Ministry of Disturbance | Page 4

the more urban
planets and the more densely populated centers. A trend downward in
employment--nonworking population increasing by about .0001 per
cent annually. Not that they were building better robots; they were just

building them faster than they wore out. They all told the same story--a
stable economy, a static population, a peaceful and undisturbed Empire;
eight centuries, five at least, of historyless tranquility. Well, that was
what everybody wanted, wasn't it?
He flipped through the rest of the charts, and began getting summarized
Ministry reports. Economics had denied a request from the Mining
Cartel to authorize operations on a couple of uninhabited planets;
danger of local market gluts and overstimulation of manufacturing.
Permission granted to Robotics Cartel to---- Request from planetary
government of Durendal for increase of cereal export quotas under
consideration--they wouldn't want to turn that down while King Ranulf
was here. Impulsively, he punched out a combination on the
communication screen and got Count Duklass, Minister of Economics.
Count Duklass had thinning red hair and a plump, agreeable, extrovert's
face. He smiled and waited to be addressed.
"Sorry to bother Your Lordship," Paul greeted him. "What's the story
on this export quota request from Durendal? We have their king here,
now. Think he's come to lobby for it?"
Count Duklass chuckled. "He's not doing anything about it, himself.
Have you met him yet, sir?"
"Not yet. He's to be presented this evening."
"Well, when you see him--I think the masculine pronoun is
permissible--you'll see what I mean, sir. It's this Lord Koreff, the
Marshal. He came here on business, and had to bring the king along,
for fear somebody else would grab him while he was gone. The whole
object of Durendalian politics, as I understand, is to get possession of
the person of the king. Koreff was on my screen for half an hour; I just
got rid of him. Planet's pretty heavily agricultural, they had a couple of
very good crop years in a row, and now they have grain running out
their ears, and they want to export it and cash in."
"Well?"

"Can't let them do it, Your Majesty. They're not suffering any hardship;
they're just not making as much money as they think they ought to. If
they start dumping their surplus into interstellar trade, they'll cause all
kinds of dislocations on other agricultural planets. At least, that's what
our computers all say."
And that, of course, was gospel. He nodded.
"Why don't they turn their surplus into whisky? Age it five or six years
and it'd be on the luxury goods schedule and they could sell it
anywhere."
Count Duklass' eyes widened. "I never thought of that, Your Majesty.
Just a microsec; I want to make a note of that. Pass it down to
somebody who could deal with it. That's a wonderful idea, Your
Majesty!"
* * * * *
He finally got the conversation to an end, and went back to the reports.
Security, as usual, had a few items above the dead level of bureaucratic
procedure. The planetary king of Excalibur had been assassinated by
his brother and two nephews, all three of whom were now fighting
among themselves. As nobody had anything to fight with except small
arms and a few light cannon, there would be no intervention. There had
been intervention on Behemoth, however, where a whole continent had
tried to secede from the planetary republic and the Imperial Navy had
been requested to send a task force. That was all right, in both cases.
No interference with anything that passed for a planetary government,
but only one sovereignty on any planet with nuclear weapons, and only
one supreme sovereignty in a galaxy with hyperdrive ships.
And there was rioting on Amaterasu, because of public indignation
over a fraudulent election. He looked at that in incredulous delight.
Why, here on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six
centuries that hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the
nonworkers, whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by gangster
bosses to pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught

within a hundred yards of a polling place on an election day. He called
the Minister of Security.
Prince Travann was a man of his own age--they had been classmates at
the University--but he looked older. His thin face was lined, and his
hair was almost completely white. He was at his desk, with the Sun and
Cogwheel of the Empire on the wall behind him, but on the breast of
his black tunic he wore the badge of his family, a silver planet with
three silver moons. Unlike Count Duklass, he didn't wait to be spoken
to.
"Good morning, Your Majesty."
"Good morning, Your Highness; sorry to bother you. I just caught an
interesting item in your