“I’ve found out that mercenary officers can become rich enough to retire in comfort,” Dirk said, “complete with big houses and dowries for their daughters—and captains can actually make enough money to buy their way into bossdom. How do any merchants manage to stay in business, with all this fighting?”
“Most of them come from free towns,” Gar told him.
“Free towns?” Dirk frowned. “I haven’t heard of those. The only towns without castles that I’ve seen are securely within the domain of one boss or another. I’ve heard a legend that some independent villages hired a bully to protect them, but after he had fought off the enemy, he wound up enslaving the people who had hired him.”
“Some villages were far enough from the center of the troubles so that they had some warning, and were doubly blessed in having a sage who taught martial arts as part of his philosophy,” Gar explained. “They elected a leader who figured out how to use weapons, so when a bully came to conquer, they fought him off long enough to make the price in men and arms more than he wanted to pay. Apparently, the secret of staying in the bully business was a quick win. By the time the bosses came marching, the mercenaries were available for hire, and the free cities became some of their best customers. I don’t doubt that the occasional enlightened boss lets his merchants keep enough of their profits to stay in business, but most of the entrepreneurs are from the free towns.”
“I expect they have to learn a lot of different dialects,” Dirk mused.
“Have any communication troubles?” Gar asked.
“Only for the first twenty-four hours or so. If I listen long enough, I can track down the vowel shifts and guess the occasional homegrown word. They’ve all evolved out of Galactic Standard, of course, so I don’t have too much trouble figuring them out. The locals don’t know the original Galactic pronunciation, though, so most of them can’t understand the people from the next county. It does open up work for interpreters, huh?”
“That seems to be one of the tasks of the bosses’ stewards,” Gar told him. “That’s all the government there is—the bosses and their servants—and within each domain, the boss’s whim is law. There’s no central government to stop him from doing anything he wants to the people.” His voice hardened. “They live like animals, Dirk—no, worse. The local bully takes any girl he wants for a night’s pleasure, then turns her over to his officers, and when they’re done with her, they turn her over to the boots. I’ve seen a lot of poor people on a lot of planets, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any ground down worse than these.”
“The end result of anarchy,” Dirk agreed. “It works only as long as nobody gets greedy, but when somebody does, there’s nothing to stop him. Didn’t the original anarchists have some idea about assassinating anyone who tried to bully his neighbors?”
“Not that I’ve ever read,” Gar replied. “Good idea, I suppose, if you don’t find it unethical to kill somebody without a trial, or without his bein there to be tried. But who’s going to keep the assassin from becoming a bully himself?”
“The old problem.” Dirk sighed. “ ‘Who will police the police?’ Or, you might say, who will govern the government?”
“The people,” Gar answered, “but that means you’ve developed some form of democracy.”
“In which everyone’s a soldier when he’s needed,” Dirk concurred. “Well, there are advantages to military life: a guaranteed place to live, steady pay if you ever find a place to spend it, regular meals, free clothing…”
“The clothes tend to be a bit monotonous,” Gar reminded him, “but yes, it’s a secure life, apart from the chance of being killed in battle every now and then. Take it to the extreme of everyday life, and you have Sparta, where everyone’s a soldier all the time.”
“Except for the slaves,” Dirk reminded.
“But the Spartans didn’t count them as people,” Gar pointed out. “From what else I hear about them, it was a nice place to have on your side, but you wouldn’t want to visit.”
“And definitely not live there,” Dirk agreed. “But let’s not lose sight of the fact that there are one or two good things about this sort of anarchy.”
“I must have missed them,” Gar said, voice dripping sarcasm. “Remind me.”
“High social mobility, for one,” Dirk said. “You can be born a peasant, but end up the captain of a Free Company, or maybe even a boss.”
“But more likely in an early grave,” Gar pointed out.
“The risks are very high,” Dirk conceded. “Of course, if you live in one of the free towns you’ve told me about; there are probably all sorts of opportunities, such as becoming a merchant. How high is their death rate?”
“Fairly high, from what I saw on this journey,” Gar told him, “and it probably would have been worse, if they hadn’t had a telepath along to tell them when the enemy was coming. But you’re right about the free cities being a decent existence—they even have enough extra food and money to support an artist or two. Of course, everybody has to drill every week, and the men march off to war every year or so, but as long as they can keep from being conquered, they live fairly well.”
“Government?” Dirk asked.
“Town council,” Gar answered. “I’m sure there are power blocs and influence peddlers, but I wasn’t there long enough to study the details. So life is all right here, if you’re a soldier or a citizen of a free town—but for the serfs it’s miserable.”
“Yes,” Dirk said, “and they’re the vast majority. Aside from near-starvation and backbreaking work, life in a hole in the ground isn’t too bad, if you don’t mind sacks for clothes and freezing toes. Of course, there’s the little problem of constant warfare, with women being raped and people killed, villages burned, and crops trampled…”
“Which leads to complete starvation,” Gar said, his voice tight with pain. “Do you have any doubts that we have to destroy this system?”
“None at all,” Dirk said with full conviction. “But what is there to destroy? We’re professionals at overthrowing governments, Gar. Where’s the government to overthrow?”
“I’m very much afraid that this time, we’ll actually have to set up a government,” Gar sighed, “but it does go against the grain. We’ll have to start by establishing a lasting peace.”
“I thought we were going to have to cobble together some sort of government, in order to see that peace declared,” Dirk countered. “These people are so miserable that they’d even cheer for a dictator—at least it would be some protection, some order.”
“They’d be ground down just as badly,” Gar said, his voice hard. “Think of the last planet we visited, of our friends Miles and Orgoru and the dictator who ruled them. What about the torture and the stunted lives his people endured?” Then he remembered, and his voice lightened. “Miles! How’s about that, Dirk? Think you can start a minstrel movement, and introduce songs with the underlying idea that peasants are fully human?”
“It’s a start, anyway,” Dirk sighed. “I do think it’s time for us to get back together, though.”
“I agree. Herkimer, where is Dirk relative to me?” Gar asked.
The computer answered instantly, obviously eavesdropping. “His signal originates from a district approximately twenty miles south by southwest of you, Magnus.”
“We’re in the foothills of a mountain range,” Dirk told him, “on our way back to the Blue Company’s headquarters. I’m sure they’ll love having you as a recruit. We’ve just come out of a forest, and we’re in a meadow, but we’ll be going back into forest as we start upslope tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you in the trees, then.”