But there was a claidheamh mör, unsharpened and unslaked, hanging on the stone walls of my soul, that would not bend to any such weakness.
Chapter 18
Still, I was under the close observation of my peers in the Guild; and on my return to St. Louis on Earth, among my other mail was a note from Piers Leaf.
Dear Tam:
Your series was an admirable job. But, bearing in mind what we talked about the last time we met, I would think that straight reporting might build a better professional record for you than dealing in background material of this sort. With best wishes for your future-
P.L.
It was a plain enough cautioning not to be observed involving myself personally in the situation I had told him I would investigate. It might have caused me to put off for a month or so the trip I had planned to St. Marie. But just then Donal Graeme, who had accepted the position of War Chief for the Friendlies, carried out his first subsurface extrication of a Friendly expeditionary force from Coby, the airless mining world in the same system as the Exotic worlds and St. Marie. As a result of that rescue, the Exotic mercenary command was severely shaken up, to be reorganized under the command of Geneve bar-Colmain.
Despite widespread admiration for Graeme's skill, the public saw the situation as an unexpected pardon for Friendly forces who had been the aggressors on Coby. With the general liking for the Exotics on the other twelve worlds, what attention my series of articles had obtained was completely wiped out. In this I was well content. What I hoped to gain from their publication, I had already gained in the relaxation of enmity and suspicion of me personally by Field Commander Wassel and his occupation force.
I went to St. Marie, a small but fertile world which, with Coby and a few uninhabited bits of rock like Zombri, shared the Procyon system with the Exotic worlds, Mara and Kultis. My official purpose of visit was to see what effect the Coby military debacle had had on this suburban planet with its largely Roman Catholic, predominantly rural population.
While there were no official connections between them, except a mutual-aid pact, St. Marie was by necessity of spatial geography almost a ward of the larger, more powerful Exotic worlds. Like anyone with rich and powerful neighbors St. Marie, in her government and affairs, pretty much rose and fell with Exotic fortunes. It would be interesting to the reading public of the sixteen worlds to see how the Exotic reversal on Coby had caused the winds of opinion and politics to blow on St. Marie.
As anyone might expect, it had caused them to blow contrary. After some five days of pulling strings, I finally arranged an interview with Marcus O'Doyne, past-President and political power in the so-called Blue Front, the out-of-power political party of St. Marie. It took less than half an eye to see that he was bursting with ill-contained joy.
We met in his hotel suite in Blauvain, the capital of St. Marie. He was of no more than average height, but his head was outsized, heavy-boned and powerful-featured under wavy white hair. It sat awkwardly on his plump and fairly narrow shoulders; and he had a habit of booming his voice out with the ring of a platform speaker, during ordinary conversation, that did not endear him to me. His faded blue eyes gleamed as he spoke.
"... Woken them up, by - George!" he said, once we were seated in overplump chairs in the sitting room of his hotel suite with drinks in our hands. He paused, catching his breath stagily a little before coming out with emphasis on the "George!" as if he wished me to notice that he had been about to use the name of the deity, but had recollected himself in time. It was, I began to find out, a regular trick of his, this catching himself from profanity or obscenity as if in the nick of time.
"the common people - the rural people," he said leaning confidentially toward me. "They were asleep here. They've been asleep for years. Lulled to sleep by those sons of Belial on the Exotics. But that business on Coby woke them up. Opened their eyes!"
"Lulled to sleep - how?" I asked. "Song and dance, song and dance!" O'Doyne rocked back and forth on the couch. "Stage-show magic! Headshrinker's tactics - oh, a thousand and one things, Newsman. You wouldn't believe it!"
"My readers might," I said. "How about citing some instances?"
"Why - darn your readers! Yes, I say - darn your readers!" He rocked forward again, glaring proudly at me. "It's the common inhabitant of my own world I'm concerned with! The common inhabitant. He knows what instances, what coercions, what wrongs! We're not a sideshow here, Mr. Olyn, though maybe you think so! No, I say - darn your readers, and - darn you! I'll get no man in trouble with those robed-babies by citing exact instances."
"You don't give me much to write about, in that case," I said. "Suppose we shift our ground a little, then. I understand that you claim that the people of the present government are maintained in power only by Exotic pressures on St. Marie?"
"They are appeasers, plain and simple, Mr. Olyn. The government - no, no! Call them the Green Front, which is all they are! They claim to represent all the people of St. Marie. They - You know our political situation, here?"
"I understand,'' I said,' 'that your constitution laid out your planet originally into political districts of equal areas, with two representatives to a planetary government from each district. Now I understand your party claims that the growth of city population has allowed the rural districts to control the cities, since a city like Blauvain with half a million inhabitants has no more representation than a district with three or four thousand people in it?"
"Exactly, exactly!" O'Doyne rocked forward and boomed confidentially at me. "The need for reapportionment is acute, as it always has been in such historic situations. But will the Green Front vote themselves out of power? Not likely! Only a bold move - only a grass-roots' revolution can get them out of power and our own party, representing the common man, the ignored man, the disenfranchised man of the cities, into government."
"You think such a grass-roots' revolution is possible at the present time?" I adjusted downward the volume control on my recorder.
"Before Coby, I would have said - no! Much as I would have hoped for such a thing - no! But, since Coby-" He stopped and rocked triumphantly backward, looking at me significantly.
"Since Coby?" I prompted, since significant looks and significant silences were no use to me in doing a job of straight reporting. But O'Doyne had a politician's caution about talking himself into a corner.
"Why, since Coby," he said, "it's become apparent - apparent to any thinking man of this world - that St. Marie may have to go it alone. That we may have to do without the parasitic, controlling hand of the Exotics. And where are men to be found who can steer this troubled ship of St. Marie through the stormy trials of the future? In the cities, Newsman! In the ranks of those of us who have always fought for the common man. In our own Blue Front party!"
"I understand," I said. "But under your constitution wouldn't a change of representatives require an election? And can't an election only be called for
by a majority vote of the current representatives? And don't the Green Front have that majority now, so that they are unlikely to call an election that would put most of them out of office?"
"True!" he boomed. "True!" He rocked back and forth, glaring at me with the same broad hint of significance.
"Then," I said, "I don't see how the grass-roots' revolution you talk about is possible, Mr. O'Doyne."
"Anything is possible!" he answered. "To the common man, nothing is impossible! The straws are in the wind, the wind of change is in the air. Who can deny it?"