To say that Ambassador Smernov was in a bad frame of mind would have been an understatement. It was obvious to Vassily Kuznetzov, Smernov's assistant, that the ambassador was as hot inside as he was outside, and in this Caribbean climate that was no small achievement. Kuznetzov eyed the ambassador with the practical gaze of a farmer living on the slope of a volcano. From the preliminary rumblings, tremors, and the general impression of pressure building to the danger point, Kuznetzov could not escape the impression that the ambassador was about to erupt.
Two tanned and grinning boys ran past the construction project carrying a banner. Smernov gripped Kuznetzov by the arm.
"Look at that!"
Kuznetzov unhappily stared at the sign:
YANKEE SI! CUBA NO!
The breeze shifted momentarily so that instead of the rush of the surf and the putt-cough of a small fishing boat bobbing off-shore with engine trouble, there came to them the roar of the bulldozers clearing jungle back in the hills, and the pound of hammers and whine of saws in the housing project.
The ambassador glared at the buildings going up, stared at the backs of the two boys and their banner, looked down angrily at the new wharf running out into the harbor, looked back at the steadily-laboring workers and the rising buildings, and spat out a four-foot length of profanity.
Kuznetzov winced and took on the look of a man outdoors in a strong wind.
The Caribbean sun beat down on them, its glare almost a physical attack.
Smernov gripped Kuznetzov by the arm. "You see the wharf out there?"
Obviously Kuznetzov saw it. "Yes, Mr. Ambassador," he said.
"You see those buildings going up?"
"Yes. Yes, Mr. Ambassador."
"All right. Good. You have eyes in your head. Now, did you see that road we drove in on this morning?"
"Yes, Mr. Ambassador."
"Six months ago," said Smernov furiously, "that road wasn't there. And this wharf is new. And that housing project you're so complacent about—that's new. And you know who's putting them up?"
"Why, the Americans, Mr. Ambassador."
Smernov glared at him. "Who?"
Kuznetzov stammered, "Why, surely the Americans. I mean, the capitalist-imperialists. The monopolis—"
Smernov lit up like a volcanic glare. He let his breath out in a hiss, and stared off at the green hills in the restful interior. The changing patterns of fluffy clouds that cast dark moving shadows across the hills provided some distraction, until one of the shadows in moving on let the sun shine on the new dam rising in the interior.
Smernov grunted, and looked back at Kuznetzov. "You've missed the whole point," he said. "Take another look at those workers."
Kuznetzov polished his glasses, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and studied the scene. The rhythm of the workers was unmistakable. No one raised in this tropical heat and humidity would work like that. Then Kuznetzov scowled and looked again, studying the features of the workers, the faces and arms swarthier than he thought a few months of sun could make them. And yet—there was still, he told himself, something unmistakably Yankee about the way they moved. And they were dressed like Americans. They seemed to be working in six-hour shifts on the job, and as they changed shifts now, in midday, the men coming on were wearing palm-tree shirts, and carrying cameras to the big shacks where they changed to their working clothes.
Kuznetzov squinted.
Satisfied that he was right, Kuznetzov studied the expressions of the workers, the way they moved, their manner of greeting each other, their look of pride in themselves and their work.
Smernov said, "Well?"
Kuznetzov shrugged. "They are Americans."
"And you are a donkey," said the ambassador. "In the first place, if you open your ears, you can tell that they are talking Spanish. In the second place, they are too eager about their work. In the third place, they aren't using enough machinery. And in the fourth place, it is only American tourists that go around carrying cameras. There are more cameras going back and forth to work here than on any one hundred American building sites. What do they want to take cameras to their work for? It is only people who have newly acquired such possessions who carry them around for the pleasure of ownership and for prestige."
Kuznetzov stared at the men going off shift.
"I didn't think of that."
"Well," said the ambassador, "we are going to get to the bottom of it. These people were born here. They shouldn't be working like that. They should be growling about the latifundia and trying to think up some way to get a government pension. Every other way to earn an honest living should have been closed up to them. Meanwhile, the Americans should be pumping in money, which the local dictator will stuff in Swiss bank accounts, and use to pay his guards to keep the people from killing him for not correcting all the trouble nature and three hundred years of bad management have piled onto their heads. And the American Banana Company should be hand-in-hand with the local dictator, because if they aren't he will wreck their business in self-defense, and meanwhile they make a good scapegoat for him, since he can privately blame all the troubles in the country on them." The ambassador beamed. "What do you think of that?"
