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Editor's Introduction To:
The Last Department

Rudyard Kipling

 

It is said that after the Revolution of 1848, when Metternich was leaving the Schoenbrun Palace of Vienna for the last time, one of his aides looked at the acres and acres of clerks still seated at their desks.

"My Prince, what will they do?"

Metternich smiled. "You and I go. Perhaps His Majesty will go. But these—Das Buros are eternal."

 

Kipling wouldn't have been much surprised to find that the Galactic Confederation was a bureaucracy.

 

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Framed