Authors: Hubbard,L. Ron
Jonnie definitely would. He privately had become very alert about “the whole planet could be sold right out from under them.”
Chong-won poured more tea.
“You mustn’t get the impression we are violent people,” said Dries, taking a large swallow from a bowl.
Just powerful and deadly, Jonnie thought.
“Our race is called the ‘Selachee,’ continued Dries. “We are indigenous to the only three habitable planets of the Gredides System. The planets are mostly water- nine surface parts of water to only two parts of land on the average. And we have only banking as our industry.”
He smiled and drank more tea. “We’re ideal bankers. We can eat anything, drink anything, breathe almost any atmosphere, live on almost any gravity. By tribal mores, we worship total honesty and the righteousness of obligation.”
Jonnie thought that was probably true, but he also thought they were not telling all they knew and especially what they intended to do. “Honesty” might not include the whole truth, and there might be some real clues here as to what was going on. He smiled politely and listened closely.
“We have about five billion inhabitants on each planet,” continued Dries, “and
It is quite a busy population. Although mostly devoted to banking, we have, of course, our engineers and specialists and, naturally, lots of mathematicians. Nearly five hundred thousand years ago we developed space flight. That’s about the right figure, isn’t it, Your Worship?”
Lord Voraz was still a bit out of sorts at the idea of planets going back on obligations. But he put a good, professional banking face on it. “Four hundred ninety-seven thousand, four hundred thirty-two years this coming Sidereal day one hundred three for this universe,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Dries, having gotten His Worship back into the discourse.
“And three hundred two thousand years ago-’
“Three hundred two thousand three,” said Lord Voraz.
“Thank you…. We ran into the Psychlos! Now, don’t be alarmed. We were not conquered. We didn’t even fight a war. In those days the Psychlos were not as bad as they became about a hundred thousand years later. In that time, they had not begun killing for the love of it-I’m sure I don’t have to go on to you about Psychlos.”
“No indeed!” said Jonnie. This was all going somewhere that was going to wind up as bad news. He could feel it despite their smiles.
“Precisely,” said Dries. “Where was l? Any way- and this will amuse you-they were not interested in us really for we did not have any metals to amount to anything. Being mostly water, our planets would have presented formidable mining problems.
“We needed metals and the Psychlos needed some computer technology we had, and so we became a market. This was something brand-new in Psychlo experience. They had a lot to learn about finance and that sort of thing. So we taught them.
“internally, they were pretty bad off. They breed like…what’s some fish of this planet you’d know…like herrings! They have always been terrified of founding actual Psychlo colonies for fear they’d rise and revolt against the home planet. They had mobs and unemployment. Heavy, heavy depressions. They were an economic mess.
“So we helped them build markets for metals. With their teleportation shipping arrangements, it was very easy for them to do this. They became prosperous and developed even more ways to mine and we saw to it they were economically stable.
“Then suddenly, from the Psychlo viewpoint, an awful thing happened. It terrified them. That was about two hundred thousand years ago.”
“Two hundred nine thousand, four hundred sixty-two,” corrected Lord Voraz.
“Thank you. Another race stole or invented teleportation!”
“The Boxnards, Universe Six,” said
Lord Voraz.
“It is unclear what happened then,” said Dries. “We don’t always have access to military files and we never had access to these, not ever. But I think the Boxnards tried to put teleportation to military use. The Psychlos got there first and the entire seven planets of the Boxnards and every single Boxnard were wiped out. It took the Psychlos years.”
“Three years and sixteen days,” said Lord Voraz.
“They even slaughtered people and races which had been associated with or allied with the Boxnards, for we never afterwards found any trace of them.
“That war,” said Dries, “also seemed to change the Psychlos. For nearly half a century they all but cut contact with other worlds. It was a bad time
for us as well. Our economy was wrapped up in their concerns. They also must have engaged in some internal slaughter because the next records we have show their own population to have decreased by six elevenths.
“It took another century for the Psychlos to become busy again. But they were a very changed people.”
Aha, thought Jonnie. I have the time they began to use those capsules in baby Psychlos’ heads! And why. To protect their teleportation technology and mathematics.
“They had burned all their books,” said Dries. “They had lost any aesthetic arts they had had. You can tell from their dictionaries that the language they had accumulated over the ages ceased to be in full use. They dropped words like ‘compassion’ or ‘pity’ and it even seemed they had dropped the term ‘good sense.’
