“I should love to see it,” said Marko.
“If you are in Lann about the third of Perikles, come around. On that day, I intend to inflate my balloon for a flight to the Philosophical Convention at Vien.”
Marko said: “I have heard of these philosophical conventions and should love to attend one. How do you do it? I mean, what does one have to be or to do to get in?”
“Merely pay a small registration fee.”
“Is that all? No special degree is required?”
“No; we philosophers are only too glad to have the public take an interest hi our accomplishments. These conventions have been in operation only about ten years, but they grow bigger every year. This year there are rumors that a pair of philosophical brothers from Mingkwo will bring some sensational inventions they have developed. If, that is, the Prem of Eropia does not choose that time to start a war or massacre his enemies.”
“Is he a dangerous man?” said Marko, who had heard only vaguely of the vagaries of Alzander Mirabo.
Halran whistled, rolled up his eyes, and held his palms together as in prayer. “Extremely dangerous. Shrewd, ruthless, unpredictable, and insatiably ambitious. If he thinks you stand in his way, he may entertain you one day and charm you with his affability, and the next have your head hacked off in the main square of Vien.
“The Chamber elected him Prem because he promised to break the power of the magnates, which he did. Then he got all their lands and manufactories into his own hands. Since then, he has ruled the country with an even more iron hand than the magnates did.”
“Why don’t the Eropians revolt?” asked Marko.
“Them? Oh, most of them like him. He poses as the champion of the masses against their exploiters and so has achieved a meretricious popularity”
“He has effected some real reforms, too,” interjected Noli.
Halran shrugged. “If you consider those worth his turning the judicial system into an instrument for punishing his personal opponents. But his ambitions do not stop there. He has been strengthening his army lately, and rumors hint at an invasion of Iveriana. Of course, when my balloon is perfected, it will make war impossible. But there are still many details to be worked out.”
“How will it make war impossible, sir?” said Marko.
“By making it too risky and too horrible for men to endure. How could any government defend its land against a horde of enemies rising in balloons on the windward side of the border and descending anywhere in the realm? This invention will compel the nations to unite to abolish war.”
Marko inquired: “Have you got your stupa gum yet, sir?”
“No it will take some days. The Krai’s government requires much signing of papers before it will let me export the material, which is curious when you consider that stupa-tree products are the main export of Vizantia.”
“Not so odd,” said Gathokli Noli. “These forms are to make sure nobody fells a stupa tree on his own, contrary to law.” He turned to Marko. “And now let me ask: What brings you down from your misty mountains? How is your handsome wife?”
From a stranger, Marko would have resented a question about his wife. Vizantians considered it indelicate to talk about marital relationships. After all, everybody knew what married people did. But Noli was an old friend, and the people of the university were a bit looser in such matters than.Marko’s fellow Skudrans.
As for Halran, it was notorious that Anglonians had no such inhibitions. Marko gulped and replied:
“As a matter of fact, it is she that brings me here. She decided she liked one of her fellow countrymen better than me, and I’m following them to send them to Earth.” He touched his ax.
Halran started visibly. Noli merely raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I shouldn’t have mentioned the matter, had I guessed this complication. I’m sorry for your trouble and wish you success.”
“Have you seen either of them?” Marko, twirling an imaginary mustache, described his faithless friend Mongamri.
“No-o,” said Gathokli Noli. “But I’ll keep a watch for him.”
Halran said: “By Kliopat, you two talk calmly enough about slaying a man. Do you really mean that, or is this a jest?”
“No joke at all, sir,” said Marko. “What I plan to do is not only legal; it’s practically compulsory. If I didn’t make every effort to kill the guilty pair, I should be held in aversion and contempt.”
Halran shuddered. “In Anglonia we consider such a thing barbarous.”
“No doubt, sir. Of course, an ignorant hillbilly like myself has no right to speak. But, while in Anglonia you place an absurdly high value on human life, you don’t take honor and purity so seriously as we do.”
“But my dear fellow, there is no comparison between killing a fellow being and giving one of the other sex a few minutes’ harmless pleasure.”
“Harmless pleasure! That only proves how depraved and immoral …” began Marko with heat, but Gathokli Noli interrupted:
“Other lands, other customs. I’ll tell you: Why don’t you, Marko, promise to spare the man who cuckolded you while Boert swears eternal chastity?”
“But I am a married man!” protested Halran.
Marko said: “That would not be fair. At Dr. Halran’s age”
“I like that!” cried Halran. “What do you know about my private life, Master Prokopiu?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Noli. “Let’s change the subject, which is becoming just too indelicate. Are you attending commencement tomorrow, Marko?”
“I hadn’t known you were having it,” said Marko, “but I shall be glad to come.” Privately he thought this a good chance to run into Mongamri and Petronela.
“As a diploma holder,” said Noli, “you will be deemed a member of the university, ranking with the two-year sub-bachelors. You shall therefore sit with the graduates and wear an academic robe.”
“Oh,” said Marko. “Had I known, I should have brought mine from Skudra, but as it is …”
“That’s all right; I’ll get you one,” said Noli. “Meet me here at the third hour tomorrow.”
Marko spent the rest of the day in a further futile search for his victims. The next morning, he appeared at Gathokli Noli’s office at the appointed time.
Gathokli Noli hung upon him the short black cape of the holder of a mere diploma in education, and himself donned the sweeping scarlet cassock of a full professor. Boert Halran appeared too, in the purple surplice of an Anglonian Doctor of Philosophy.
They solemnly tipped their academic hats to each other and marched out and across the campus to the commencement grounds. Over these had been erected a great canvas canopy; for, although Muphrid showed his face at that time, it was too much to expect the heavens of Thine to refrain from raining for half an hour at a stretch.
Gathokli Noli explained as they walked: “Sokrati Popu will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate. That should cause some uproar.”
“Why?” asked Boert Halran. “Is this Popu unpopular?”
Gathokli Noli rolled his eyes. “He’s the leader of the Distributionist movement.”
“What is that?” inquired Halran. “I have sufficient difficulty keeping up with the politics of my own land, let alone that of others.”
Gathokli Noli explained: “As you know, the main wealth of the Krai ate lies in the great stupa forests of the Borsja Peninsula.”
“Yes.”
“Besides the stupa gum you are after, one of those trees contains enough wood to build a small city. Nowhere else in the world, as far as it has been explored, do real trees grow to a fraction of such size.”
“I see,” said Halran.