Kuznetzov wasn't sure what he thought of it, so he said politely, "Yes, Mr. Ambassador."
The ambassador squinted at all the activity going on despite the heat, and growled, "The problems in a country like this are so complicated, Kuznetzov, that the Americans cannot solve them. As I have just explained to you. In fact, it is so complicated that there is no way out except to smash the whole thing and start all over from the ground up. But the Americans won't do that. So, there is no one left to clean up the mess except us. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Ambassador."
"The trouble with the Americans is that they believe in peaceful evolution. But what this place needs is violent revolution. So—" The ambassador sucked in his breath sharply, and stood like a man paralyzed, watching something take place near the construction project.
Kuznetzov was vaguely aware that a big expensive car had been parked in front of a rough building with a small American flag on it. The car had pulled forward to a wider place in the road, near the construction work, and backed around with a multitude of flashes from the slanted windows and polished trim. It had then started to drive away. It had, however, backed up again, and Kuznetzov vaguely supposed the driver wanted to ask something of the workers in the project. Hw saw, now, however, that a young man had gotten out of the back of the car, wearing black trousers and coat, and was talking with a group of the workers, who crowded around looking friendly and excited.
Abruptly the man talking to the workers took off his black coat and tossed it in on the rear seat of the car. He took off his string tie, folded up the arms of his elegant shirt to the elbows, tossed the tie into the back of the car, and took a hammer one of the workmen handed him.
Immediately, both front doors of the car opened up. A man in chauffeur's uniform popped out one side, and a bodyguard with slab face, huge physique, and a drawn gun, surged out the other side. The shirt-sleeved young man with the hammer waved them away. They expostulated with him. Finally, they tried to take him by the arms and drag him back to the car. The workers immediately cracked the guard and chauffeur over the heads and knocked them senseless.
In the abrupt silence, two Spanish sentences carried to the ambassador and Kuznetzov:
"It is bad teeth that make such bad temper. Take them to the Yankee aid station."
Several workmen picked up the chauffeur and the bodyguard and carried them into the rough building where the car had been parked.
Smernov and Kuznetzov looked at each other blankly.
The renewed sound of hammering came from across the way.
Smernov took a hard look at the flag on the building, then back at the young landowner and the friendly workers.
Kuznetzov was now beginning to get the picture. "Something is certainly very much out of the ordinary here."
"Something underhanded is going on." The ambassador looked as if he had been punched in the stomach. "There is some trick here." He looked back at the rough building where the workers were just coming out after carrying in the chauffeur and guard. He looked hard at the small flag. "And right there," he said, "is where we will find out what it is. Come on."
Kuznetzov followed him across a stretch of cleared ground to the building, then up the steps and in the door, which sounded a gong as it opened.
Inside was a long counter to the right, with shelves laden with thick pamphlets behind it. Above the counter was a sign:
Information. Reliable. Inexpensive.
Directly ahead was a flight of steps, with a sign reading "Trading Post."
To the left were two barber chairs, three dentist chairs, and a closed door marked, "Doctor." The two barbers were playing checkers, and a pair of dentists were laboring at the opened mouths of the guard and the chauffeur.
A man appeared behind the counter to the right. "May I help you gentlemen? How about a copy of the Do-It-Yourself Master Guide? Or a Concrete Handbook? Our works are very complete."
Smernov said, "What we'd like is something on ideology."
The clerk looked blank. "Ideology? Let's see—Does that have to do with bathrooms?"
Smernov cleared his throat. "I mean, dialectics."
"Oh, dialectrics. Hm-m-m. I think we have something here." He looked vaguely at the shelves, pulled out two or three titles at random, then opened a door into a back room. "Oh, Jim—"
A second man appeared. The clerk turned back to the ambassador. "This is the manager. He'll take care of you."
The manager smiled. "You'd like something on dialectrics? Did I hear that correctly?"
"Dialectics. What we are looking for is something on ideology."
"Oh, I see. We don't have much call for that." The manager seated himself at a desk, pulled out a file of some kind, flipped through it rapidly, and said, "How about some of these: 'How to Decommunize Your Country,' 'Beating the Reds to the Punch,' 'How to Foul Up Street Demonstrations,' 'Six Dozen Stunts that Jolt the Pinkoes.'" The manager looked up. "Am I on the right track?"
Smernov stared at him, then abruptly came to life. "Yes. That's what I'm looking for. We'll take all of those."
Kuznetzov said in a low voice, "Do we want to have those things in our luggage?"
