Not that I understand it- I don't understand anything about how this planet really works. No laws, just Corporate regulations. Want to get married? Find somebody who claims to be a priest or a preacher and have any ceremony you like-but it hasn't any legal standing because it is not a contract with the Corporation. Want a divorce? Pack your clothes and get out, leaving a note or not as you see fit. Illegitimacy? They've never heard of it. A baby is a baby and the Corporation won't let one want, because that baby will grow up and be an employee and Venus has a chronic labor shortage. Polygamy? Polyandiy? Who cares? The Corporation doesn't.
Bodily assault? Don't try it in Venusberg; it is the most thoroughly policed city in the system-violent crime is bad for business. I don't wander around alone in some parts of Marsopolis, couth as my hometown
is, because some of the old sand rats are a bit sunstruck and not really responsible. Bi~t I'm perfectly safe alone anywhere in Venusberg; the only assault I risk is from super salesmanship.
(The bush is another matter. Not the people so much, but Venus itself is lethal-and there is always a chance of encountering a Venerian who has gotten hold of a grain of happy dust. Even the little wingety fairies are bloodthirsty if they sniff happy dust.)
Murder? This is a very serious violation of regulations. You'll have your pay checked for years and years and years to offset both that employee's earning power for what would have been his working life ... and his putative value to the Corporation, all calculated by the company's actuaries who are widely known to have no hearts at all, just liquid helium pumps.
So if you are thinking of killing anybody on Venus, don't do it! Lure him to a planet where murder is a social matter and all they do is hang you or something. No future in it on Venus.
There are three classes of people on Venus: stockholders, employees, and a large middle ground. Stockholder-employees (Girdle's ambition), enterprise employees (taxi drivers, ranchers, prospectors, some retailers, etc.), and of course future employees, children still being educated. And there are tourists but tourists aren't people; they have more the status of steers in a cattle pen-valuable assets to be treated with great consideration but no pity.
A person from out-planet can be a tourist for an hour or a lifetime-just as long as his money holds out. No visa, no rules of any sort, everybody welcome. But you must have a return ticket and you can't cash it in until after you sign a contract with the Corporation. If you do. I wouldn't.
I still don't understand how the system works even though Uncle Tom has been very patient in explaining.
But he says he doesn't understand it either. He calls it "corporate fascism"-which explains nothing-and says that he can't make up his mind whether it is the grimmest tyranny the human race has ever known
or the most perfect democracy in history.
He says that nothing here is as bad in many ways as the conditions over 90 percent of the people on Earth endure, and that it isn't even as bad in creature comforts and standard of living as lots of people on Mars, especially the sand rats, even though we never knowingly let anyone starve or lack medical attention.
I Just Don't Know. I can see now that all my life I have simply taken for granted the way we do things on Mars. Oh, sure, I learned about other systems in school-but it didn't soak in. Now I am beginning to grasp emotionally that There Are Other Ways Than Ours ... and that people can be happy under them. Take Girdie. I can see why she didn't want to stay on Earth, not the way things had changed for her. But she could have stayed on Mars; she's just the sort of high-class immigrant we want. But Mars didn't tempt her at all.
This bothered me because (as you may have gathered) I think Mars is just about perfect. And I think Girdle is just about perfect.
Yet a horrible place like Venusberg is what she picked. She says it is a Challenge.
Furthermore Uncle Tom says that she is Dead Right; Girdie will have Venusberg eating out of her hand in two shakes and be a stockholder before you can say Extra Dividend.
I guess he's right. I felt awfully sorry for Girdle when I found out she was broke. "I wept that I had no shoes-till I met a man who had no feet." Like that, I mean. I've never been broke, never missed any meals, never worried about the future-yet I used to feel sony for Poddy when money was a little tight
around home and I couldn't have a new party dress. Then I found out that the rich and .glamorous Miss FitzSnugglie (I still won't use her right name, it wouldn't be fair) had only her ticket back to Earth and had borrowed the money for that. I was so sony I hurt.
But now I'm beginning to realize that Girdle has "feet" no matter what-and will always land on them.
She has indeed been a change girl, for two whole nights-and asked me please to see to- it that Clark did not go to Dom Pedro Casino those nights. I don't think she cared at all whether or not I saw her .
but she knows what a horrible case of puppy love Clark has on her and she's just so sweet and good all through that she did not want to risk making it worse and/or shocking him.
But she's a dealer now and taking lessons for croupier-and Clark goes there every night. But she won't let him play at her table. She told him point-blank that he could know her socially or professionally, but not both-and Clark never argues with the inevitable; he plays at some other table and tags her around whenever possible.
Do you suppose that my kid brother actually does possess psionic powers? I know he's not a telepath, else he would have cut my throat long since. But he is still winning.
Dexter assures me that a) the games are absolutely honest, and b) no one can possibly beat them, not in the long run, because the house collects its percentage no matter what. "Certainly you can win, Poddy," he assured me. "One tourist came here last year and took home over half a million. We paid it happily-and advertised it all over Earth-and still made money the very week he struck it rich. Don't you even suspect that we are giving your brother a break. If he keeps it up long enough, we will not only win it all back but
take every buck he started with. If he's as smart as you say he is, he'll quit while he's ahead. But most people aren't that smart-and Venus Corporation never gambles on anything but a sure thing."
Again, I don't know. But it was both Girdle and winning that caused Clark to become almost human with me. For a while.
It was last week, the night I met Dexter-and Girdle told me to go to bed and I did but I couldn't sleep and I left my door open so that I could hear Clark come in-or if I didn't, phone somebody and have him chased home because, while Uncle Tom is responsible for both of us, I'm responsible for Clark and always have been. I wanted Clark to be home and in bed before Uncle Tom got up. Habit, I guess.
He did come sneaking in about two hours after I did and I psst'd to him and he came into my room.
You never saw a six-year-old boy with so much money!
Josie had seen him to our door, so he said. Don't ask me why he didn't put it in the Tannhäuser's vault-or do ask me: I think he wanted to fondle it.
He certainly wanted to boast. He laid it out in stacks on my bed, counting it and making sure that I knew how much it was. He even shoved a pile toward me. "Need some, Poddy? I won't even charge you interest-plenty more where this came from."
I was breathless. Not the money, I didn't need any money. But the offer. There have been times in the past when Clark has lent me money against my allowance-and charged me exactly 100 percent interest come allowance day. Till Daddy caught on and spanked us both.