"Not in your eyes, ma'am. And not, as you know very well, in mine. But in the eyes of the Palanese government-yes. Completely foreign."
"But that," said Will, "doesn't prevent you from having opinions. It only prevents you from having the locally orthodox opinions. And incidentally," he added, "I'm not here in my professional capacity. You're not being interviewed, Mr. Ambassador. All this is strictly off the record."
"Strictly off the record, then, and strictly as myself and not as an official personage, I believe that our young friend is perfectly right."
"Which implies, of course, that you believe the policy of the Palanese government to be perfectly wrong."
"Perfectly wrong," said Mr. Bahu-and the bony, emphatic mask of Savonarola positively twinkled with his Voltairean smile-"perfectly wrong because all too perfectly right."
"Right?" the Rani protested. "Right?"
"Perfectly right," he explained, "because so perfectly designed to make every man, woman, and child on this enchanting island as perfectly free and happy as it's possible to be."
"But with a False Happiness," the Rani cried, "a freedom that's only for the Lower Self."
"I bow," said the Ambassador, duly bowing, "to Your High-ness's superior insight. But still, high or low, true or false, happiness is happiness and freedom is most enjoyable. And there can be no doubt that the politics inaugurated by the original Reformers and developed over the years have been admirably well adapted to achieving these two goals."
"But you feel," said Will, "that these are undesirable goals?"
"On the contrary, everybody desires them. But unfortunately they're out of context, they've become completely irrelevant to the present situation of the world in general and Pala in particular."
"Are they more irrelevant now than they were when the Reformers first started to work for happiness and freedom?"
The Ambassador nodded. "In those days Pala was still completely off the map. The idea of turning it into an oasis of freedom and happiness made sense. So long as it remains out of touch with the rest of the world, an ideal society can be a viable society. Pala was completely viable, I'd say, until about 1905. Then, in less than a single generation, the world completely changed. Movies, cars, airplanes, radio. Mass production, mass slaughter, mass communication and, above all, plain mass- more and more people in bigger and bigger slums or suburbs. By 1930 any clear-sighted observer could have seen that, for three quarters of the human race, freedom and happiness were almost out of the question. Today, thirty years later, they're completely out of the question. And meanwhile the outside world has been closing in on this little island of freedom and happiness. Closing in steadily and inexorably, coming nearer and nearer. What was once a viable ideal is now no longer viable."
"So Pala will have to be changed-is that your conclusion?"
Mr. Bahu nodded. "Radically."
"Root and branch," said the Rani with a prophet's sadistic
gusto.
"And for two cogent reasons," Mr. Bahu went on. "First, because it simply isn't possible for Pala to go on being different from the rest of the world. And, second, because it isn't right that it should be different."
"Not right for people to be free and happy?"
Once again the Rani said something inspirational about false happiness and the wrong kind of freedom.
Mr. Bahu deferentially acknowledged her interruption, then turned back to Will. .,,
"Not right," he insisted. "Flaunting your blessedness in the face of so much misery-it's sheer hubris, it's a deliberate affront to the rest of humanity. It's even a kind of affront to God."
"God," the Rani murmured voluptuously, "God . . ." Then, reopening her eyes, "These people in Pala," she added, "they don't believe in God. They only believe in Hypnotism and Pantheism and Free Love." She emphasized the words with indignant disgust.
"So now," said Will, "you're proposing to make them miserable in the hope that this will restore their faith in God. Well, that's one way of producing a conversion. Maybe it'll work. And maybe the end will justify the means." He shrugged his shoulders. "But I do see," he added, "that, good or bad, and regardless of what the Palanese may feel about it, this thing is going to happen. One doesn't have to be much of a prophet to foretell that Murugan is going to succeed. He's riding the wave of the future. And the wave of the future is undoubtedly a wave of crude petroleum. Talking of crudity and petroleum," he added, turning to the Rani, "I understand that you're acquainted with my old friend, Joe Aldehyde." "You know Lord Aldehyde?" "Well."
"So that's why my Little Voice was so insistent!" Closing her eyes again, she smiled to herself and slowly nodded her head. "Now I Understand." Then, in another tone, "How is that dear man?" she asked.
"Still characteristically himself," Will assured her. "And what a rare self! L'homme au cerf-volant-that's what I call him."
"The man with the kite?" Will was puzzled. "He does his work down here," she explained; "but he holds a string in his hand, and at the other end of the string is a kite, and the kite is forever trying to go higher, higher, Higher. Even while he's at work, he feels the constant Pull from Above, feels the Spirit tugging insistently at the flesh. Think of it! A man of affairs, a great Captain of Industry-and yet, for him, the only thing that Really Matters is the Immortality of the Soul."
Light dawned. The woman had been talking about Joe Alde-hyde's addiction to spiritualism. He thought of those weekly seances with Mrs. Harbottle, the automatist; with Mrs. Pym, whose control was a Kiowa Indian called Bawbo; with Miss Tuke and her floating trumpet out of which a squeaky whisper uttered oracular words that were taken down in shorthand by Joe's private secretary: "Buy Australian cement; don't be alarmed by the fall in Breakfast Foods; unload forty percent of your rubber shares and invest the money in IBM and Westinghouse ..."
"Did he ever tell you," Will asked, "about that departed stockbroker who always knew what the market was going to do next week?"
"Sidhis," said the Rani indulgently. "Just sidhis. What else can you expect? After all, he's only a Beginner. And in this present life business is his karma. He was predestined to do what he's done, what he's doing, what he's going to do. And what he's going to do," she added impressively and paused in a listening pose, her finger lifted, her head cocked, "what he's going to do-that's what my Little Voice is saying-includes some great and wonderful things here in Pala."
What a spiritual way of saying, This is what I want to happen! Not as I will but as God wills-and by a happy coincidence God's will and mine are always identical. Will chuckled inwardly, but kept the straightest of faces.
"Does your Little Voice say anything about Southeast Asia Petroleum?" he asked.
The Rani listened again, then nodded. "Distinctly."
"But Colonel Dipa, I gather, doesn't say anything but 'Standard of California.' Incidentally," Will went on, "why does Pala have to worry about the Colonel's taste in oil companies?"
"My government," said Mr. Bahu sonorously, "is thinking in terms of a Five-Year Plan for Interisland Economic Co-ordina tion and Co-operation."
"Does Interisland Co-ordination and Co-operation mean that Standard has to be granted a monopoly?"
"Only if Standard's terms were more advantageous than those of its competitors."
"In other words," said the Rani, "only if there's nobody who will pay us more."
"Before you came," Will told her, "I was discussing this subject with Murugan. Southeast Asia Petroleum, I said, will give Pala whatever Standard gives Rendang plus a little more."
"Fifteen percent more?"
"Let's say ten."
"Make it twelve and a half."
Will looked at her admiringly. For someone who had taken the Fourth Initiation she was doing pretty well.