Kennedy passed drinks around for everyone except the two Tulan soldiers and Amschel Mayer who shook his head in distaste. If only for a brief spell, some of the tenseness left the air while the men from Earth sipped their beverages.
Jerry Kennedy looked down into the glass into which he had poured a hefty shot of cognac. “Mother’s milk,” he muttered. He looked across the table. “Well, you’ve heard our report. How go things on Texcoco?”
“According to plan,” Plekhanov rumbled. He threw his double vodka down.
Mayer snorted disbelief.
Plekhanov said ungraciously, “Our prime effort is now the uniting of the total population into one strong whole—a super-state capable of accomplishing the goals set us by the Co-ordinator. Everything else we do is secondary to forming such a state.”
Mayer sneered. “Undoubtedly this goal of yours, this super-state, is being established by force. Nothing else could do it.”
“Not always,” Joe Chessman said. “Quite a few of the tribes join up on their own. Why not? The State has a great deal to offer them.”
“Such as what?” Kennedy said mildly. He swirled his cognac in the large glass, smelled the bouquet and sighed.
Chessman looked at him in irritation. “Such as advanced medicine, security from famine, military protection from more powerful nations. The opportunity for youth to get an education and find advancement in the State’s government, if they’ve got it on the ball.”
“And what if they don’t have it on the ball?”
Chessman growled. “What happens to such under any society? They get the dirty-end-of-the-stick jobs.” His eyes went from Kennedy to Mayer, and there was contempt in his expression. “Are you suggesting that you offer anything better on Genoa?”
Mayer said, “Already on most of Genoa it is a matter of free competition. The person with ability is able to profit by it.”
Joe Chessman grunted sour amusement. “Of course, it doesn’t help to be the son of a wealthy merchant or a big politician—or, better still, a member of the Pedagogues complement.”
Plekhanov took over. “In any society the natural leaders come to the top in much the same manner as the big ones come to the top in a bin of potatoes; they just work their way up.”
Jerry Kennedy had finished with savoring the aroma of his cognac. He threw the drink back, then said easily, “At least those at the top can claim they’re the biggest potatoes. They’ve been doing it down through the ages. Remember back in the twentieth century when Hitler and his gang announced they were the big potatoes in Germany and men of Einstein’s stature fled the country—being small potatoes, I suppose.”
Amschel Mayer said impatiently, “We continue to get away from the subject. Pray go on, my dear Leonid. You say you are forcibly uniting all Texcoco, requiring all to join this super-state of yours.”
“We are uniting all Texcoco,” Plekhanov corrected with a scowl at the other’s prodding. “Not always by force. And that is by no means our only effort. We are weeding out the most intelligent of the assimilated peoples and educating them as rapidly as possible. We’ve introduced iron…”
“And use it chiefly for weapons,” Natalie said lowly. She had been looking at Barry Watson, as though wondering at the changes ten years had wrought in him.
Plekhanov switched his scowl to her. “We’ve also introduced antibiotics, Doctor Wieliczka, and other medicines. And a field agriculture.” He looked back to Kennedy. “We’re rapidly building roads…”
“Military roads,” Kennedy mused, looking down into his empty glass.
“…to all sections of the State. We’ve made a beginning in naval science and, of course, haven’t ignored the arts.”
“On the face of it,” Mayer nodded, “hardly approaching what we have accomplished on Genoa.”
Plekhanov rumbled indignantly. “We started two ethnic periods behind you. Even the Tulans, our most advanced people, were still using bronze, but your Genoese had iron and even gunpowder. Our advance is a bit slow to get moving Mayer, but when it begins to roll—”
Mayer gave his characteristic snort. “A free people need never worry about being passed by a subjected one.”
Barry Watson came to his feet and made his way over to the bar. He picked up a bottle of whiskey that Kennedy had opened earlier, and poured himself another slug. He looked back over his shoulder at Amschel Mayer. “It’s interesting the way you throw about that term free. Just what type of government do you sponsor?”
Mayer snapped. “Our team does not interfere in governmental forms, Watson. The various nations are free to adapt to whatever local conditions decree. They range from some under feudalistic domination to countries with varying degrees of republican democracy. Our base of operations in the eastern hemisphere is probably the most advanced of all the chartered cities on Genoa. It amounts to a city-state somewhat similar to Florence during the Renaissance.”
“And your team finds itself in the position of the Medici, I assume.”
“You might use that analogy. The Medici might have been, well, tyrants of Florence, dominating her finances and trade as well as her political government, but they were benevolent tyrants.”
“Yeah,” Watson grinned. “The thing about a benevolent tyranny, though, is that it’s up to the tyrants to decide what’s benevolent. I’m not so sure there’s a great basic difference between your governing of Genoa and ours of Texcoco.”
“Don’t be a yoke,” Mayer snapped. “We are granting the Genoese political freedoms as fast as they can assimilate them.”
Joe Chessman growled, “But I imagine it’s surprising to find how slowly they can assimilate. A moment ago you said they were free to form any government they wished. Now you say you feed them what you call freedom, only so fast as they can assimilate it.”
“Obviously, we encourage them along whatever path we think will most quickly develop their economy,” Mayer argued. “That’s what we’ve been sent here to do. We stimulate competition, encourage all progress, political as well as economic.”
Plekhanov lumbered to his feet and joined Kennedy at the bar. He growled at the other team head. “Amschel, obviously we are getting nowhere with this conference. I propose we adjourn to meet again at the end of the second decade.”
Kennedy poured the other another shot of vodka, and filled his own glass again.
Amschel Mayer said, “I suppose it would be futile to suggest you give up this impossible totalitarian scheme of yours and reunite the expedition.”
Plekhanov merely grunted his disgust.
Barry Watson said, “You might remember that it was your idea in the first place. It’s too late to change now.”
Jerry Kennedy said, “One thing.” He frowned and swirled his cognac in the big glass. “What stand have you taken on giving your planet immortality?”
No one noticed the two Tulan men at arms shoot startled looks at each other.
“Immortality?” Chessman grunted. “We haven’t got it to give.”
“You know what I mean. It wouldn’t take long to extend the life span double or triple the present,” Jerry Kennedy said.
Amschel Mayer pursed his thin lips. “At this stage progress is faster with the generations closer together. A man is pressed when he knows he has only twenty or thirty years of peak efficiency. We on Earth are inclined to settle back and take life as it comes. For instance, you younger men are all past the century mark, but none have bothered to get married as yet.”
Barry Watson shot a look at Natalie, who flushed slightly. “Plenty of time for that,” he grinned.
“That’s what I mean,” Mayer said. “But a Texcocan or Genoese feels pressed to wed in his twenties, or earlier, to get his family under way.”