“Although we refer to them now as ‘Psychlos,’ that name didn’t come into use until that time. Previously they called themselves after whatever king might chance to be on the imperial Throne.
“Anyway, not to bore you for I see you know something of this, the ensuing centuries were very, very bad for everyone, especially the
Psychlos. They built a reputation of being the cruelest, most sadistic oppressors any universe had ever seen.
“But they were in internal trouble. Their population was bursting. They were in economic chaos. They were nine parts in eleven unemployed. The royal house was terrified of revolution and as a matter of fact, experienced, I think, four assassinations of princes-”
“Seven,” said Lord Voraz. “And two queens.”
“Thank you,” continued Dries. “And in total desperation, they came to the Gredides and actually begged the Selachees for help. They wanted money to hire soldiers and buy arms. But our parliament, the Creditable Body, along with every other race in sixteen universes, wanted nothing to do with them and it looked like outright war. But somebody in the
Creditable Body-’
“Lord Finister,” said Lord Voraz.
“Thank you. Had the good sense to turn them over to us. We were as big a bank then. The current head of it-’
“Lord Loonger,” said Lord Voraz.
“Thank you. Brought them to the bargaining table and really got them on the signature line! The bank would handle all economic connections they had with other races, handle all transfers of Psychlo funds, handle all peace conferences. And in return every Selachee would be held inviolate, the Selachee planets and the Gredides System were totally hands off, and the Psychlos would furnish teleportation facilities throughout the universes for the bank. They signed, they got their money, they stabilized.”
Lord Voraz spoke up, “The only two times they ever sought to violate those agreements, they went into a nose-dive splash and they hastily reformed at once.”
“So there,” said Dries Gloton, “you have the whole background of the Galactic Bank. We call it ‘Galactic,’ you know, even though it should be ‘Pan-Galactic,’ covering sixteen universes as it does. But ‘Galactic’ makes customers look on it as their galaxy’s bank. More neighborly, don’t you think?”
What Jonnie thought was that he was dealing with an outfit more powerful than the Psychlos. With the galactic organization that could give orders to monsters and be obeyed. He was very alert. There was trouble here somewhere.
“Then possibly,” said Jonnie, “you want to talk with the government here about teleportation service.”
Dries and Lord Voraz looked at each other and then back at Jonnie.
“Not with the government,” said Lord Voraz. “I doubt it owns any of that. Teleportation would be quite another subject and really we aren’t engaged in having a talk to arrange a talk about it just now. You see, there is space travel. It is slow and time-consuming but it does exist.”
Jonnie felt he was not saying everything but he wouldn’t push that. It evidently wasn’t where the danger lay- for certainly it lay someplace! He could feel it. He sat easily and said, “Maybe it’s about the payment of fees for this conference. They might be much larger than we had anticipated.”
“Oh, heavens, no!” scoffed Dries. And he went to work with a ring he wore. The fingers flew, a thread came out and popped into an expanded tape, and he looked at it. “Negligible. The fees vary for emissaries because their governments vary in size and even pay them differently. But they only add up to about C85,000-it could, of course, be more if they delay. But not much. The bank fee is standard: only C25,000. There is of course the matter of my yacht-’
“The bank,” said Lord Voraz, “pays the space yacht expenses when he uses it on bank business. I think it would be fair, Dries, for you to charge up all the months you searched-”
Dries cut him off sharply. “The yacht would only be charged from the Batafor planet of Balor- that’s the Galactic Bank branch office for this sector,” he added for Jonnie’s benefit. “It’s a Hawvin planet. They’re not such bad people really. Honest enough individually. So call it C60,000. The total is only around C 170,000.”
They had that much, thought Jonnie.
But Dries was hesitating. “We’re not entirely sure yet that you would get this bill. It sort of depends on the outcome of the conference.”
Something here, Jonnie told himself. He was now getting a finger on it.
They looked at Jonnie with their heavy-lidded eyes. They were very serious now.
His Excellency Dries Gloton leaned forward. “It’s a question of clear title. The bank would never have anything to do with a clouded title.”
“Never!” said Lord Voraz.
“The whole reputation of the bank, indeed, the racial reputation of the Selachees,” said Dries, “is based on absolute honesty and impeccable legality.”
“Always legal,” said Lord Voraz. “It would be our ruin if we ever did anything illegal. We never bend rules. That’s why uncounted quintillions of people trust us.”
