The spindly Peacer continued. "This is the third week we of the Peace have hosted a party. If you have been to the others, you know we have a message to get across, but we haven't bothered you with speeches. Well, by now we hope we've `sucked you in' enough so you'll give me a hearing." He laughed nervously, and there were responding chuckles from the audience, almost out of sympathy. Wil chugged some beer and watched the speaker narrowly. He'd bet anything the guy really was nervous and shy-not used to haranguing the masses. But Wil had read up on Tioulang. From 2010 till the fall of the Peace Authority in 2048, Kim Tioulang had been the Director for Asia. He had ruled a third of the planet. So maybe his diffidence reflected nothing more than the fact that if you're a big-enough dictator, you don't have to impress anyone with your manner.
"Incidentally, I warned President Fraley of my intention to propagandize this afternoon, and offered him the `floor' ill rebuttal. He graciously declined the offer."
Fraley stood up and made a megaphone of his hands. "I'll get you all at our party." There was laughter, and Wil felt the corners of his mouth turn down. He knew Fraley was a martinet; it was annoying to see the man behave with any grace.
Tioulang turned back to the mass of picnickers. "Okay. What am I trying to convince you of? To join the Peace. Failing that, to show solidarity with the interests of the low-techs-as represented by the Peace and the Republic of New Mexico.... Why do I ask this? The Peace Authority came and went before many of you were born-and the stories you've heard about it are the usual ones that history's winners lay ors the losers. But I can tell you one thing: The Peace Authority has always stood for the survival of humanity, and the welfare of human beings everywhere."
The Peacer's voice went soft. "Ladies and gentlemen, one thing is beyond argument: What we do during the next few years will determine if the human race lives or dies. It depends on us. For the sake of humanity, we can't afford to follow blindly after Korolev or any high-tech-Don't mistake me: I admire Korolev and the others. I am deeply grateful to them. They gave the race a second chance. And the Korolev scheme seems very simple, very generous. By running her factories way over redline, Yel‚n has promised to keep us at a moderate standard of living for a few decades." Tioulang gestured at the beer freezers and the barbecue pits, acknowledging their provenance. "She tells us that this will wreck her equipment centuries before it would otherwise break down. As the years pass, first one and then another of her systems will fail. And we will be left dependent on whatever resources we have developed. "So we have a few decades to make it... or fade into savagery. Korolev and the others have provided us with tools and the databases to create our own means of production. I think we all understand the challenge. I shook some hands this afternoon. I noticed calluses that weren't there earlier. I talked to people that have been working twelve-, fifteen-hour days. Before long, these little meetings will be our only break from the struggle."
Tioulang paused a moment, and the Asian girl laughed softly. "Here it comes, everybody."
"To this point, no sane person can have disagreement. But what the Peace Authority-and our friends of the Republic do resist is Yel‚n Korolev's method. Hers is the age-old story of the absentee landlord, the queen in the castle and the serfs in the fields. By some scheme that is never revealed, she parcels out data and equipment to individuals-never to organizations. The only way individuals can make sense of such a hopeless jumble is by following Korolev directions... by developing the habit of serfdom."
Wil set the beer down. The Peacer had one hundred percent of his attention now. Certainly Yel‚n was listening to the spiel, but would she understand Tioulang's point? Probably not; it was something new to Wil, and he'd thought he appreciated all the reasons for resenting Korolev. Tioulang's interpretation was a subtle-perhaps even an unconscious-distortion of Marta's plan. Yel‚n gave tools and production equipment to individuals, according to what hobbies or occupations they had had back in civilization. If those individuals chose to turn the gear over to the Peace or the Republic, that was their business; certainly Yel‚n had not forbidden such transfers.
In fact, she hadn't given any orders about how to use the gifts. She had simply made her production databases and planning programs public. Anyone could use those data and programs to make deals and coordinate development. The ones who coordinated best would certainly come out ahead, but it was scarcely a "jumble"... except perhaps to statists. Wil looked across the picnickers. He couldn't imagine the ungoverned being taken in by Tioulang's argument. Marta's plan was about as close to "business as usual" as you could come under the present circumstances, but it was alien weirdness to the Peacers and most of the NMs. That difference in perception might be enough to bring everything down.
Kim Tioulang was also watching the audience, waiting to see if his point had sunk in. "I don't think any of us want to be serfs, but how can we prevent it, given Korolev's overwhelming technical superiority?... I have a secret for you. The high-techs need us more than we need them. Without any high-techs at all, the human race would still have a chance. We have-we are-the one thing that is really needed: people. Between the Peace, the Republic, and the, uh, unaffiliated, we low-techs are almost three hundred human beings. That's more than in any settlement since the Extinction. Our biologists tell us it is enough-just barely enough-genetic diversity to restart the human race. Without our numbers, the high-techs are doomed. And they know it.
"So the most important thing is that we hang together. We are in a position to reinvent democracy and the rule of the majority."
Behind Wil, Gail Parker said, "God, what a hypocrite. The Peace never had any interest in elections when they were in the saddle."
"If I've convinced you of the need for unity-and frankly, the need is so obvious that I don't need much persuasiveness there-there is still the question of why the Peace is a better bet for you than the Republic.
"Think about it. The human race has been at the brink before. In the early part of the twenty-first century, plagues destroyed billions. Then, as now, technology remained widely available. Then, as now, the problem was the depopulation of the Earth. In all humility, my friends, the Peace Authority has more experience in solving our present problem than any group in history. We brought the human race back from the brink. Whatever else may be said of the Peace, we are the acknowledged experts in these matters...."
Tioulang shrugged diffidently. "That's really all I had to say. l22
These are important things to think about. Whatever your decisions, I hope you'll think about them carefully. My people and I are happy to take any questions, but let's do it one on one." He cut the amplifier.
There was a buzz of conversation. A fair-sized crowd followed Tioulang back to his pavilion by the beer locker. Wil shook his head. The guy had made some points. But people didn't believe everything he said. Just behind Wil, Gail Parker was giving the Dasguptas a quick rehash of history. The Peace Authority was the great devil of the early twenty-first century, and Wil had lived near enough to that era to know that their reputation could not be entirely a smear. Tioulang's diffident, friendly manner might soften the harsh outlines of history, but few were going to buy his view of the Peace.