Allouene turned to key the display screen to a diagram of a solar system, showing a yellow sun tinged with orange. “It’s a G-type star, but it’s cooler than Sol, so even though the planet’s only the second one out and is closer to its sun than Terra is to Sol, it has about the same temperature range. It has three continents—the largest has an inland sea—and a host of islands. Serfs flee to those islands now and then, so the lords have to mount expeditions to clean them out periodically.”
“They could just leave them alone,” Lancorn objected.
There were only the four of them in this class—presumably, Allouene was keeping her mission small. Magnus was glad to see that Siflot was one of the four.
“Of course the lords could leave them alone,” Allouene agreed, “but they aren’t about to. The official excuse is to eliminate piracy—but they also, incidentally, wipe out any possibility that somebody besides the ruling elite might have a decent life, and make sure that the serfs don’t go getting ideas about rising above their station. There’s a pocket of escaped serfs growing to the critical point right now, on an island they’ve named Castlerock…” An island toward the northern coast of the inland sea began to glow… “and the lords are getting ready for a full-scale expedition. They’ve already sent a small band, but the serfs killed off the officers and persuaded the soldiers to join them.”
“Dangerous,” Siflot murmured, and Lancorn looked at him in surprise.
“The lords think so, too,” Allouene agreed. “That’s why they’re preparing the big expedition—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the basics. History next.”
Her four students keyed their notebook displays to the topic.
“This all started seven hundred years ago, when the government of the Terran Sphere was still the Interstellar Dominion Electorates. A thousand or so financiers set up the planet as a tax haven. They had the arrogance and audacity to name it just that—Taxhaven. They were ready for retirement, so they found an undeveloped world and bought it outright. Then they shipped in all the machinery necessary for a luxurious life-style, and each declared it to be the permanent site of residence for his or her whole family. They left their sons and daughters on Terra to look after business.”
Ragnar raised a hand. “But wouldn’t they still have come under the Terran tax laws?”
“Technically, no,” Allouene said, “and the technicalities were exactly what their lawyers went to court with. The financiers gave up their citizenship and declared themselves to be a sovereign government, so they didn’t have to pay tax to the I.D.E.”
“The businesses would still have been taxed,” Ragnar objected.
“Their accountants arranged things so that the businesses were either operating at a loss, or showing so little profit that it didn’t matter—not hard, when all the real profits were going to Taxhaven.”
“The I.D.E. allowed that kind of gold flow outside its boundaries?” Lancorn asked, amazed.
“No—the younger generation officially sent all the profits to their parents’ Terran accounts, which were only nominally taxed, since the older generation were foreign citizens. Of course, the ‘kids’ had the use of their parents’ mansions and yachts, and were paid excellent salaries for pocket money—but officially, they were just hired help.”
“Neat,” Ragnar said sourly. “Very neat.”
Magnus had trouble following it all; where he came from, you paid what tax you were told, or you went to prison. He made a note to look up Terran tax laws.
“Didn’t the second generation feel as though they were getting short shrift?” Lancorn asked. “No—they knew their day was coming, and in the meantime, they were enjoying power and privilege. When they reached retirement age and grew weary of the fleshpots of Terra, they moved to Taxhaven and left the third generation to take care of business on Terra and the inner planets.”
“Of course, they had been waiting in demure patience for their turn at power,” Siflot murmured. “Very good, Siflot,” Allouene said, with surprised approval. “I thought you’d never say anything. Gar, you might work on that, too. No, the grandchildren had been fuming at not being the big cheeses, so they didn’t mind being left holding the moneybag when Poppa and Momma wanted to retire to the boondocks.”
“Then Poppa and Momma could champ at the bit.” The idiom came easily to Magnus, and he was probably the only one there who understood what it really meant.
“A word to the wise was sufficient.” Allouene gave Magnus a slow smile. “Will you always do as I bid you?”
Magnus felt the thrill pass through him, and give her a smile in return. “Always awaiting your ‘come hither,’ Madame.”
She turned back to the screen with a self-satisfied smile, and Magnus felt the danger pass, though the thrill still vibrated within him. “You’re right about the second generation,” Allouene said, “but when Grandma and Grandpa finally died, the fortune officially stayed on Taxhaven, and the second generation became the dukes and marquises and counts. Then the third generation retired and moved up to take over the estates and fortunes, while the fourth took over the business—and so it went.”
“And the government never caught on to them?” Lancorn asked, outraged.
“They caught on right away, but there was a limit to how much they could do about it. As the generations passed, the government put increasing pressure on Taxhaven to become an official dominion, part of the I.D.E., and therefore subject to the same tax laws as the rest of the Terran planets, but Taxhaven adamantly refused, and had the Sol-side lawyers and lobbyists to be able to prevent a takeover. Their lobbyists and tame Electors were also able to keep the I.D.E. from boosting taxes on Solar System earnings much past five percent, and to frustrate every other stratagem the Executive Secretary of the I.D.E. could think of.”
“There had to be a limit to that kind of influence,” Ragnar said, frowning. “I thought the I.D.E. turned to a rob-from-the-rich, give-to-the-masses program toward the end.”
Allouene nodded. “During the last, dark days of the I.D.E., the rabble-rousing Electors of the LORDS party rammed through legislation forcing the Tax haven barons to pay their back taxes. The move gained them a lot of support from the masses, but the Taxhaven families had just finished selling off all their holdings. They retired to the ‘home planet’ en masse—except for those family members who were also in the LORDS party, making sure that no matter which way fortune fell, the Taxhaven families would prosper. These members were instrumental in the coup d’etat that finally buried the I.D.E. and set up the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra, which cut off contact with the outer, and unprofitable, planets—including Taxhaven.”
“Alas!” Siflot wiped away an imaginary tear. “That must have broken all their clinking hearts!” No one laughed, but everyone’s lips quirked in amusement. Allouene smiled broadly and nodded. “It couldn’t have worked out better for them.”
“Meaning it was their offspring who set it up,” Ragnar interpreted.
“Certainly they supported the idea. After all, it was in perfect accord with the wishes of the Taxhaven aristocracy, as they termed themselves—they had officially cut off communication with Terra from their end, anyway. So the families relaxed and lolled back among their local riches, and devoted themselves to every pleasure they could think of, while their younger members saw to it that they still received their dividends from all the Terran-sphere companies in which they owned stock.”
Lancorn frowned. “I thought you said they had been cut off from Terra.”