Chapter 11
Guided by Estrelita O’Higgins, accompanied by Colonel Bardon, Grimes made the rounds of the great reception hall. The ADC trailed behind for a while, then lost himself in the crowd. The new Governor was introduced to the people who—in theory—were now his subjects. He made and listened to small talk. Now and again he was able to initiate a discussion on more serious matters. He sampled snacks from the buffet tables and enjoyed the savory, highly-spiced morsels. An attentive servant continually replenished his glass, even after only a couple of sips. On any other world but this, Grimes thought, a Governor would remain in one place and the people would be brought to meet him. Possibly this Liberian way of doing things was better. At least the newly installed dignitary did not go hungry or thirsty.
He met ministers of state and media personalities. He fended off searching questions about his recent experiences as a commodore of privateers. He asked questions himself, some of which were answered frankly while others were not. Politicians, he thought, were much of a muchness no matter what labels they had attached to themselves.
His conversation with Eduardo Lopez, Minister of Immigration was interesting.
“You must realize. Your Excellency, that I have little choice regarding the ethnicity of our immigrants. To deny any distressed person or persons sanctuary on racial grounds would be altogether contrary to our . . . constitution? Yes. Constitution. . . .”
“I thought,” said Grimes, “that a society founded on the principles of Anarchism wasn’t supposed to have such a thing.”
“Contrary to our principles,” said the President firmly.
“You are right as always, Estrelita,” said the fat politician gallantly. “Principles. Of course, if I received a request for permission to enter from, say, an El Doradan, a representative of a society notorious for its devotion to capitalism, I should be obliged to refuse. But the poor, distressed and homeless, of whatever race or color, I must welcome with open arms.”
“We must welcome,” said the President.
“As I was saying—we must welcome.”
“And can these immigrants become full citizens?” asked Grimes, although he already knew the answer to that question.
“Of course, provided that they show proof that they are fit and proper persons to become Liberians.”
Grimes looked around him. Apart from the servants all those present seemed to be of Terran Anglo-Saxon or Latin stock. There were no Orientals, no Negroes.
“Have any outworlders yet achieved citizenship?” he asked.
“Er . . . no. You see. Your Excellency, the major qualification is freedom. As long as a person is in debt to the State he is not free. Once he has earned enough money to repay the debt he is free . . .”
“Debt?” asked Grimes.
“Resettlement is a costly business, Your Excellency, as you as a shipowner must know. Transportation between worlds . . .”
“The responsibility, I understand, of the Federation.”
“Even so, there are costs, heavy costs. People come here. They must be fed, housed, found employment. . . .”
“Employment,” echoed Grimes. “Menial work. Manual labor, for not very high wages. . . .”
“And would you pay a field hand, Your Excellency, the salary that you, highly trained and qualified, would expect as a shipmaster?”
“The laborer, in any field, is worthy of his hire,” said the President.
Her hand firmly on Grimes’s elbow she steered him away from Lopez, toward the flamboyantly red-haired Kitty O’Halloran, Director of Tri Vi Liberia. She was a large woman, fat rather than plump, and she gushed. “Your Excellency. Commodore. I’m dying to get you on to one of our programs. Just an interview, but in depth. Just the story, told by yourself, of some of your outrageous adventures. . . .”
“Outrageous?” parried Grimes. “I’m a respectable Governor. “
“But you weren’t always. You’ve been a pirate. . . .”
“A privateer,” he corrected her.
“Who knows the difference?” She tittered. “From what I’ve heard, you didn’t know yourself. . . .”
Again there was the guiding pressure on his elbow. This time he was to meet Luigi Venito, Minister of Interstellar Trade, a tall, distinguished man with steely gray hair and—unusual in this company—a neatly trimmed beard.
“I thought. Your Excellency,” said Venito. “that I might one day deal with you in your capacity as a shipowner. To meet you as a Governor is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Bad pennies,” said Grimes, “turn up in the most unexpected places.”
“Ha ha. But I refuse to believe that the Terran World Assembly would appoint a bad penny to a highly responsible position.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Grimes. “And, in any case, governments are rarely as moral as those whom they govern.” (There are times, he thought, when I feel that I should have a Boswell, recorder in hand, tagging after me . . .) “I hope that your government is an exception to the rule.”
Venito chuckled. “Some say that we shouldn’t have a government at all, not on this world. But after the first few years our founding fathers—and mothers, of course, Madam President—were obliged to admit that pure Anarchism doesn’t work. A state of anarchy is not Anarchism. But we are free, unregimented, doing the things that we want to do as long as we do not infringe upon the rights of our fellow citizens. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. My own ability is trade, buying in the cheapest markets, selling in the dearest. All for the greatest good, naturally, of Liberia . . .”
He had been drinking, of course, not too much, perhaps, but enough to loosen his tongue. Grimes ignored the President’s attempt to push him along to another group. There was one point that he wanted to clear up, a matter that had not been fully dealt with in the data that he had been given to study on the voyage out from Earth.
He said, “You must have made some interesting deals in your time. . . . Agricultural machinery, for example. . . .”
Venito laughed. “Yes. That was a good deal! The new colony on Halvan—and the ship carrying all their robot harvesters and the like months overdue! She’s listed as missing, presumed lost, at Lloyd’s. I think that the presumption still holds—but that’s not important. . . .”
Only to the crew, thought Grimes, and their relatives.
“And we had still more refugees coming in and so I said to Lopez, ‘Put these people to work in the fields—and I’ll flog all our agricultural machinery at better-than-new prices!’ And I did just that.”
“Clever,” said Grimes. “Ill winds, and- all that. But it wouldn’t have been so good for Liberia if you didn’t have the indentured labor system, if your field workers were being paid decent wages.”
“What is a decent wage, Your Excellency? Enough to buy the necessities of life—food, shelter, clothing—with a little left over for the occasional luxury. That’s a decent wage. On this world nobody goes cold or hungry. What more do you want?”
“The freedom to change your job when you feel like it, for a start.”
“But all our citizens enjoy that freedom.”
“Yes. All your citizens, Minister.”
“Citizenship has to be earned, Your Excellency.”
The President not only had her hand firmly on his elbow; she pinched him quite painfully. He took the hint and allowed her to conduct him to a meeting with the Minister for Culture and the lady with him, the Chief Librarian of Liberia.
They knew his background, of course, and, talking down from their intellectual eminence, made it plain that they held spacemen in low esteem.