Smernov murmured, "Don't be silly. This isn't the bad old days. Besides, after we read them, we'll chop them up into little pieces, burn them, grind up the ashes, and flush them down the sewer a little at a time."
The manager got out a list about half as long as a man's arm, and came over with it. "Just check the books here you want, write your name and address on top, and we'll send in for them. We haven't had much demand for that selection lately, so we'll have to make a special order."
Kuznetzov and the ambassador looked at the list. There appeared to be about a hundred titles, culminating with a work on "How to De-Communize a Communist."
The manager said, "It will only take about four days to get them. Take the order sheet along if you'd like, and look it over."
The ambassador cleared his throat. "Yes. Thank you."
"Anything else we can do for you?"
"No. No, this is fine."
The manager smiled pleasantly, and moved off into the back room.
Smernov folded up the order sheet, looked at the sign, "Trading Post," glanced at Kuznetzov, and led the way up the steps.
The "Trading Post" proved to be a small store jammed to the rafters with hammers, axes, machetes, kegs of nails, cameras, portable radios, carpenter's saws, bow saws, power saws, sun glasses, California-type shirts, big straw hats, shovels, hoes, women's dresses, and a huge stack of mail-order catalogues.
Finding nothing that answered their question there, they went downstairs, looked around again, and walked outside. The ambassador got out the order list, and squinting against the glare, looked it over.
"I just don't believe," he said frowning, "that their propaganda could have been that effective. This has all been too subtle. There is still something—"
The door opened up, and the chauffeur and the guard staggered out and headed for the car. They were almost there when they stopped and looked at the construction project. They paused and looked at each other. They started for the car, and the chauffeur even got the door open. But then the guard drifted off, stopped one of the workers, and began pleading for the use of his wheelbarrow. The guard ended up proudly shoveling dirt into the wheelbarrow.
The chauffeur, like an iron bolt under the influence of an electromagnet, now began to drift from the car to the construction project. About halfway there, he paused, looked at the car, snapped his fingers, went back to the car, jacked up the front end, went into the building he'd just come out of, reappeared carrying a grease gun, and crawled under the car.
Kuznetzov mopped his forehead. Smernov scratched his head.
With a bang, the motor of the fishing boat out in the harbor started, and they watched it chug out into the ocean. Everywhere they turned, people were busy.
Smernov murmured, "First, the dentist operates on them, then they come out here and go to work. It seems insane, but—" He looked at Kuznetzov, cleared his throat, and spoke in the syrupy tones of one who is overly considerate of another's welfare. "Vassily Kuznetzov, my friend, didn't you say your wisdom tooth was hurting you the other night?"
Gloomily, Kuznetzov trudged across the road to enact his role as guinea pig.
He went up the steps, opened the door, went in, and encountered the gaze of the clerk behind the counter, the checker-playing barber who happened to be faced in his direction, the two dentists rinsing down little bowls affixed beside their chairs, and two other men, apparently the other dentist and the doctor, who were standing outside the door of the doctor's office, and stopped talking as Kuznetzov came in.
The tail end of their conversation registered on Kuznetzov as he shut the door:
". . . Tone that thing down the next batch they send or there's going to be some heat exhaustion around here."
Kuznetzov looked at one of the dentists, and cleared his throat.
The dentist standing with the doctor immediately said, "Trouble with your teeth, sir?"
"A wisdom tooth that gives me an occasional pain."
"Swollen at all?"
"Oh, no."
"Well, if you'll just come over here and sit down, I'll take a look at it."
Kuznetzov settled into the dentist's chair, feeling all the customary sensations that go with this procedure. The dentist bent Kuznetzov's head back onto a head rest, shone a light in his mouth, and groped at his wisdom tooth with a long steel explorer which caught in a hole, and gave a gritting sound. The dentist straightened up and reached for something out of Kuznetzov's range of vision.
Vassily Kuznetzov wished earnestly to get out of this place.
Something swabbed his gum, and the next moment there was the pressure of a hypodermic needle. The dentist removed the needle. "Been here long?"
Kuznetzov was perspiring freely. "A few weeks."
The dentist laid out an assortment of drills, selected one, and held it up to examine it closely. "Nice country, don't you think?"
Kuznetzov eyed the drill. "Yes. But the people surprise me."
"How so?"
"They're so . . . busy."
"They're hard workers. You didn't expect them to be?"
"Well—"
"How's the gum? Numb yet?"
"Just a little."
"It'll be ready in a minute or so. We have efficient drugs these days. What science can do, given time and a good idea, is really wonderful."
