Now the Tamburu seemed as busy as when last it was stationed on a march where brigandage or outright war on civilization was rife. Sparling knew why. More and more people were moving here from northerly parts, in the hope of getting established before the change of weather devastated their homes. With no true government, Beronnen lacked means to bar them. But, itself beginning to feel the scorch and the storms, it also lacked means to provide for them. A lucky few might find steady work, even start new enterprises or marry into landholding families. The rest—
These passerby were not the wholly cheerful, energetic beings whom Sparling had watched in years agone. Many, especially among the outlanders, looked shabby, hungry,… desperate. And yet the countryside still lay peaceful, rich, golden beneath blue heaven and towering clouds. He glimpsed large herds and clustered buildings on the ranches which were the foundation of this economy, this society. Further south, the cultivated region around Sehala had been harvested; orchards, stubblefields, reseeded plowlands did not show how scanty that harvest had been when Anu smoldered in the north.
He parked at an inn on the outskirts which had accommodations for humans. “If you don’t mind, guest-friend, I’d prefer coin to your paper,” the landlord told him. “We’ve been getting enough clever counterfeits lately that I could have trouble buying anything with a bill. See, here’s a sample.”
To Sparling the imitation of Terrestrial money seemed crude. But the real thing had never been common outside Primavera. Besides, Ishtarians were frequently insensitive to nuances plain to an Earthling—and vice versa, of course.
“All that foreign riffraff.” the landlord grumbled. “Swindling, stealing, robbing; and if you catch them, what’s the use? Waste of time taking them to court. They don’t own aught to make restitution with. Their labor would be worthless. Excommunication wouldn’t hurt them, when no decent person wants their company in the first place. Dealing’s not likely to teach a lesson, and juries don’t kill people who haven’t been in contempt at least thrice. Yon homeless rascals need only disappear.”
He had listed the sanctions available. Imprisonment, except temporarily for detention, struck his folk as senseless spite, when humans described it; and Sparling thought no Ishtarian would ever grasp the idea of rehabilitation, being too appalled at what seemed a kind of psychic gelding. Maybe the Ishtarians were right.
He felt in his pocket and produced native coins, gold, silver, and bronze, ample for a short stay. The landlord didn’t bother to examine those. He could see at a glance they were the genuine article sold by reputable manufacturers. Nobody made a mint off his mint, but demand for new specie was always sufficient to support a few. Or, rather, there had been such a demand while the economy of the Gathering was expanding.
“I’ll go into town and look about,” the man remarked. “Quite a spell since I was here last.” The reason was his work, which among other things required him to seek out native leaders for conference. Virtually none stayed in Sehala, except when an assembly met. This was not a capital city; in many human senses, it was not a city at all. It was merely the largest, most prosperous of the areas where certain activities and institutions concentrated, therefore usually the most convenient rendezvous. Sparling maintained that the South Beronnen phrase for those territories where civilization was represented in force had been mistranslated and should go into English as “the Gathering at Sehala.”
Both suns were still aloft, but an overcast had removed glare and a wind with a hint of rain to come blew cool off the river. He didn’t mind that, in the absence of streets, he must now walk a few kilometers. Indeed, he wanted to see for himself how matters stood these days. Humans who came here oftener were apt to be blind to many things beyond their special concerns. That was understandable. The concerns required close attention: for instance, working with scholars to understand an old chronicle, or talking with skippers to find out what they could tell of widely strewn countries. However—
The inn stood near the docks. It was typical of buildings where a fair number of people might stay, rising square and sheer around a central court which included a garden and a pond. The first four stories were mortared stone: the remaining eight, adobe with perdurable phoenix half-timbering, a surface varied enough to be pleasing despite the severe outline. That variation was increased by a cookhouse and storage shed; by covered ramps going up from the court; by balconies jutting forth on the outside from every room.
Good architecture, Sparling thought. The heavy walls gave insulation as well as strength. The patio was always cool and the central well gave, through the main gate, a stack effect which louvers on inside windows used to help keep rooms comfortable on a hot day. Balconies, and the battlemented flat roof, gave residents the sunshine their symbiotic plants required, while not exposing them to danger. For the building was more than a thousand years old; it had withstood attack in the last disaster time, and might have to do so again.
Its front entrance looked down a slope to the broad brown river, docks and warehouses, workers, ships which had not unloaded at Liwas on the delta but continued here, lesser craft of the inland waterways. Noise, shouts, thuds, creak of wheels and derrick cables, boom of barrels rolled over gangways, drifted to Sparling. The scene was small and leisured when he recalled, say, Havana. But here was the center of a civilization, the best hope of a race he believed might someday mean more to the galaxy than his. If the red curse could be lifted…
He started walking south. At first he was on a trail among fields. Unlike any case he knew of on Earth, towns in Beronnen fed themselves off agricultural hinterlands, actually traded their produce for meat and much else from the ranches. The latter held economic and social primacy. Several in these parts, between them, effectively owned Sehala.
Through Sparling’s mind passed a theory he had once heard Goddard Hanshaw advance. In younger days, the mayor had been a cultural xenologist. “I think we’ve got a twofold reason why the rural sectors lord it over the urban. And no, I don’t mean the fact that most of the chieftains who make up an assembly of the Gathering are from cityless places. The Gathering is a historical newcomer. I mean the development of the mother civilization itself.
“First, pastoralism seems to be more efficient on Ishtar than on Earth. Post-mammalian livestock gets more out of a hectare than cows or pigs can. And agriculture is less efficient. If nothing else, herders survive an Anu passage better than farmers; but also, those storms and Hoods and droughts every millennium have spoiled a lot of land for crops. Then too, I think probably herding is more congenial to the average Ishtarian temperament. (Though that’s a plain guess of mine—and maybe at heart most humans would rather be cowboys than nesters.)
“But second is the matter of commute time. That’s what made it possible for a fairly high culture to develop among scattered ranches.
“Look. Throughout Earth’s history, the range of everyday activity has been limited by how long it takes to go between home and work. It’s always been just about the same time, roughly an hour. That’s true whether a Babylonian peasant was walking to his most distant field or a bureaucrat in Mexico City catches an airbus from his villa outside Guaymas. You can find exceptional individuals and exceptional circumstances, yes. But by and large, it doesn’t pay us to spend more than about one twelfth of an Earth rotation going to and fro. Whenever we had to do that as a regular thing, we’d soon move closer to the worksite, maybe founding a new settlement, or we’d get work closer to home. Even primitive hunters camped near where the game was. Even electronic communications haven’t abolished the principle, merely changed its application to certain classes of society.