and he paused until it was resolved, to the accompaniment of much whispering and some squealing. Some boys persisted in teasing the girls, most of whom enjoyed it, and some couples overtly carried on their courtships during class. Obrien had not quite forgotten that he once was young himself.
“Monetary credits are money,” he went on, “and attorneys require a lot of it. There are enough crystals packed away in my wreck of a spaceship to buy you a lot of legal service. They’ll have to be buried in a safe place—deep in the cave under the double hill would be best. A wrecked ship will be the first thing that’ll get looked at when the skymen come, and if the crystals aren’t buried deeply there are instruments that will detect them.
“I was talking about governments. The other worlds won’t understand a system like yours, where leaders just happen instead of being elected or appointed, so this world will have to—”
The stabbing pain returned, and this time he dismissed the class and weakly allowed Fornri and Dalla to help him into his hammock. He lay with eyes closed, face perspiring, hands clutching his abdomen, and he said softly, “So much to do and so little time. Law and government and economics and colonial administration and all the rest, and I’m only a dumb mechanic and I’m dying.” Suddenly his eyes opened and he jerked erect. “Five more were gone today. Where are they?”
Fornri and Dalla exchanged uneasy glances. “Perhaps their villages needed them,” Fornri said apologetically. “The hunting—”
“The hunting! What’s an empty belly compared with slavery or death? Can’t they understand that there won’t be any hunting if they don’t have a Plan?”
“They don’t understand what you want them to do,” Fornri said. “Perhaps if you told them the Plan—”
“They aren’t ready for it. I should have started sooner.” He sank back into the hammock and closed his eyes. He heard Dalla whisper, “Can’t the Elder help?” And Fornri answered, “He helps as much as he can, but it is difficult for him to make them stay here if they think they are needed elsewhere. Tomorrow will be worse.”
The pain returned.
* * * *
One day he had a class of fifteen, and the next day there were eleven. The pain came more frequently, and he ignored it when he could and doggedly continued. “You’ve got to understand the government of the Federation. There are independent member worlds and independent non-member worlds, and dependent worlds that are virtually the property of other worlds.”
They were bored; most of them seemed asleep. He knew the problem—part of the problem—was that he was a lousy teacher, but he couldn’t think of any other way to do it, and time was so short.
“You’ve got to start as an independent non-member and qualify for membership in the Federation or, so help me, you’ll end up as somebody’s property. I don’t know the requirements for membership—that’s one of the reasons you’ll need those attorneys. Banu?”
Banu tonelessly recited the names and address.
“I do know you’ll have to read and write,” Obrien went on. “Everyone. The whole population, even the children, those that are old enough. It helps that you already know Galactic, but being able to speak it isn’t enough. If you can’t read and write, you’ll never know what’s going on in the galaxy and you won’t be able to look after your own interests. Anyway, there’s a literacy requirement of maybe ninety per cent for Federation membership. This afternoon we’ll start writing lessons, and when you’ve learned you’ll have to teach others, every day, whenever you get a chance. Everyone has to learn.
“You’ve got to know about bureaucracies. Every government has them. The bigger the government, the bigger the bureaucracies. What the government gives, the bureaucracy takes away and may not even know it’s doing it. If you don’t know how to fight back, it’ll steal this world right out from under you. There’s a Colonial Bureau that’s supposed to oversee the administration of dependent worlds, but what actually happens—”
The pain struck relentlessly, and he clutched his abdomen and sobbed, “What’s the use?”
Fornri and Dalla hurried to his side, and Obrien, rigid with agony, gasped, “Won’t any of them come back?”
“They all say maybe tomorrow,” Fornri said.
“Tomorrow I may be dead. All of us may be dead.”
He shook off Fornri’s arm, staggered to a log at the edge of the clearing, and sat down. “I waited too long and now there isn’t time. I can’t make you see the danger.”
All of the students were awake now, and some of them were standing.
“This is a poor world,” Obrien said, “but it’s got something that’s priceless. It’s a paradise. The beaches and ocean are wonderful. The climate is wonderful. Everything is beautiful.”
He lurched to his feet. Fornri hurried to keep him from falling, but Obrien recovered his balance and jerked away. He said with terrible earnestness, “The moment it occurs to anyone to put a vacation resort on this world, you’re doomed. That man is your enemy, and you’ve got to fight him to the death. If you let him build just one resort, there’ll be ten or a hundred more before you know what’s happening. You’ll have to move your villages back into the forest, and even if you’re allowed to use the sea there’ll be no more hunting. The resorts will drive away the koluf, and you’ll starve. And I can’t make you understand.”
He staggered back to the log. The students had not moved. “And this is what I have to work with,” Obrien said resignedly. “Banu, who remembers but never understands. Fornri, my great-great-grandson,