Part 1

POTEMKIN VILLAGE

A Novelet by FLETCHER PRATT

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories, February 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I

Director Unterbaum of the Intercolonial Office rose from his chair as the pair came in. "I take it you haven't met before?" he said. "Mr. and Mrs. Lanzerotti, this is Ann Starnes, the recording photographer, and Robert Heidekopfer, one of our better writers."

There were smiles and acknowledgments. Unterbaum touched a pair of buttons on his desk and two chairs slid out of the walls to make a group of five. "Sit down, please," he said. "Now I'm not going to mince words. The reason you're here is because the Council wants you--three of you, at least--to undertake a mission. Vincent--" he indicated Lanzerotti, who nodded a dark head--"already knows something about it, but for the benefit of Miss Starnes and Mr. Heidekopfer, I will say that we want to send you to Tolstoia."

Heidekopfer smiled and said, "Sounds better than that trip to the polar mines on Mars, eh Ann?"

"Warmer, anyhow," said the girl, turning a carefully-kept blonde head. "But I thought Tolstoia was closed to visitors."

"The patriarch has agreed to let a delegation in for this visit," said Unterbaum, "so we can render a fair and unbiased report on Tolstoia, in word, picture and observation. The point is this; there are some islands about three hundred miles off the coast of Tolstoia, between it and South Bergenland--the Wrightley Islands. They have no resources, but Tolstoia wants to colonize them." He touched buttons again, and a map appeared on the wall showing the almost-round shape of the island nation, with the islands and the tip of South Bergenland at the right.

Unterbaum went on: "They're uninhabited, so there isn't any objection from the Demographic Commission, although it's unusual for one of the hermit-states to expand. But there are certain features of the request that make the Council inclined to go slow; or at least to want more information."

He stopped, seeming to wait for a question, so Heidekopfer asked it. "What are they?"

* * * * *

Lanzerotti answered, "To begin with, the place was founded in accordance with the philosophy of Count Leo Tolstoi, a Russian writer of some centuries back. The Russians discovered that a sect of people who believed in his ideas was growing up in their country, and considered it a threat to the organization of their state. They couldn't dispose of the Tolstoians under the genocide laws, so they appealed to the Council and it agreed to expatriate all the Tolstoians the Russians could identify."

"Then it was a penal colony, like the Moon mines?" inquired Heidekopfer.

"No," said Lanzerotti. "As a matter of fact, when the announcement was made, the Tolstoians came forward in numbers and identified themselves. But they thought they were going to have a reservation set apart for them in Russia itself, and when they found they were going to an island on Venus, there was a certain amount of resentment."

"Do you think it still exists? That if they're allowed to get hold of the islands, they'll do something drastic--say start a war?"

"Not after all these years," said Lanzerotti. "It's nearly three centuries, and national resentments don't last that long without something to feed on. Besides, pacifism was one of Tolstoi's doctrines."

"Then what are we supposed to look for?"

Lanzerotti spread his hands. "We don't know. That's what's worrying the Diplomatic Division. Asking for more territory indicates a rising birth-rate, but the kind of territory they're asking for doesn't promise a rise serious enough to worry the Demographic Commission. We don't consider it likely that Tolstoianism has become militant. But to be honest, we just don't know."

Ann Starnes smiled. "It sounds like hunting for a needle in a haystack when you don't even know whether there's any needle," she said.

"On the contrary," said Unterbaum, "we're fairly certain there is a needle, and a sharp one. What we need to know is what kind of needle it is before someone gets stuck with it. Listen--" He snapped up one of the lids in his desk and spun a wheel of recording tape. "Planes aren't allowed to land in Tolstoia, of course, but every once in a while one comes down there, and occasionally a yacht or fishing-craft gets wrecked on the coast. Now the normal procedure in such a case with a hermit-state is that they hold survivors and notify someone to come and get them. They stopped doing that about eighty years ago."

"What do you mean?" said Heidekopfer. "Stopped notifying or stopped rescuing survivors?"

"It isn't quite certain," said Unterbaum, "but here's the sequence, such as it is. Seventy-eight years ago Bernard Jones and his wife disappeared while on a flight from MacNider to South Bergenland." He indicated the map. "You see, that would carry them close to Tolstoia. Three months later one of the fishing vessels, which are the only form of communication the Tolstoians have, turned up at MacNider. It had a letter from Mrs. Jones. She said her husband had died in a crash landing, and she was staying in Tolstoia with the permission of the authorities."

"Anything wrong about that?" asked Heidekopfer.