He had the drill tightened in its chuck now, and checked to be sure his instruments were all at hand. He tapped one of these tools against Kuznetzov's gum, and Kuznetzov reported unhappily that he felt nothing. The dentist leaned forward and reached into Kuznetzov's mouth.
There promptly followed a whine, a grinding vibration, a squirt of water, and Kuznetzov was spitting out little bits of tooth and old filling. The dentist began a good-natured, one-sided conversation.
"Now, lean back, and just relax . . . This may buzz a little, but it won't hurt . . . Yes, our drugs are certainly efficient. Science and a good idea, given time, can do some wonderful things . . . A little wider, please. Tell me if this hurts . . . What we need most, in science or just about anything else, is a good, sound, workable idea. We've got a lot of people working on techniques now, but we need people to work on ideas, too. Why, it's ideas that make a people great. Not ideas alone, of course. It takes work. 'One per cent inspiration, and ninety-nine per cent perspiration,' as Edison said . . . Open a little wider . . . But without the one per cent inspiration, you can perspire from now till doomsday, and just get a backache out of it . . . Hurt? . . . You see, the right idea makes all the difference. But it has to be put into effect through practical measures. Why, it wasn't so long ago that the world was loaded down with knights, dukes, barons, and so on, not chosen by worth but because some ancestor twenty generations back was worth something. Gunpowder and the rise of manufacture helped unload that setup. Next came the same general kind of thing, only with huge inherited wealth instead of inherited rank as the gimmick. Universal suffrage was the little device that damped that one down. But next came . . . Better spit that out, and rinse out your mouth."
Vassily felt of the tooth with his tongue, and found a hole larger than he had realized the whole tooth to be. Extremely uneasy, he sat back again.
"Yes," said the dentist cheerfully, "we have one trouble following another, but the big trouble that caused most of our other troubles, with noblemen, bored playboys, selfish-type pressure groups, and so on, is that these people want something for nothing. They want to take out of the general fund without putting in. That's wrong. Wherever a nation has been great in some line of activity, there have been a large number of people confident that if they added enough to the general fund, they would be rewarded, either in wealth, fame, the advancement of their cause, or whatever else they were interested in. When people think they can get something for nothing, or when they think they will get nothing back for their something—that they will be suckers, in other words—the system breaks down. And when you've got a state set up so the people on top want something for nothing, and the people on the bottom expect nothing for something, or vice versa, then, my friend, you have a mess, and no aid program, no technical advice, no exhortation to new efforts, is going to work until there is a big enough group of people confident that if they do their best for the cause, they will get fair treatment. The problem is—how to get these people? . . . Spit that out please, and we'll fill it, and you'll be all set."
Kuznetzov leaned back again, and the dentist began to put some form of material into the filling. This part was different from what Kuznetzov had experienced before, and seemed to require extra care and concentration.
"Hm-m-m," said the dentist finally. "There, now keep your mouth wide open . . . Yes, the problem is, how to get this group of people—we might call them reciprocators—who trust each other to work along a variety of lines for the general good, and who are prepared to give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Who, in fact, are uncomfortable if they don't give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. And who know they're uncomfortable if they don't work. The more of these people you have, the stronger your position is. You see, when you have enough of these people in the right positions, the country starts progressing of itself, and no radical movement can get anywhere, because it serves no useful function." The dentist put a mirror on a stick in Kuznetzov's mouth. "There, I guess we're ready to finish."
Vassily Kuznetzov was conscious of something strange, but unable to say exactly what it might be.
The dentist reached for a new tool, and began packing the cavity. "Yes," he said, "science and a good idea are a wonderful combination. Usually the idea is within science, for the development of science or technology. But then, too, science and technology can be used to convey ideas—the radio, and television, for instance. But how often do they spread the ideas of mutual trust and the willingness—eagerness—to do a good day's work and give a fair return? Not often. But, of course, new discoveries are continually being made. And we know, from practical experience, that somehow, thoughts often seem to be contagious. It might be possible some day, to duplicate the impulse thrown off by a brain thinking certain admirable thoughts. It would be a kind of radio set, designed to affect, not the external ear, but whatever it is in a man that picks up mood, atmosphere, and reacts to that communicable zest and eagerness when conditions are just right for progress. Such a device could probably be quite small. We've seen what transistors have done for radio sets. We can even guess that the device would probably need to be located, or have a part of itself located, very close to the man to be affected by it. Possibly it would even be located inside his own head . . . There, now. Bite on this piece of paper. Gently. How does that feel. All right? Fine. Let's see now. Yes . . . Yes . . . O.K., pay the cashier at the counter on the way out. Our fees are very reasonable. If you have any trouble with that, let me know. It should be all right."
