"To you I was a friend, Bergen," Dal said, forgetting to say sir, "but to them I was a servant."
"You never told me."
"What could you have done?"
And when Dal left at the end of the hour he had the agreement in writing.
When Bergen woke from his first time under somec, he learned from a kindly man in the Sleeproom that his father had died only a few days after Bergen had left home, and his mother had been murdered by a lover two years later. The largest estate on Crove, besides the emperor's, was now Bergen's.
"I don't want it."
"Along with it, you should know," said the kindly man, "comes a five years under and one year up somec privilege."
"I'd only have to live one year in every six?"
"It's the Empire's way of expressing the value of certain large forces in the economy."
"But I want to paint."
"Paint then. But unless you want to visit your parents' graves, the managers of your businesses are doing a remarkably good job, according to the government auditors, and you can go back under to complete your two years of entitlement."
"I have someone I want to see first."
"As you wish. We can put you back under any time within the next three days. After that, you have to complete your year up, and you will have lost two years of sleep."
Bergen spent the first two days trying to find Dal Vouls. He finally succeeded when he remembered that Dal would still be bound by the contract with his father-- the executors of the estate were able to locate him because he was sending in occasional draughts to complete the seventy-five-percent clause.
Dal opened the door and his lice lit up with immediate recognition. "Bergen," he said. "Come in. It's been three years, then, hasn't it?"
"I guess so. Dal, it feels like yesterday to me. It was yesterday. How have you been doing?"
Dal pointed to the walls of the flat. Forty or fifty paintings and drawings hung there. For twenty minutes there was little conversation except "This; I like this" and "How did you manage that?" And then Bergen, thoroughly awed, sat on the floor (there was no furniture) and they talked.
"How is it going?"
"Sales are fairly slow. I don't have a name yet. But people do buy. And the best of it is, the emperor has decreed that all government offices are to be moved to Crove. Even the name of the planet is changing. To Capitol. It seems that if all goes well, every damn planet's going to orbit politically around Crove. And that means customers. It means people who know art instead of the military and commercial bastards who've had a stranglehold on money on this planet since time began."
"You've learned how to talk in long sentences since I last saw you."
Dal laughed. "I've felt freer."
"I brought you a present." Bergen handed him the release from the contract.
Dal read it, laughed, read it again, and then wept.
"Bergen," he said, "you don't know. You don't know how hard it's been."
"I can guess."
"I haven't been able to take the examination. Heaven knows, I've hardly been able to live. But now--"
"More than that," Bergen said. "The examination costs three thousand. I brought it." He handed the money to his friend.
Dal held the money for a few seconds, then handed it back. "Your father's dead, then."
"Yes," Bergen said.
"I'm sorry. It must have been a shock to you."
"You didn't know?"
"I don't read papers. I don't have a radio. And my draughts were never returned."
"Contracts are contracts, the executors figured. Trust my father not to free his contract servants in his will."
They chuckled wryly in memory of the man, whom Dal had last seen three years ago, whom Bergen had last seen yesterday.
"Your mother?"
"The bitch died in heat," Bergen answered, and this time there was emotion. Dal touched his hand. "I'm sorry." And it was Bergen's turn to weep.
"Thank God you're my friend," Bergen said at last.
"And you mine," Dal answered.
And then the door opened and a woman walked in carrying a child that couldn't have been a year old. She was startled to see Bergen there. "Company," she said. "Hello. I'm Anda."
"I'm Bergen," Bergen said.
"My friend Bergen," Dal introduced them. "My wife Anda. My son Bergen."
Anda smiled. "He told me you were bright and beautiful, and so our son had to be named after you. He was right."
"You're too kind."
The conversation was good after that, but it was not what Bergen had expected. There couldn't be the banter, the in-jokes, the delightful gutter talk, the insults that Bergen and Dal bad known for years, not with Anda there. And so they parted with friendship in the air-- but a hollow feeling in Bergen's stomach. Dal had refused his gift of the examination fee, and accepted only his freedom. He would share that freedom with Anda. Bergen went back to the sleeproom and used the rest of his new entitlement.
When he awoke the next time, things had changed. With Crove now called Capitol, there was an incredible building boom. And Bergen's companies were deeply involved.
The building was haphazard, and Bergen began to realize that it wasn't enough just to throw buildings into the air. Capitql would be the center of trade and government for hundreds of planets. Billions of people. He could conceive of it eventually becoming one vast city. And so be began to plan accordingly.
He set his architects to planning a structure that would cover a hundred square miles and house fifty million people, heavy industry, light industry, transportation, distribution, and communication. The roof of the building had to be strong enough not only to handle the takeoffs and landings of landing craft, but also to cope with the weight of the huge starships themselves. It would take years to design-- he gave them the obvious deadline of his next waking after five years of sleep.
And then he spent the rest of the year lobbying with the bureaucrats to get his plan, already taking shape, adopted as the master plan for the planet. Every city designed the same way, so that as the population boomed, the cities could link up floor to floor and pipe to pipe and form a continuous, unbroken city with a spaceport for a roof and its roots deep in the bedrock. When his time was up, he had won-- and the contracts almost all went to Bergen Bishop's companies.
He did not forget Dal, however. He found him by his paintings, which were now gaining some note. It was difficult to talk, however.
"Bergen. The rumors are flying."
"Good to see you, Dal."
"They say you're stripping the planet right down to the bedrock and putting steel on top."
"Here and there."
"They say it's all supposed to interlock."
Bergen shrugged it off. "There'll be huge parks. Huge tracts of land untouched."
"Until the population needs it. Right? Always that reservation."
Bergen was hurt. "I came to talk about your painting."
"Here, then," Dal said. "Have a look." And he handed Bergen a painting of a steel monster that was settling like pus onto the countryside.
"This is repulsive," Bergen said.
"It's your city. I took it from the architect's renderings."
"My city isn't this ugly."
"I know. It's an artist's job to make beauty more beautiful and ugliness uglier."
"The Empire has to have a capital somewhere."
"Does there have to be an empire?"
"What's made you so bitter?" Bergen asked, genuinely concerned. "People have been tearing up planets for years. What's getting to you?"