He returned to his quarters, where he found a lavish luncheon laid out on his work table. Disgustedly he emptied the congealed food into the disposal. He was dourly contemplating the blighted view from his windows when a knock sounded.
He measured his caller with one swift glance. This, he thought, has got to be the assistant coordinator.
The man snapped to attention and saluted. “Assistant-Coordinator Wheeler reporting.”
Forzon told him to skip it and come in and sit down. And when he answered, “Yes, sir,” Forzon told him to skip that, too. “The name is Jef. Do you have a first name?”
“Blagdon.” Wheeler grinned foolishly. “My friends call me Blag.”
“Good enough. I’d wear myself out saying Assistant-Coordinator Wheeler.”
Wheeler grinned again, handed Forzon a thick book, and arranged himself comfortably on a chair. Forzon grinned back at him. Having met Coordinator Rastadt, he could have predicted his assistant. A big, easygoing, pleasant-looking man, his principal function on this base would be the soothing of feelings rumpled by his brusque superior.
Then Wheeler’s grin faded, and Forzon realized with a start that the man had two faces, tragic and comic, and probably did not know himself whether he was a weeping clown or a laughing tragedian.
Forzon hefted the book. “What’s this?”
“Field Manual 1048K. The basic IPR manual. It tells you everything, which is probably a lot more than you’ll want to know.”
Forzon pushed it aside. “You’re supposed to brief me.”
“Yes,” Wheeler agreed. “But first—we’ve found your orders.”
“You’ve found them?”
Wheeler nodded unhappily. Even at his glummest his round, congenial face seemed about to break into laughter. Forzon regarded him sympathetically. Whatever abilities the man had, he was doomed to pass through life as someone’s assistant. At every crisis in his career the clown in his character would rear its leering head and convince his superiors that this was not a man to be taken seriously.
“One of the communications men goofed,” Wheeler said. “Not his fault, really. The orders were for someone he’d never heard of. He knew there was no Jef Forzon on Gurnil and no supervisor of any kind within light-years of here. Naturally he figured that the orders had been mistakenly coded for Gurnil, and he filed them and asked for confirmation. A lot of things can happen to an interspatial relay, and the confirmation never arrived—and your orders stayed filed. Anyway, there’s no harm done. You’re here, and your orders are here. I’m having copies made now. You’re to take command of Team B.”
Forzon stared at him. “A Cultural Survey officer in charge of an Interplanetary Relations Bureau field team? You’d better refile those orders and send another request for confirmation.”
“I already have,” Wheeler said. “I’ve asked for confirmation, I mean, but that’s routine. I don’t think there’s any chance of an error.”
“Then someone in IPR Bureau Supreme Headquarters is crazy.”
For once Wheeler’s smile was merely wistful. “I’ve been contending that for years, but regardless of the mental condition of the person issuing them, orders are inevitably orders. Team B is yours.”
“To do what?”
“Mmm—yes. Some Gurnil history might be helpful to you.”
“Anything would be helpful.”
“To be sure. I was forgetting that you don’t—that you’re not—” He grinned mournfully and paused for a moment’s thought. “As you no doubt know, the Interplanetary Relations Bureau functions chiefly outside the boundaries of the Federation of Independent Worlds. As the Federation grows, IPR moves ahead and prepares the way for it. It charts space and explores and surveys the planets. If it discovers intelligent life a coordinator is appointed, and he establishes an IPR base, conducts a classification study, and sets up the field teams he needs to guide the planet toward membership in the Federation. If there is no intelligent life then various other things happen, none of which need concern us because Gurnil had two flourishing human-type civilizations when it was first surveyed four hundred years ago. Do you know anything about IPR procedures?”
Forzon shook his head. “How could I? You don’t let CS in until you certify a planet non-hostile, and you don’t do that until your work is finished and the planet has actually applied for Federation membership.”
“We can’t take a chance on having our work messed up,” Wheeler observed.
“Thanks,” Forzon said dryly. “In the meantime, you mess up our work.”
Wheeler flashed his tragic grin. “We have one or two-things to think about other than culture. This guiding a planet toward Federation membership can be a touchy thing. There must be a planet-wide democratic government, set up by the people themselves without apparent outside interference. We have to work in a terrible complex of regulations.”
“Democracy imposed from without—” Forzon murmured.
“The Bureau’s first law. We rarely find even a planet-wide government, let alone a democracy. So we guide smaller political units toward democratic government, and then we guide them toward combining into larger units, and eventually we have our planet-wide democracy. And of course it all has to be done without the people knowing we’re around. Sometimes it takes centuries.”
“Which is why the cultures are tainted by the time you let us in.”
“We can’t help that.”
“So what am I doing on Gurnil now?”
“I don’t know,” Wheeler said frankly. “I’m just trying to tell you what IPR is doing here. Gurnil is bicontinental, and at first contact both continents were political entities controlled by absolute monarchies. The Bureau’s classification team estimated our job here at fifty years.”
“That was four hundred years ago?”
Wheeler nodded. “Team A, here in Larnor, was immediately successful. Within a dozen years the monarchy had been replaced by a flourishing democracy. It’s still flourishing. It’s practically a model of its kind. Team B, over in Kurr, had no success at all. After four hundred years Kurr is no closer to democratization than it was when the planet was discovered. The contrary —the situation keeps getting worse. Each succeeding monarch consolidates his power a bit further. And that’s where matters stand now.”
“So I’m to take command of Team B, and my mission is to convert Kurr to a democracy.”
“Without apparent outside interference,” Wheeler added with a grin. “You’ll want to take a look at the Team B file. You should know something about what’s been tried before you start making plans of your own.”
“You said the problem has been going on for four hundred years.”
“Yes-”
“A lot of things can be tried in four hundred years.”
“The