Kuznetzov dazedly paid, and went out, passing on the way a man who looked like some kind of bandit and was being carried in tied up with rope.
Kuznetzov stopped on the road outside the building, and looked around. The world appeared somehow to be different to him. He took a breath of air. He was conscious of its freshness, despite the heat. He became aware of the possibilities of life. Look, he found himself thinking, at all the things he could do, and the only thing that was required of him, of any man, was to give a fair return.
A pretty girl walked by, and Vassily smiled at her. She smiled back, and Vassily beamed.
A pale, rather unhealthy-looking man crossed the road.
"Well, Kuznetzov?" he demanded.
"Oh," said Vassily, recognizing him. "Hello there, Smernov."
The ambassador looked jarred.
Kuznetzov looked around. His muscles felt the need of work, his brain cells the need of the stimulation of a problem. He was a man, wasn't he? He must earn his keep. Now then, what to do? He would have to find some regular line of business that would keep him supplied with reliable opportunities for work.
The ambassador was scowling at him. This expression had once seemed formidable. Vassily, however, was now well aware that an honest person who improves himself, and does his daily work regularly, needn't cringe to any man.
The ambassador cleared his throat threateningly. "Kuznetzov. Snap out of this! What happened in there?"
"Hold your horses," said Vassily in an equable, pleasant tone. "I'm trying to think."
Smernov's jaw fell open, then snapped shut again.
Abruptly, Vassily remembered that he had been a communist. And what was communism but the desperate effort to solve by radical means the problems that arise where there are too many people who want something for nothing, and too many people who expect to get nothing for something.
"Kuznetzov," said the ambassador, a note of alarm in his voice, "do you feel all right? What did they do to you in there?"
"It's hard to explain. Do you remember the question a reporter put to Premier Khrushchev on his visit to America: If communism is to succeed capitalism, what is it that is to succeed communism?"
"Yes. Yes. What of it?"
"Well," said Vassily. "I know what is to succeed communism. And you must not resist it, because it is the crowning success that allows for a large degree of the withering away of the state, which, after all, is what communism is aiming at. Correct?"
"What?" said Smernov.
"Yet," said Vassily, "it looks like individualism, and it is freedom, but it is also communism in the highest sense, because everybody is working for the common good, to each according to his need, from each according to his ability, but with no spongers or loafers, and no one man always getting the milk at the hind end of the cow while another man always has to fork the hay in at the front end, and it is capitalism, too, because that is what it is based on, capital, but—"
"Brain-washed," said the ambassador, awed.
"But," said Vassily, scowling, and feeling the discontent from unused muscles, and from brain cells sitting around doing nothing, "what to do?"
Vassily was intensely conscious that the best food is that eaten when a man is hungry, and the best rest that taken when a man is tired, and the best way to get hungry and tired is to work. But now, how the deuce—?
The ambassador was squinting at him perplexedly, and now abruptly drew a deep breath. "Kuznetzov. Enough of this! I warn you that there are severe penalties for this form of behavior! And I will not hesitate to bring them down on your head! For the sake of monolithic party unity—right or wrong, Kuznetzov—I will . . ."
Vassily scowled at the ambassador. "But that is not ideologically sound, Comrade."
"What's that?" Smernov's face turned purple. "You have been corrupted. Come along." He seized Kuznetzov by the arm.
Kuznetzov whipped loose and knocked the ambassador out. The pleasurable sensation resulting from this activity assured him that he was on the right tract. He picked Smernov up and carried him up the steps. "My apologies, comrade ambassador, but you were ideologically all blocked up." He carried Smernov inside.
On the way in, the ex-bandit went out, muttering, "Got to find work."
Kuznetzov looked at the nearest dentist.
"My friend," he said, "has a troublesome tooth."
The dentist helped ease Smernov into his dental chair. "Leave it to me. We will cure him."
Vassily went outside, conscious of the beauty of the day, and of all the possibilities of life.
But there was still that irksome problem of finding work.
He could go down and work on the housing project, and that was all right, but this was, strictly speaking, not his own country. To a degree, he would be evading his duty. And that would never do.
He was still wrestling with the problem when the ambassador came out looking dazed, glanced around at the world as if seeing it with new eyes, smiled at a pretty girl going by, flexed his arms, and looked meditatively down at the construction work.
Vassily eyed him warily.
