A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

While illicit plans were being made in the Northeast corner of Shoorn, Marquette wandered along the terrace encircling the Church of the Highest Heavens. Wishing to be alone, he had sent his worshippers away and was now enjoying the view afforded from the highest building in Shoorn.

Marquette had spent the morning looking over what served for business records in the city. He had been at once amazed and disgusted. For some reason the people of Shoorn utilized a rather vague concept of money; although currency was used, prices were approximate. They weren't haggled over; rather, the customer paid what he happened to have on him or what he thought the object or service was worth. The priests did not collect taxes, but each citizen devoted two years of his life to the priesthood just as Earthmen give several years to the military. On Kiri, however, one could buy back the two years with a cash offering, and this is what most people did. The offerings were normally impressive and paid for the running of things. In addition the priesthood owned most of the businesses on Kiri, or at least in Shoorn, and because of that they wanted for very little.

Minimal paperwork accompanied Kiri transactions, although their computers would have been well able to carry the load. Instead, the giant computer in the base of the Lod Zu, besides regulating Shoorn's utilities and traffic flow, acted as an anthology of literature, history and art. Any citizen who could afford to do so was able to bring into his home any piece of music, art or literature that had been created since the Dark Ages. Mathematics was considered an art here; whenever possible calculations were carried out lovingly, by hand, on a type of abacus, although programs existed which made computerized mathematics possible.

Marquette looked out over the city. There to the South, beyond the farthest towers, one could make out the thin blue line on the horizon that was the ocean. Kiri had but one, called the Sea of Waters. It had been Marquette's suggestion to advance, secretly, the date of the flooding of the lower city so as to foul the rebels who were trying to save the lives of the wretched people who lived down there. Actually, Marquette didn't particularly care to see those thousands (or millions; he didn't really know) of people killed; but they were going to die anyway and such a suggestion from him helped build up his image in the eyes of the priests.

Actually, Marquette was far more interested in the general political system of the entire planet. On Earth his most successful venture had been his most recent—the munitions game. Kiri seemed to be the perfect place to continue this to its ultimate conclusion. There was no world government on Kiri, not even a United Nations. There were no major powers at all, only numerous small countries each under the protection of a single city. From the records Marquette had deduced that, thousands of years before, Kiri had seen a nuclear war. The religious records called it a battle of the angels, but the description was clear enough. Ground farming was still a difficult process and the technology had not really been able to jump ahead until about 150 years ago, when helicopters had been invented and the true nature of Kiri's organic yellow sky discovered and utilized. Then, with an unlimited food source available to them, the people of Kiri had leapt ahead in science—but not in sociology. They retained their deep-seated hatreds of all nations save their own and the least little thing could, and frequently did, spark off wars. The opposing city-states were fairly equal in weaponry now, but Marquette thought he knew where some amazing new ones were available.

He fingered his side where the spear had been. It didn't hurt, but was still a little numb: the nerve cells had not been completely restored. He remembered the day he had first come to Kiri. The priests had removed him from the underground, ancient hospital as soon as possible; but even in his daze he had spotted along the way devices he knew were weapons. After all, that was his business; and even alien munitions were recognizable. Now that he had had a chance to study, he believed he knew the story: how, thousands of years ago Shoorn had been a seaport (closer then to the Sea of Waters), both a tourist center and an academic one. The elite of Kiri traveled from all over to swim in the sea or the hot springs, or to see the stage shows and art programs. Scientific conventions were there held, too; in Shoorn was the social life of the entire planet.

In those days Shoorn was a low-slung city, walled, but easily enough fortified against ground attack. At this point in her history, ground attack was unlikely, for Kiri had developed spaceflight and other wonders (such as the tissue-regeneration device that had saved Marquette) and was at once protected and menaced by a series of orbiting bombs floating over the planet.

But, as happens everywhere, other nations became envious of the prosperity that belonged to Shoorn. They desired Shoorn's coastline, or her farmlands; and each nation was able to prove to its own satisfaction that these things were morally theirs. So the weapons, the Ultimate weapons, were designed and the plans were made. Some were designed in Shoorn itself before the scientists there became aware of what was happening.

Fortunately, thought the scientists, there was a way to put a stop to all this foolishness. Kiri was dependent on a single energy source: ALL. ALL was an artificial element that had been accidentally created; although the supply was limited, the element did not behave in the normal manner of radioactive materials. Each day it gave off more energy, but showed no signs of disintegrating. It acted exactly the opposite of the way anyone would expect an energy source to act; but it did so continuously and reliably and supplied all Kiri with the energy it needed.

Soon it was noted that the mass of the material was increasing; bits were removed to power portable devices such as the regeneration machine that had healed him—proof that the story was no lie. Weapons were designed to use this energy source, and therein was the scientists' plan: remove the energy source and the weapons become useless. They constructed a tremendous bomb-shelter in a hidden place, and stole there one night with the original globe of ALL, and also such samples of Kiri's technology as they could bring, intending to wait years, if necessary, until the nations of that world became sensible. Unfortunately, the scientists, while most educated, were not terribly interested in current events. They were not aware, in their bomb shelter, that by absconding with the ALL, they had left the cities of Kiri powerless; and when the orbiting satellites no longer received certain signals from the surface, they descended on the planet, bringing destruction across the face of it. When the scientists came out a few years later they discovered that the world they had hoped would grow wiser had grown dead.

Such would be the end of the story (unless you include the slow rising of Kiri's culture by wild peoples, survivors of the bombs and descendants of the scientists, which interested Marquette not at all) except that Marquette believed he knew where the scientists' bomb shelter could be found. If he was right, it meant unlimited power for the one who found it, and fantastically advanced weapons, and spaceships, or at least the knowledge of how to build them.

Smiling to himself, the Earthman returned inside. Who knows, he thought, if both Earth and Kiri were inhabited by semi-intelligent creatures, maybe other worlds were, too.

Emperor of the Universe...it didn't sound too bad.