Jonnie was not among those quintillions of people. There was something cold, hard, and horrible here. “Perhaps you had better explain further,” said Jonnie. “If I am to arrange a meeting for you, I really have to know the background of what will be taken up.”
Dries leaned back. “Ah, well. That’s true. Where shall I begin? Well, the point of discovery of this planet is a good place.
“The sixteenth universe,” he continued, “was the last one to be discovered, possibly less than twenty thousand years ago. It was never wholly mapped. The Psychlo Imperial government introduced probes into it to do further charting but for a very long time they found nothing new.
“This planet is part of what might be called a ‘rim star system’ way out at the edge of a galaxy. It might have gone overlooked had it not sent out some probes of its own. It gave its exact location, an imperial probe picked it up, and the rest is history.
“The Psychlo Imperial government obtained title, quite valid, on the right of discovery. And this system’s title was entered on the books for the first time.
“That government sold the planet to Intergalactic Mining which, being short of cash, borrowed the purchase price from the Galactic Bank. All this is very routine, ordinary, and usual. Intergalactic Mining has done this countless times.
“Such loans are secured by lodging the deed of title of a planet with the Galactic Bank. The interest rate is usually two parts in eleven. Or, in non-Psychlo arithmetic, roughly eighteen percent per annum. The term was twenty-five hundred years.
“Intergalactic in the past always paid such loans off smoothly- they knew better than not to. In fact, this was the only planet they had bought in recent times; all the others had been paid off. Such a transaction is called a ‘mortgage.’ Are you following me so far?”
Jonnie was. He had begun to guess what was coming.
“There was a second mortgage also,” said His Excellency. “It was to pay for the expenses of military conquest by Intergalactic. But that was a minor matter and, being at a higher interest rate, was paid off in only five years.”
Jonnie got it. The Galactic Bank had financed the invasion of Earth. Financed the gas drone.
They must have detected that something had changed in his attitude.
Lord Voraz said, “It is just business. The bank tends to banking and the customers tend to their own affairs. It does not mean the bank was ever hostile to you. Actually we are not hostile now. This is all just routine. Ordinary banking business.”
“So anyway,” said Dries easily, not bothering to assert his prerogatives, “the basic mortgage has fourteen hundred years to run.”
Jonnie digested that, very warily, very alertly. “But I should think that a war and so on would tend to wipe out that mortgage.”
“Oh, dear no!” said Dries. “The simple fact of military take-over does not change the basic debt structure of a planet. That a government changes does not relieve the property of debt. Why, if that were true, then governments would just arrange to change hands every day and they would be rid of all their financial obligations.” He laughed. “No, no. A change of government or a military take-over does not change a country’s debts. The new owners have to pay.”
“The original conquest,” said Jonnie, “when Intergalactic took over Earth, did not assume any debts.”
“They would have been internal,” said Dries. “internal debts have nothing to do with international debts. No, the planet was properly discovered, properly bought from the Psychlo Imperial government by Intergalactic Mining. The mortgage papers were all properly executed. Everything was totally legal.”
“Totally,” said Lord Voraz.
“The debt is not in question,” said Dries. “Who pays it is in question.”
“You called this conference to see who pays the debt?” said Jonnie.
“Not precisely, but close. You see,” said Dries, “so long as combat was threatened and so long as one could not really determine who was and who would be the actual responsible government of this planet, I could not serve this paper.”
He was holding a big legal-looking piece of paper. He did not hand it over.
Jonnie reached out his hand for it but Dries said, “No, you are not a member of the government, by your own statement.”
“What happens when you do serve it?”
“Why, we have a meeting to arrange the possibility and terms of payment, and if no agreement can be reached, we foreclose.”
“And then what happens?” said Jonnie.
“Why, the planet is put up for public auction and sold to the highest bidder.”
Jonnie began to understand the feeling he had had about these two.
“And what happens to the planet’s people?” said Jonnie.
“Why, that is up to the buyer, of course. The title would not be clouded in any way. He could do with them pretty much as he liked. That is wholly outside the province of the bank.”
“And what do such buyers usually do?” said Jonnie.
“Oh, it all depends. Ordinarily they would pay cash or use their credit to pay for the auctioned planet- such buyers usually have credit or other collateral and they assume the balance of the mortgage. They often just move in, but if there is local protest, they get a short-term loan from the bank and engage in a swift military suppression of the population. Sometimes they sell the original population as slaves to meet their payments. Such buyers want to move in their own people, you know.”