The ambassador grinned, and banged his fist into his hand. "We're through here. No point in trying to fight this. But Vassily, do you remember that collection of zoot-suited drones we saw in Moscow, who have contrived to avoid doing any work?"
Their eyes met. The idea sprang from one to the other.
"Just the thing!" said Vassily.
As with one mind, they went back, located the manager, and put the idea to him.
"Ah," said the manager, nodding approval. "Yes. what you're talking about is what we call an 'associate dealership.' There's no trouble arranging that, and let me tell you, it will clean up your problem as slick as a whistle. Here, come into the back room, and I'll make the arrangements for you."
"You don't mind," said Vassily, "helping out . . . ah . . . 'iron curtain' countries?"
"No, no," said the manager, "we understand each other, and it's all one world now. Besides—"
He glanced a trifle furtively around the room at a set of exerciser springs dangling from the wall, a neat desk and file case with all work obviously done right up to the minute, a complex kit-type radio set half-built, with a dozen completed sets stacked up in a corner.
"Besides," he said, "ah, though of course this solves all our production difficulties, and we've really whipped the distribution of wealth problem to a frazzle, there's still"—he lowered his voice—"a little question about the proper distribution of work." He laughed, then changed the subject by showing them a couple of simple confidential dealership forms. He then arranged all other details right on the spot, and escorted them to the door.
Here he paused, to speak in the low voice of a conspirator. "Now, I've helped you get started, so if you fellows run into any problems, especially any nice big tough ones with a lot of work in them, bring them to me first.—O.K.?"
Vassily was thinking that if he ran into any nice big problem with lots of work in it, he would keep it for himself. The manager, however, did not wait for any answer, but immediately said, "Swell. That's settled. Say, now, wait here just a minute. I've got something for you."
He disappeared into the back room, and came out carrying two nicely-finished short-wave portable radio sets. "Seven bands, swell reception. You pull up this antenna here, see? I make these from kits in my spare time. Have to keep busy. You know anybody could use one? Wait a minute."
Loaded down with portable radios, Vassily and the ambassador made their way to where they had parked their car, in one of the few shady spots around the development.
"I don't know," muttered the ambassador, "there's something about this that makes me uneasy. Here, let me carry that for you."
"No, no," said Vassily. "However, if you'd like me to carry yours—"
"Hands off," growled Smernov. "This is my work."
They arrived at the car, and loaded the radios into the back seat.
The ambassador said, "I'll drive going back . . . Move over."
Vassily's muscles were aching for exercise.
"No, I will drive."
"Who's in charge here?"
"Who cares? I am your assistant. Therefore, this is my job. You get in back and figure out what we will do next."
The ambassador grumbled to himself and climbed in.
Vassily was hoping the car wouldn't start. Then he could go back, buy some tools, and tear it all down and put it together again. Perversely, it caught with a bang on the first turn. He swung it around and started up the road. This, he acknowledged, was better than nothing, but modern cars are so easy to drive that he failed to get much satisfaction from it.
About halfway back to town, they passed a labor gang felling trees.
Vassily slowed the car somewhat.
The ambassador said, "It might be a nice gesture, you know, if we—"
Vassily slammed the car to a halt.
They sprang out and advanced upon the workers.
Intimidated, two of the workers gave up their axes.
Vassily and Smernov set to work with a will. As they settled to the job, the trees began to topple to a satisfying rhythm. They were just getting nicely lathered, however, when the workers demanded their axes back.
The edge, at least, being taken off their need for activity, they returned to the car, and out of a feeling of well-being attempted to give away a few portable radios.
The workers declined. "Thank you. But as we have not earned them, they would not be satisfying."
Vassily and the ambassador drove on, the ambassador this time insisting that Vassily ride in back.
"I don't know," said the ambassador, swinging them around a curve. "There is more to this than meets the eye at a first glance."
"But you must give them credit. They have solved the problem of increased production. One willing worker is worth far more than one who is driven. And this way, all workers are willing workers."
"Yes, true enough. But do you remember the fairy tale about the assistant to the magician? He got the broom carrying water—or was it a magic pot boiling porridge? In any case, at the beginning he did not have enough, but at the end he was driven out by a colossal surplus."
"Oh, well, I wouldn't worry about that. That's a long way off, and—"
The car straightened out at the end of the curve, which shifted the portable radios piled on the seat, and all but crowded Vassily off onto the floor. Suddenly thoughtful, he rearranged them so he would have some room.
The ambassador cleared his throat.
"I just hope," he said, "that when this pot boils over, they know the right spell to stop it."