Their heads were together again, whispering. Jonnie couldn't make it out.
Then suddenly Fowljopan stood up among the mob. “Lord Jonnie, we have forgotten what you said. None of it will be repeated by us.”
Fowljopan seemed to grow in size. “Build your platforms! We are going to write the toughest, clawproof, iron-hard, most vicious antiwar treaty you have ever heard of!"
He turned toward the back. “Turn on the lights! Turn on the recorders!”
Almost as one being the audience stood. They began to shout. “Long live Lord Jonnie! Long live Lord Jonnie!"
The applause was enough to knock one down!
Colonel Ivan let out a gusty sigh of relief and took his finger off his gun trigger. Then he hastily formed up troopers in a zone of protection to get Jonnie out of there and back to the small meeting room. These lords were pounding Jonnie on the back, almost knocking him down. Bedlam! He didn't know what Jonnie had said or how he had turned it around. He didn't speculate; he just concentrated on getting Jonnie out of there before they smashed him with good intentions. Knowing Jonnie, the reversal did not surprise him. That was life living around Jonnie Goodboy Tyler!
Chapter 4
The Russians had gotten them safely back to the small meeting room and they had seated themselves once more.
Dries Gloton was almost purring as he verified the wording and signatures of the transfer check from the Intergalactic-held funds over to his bank. It was not the biggest check he had ever heard of, but it was the biggest that had ever come to deposit in his branch bank. And it wasn't just a check. It meant solvency, reopened doors in the lesser sector offices, employees back on the job. Actually, he didn't have to verify it at all. He knew it was good. But he just liked to read it.
With a flourish, he drew the receipt to him. With an expert flip of his hand he signed it. And then he picked up the mortgage papers and with great, big letters scrawled across it wrote "PAID IN FULL!”
My, but this was worth all those worried months of waiting.
He put the check safely in his pocket and then sailed the receipt and papers with a gay spin back to MacAdam. “Our business is finished. It is a pleasure to do business with you.”
But as he let go his grip on MacAdam's hand, Dries saw Lord Voraz was still sitting there, staring blankly at the table. An instant of alarm touched Dries. “Your Worship! Is something wrong?”
Voraz turned to him. Ignoring Jonnie's presence, such was his preoccupation, Voraz said, “Didn't you understand what he did?”
Dries said, “Speculative loans? The lords will try to borrow money to get those shares when they crash. But that is a small matter. Those loans will be good.”
“No, no,” said Voraz. “What he is doing to those lords and their governments. No, you don't see. Let me explain. By providing widespread employment and by making it possible for the little creature on the street to borrow money, he is creating an independent working class. In years to come they won't have to stand around, cap in hand. They will become financially independent. The state will depend on them as a market and not be able to neglect them anymore. And huge quantities of bank business will be with that working class.”
“I see nothing wrong in that,” said Dries. “With all the money those governments will owe us, they'll have to do pretty much what the bank tells them.”
“That's just it,” said Voraz. “And the bank will tell them more and more to pay attention to the working class because that's where the bank's main interest lies! Those lords and their existing governments will have less and less power. To all intents and purposes they will vanish as a special class.”
“Ah,” said Dries, remembering his school days. “Social banking.”
Jonnie lounged back in his chair at the side. He was a little bit spent. He wished they'd finish up. “It’s called 'social democracy,' " he said. “It will work as long as there are lots of new frontiers and room to expand. But we have those and in a few thousand years somebody can think of something else.”
Voraz was looking at MacAdam and the baron now. "Do you know what he just did? In that short period in that room in there he freed more people than have been freed in all the revolutions in history!”
“I know he gave us the power to hold those lords in check,” said MacAdam.
“Shall we finish this bank resolution so we can end this conference?”
Voraz came out of it. He picked up a proxy. “This mentions a second resolution.”
The baron came to life. “That's about Lord Loonger."
“Yes,” said Voraz. “How long has he been dead, now? Two hundred-”
“Listen,” said the baron. “The Psychlos are about the most hated people any universe ever saw. A couple of hundred thousand years ago, your Lord Loonger saved them with the bank. Today, that's not a very popular act.”
"Indeed not,” said Voraz.
The baron said, “The definition of money is 'an idea backed with confidence.' It isn't helping your money any to have Lord Loonger's face on all your bank notes!”
Jonnie suddenly stirred; a premonition based on what had happened with Earth money hit him. He was about to speak. Sir Robert's huge hand closed over his mouth and silenced him.
Dries had been looking at Jonnie for the last minute. Without taking his eyes off him, Dries said, “Your Worship, has it occurred to you that this young man could be part Selachee?" There was no humor in his voice at all.
Jonnie was absolutely glaring at them above Sir Robert's big hand. He wouldn't fight Sir Robert. But he really had his eyes boring into the rest of them.
It's his eyes,” said Dries. “They've got gray in them. Another color, yes, somewhat like the sea. But look at those eyes. Gray!”
“I certainly see what you mean,” said Lord Voraz. “He does resemble a Selachee."
“I have several picto-recordings of him,” said Dries. “From a lot of angles. We can get that painter Rensfin to use them and make an idealized portrait. With the helmet in color. There is a special ink that can make the buttons flash. And we can do the helmet in full color, three-dimensional view. But what should be put on the scroll? 'Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, Conqueror of the Psychlos?'
“No, no,” said Voraz.
"'Who brought freedom from war?' " said the baron.
“No, no,” said Voraz. “That word 'freedom' would antagonize lords and such. We have to have this really good and final, you know, for we'll be reprinting all currency and retiring all old issues everywhere. We have to add along the bottom, 'Backed by the assets of the Earth Planetary Bank and Intergalactic Mining' or something like that. We can make the picture a
bit larger in the center. But the wording...” he trailed off.
MacAdam brightened. “We've got to get in there what he did. The painter should put in the background a picture of Psychlo exploding. And on the scroll we can put 'Jonnie Goodboy Tyler,' and right under that put 'who brought happiness to all races.'
“The very thing!” said Voraz. “It doesn't relegate it to just destroying
Psychlo. Because that isn't all he really did. People will know fast enough. His popularity will be not just in the stars but all over the stars and planets in sixteen universes!”
Lord Voraz sat forward and drew the resolution to him. He penned in the wording for the bank note. And then he shot his cuffs, raised his pen in a flourish, and signed the resolutions.
It was all finished. The small gray men got up. They were all beaming smiles. Sir Robert let go of a morose Jonnie and they shook hands all around.