Zammo smiled grimly. “Is this your first experience with government methods, captain?”
“Galaxy, no,” exploded the spaceman. “I try to avoid it, of course, but you can’t help getting entangled on occasion. And it’s an abhorrent thing when you are, and that’s the truth. The red tape! The paper work! It’s enough to stunt your growth and curdle your circulation. It’s a tumor, a cancerous growth on the Galaxy. I’d wipe out the whole mess.”
Antyok said, “You’re unfair, captain. You don’t understand.”
“Yes? Well, now, as one of these bureaucrats,” and he smiled amiably at the word, “suppose you explain your side of the situation, administrator.”
“Well, now,” Antyok seemed confused, “government is a serious and complicated business. We’ve got thousands of planets to worry about in this Empire of ours and billions of people. It’s almost past human ability to supervise the business of governing without the tightest sort of organization. I think there are something like four hundred million men today in the Imperial Administrative Service alone, and in order to co-ordinate their efforts and to pool their knowledge, you must have what you call red tape and paper work. Every bit of it, senseless though it may seem, annoying though it may be, has its uses. Every piece of paper is a thread binding the labors of four hundred million humans. Abolish the Administrative Service and you abolish the Empire; and with it, interstellar peace, order, and civilization.”
“Come-” said the captain.
“No. I mean it.” Antyok was earnestly breathless. “The rules and system of the Administrative set-up must be sufficiently all-embracing and rigid so that in case of incompetent officials, and sometimes one is appointed-you may laugh, but there are incompetent scientists, and newsmen, and captains, too-in case of incompetent officials, I say, little harm will be done. For, at the worst, the system can move by itself.“
“Yes,” grunted the captain, sourly, “and if a capable administrator should be appointed? He is then caught by the same rigid web and is forced into mediocrity.”
“Not at all, “ replied Antyok, warmly. “ A capable man can work within the limits of the rules and accomplish what he wishes.”
“How?” asked Bannerd.
“Well…well-” Antyok was suddenly ill at ease. “One method is to get yourself an A-priority project, or double-A, if possible.”
The captain leaned his head back for laughter, but never quite made it, for the door was flung open and frightened men were pouring in. The shouts made no sense at first. Then:
“Sir, the ships are gone. These non-Humans have taken them by force.”
“What? All?”
“Every one. Ships and creatures-”
It was two hours later that the four were together again, alone in Antyok’s office now.
Antyik said coldly, “They’ve made no mistakes. There’s not a ship left behind, not even your training ship, Zammo. And there isn’t a government ship available in this entire half of the Sector. By the time we organize a pursuit they’ll be out of the Galaxy and halfway to the Magellanic Clouds. Captain, it was your responsibility to maintain an adequate guard.”
The captain cried, “It was our first day out of space. Who could have known-”
Zammo interrupted fiercely, “Wait a while, captain. I’m beginning to understand. Antyok, “ his voice was hard, “you engineered this.”
“I?” Antyok’s expression was strangely cool, almost indifferent.
“You told us this evening that a clever administrator got an A-priority project assigned to accomplish what he wished. You got such a project in order to help the non-Humans escape.”
“I did? I beg your pardon, but how could that be? It was you yourself in one of your reports that brought up the problem of the failing birth rate. It was Bannerd, here, whose sensational articles frightened the Bureau into making a double A-priority project out of it. I had nothing to do with it.”
“ You suggested that I mention the birth rate,” said Zammo, violently.
“Did I?” said Antyok, composedly.
“And for that matter,” roared Bannerd, suddenly, “you suggested that I mention the birth rate in my articles.”
The three ringed him now and hemmed him in. Antyok leaned back in his chair and said easily, “I don’t know what you mean by suggestions. If you are accusing me, please stick to evidence-legal evidence. The laws of the Empire go by written, filmed, or transcribed material, or by witnessed statements. All my letters as administrator are on me here, at the Bureau, and at other places. I never asked for an A-priority project. The Bureau assigned it to me, and Zammo and Bannerd are responsible for that. In print, at any rate.”
Zammo’s voice was an almost inarticulate growl, “You hoodwinked me into teaching the creatures how to handle a spaceship.”
“It was your suggestion. I have your report proposing they be studied in their reaction to human tools on file. So has the Bureau. The evidence-the legal evidence, is plain. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Nor with the globes?” demanded Bannerd.
