so long that Farrari became uneasy. “Yes—and no,” Paul said again. “I’d say that you’ve made yourself very useful here, Farrari. You’ve relieved the classification team of the necessity of writing reports on cultural matters— which has always been a headache. IPR men lack the training and interest. Your analysis of art by historical epochs was of tremendous assistance to the history section and to several other projects. Likewise your correlations of myths and literature with historical events. Several specialists are downright lyrical in their praise of the help you’ve given them. You’ve shown us that culture is a sort of common denominator to a great many areas of study, and in doing so you’ve made some highly valuable contributions.”
Farrari modestly murmured his thanks.
“I polled the entire classification team a month ago,” Paul said. “No one disapproved of your presence here, everyone thought the assignment of a CS man to an IPR team a good idea, and many were enthusiastic. You’ve done a job for us, you haven’t got in anyone’s way, and you’ve worked harmoniously whenever the interests of another specialist touched upon yours. I’ve said some nice things about you in my reports, and I expect to say more before you’re recalled. In short your worries, if you have any, are entirely without foundation.”
“Even so,” Farrari persisted, “I have the feeling that someone expects me to do something—something—”
“Significant?” Paul suggested. “Or maybe even dramatic?” He chuckled. “Ever hear of a world named Gurnil?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m surprised. Where IPR is concerned there is always a problem—THE problem. On Gurnil it went on for four hundred years. Then someone had a brainstorm and brought in a CS officer. Prior to that we’d always kept CS out until we’d certified a world non-hostile, meaning until it was eligible for Federation membership. The CS officer solved the Gurnil problem with a brilliant stroke that the Bureau doesn’t understand yet and probably never will. Immediately the Bureau requested CS men for all of its classification and direction teams. There weren’t enough to go around, which is why your class was jerked out of the academy before it finished its training. Bureau higherups are hopeful that Gurnil-type miracles will pop out all along the frontier. They won’t. The CS officer who solved the Gurnil problem was undoubtedly a veteran and the most brilliant man available. You youngsters aren’t about to pull off anything like that, but you can learn, you can acquire valuable experience, and you can help out with routine tasks that touch on your specialized knowledge. If once in a century or once in a millennium we get another Gurnil, that’s just an unexpected bonus. My advice: carry on as you have. You’re doing fine.”
“Thank you, sir. But what is THE problem?”
Paul’s fingers drummed thoughtfully on his desk. “Didn’t they issue you an IPR manual?”
“No, sir.”
“They should have.” He scribbled a memo and handed it to Farrari. “Take that to Graan. If he doesn’t have a manual in stock I’ll be shocked, and tell him he’s to loan you his personal copy until he gets one for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“One moment, Farrari. Manual 1048-K is a mountain of fine print and capitalized nuggets of what the Bureau chooses to consider wisdom. I’m not giving you one with the idea that you’ll read it, because you won’t. At least, I hope you won’t. The contents are highly technical, and it takes a Bureau man several years to work his way through it. A little browsing in it won’t injure you—not much, anyway—but while you’re browsing never forget one thing: the entire manual concerns the Bureau’s dealings with people— with intelligent beings. That’s all, Farrari.”
Dazedly Farrari saluted and made his exit.
In Isa Graan’s office he exchanged his memo for a copy of IPR Field Manual 1048-K. It was a thick, oblong volume of some three thousand pages, zipbound in tough, reinforced covers.
“So you think you’re ready for the Holy Word,” Graan drawled. “Sign here. Better read this first—you’re agreeing not to remove the manual from this base without the coordinator’s permission, or divulge its contents or any part thereof to any unauthorized person or persons.”
“What’s the penalty?”
“No idea. As far as I know it’s never happened.”
Farrari scrawled his signature. “I’m not sure that I’m ready for quite this much of the Holy Word,” he said ruefully. “I suppose you people have to memorize it.”
“It only seems that way,” Graan said.
Farrari opened the cover. On the first inside page he read, “DEMOCRACY IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT IS THE SEVEREST FORM OF TYRANNY.” He glanced at the wall behind Graan, where the same motto hung. “It just occurred to me,” he said. “That thing is on display in every room in the base except the two assigned to me.”
“Regulations say every room,” Graan said. “It kind of seemed that we were turning your rooms over to the Cultural Survey, and we didn’t know but what CS had a motto of its own, so we took ours down.”
“I see.” Farrari turned a handful of pages and peered dubiously at the fine print. He flipped another page and saw a framed block of large, black capital letters. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A FORM OF GOVERNMENT. IT IS A STATE OF MIND. PEOPLE CANNOT ARBITRARILY BE PLACED IN A STATE OF MIND.
“I don’t suppose there’s an abridged version,” Farrari said wistfully. He turned another handful of pages. ONE MEASURE OF THE URGENCY OF REVOLUTION IS THE FREEDOM THE PEOPLE HAVE, COMPARED WITH THE FREEDOM THEY WANT.
“It’s very carefully organized,” Graan said. “Here—the table of contents is at the back. History of the Bureau, Basic Principles, Classification Data, Specimen Cases—that’s half the manual, includes all the classic cases and representative examples of every classification. Then Procedures, and so on.”
“Where would I find instructions for classifying this planet?’’
Graan patted the manual. “Actually, this is classroom stuff. I doubt that any IPR team has to calculate a classification ratio these days. We send all of our data to headquarters, it’s fed into a special computer, and someone reads off the classification. The ticklish problem is in compiling the data—not to overlook anything. In simple terms, the classification is political factors over technological factors. It reads like a fraction. The smaller the fraction, the healthier the situation—what we call a low-high condition—and with proper evolution the technological factor ascends and the political factor descends. One over one hundred would mean pure democracy and the highest technological level. The computer rarely gives us whole numbers, though. 1.3785 over 99.7481 would round off at 1/100 for convenient reference.”
“What about Branoff IV?”
“It’ll be the opposite—a nasty variant of a high-low condition. The God-Emperor, a small class of intermarrying nobility, military establishment mainly aimed at keeping the population in check, and the majority of the emperor’s subjects in a state of slavery. Politically somewhere in the high eighties. Considering the level of culture the technology is surprisingly weak. Not even ten on the revised scale. Say 87/8. The Bureau is certain to oh-oh the planet.”
“What does that mean?”
“Observation only. It’ll be at least a couple of millennia before we can really