"There's nothing wrong with any of this," said Unterbaum, "at least as far as that instance goes. It's other things. Nothing has been heard of Mrs. Jones since. Seventy-six years ago, a musician named Bruno Zaleski went on a yachting trip in the South Ocean with a party of three. They never came back. After the usual interval letters came through from all of them. They said they found Tolstoia a Venusian paradise and were going to stay. Zaleski was heard from again. At the time of the next incident, one year later, his brother received a letter telling how happy he was."

* * * * *

He paused for a moment. "The incident sixty-seven years ago was the beginning of a new series. It concerned a man named Walter Artem, another plane case. Like Jones, he disappeared. One of the Tolstoian fishing-craft brought him back, but he was dead. They had preserved his body carefully. I'll show you the picture."

He touched the stud and the watchers found themselves gazing at a coffin, partly glassed so the occupant was visible to the waist. Rose Lanzerotti gave a little cry and with reason, for the face within was peculiarly horrible; bloated and suffused with blood, the neck swelling out over a clearly visible rope.

"They explained he had hanged himself," Unterbaum continued.

"I have a question," said Ann Starnes. "Why did they go to all the trouble of preserving him just the way he died? It sounds as though they were afraid somebody might get suspicious."

"That's what I thought," said Unterbaum. "But there's an explanation. The records show that the Tolstoians, even while they were in Russia, showed a peculiar reverence for their dead when they were important people. It's a hold-over from their twentieth century leader Lenin. They preserve bodies this way so they're visible. The explanation that came with Artem's body was that the Tolstoians didn't know how important he was, but thought he might be big enough to deserve preservative treatment."

"Polite of them," murmured Lanzerotti.

"Very," said Unterbaum. "Almost too polite. Because it was repeated--since Artem there have been six cases of castaways on Tolstoia committing suicide and being delivered at MacNider in preserved form."

"All hangings?" asked Heidekopfer.

"No. One stabbing, three shootings, two overdoses of soporifics. There are autopsy records on those, and they're legitimate."

"Seems a high proportion of suicides among the castaways," said Heidekopfer. "Can anything be made of that?"

"Nobody seemed to think so," said Unterbaum. "Seven suicides out of a given group over a period of eighty years isn't much, after all. The thing that stirred up our office was the discovery that in the past eighty years not one castaway has come back alive. They've either been crated out as suicides or sent through letters saying they have decided to become citizens of Tolstoia."

He paused a moment to let that sink in. "A number of these cases are rather special. There was Carmenilla Baio, forty-four years ago. She was a video dancer on a flight from MacNider to South Bergenland. Sent out the usual letter saying she had decided her future lay in Tolstoia, and followed it with another one a couple of years later. That's ordinary enough, but the case made the news, and when we went through the records, we found that when she disappeared she had been married only three months and was passionately devoted to her husband. Her second letter was written in a kind of code, and asked him to fake an accident and join her there."

"Did he?" asked Ann Starnes.

"Any possibility of forgery in those letters?" asked Heidekopfer at the same time.

Unterbaum turned to the girl. "No to your question. As for the other one, Carmenilla Baio's private code was certainly no forgery."

Heidekopfer said, "It appears that the Tolstoians compel them to stay there, and if they argue, bump them off. Is that it?"

"That would be a charge of genocide. I do not think--" began Lanzerotti.

"I don't either," said Unterbaum. "The Tolstoians wouldn't expose themselves to such a thing, especially in view of their origins. No, I'm convinced they have been quite honest, leaning over backward--as witness the preserved suicides--but there's some factor in the equation we don't know. And I won't deny that there's danger in the trip."

"Then I'm going," said Rosa Lanzerotti, decisively. She was a small woman with vivid Italiote coloring.

Ann Starnes said, "Might as well square the party off, hadn't we? It would be nice to have someone to handle the recording tapes and films."

Unterbaum frowned. "The Intercolonial Office--" he began.

Lanzerotti said, "I believe that psychologists recognize it as a temperamental danger to send two men and one woman on a protracted expedition."

"I ought to know better than to argue with a diplomat," said Unterbaum.

II

The low spit guarding the harbor entrance was only a slightly deeper blue than the water and perpetual overcast of Venus. Captain Ratterman sighed, reported "No charts," and spoke into the communicator, "Cut speed to eight knots, use full automatics on the bottom sonics," then he turned to the pair beside him on the bridge. "I'm not being inhospitable. In fact, you're welcome to stay as long as you please. But it's fair to warn you that we won't be docking for another three hours."

"We love your company," said Ann Starnes, but Heidekopfer picked at her arm, and led her toward the gangway. When they had reached the low, flat bow with the water whispering softly beneath, he said, "How about it, Ann? Why not marry me now and save trouble? You're going to anyway, some day, and it might be a protection here."

She put a hand over one of his. "No, Bob. Not now. I'll give you first place on the list, but I'm not going to marry you--or anybody else--until I'm something more than a failure."