The captain howled suddenly, “You had my ships brought here purposely. Five thousand globes! You knew it would require hundreds of craft. “
“I never asked for globes,” said Antyok, coldly. “That was the Bureau’s idea, although I think Bannerd’s friends of The Philosophy helped that along.”
Bannerd fairly choked. He spat out, “You were asking that Cepheid leader if he could read minds. You were telling him to express interest in the globes.”
“Come, now. You prepared the transcript of the conversation yourself, and that, too, is on file. You can’t prove it.” He stood up, “You’ll have to excuse me. I must prepare a report for the Bureau.”
At the door, Antyok turned. “In a way, the problem of the non-Humans is solved, even if only to their own satisfaction. They’ll breed now, and have a world they’ve earned themselves. It’s what they wanted.
“Another thing. Don’t accuse me of silly things. I’ve been in the Service for twenty-seven years, and I assure you that my paper work is proof enough that I have been thoroughly correct in everything I have done. And captain, I’ll be glad to continue our discussion of earlier this evening at your convenience and explain how a capable administrator can work through red tape and still get what he wants.”
It was remarkable that such a round. smooth baby-face could wear a smile quite so sardonic.
From: BuOuProv
To: Loodun Antyok, Chief Public Administrator, A-8
Subject: Administrative Service, Standing in.
Reference:
(a) AdServ Court Decision 22874-Q , dated 1/978 G.E.
1. In view of the favorable opinion handed down in reference
(a) you are hereby absolved of all responsibility for the flight of non-Humans on Cepheus 18. It is requested that you hold yourself in readiness for your next appointment.
R. Horpritt, Chief,
AdServ, 15/978 G.E.
The letters that form a major part of this story (which contains one of my rare examples of extraterrestrial intelligences) are, you will be glad to know, based on the kind of material that routinely passed in and out of the N.A.E.S. (and, for all I know, still does).The turgid style is not my invention. I couldn’t invent it if I tried.
When the story appeared, L. Sprague de Camp happily pointed out one Haw in the letter style: I had carelessly made someone in lower position, who was addressing someone in higher position, say, “it is requested” instead of “it is suggested.” The underling can humbly suggest, but only an overling can harshly request.
“Blind Alley” has one distinction I would like to mention.
After the war, there began that Hood of science fiction anthologies that has been growing in width and depth ever since. Few, if any, science fiction writers have been anthologized as often as I have and the first one of my stories to be anthologized was not “Nightfall” or a “positronic robot” story or a “Foundation” story. It was “Blind Alley.”
In early 1946 Groff Conklin was putting out the first of his many science fiction anthologies-one called “The Best of Science Fiction”-and there you will find “Blind Alley.” That story, for which Campbell had paid $148.75 (1?? a word) then earned another $42.50 (?? a word). This meant that “Blind Alley” had earned me 2?? a word, which was a record high at the time.
Strictly speaking, the money for the anthologization was paid to Street amp; Smith, but Street amp; Smith had the enlightened habit of turning such money over to the author-voluntarily and without legal compulsion. And this was the first indication I ever received, by the way, that a story could earn more money than that which it earned at the time of its original sale.
On May 8, 1945, one week before “The Mule” was completed, the war ended in Europe. Naturally, there was at once a move to demobilize as many of the men who had been fighting in Europe as possible, and to draft replacements from among those who had luxuriated at home.
All through the war, till then, I had been receiving regular draft deferments as a research chemist working in a position important to the war effort. Periodically, there were revisions of the draft rules, and it was a rare month in which it did not look at one time or another as though I might be drafted. (It kept me on my toes, I can tell you, but I did not feel particularly ill-used. My predominant feeling was that of a sneaking guilt at not being drafted and some shame that I was relieved at my deferment.)
During 1944, the uncertainty went so far that I was called in for a physical examination, and it at once turned out that my nearsightedness was so bad as to render me ineligible for the draft anyway.
After V-E Day, the navy yard was ordered to retain only some percentage of those of its deferred employees, allowing the remainder to be drafted. Presumably, the navy yard would select its most important employees to keep, but they knew a better trick, according to the tale we employees heard. They retained all draftable employees who met the physical requirements, and removed protection from those who did not meet them either because of age or physical defect. In this way, they hoped to keep them all-those who were fit, because they were declared necessary, and those who were overage or unfit, because they were overage or unfit.