The Great Fetish

“Well,” continued Noli, “a generation ago, private lumbermen were making serious inroads into the forests. The then Krai, Jorgi the Second, was a far-sighted man. He saw that the trees were being cut faster than they grew and that the whole process was wastefully managed. So he nationalized the forests and set up a program of controlled cutting and planting.

“That worked until the present Krai came to the desk. Krai Maccimo —Noli, glanced about—, is a man of, say, a character different from that of his father. There have been complaints that the forest service is loaded with political hangers-on who do nothing but shuffle papers. Therefore a group of magnates started a movement to have the government sell the forests to them cheaply.

“To promote their idea, they take advantage of the Kralate’s financial troubles, the complaints of people who wish unlimited stupa wood for building, the pressure of the lumberjacks’ guild, and anything else that will serve their turn. But the students are mostly Re-tentionists—that is, Anti-Distributionists—so there may be a disturbance.”

They came to the commencement grounds, where the public seats were fast filling. Gathokli Noli showed Marko and Halran their proper places. Marko found himself in a whole section of diploma capes. As he sat down, the handle of his ax, hitherto hidden by his cape, touched the leg of the man beside him. This man stared and whispered:

“You should not have brought that thing in here!”

Marko smiled and shrugged vaguely. He began peering at the other sections from under the brim of his academic hat.

The professors were assembling on the platform. Undergraduates were pushing into the large front-center section reserved for them. They indulged in much shoving and horseplay, which the admonitions of the beadles did little to check.

Then Marko saw Chet Mongamri and Petronela come in through one of the main entrances and take places with the rest of the public. They were a long way from Marko and to his left rear, so that he had to crane his neck to see them. His breath quickened, and he turned his head to the front again lest they recognize him. A cold rage filled him, so that he hardly heard what went on around him. He clenched his fists and bit his lips. The men next to him edged away from his apocalyptic aspect.

At last everybody was in place. The beadles stood at attention at the ends of the aisles, holding heir staves as if they had been pikes. The president of the university, Mathai Vlora, opened the proceedings.

The university’s band played “Vizantia Victorious.” The president introduced the Bishop of Thine. The bishop invoked the blessings of the gods upon the university and its students—especially the blessings of Dui, the god of education.

The president gave an opening address, which seemed to Marko to say nothing very eloquently, and began introducing the recipients of honorary degrees. There was Maccimo Vuk, the distinguished assassin, who had given the university ten thousand dlars. There was Ivan Laskari, who claimed to have proved that atoms existed. And, after several others had been honored, there was Sokrati Popu. His only qualification seemed to be that, as head of the Distributionists, he stood to become the richest man in the nation if his scheme went through.

Sokrati Popu was a short man with a large head, bald and jowly. He let the president drape the yellow stole of the honorary doctorate around his neck. They tipped their academic hats. Sokrati Popu stepped to the lectern at the front of the platform, laid a sheaf of manuscript down in front of him, raised a lorgnette to his eyes, and began to read the commencement address.

“Young men and fellow subjects,” he began in a rasping monotone, “it gives me great pleasure …”

After several paragraphs of the usual cliches of commencement oratory, he got down to business: “… Vizantia stands at the fork of the road. Which horn of the dilemma shall we take? One hurls us into the swamp of state monopoly, which has crushed the proud nation of Eropia, once a leader of civilization, to a nightmare of bureaucratic stagnation. The other leads the ship of state back along the highroads of private enterprise, which stand guard at the shrine of economic sanity—”

At that instant, a student stood up in the undergraduate section and threw a tersor’s egg at Sokrati Popu. The missile missed its target and spattered against the wall of the Liberal Arts Building, which formed a background for the ceremony.

Instantly the two beadles nearest to the undergraduate section plunged into the black-cloaked mass and pounced upon the student. They dragged him out, despite the efforts of the other undergraduates to trip and impede them, and hustled him up an aisle to the exit.

“There’s one who gets no degree today,” said the . man beside Marko who had objected to his ax.

Sokrati Popu resumed his discourse, but now the undergraduates began to mutter in cadence: “I— want—money; I—want—money; I—want—money…”

The beadles, hovering on the fringes of the undergraduate section, reached in and whacked a couple of the noisier of the mutterers with their staves. The chant subsided; Sokrati Popu doggedly resumed:

“What do these benighted bureaucrats really want? To save the stupa forests for posterity as they say? Nonsense! We can never exhaust the stupa forests, and anyway what has posterity ever done for us? The bureaucrats want power! Make no mistake, my ardent young friends—”

Another student threw another tersor’s egg. More beadles tried to reach him, but now the undergraduates clutched them and pulled them down. Marko glimpsed a beadle’s arm flailing about with its staff and then disappearing under the black, billowing mass. The students chanted:

“Wood—for—Popu; wood—for—Popu; wood —for—Popu …”

Others stood up and hurled not only eggs but also bits of edible fungi in various states of decay. The president popped up and shouted threats at the undergraduates, who made rude noises and threw more missiles. These spattered not only Popu but also the president, the faculty, and the other guests. The president roared orders to the beadles, who waded into the throng, swinging their staves at every undergraduate head they saw.

The fight boiled out into the aisles. Through it all, Sokrati Popu stood behind his lectern, raw tersor egg running down his face, and doggedly continued his address. Marko could see his mouth move, even though he could not hear any words.

Marko tore his attention away from the fracas in front to look back into the audience. They were all standing up to see better. Among the heads he glimpsed the sweeping Anglonian mustache of Chet Mongamri.

Knowing his duty, Marko rose with pounding heart, unsnapped the flap of his ax sheath, and pushed his way out into the aisle. He dodged a couple of fights, ran up the aisle all the way to the rear, crossed over to the left side of the audience, and started down the left interior aisle. As he ran, he drew the ax from its case.

Marko dodged around beadles dragging undergraduates out and bore down upon Chet Mongamri, who had taken an aisle seat. He was sighting on the back of Mongamri’s head for a place to sink his ax blade when a beadle, taking cognizance of Marko’s homicidal intentions, released his undergraduate and grabbed Marko’s sleeve, shouting:

“Ho, there, you!”

Marko jerked his arm free and pushed the man in the chest, bowling him over, then turned back to resume his charge. But the beadle shouted, and others joined in. The noise down front had momentarily subsided, so that this sudden outburst caused many of those farther forwards to turn their heads rearwards. One of these who looked around was Chet Mongamri.

Marko saw Mongamri’s jaw sag and his eyes bug as he recognized Marko. Marko swung the ax high and bounded forward. Beside Mongamri, Petronela shrieked.

Mongamri stepped out into the aisle and ran towards the stage ahead of Marko. A lean man, taller than Marko, he could show a remarkable turn of speed. Marko pounded after, and the beadles ran after Marko.