Mack Reynolds - Amazon Planet

Guy Thomas was shaking his head. “He didn’t make his destination. The United Planets Assembly, which, of course, is composed of delegates from every member planet, never heard his plaint.”

Teucer, indignant, shrilled, “How come?”

Guy looked at him. “Sarpedon appeared at the Octagon in Greater Washington. He was turned over to the Interplanetary Department of Justice which listened to his story and decided against letting him speak before the Assembly. He gave us your passwords, and where we could make contact with you. He turned over charts and city plans of Themiscyra. Of course, when I was given this assignment, I memorized them. We located him in an apartment, with the intention of keeping him in Greater Washington until we could look further into his complaint. Frankly, he was a hot potato. A few days later, he disappeared, leaving most of his effects, even personal ones, in the apartment. Needless to say, we suspected the worst. There is no possible way to exist on Earth as it is today, without such things as credit cards. Even the credit card we had issued him had been left behind.”

“What I don’t get,” Zeke said lowly, “is the Octagon and this Department of Interplanetary Justice getting in his way to speaking his piece in front of the Assembly. That would’ve given us a chance.”

Guy looked at him in silence for a long moment, his mouth pursed in perplexity, as though wondering how to phrase what he had next to say.

Finally, “Zeke, Teucer, don’t read more into the United Planets than is there. It’s a very loosely knit organization and practically powerless. It isn’t and was never meant to be a super-government. If it attempted to be, the member planets would drop away until for all practical purposes Earth would stand alone as a member.”

They were frowning unhappily at his words, unhappily and half unbelievingly.

He shook his head. “In actuality, most planets join the orgaization to be assured of not being interfered with. They want protection against their neighboring worlds which have possibly different political, socioeconomic or religious institutions than their own. Aren’t you familiar with Articles One and Two of the UP Charter?”

They were uncomprehending.

Guy sighed. “I thought every schoolkid learned them by heart. They go like this. Article One: The United Planets organization shall take no steps to interfere with the internal political, socioeconomic, or religious institutions of its member planets . Article Two: No member planet of United Planets shall interfere with the internal political, socioeconomic or religious institutions of any other member planet .”

“You mean,” Teucer accused, “you’re’ not allowed to help us?”

Guy shook his head. “Not by United Planets law. What happens on Amazonia is strictly the business of Amazonia and nobody else’s. If we employees of UP began to stick noses in the affairs of the Hippolyte, she’d simply drop out of the organization and if we continued to interfere it would mean war. And, I assure you, a thousand other member planets who don’t wish their internal affairs to be pried into, would take a very dim view of the UP Space Forces being aggressors against a planet which has shown no hostility to any other worlds.”

Zeke blurted hotly, “Then what do you do? What good is the nardy organization?”

Guy Thomas waited for him to cool off before going on. “We explore and patrol space. We try to promote trade and foster progress. If the medical researchers of one planet discover an improved cure for cancer, or whatever, we make every effort to spread the new discovery, avoiding, of necessity, such planets as Eddy, which was colonized by Christian Scientists. If some planet seems about to interfere with the affairs of some other, then we take the most aggressive step in our power. We send the fleet, in all its might, to go into protective orbit about the threatened world. Never has actual combat ensued, the warning is sufficient. The UP fleet, needless to say, could blow the strongest planet into nothingness within split seconds. It has never had occasion to, obviously.”

Teucer glared at him. “Why’d you bother to come, then? You aren’t willing to help us! You’ll stand by and let a billion men and more be treated like slaves, like zombies, like…”

Guy said mildly, “I haven’t been on Amazonia very long, admittedly, but from what I’ve seen you have a surprisingly advanced technology. This is by no means one of the have-not worlds.”

“Yes!” Teucer snarled. “And why? Because we men produce it. We slave our lives away and don’t even have a voice in the nardy government that shoves us around like we were children. You don’t know what it’s like, Thomas! Why’d you bother to come?”

“I’ll answer that,” Guy said cautiously. “First of all, realize that although the UP Charter ties the hands of the Octagon when an appeal like yours comes through—there have been others, the United Planets is not composed exclusively of Utopias. Though our hands are legally tied, we are not insensitive to your situation. I am, of course, incognito. I landed in the guise of an expediter from the Department of Interplanetary Trade, to arrange a deal between Amazonia and Avalon. My real job is to locate you people and get the full story.”

“But what good can it possibly do us?”

Guy Thomas said very carefully, “You never know. Just out of curiosity, what is it you need to promote your cause? Money? I never heard of a revolutionary organization that didn’t need money.”

“Money?” Teucer grunted bitterly. “We don’t use money here.”

“That’s right, one of you mentioned that. How do you carry on exchange? There’s always some equivalent to money.”

“Not on Amazonia. There is no exchange. We keep telling you, this is the most far-out dictatorship you ever ran into in all your United Planets.”

Guy was frowning puzzlement at him. He said, “On anarchist planets, such as Kropotkin, yes. I can understand no medium of exchange. They utilize simple barter. But an advanced world such as Amazonia?”

The scarecrow of a man wrenched a wallet from a purselike affair that hung from his belt. He pulled a plastic card forth and shook it at the agent from Earth. “I work, see? Every hour I put in is credited to me in the computers. Every time I spend something, I put this card up against the credit screen and the amount is deducted.”

“What amount?” Guy said. “You said you didn’t have money.”

Suppose I want to buy a camera. They’ve figured out just how long it took to produce that camera, the number of hours to extract the aluminum in its body, the time to grind the lenses, everything. The total number of hours involved. Say it’s two hours. Then it costs me two hours of my time—I work in sewage disposal—to buy the camera. The computers keep track of the whole thing.”

Guy said, “Well, suppose you wanted to buy a hovercar, something like that which would take hundreds of hours to produce?”

“What do you think? The computers won’t let me buy it until I’ve saved up that number of hours.”

Guy was frowning. “You say you work in the sanitary system. But suppose another man was a…well, research chemist, a highly trained scientist. How would he be awarded these hour credits?”

“Exactly the same,” Zeke said in disgust. “The smartest man in the country doesn’t get anything more for his time, than the dumbest moron. In fact, he gets less, if you want to look at it that way. The moron gets taken care of for free, the big brain has to work if he wants to eat.”

Guy thought about it for awhile. “There’s no way for you to get ahead, really, eh? What’s your initiative? Why bother to try at all?”