«The crop isn’t panning out?»
«Oh, the crop’s fine; one of the best I can remember. Course, I’m only twenty-eight; I can’t remember but two other harvests. The problem’s not the crop …»
«Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the Commercial—»
«Lost our markets? Mister, nobody that ever tasted our wines ever settled for anything else!»
«It sounds like I’ve been missing something,» said Retief. «I’ll have to try them some time.»
Arapoulous put his bundle on the desk, pulled off the wrappings. «No time like the present,» he said.
Retief looked at the two squat bottles, one green, one amber, both dusty, with faded labels, and blackened corks secured by wire.
«Drinking on duty is frowned on in the Corps, Mr. Arapoulous,» he said.
«This isn’t drinking, it’s just wine.» Arapoulous pulled the wire retainer loose and thumbed the cork. It rose slowly, then popped in the air. Arapoulous caught it. Aromatic fumes wafted from the bottle. «Besides, my feelings would be hurt if you didn’t join me.» He winked.
Retief took two thin-walled glasses from a table beside the desk. «Come to think of it, we also have to be careful about violating quaint native customs.» Arapoulous filled the glasses. Retief picked one up, sniffed the deep rust colored fluid, tasted it, then took a healthy swallow. He looked at Arapoulous thoughtfully.
«Hmmm, it tastes like salted pecans, with an undercurrent of crusted port.»
«Don’t try to describe it, Mr. Retief,» Arapoulous said. He took a mouthful of wine, swished it around his teeth, and swallowed. «It’s Bacchus wine, that’s all.» He pushed the second bottle toward Retief. «The custom back home is to alternate red wine and black.»
Retief put aside his cigar, pulled the wires loose, nudged the cork, and caught it as it popped up.
«Bad luck if you miss the cork,» Arapoulous said, nodding. «You probably never heard about the trouble we had on Lovenbroy a few years back?»
«Can’t say that I did, Hank.» Retief poured the black wine into the two fresh glasses. «Here’s to the harvest.»
«We’ve got plenty of minerals on Lovenbroy,» Arapoulous said, swallowing wine. «But we don’t plan to wreck the landscape mining ’em. We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a force. They figured they knew better what to do with our minerals than we did. Wanted to strip-mine, smelt ore. We convinced ’em otherwise. But it took a year, and we lost a lot of men.»
«That’s too bad,» Retief said. «I’d say this one tastes more like roast beef and popcorn over a Riesling base.»
«It put us in a bad spot,» Arapoulous went on. «We had to borrow money from a world called Croanie, mortgaged our crops; we had to start exporting art work too. Plenty of buyers, but it’s not the same when you’re doing it for strangers.»
«What’s the problem?» Retief said, «Croanie about to foreclose?»
«The loan’s due. The wine crop would put us in the clear; but we need harvest hands. Picking Bacchus grapes isn’t a job you can turn over to machinery—and we wouldn’t if we could. Vintage season is the high point of living on Lovenbroy. Everybody joins in. First, there’s the picking in the fields. Miles and miles of vineyards covering the mountain sides, crowding the river banks, with gardens here and there. Big vines, eight feet high, loaded with fruit, and deep grass growing between. The wine-carriers keep on the run, bringing wine to the pickers. There’s prizes for the biggest day’s output, bets on who can fill the most baskets in an hour. The sun’s high and bright, and it’s just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on: roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads and plenty of fruit and fresh-baked bread … and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking’s done by a different crew each night in each garden, and there’s prizes for the best crews.
«Then the wine-making. We still tramp out the vintage. That’s mostly for the young folks—but anybody’s welcome. That’s when things start to get loosened up. Matter of fact, pretty near half our young-uns are born about nine months after a vintage. All bets are off then. It keeps a fellow on his toes though; ever tried to hold onto a gal wearin’ nothing but a layer of grape juice?»
«Never did,» Retief said. «You say most of the children are born after a vintage. That would make them only twelve years old by the time—»
«Oh, that’s Lovenbroy years; they’d be eighteen, Terry reckoning.»
«I was thinking you looked a little mature for twenty-eight,» Retief said.
«Forty-two, Terry years,» Arapoulous said. «But this year—it looks bad. We’ve got a bumper crop—and we’re short-handed. If we don’t get a big vintage, Croanie steps in; Lord knows what they’ll do to the land.
«What we figured was, maybe you Culture boys could help us out: a loan to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we’d repay it in sculpture, painting, furniture—»
«Sorry, Hank. All we do here is work out itineraries for traveling side-shows, that kind of thing. Now if you needed a troop of Groaci nose-flute players—»
«Can they pick grapes?»
«Nope—anyway they can’t stand the daylight. Have you talked this over with the Labor office?»
«Sure did. They said they’d fix us up with all the electronics specialists and computer programmers we wanted—but no field hands. Said it was what they classified as menial drudgery; you’d have thought I was trying to buy slaves.»
The buzzer sounded. Miss Furkle appeared on the desk screen.
«You’re due at the Inter-Group Council in five minutes,» she said. «Then afterwards, there are the Bogan students to meet.»
«Thanks.» Retief finished his glass and stood. «I have to run, Hank,» he said. «Let me think this over. Maybe I can come up with something. Check with me day after tomorrow. And you’d better leave the bottles here. Cultural exhibits, you know.»
As the council meeting broke up, Retief caught the eye of a colleague across the table.
«Mr. Whaffle, you mentioned a shipment going to a place called Croanie. What are they getting?»
Whaffle blinked. «You’re the fellow who’s filling in for Magnan, over at MUDDLE,» he said. «Properly speaking, equipment grants are the sole concern of the Motorized Equipment Depot, Division of Loans and Exchanges.» He pursed his lips. «However, I suppose there’s no harm in my telling you. They’ll be receiving heavy mining equipment.»
«Drill rigs, that sort of thing?»
«Strip mining gear.» Whaffle took a slip of paper from a breast pocket and blinked at it. «Bolo Model WV/1 tractors, to be specific. Why MUDDLE’s interest in MEDDLE’s activities?»
«Forgive my curiosity, Mr. Whaffle. It’s just that Croanie cropped up earlier today; seems she holds a mortgage on some vineyards over on—»
«That’s not MEDDLE’s affair, sir,» Whaffle cut in. «I have sufficient problems as Chief of MEDDLE without probing into MUDDLE’s business.»
«Speaking of tractors,» another man put in, «we over at the Special Committee for Rehabilitation and Overhaul of Underdeveloped Nations’ General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for mining equipment for d’Land through MEDDLE—»
«SCROUNGE was late on the scene,» Whaffle said. «First come, first served, that’s our policy at MEDDLE. Good day, gentlemen.» He strode off, a briefcase under his arm.
«That’s the trouble with peaceful worlds,» the SCROUNGE committeeman said. «Boge is a trouble-maker, so every agency in the Corps is out to pacify her, while my chance to make a record—that is, assist peace-loving d’Land, comes to nought.»