Jonnie sat and looked at them. “I don’t think a buyer would find it so easy to take this planet.”
“Oh!” said Dries, brushing it away. “The planet has no defenses worth mentioning. You have very few people. Modern arms could do it in a few days. This combined force you had here was just a buzzing of insects. The real fleets of these combatants weren’t even involved. But be calm. There is no reason to become alarmed. It is just business. Just a matter of a mortgage and paying one’s obligations. A banking matter.”
“So you are waiting now to see whether we win so you can serve that paper,” said Jonnie.
“Oh, I think you will win,” said Dries. “That is why we are talking with you tonight. We want you to arrange a meeting with your government the moment we know it really has won. And then we can serve this paper and discuss things. That’s all.”
“If I’m going to arrange a meeting for you,” said Jonnie, “you had better show me the paper so I will know what I am talking about.”
“I’m not serving this on you,” said Dries, “but you can look it over.”
Jonnie took it.
It had pages and pages of legal details, tracing the discovery, the loan, the payments made. And then it had a huge, single page attached to it. Jonnie had held each page of it up to catch the light better (and to expose it to the button camera that had been going in the upper corner of the room all evening), and he now held up the final one. It said:
NOTICE OF DELINQUENCY
To: ____________ (legal owners and occupiers of planet at time of service) Date: _______ You are hereby summoned to a meeting with the duly appointed officials of THE GALACTIC BANK to: (a) Discuss terms for the discharge of this pressing financial obligation forthwith, well understanding that it is overdue by “one year and one days” without any payment of any kind and without any arrangements to extend or discharge. (b) If such arrangements are found unsatisfactory by THE GALACTIC BANK, to surrender title, occupancy and use promptly to avoid further
penalties, WITHIN ONE WEEK FROM ABOVE DATE. The undischarged
amount of said loan and mortgage being FORTY TRILLION, NINE HUNDRED SIXTY BILLION, TWO HUNDRED SEVENTEEN MILLION, SIX HUNDRED FIVE THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED SIXTEEN GALACTIC CREDITS (C40,960,217,605,216), being the unpaid remainder and interest of the initial loan, advanced in good faith to THE INTERGALACTIC MINING COMPANY of Psychlo, of SIXTY TRILLION GALACTIC CREDITS (C60,000,000,000,000), and paid by GALACTIC BANK TRANSFER at the order of said INTERGALACTIC MINING
COMPANY to the account of THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT OF PSYCHLO, being, in full, payment for purchase of said planet “Earth, Solar System, Universe Sixteen.”
DRIES GLOTON
Branch Manager
_______________________
(Signed and sealed)
THE GALACTIC BANK
Balor, Batafor System
Head Offices of Sector 4
Universe Sixteen
Jonnie said, “And what would be satisfactory ‘terms’ for its discharge?”
“Oh” said Dries Gloton easily, “a payment of five trillion at once and some arrangement like five hundred billion a month would do. You see, legally, a whole loan becomes due and payable instantly if payments are missed. So you will really find the bank very easy to do business with, for we could require the whole amount instantly! We really are your friends, you know. We always pride ourselves, not just on our total honesty and integrity, but on our customer relations.”
Five trillion! thought Jonnie. Five hundred billion a month! They only had two billion, two hundred million. They had no industry or income. No resources they could dig out of the ground would match the amount needed in that time period.
Dries saw through his fairly well-hidden consternation. “You’d have a whole week! It is very liberal.”
“And as soon as this conference decides the fate of Schleim,” said Jonnie.
“And the relationship to the other combatants-”
“Why, the planet will have a clear title!” said Dries triumphantly. “And you can arrange the meeting for us. And we can serve this paper and the whole thing will be handled!”
“The winning government,” said Lord Voraz, “would have days to discuss it and find where they were going to get the money.”
“You couldn’t lend it to us?” said Jonnie.
“Oh, dear no. It ’s already been lent.”
“And who might buy this planet?” said Jonnie.
“Why, any one of the combatants would be glad to have it. They, unlike you here, have industry and credit and collateral.”
“So after we win this war, if we win it, then we might lose it totally, even to the Tolneps!” said Jonnie.
“Well,” said Dries Gloton with an expressive hand gesture, “banking is banking. Business is business.”