"You're no failure. The fact that you were selected for this job proves it."

"Just a competent mechanical photographer, Bob--you needn't tell me. I was picked because I had worked with you before, and your work is important."

"Look ..." he started to say, then let it trail off. They had argued the point so often it was like another trip on a merry-go-round. Ann said, "I don't want to be just a wife, like Rosa Lanzerotti."

He moved. "Do you think she's--a failure?"

"No-o. Not within her own dimension. It just isn't mine. I want to be something more important than a good mechanical photographer."

"Did it ever occur to you--" he began, and let it trail off as he watched a formation of the odd Venusian batfish soar from the water under the bow and sweep overhead to dive again in perfect alignment. The ship swung. The long blue tongue of land came round on their right and the harbor opened before them. There was a little grove of masts at its depth clustered around what seemed to be docks, but he saw no town on the shore behind.

"Think you can handle the language all right now?" asked Ann, a note of banter in her question.

"If there hasn't been too much development in it since Tolstoia was closed off. Communications thought a good many special terms might have developed. What worries me more is the system of ideas. You were lucky, not having to study Tolstoi. He had a philosophy, all right, but I can't conceive how it could be translated into a practical method of living, and neither can Vincent. Unless we do understand, it's going to be hard to present a sympathetic picture."

"Photos are always sympathetic," said Ann. "The question is, do we want to be? Let's go down and have a cup of coffee. The betting is there won't be any where we're going."

The other two were in the cabin and the cup of coffee lasted until a cessation of movement and a slight bump indicated they had arrived. There was a bustle of gathering luggage; they went topside to find the gangplank already laid to a dilapidated dock with holes in the planking, alongside which little Tolstoian fishing-craft rose and fell rhythmically to the swell. At the shore end of the dock a little group of men in embroidered white smocks with square caps on their heads looked on with an air of complete uninterest as the ambassadors disbarked. There were four droshkies behind them; a house was visible among drooping-branched Venusian trees.

* * * * *

Ann set her camera to automatic and hooked it to her belt as Lanzerotti led the way along the dock. Three of the men detached themselves from the group and waited. As the ambassadors approached, one of them clasped his hands together, said, "Behrmann, Andrei Pavlich" and took a step back. "Vikhranov, Nicolai Leonovich," said the second, and the third, "Kazetzky, Pyotr Ilyich." He was a tall man, with a long, hooked nose and an expression of deep melancholy.

Lanzerotti stepped forward. "We are the representatives of the Interplanetary Council," he said. "My name is Vincent Lanzerotti with the rank of ambassador. This is Mrs. Lanzerotti, and Miss Starnes, our photographer and Mr. Heidekopfer, the official observer. We have a good deal of baggage."

The three looked at each other. Behrmann was a short man with a broad Slavic face. He said, "Bring it forward. Transportation has been provided to the seat of the patriarch."

Heidekopfer remembered that somewhere in Tolstoi there was something about not waiting on other people; also, that he was not going to have as much difficulty with the language as he had feared. Behrmann's accent was a little funny, but he put his sentences together in the classical manner and with the right words. The sailors were loading their baggage onto power-dollies. Vikhranov said, "The ambassador will take the first droshky, with myself and Pyotr Ilyich. Andrei Pavlich will accompany you in the second." He waved a hand toward Ann and Heidekopfer.

As their guides led the way toward the vehicles, Heidekopfer said, "One thing surprises me, if you don't mind a snap judgment. I would have expected to find more of a city around your port."

Behrmann turned his head with a smile. "We have no cities," he said. "They are destroyers of nature, and without communion with nature there is no happiness."

That was good Tolstoi, all right, thought Heidekopfer, and said to Ann, "They don't take very good care of their roads here, do they?"

"I should say not--and my mud-shedders are all nicely packed in the baggage, too." She lifted a neatly clad foot that was already plentifully marked with black Venusian mire. "Their trees are nice, though, and look how even the rows in that field are." She aimed the camera at it for a moment, and spoke to Behrmann in Russian; "Where are the fishermen for the boats?"

"Oh, this is Thursday," he said, standing aside so she could get in the droshky. "On this day they work in the fields. It is good to work in the fields, and we have a law that all who follow other forms of work shall do so for one day a week."

"That's not a bad law for an agricultural community," observed Heidekopfer. "I suppose you are practically all agriculture? But what do you do for manufactured articles--like shoes and glass and newspapers?"

In the droshka ahead Vikhranov raised his hand; both drivers shouted something like "Ya-ya!" simultaneously, cracked their whips tremendously, and the procession was off along a dirt road in a decidedly poor state of repair.

"I am not sure I understand your question," said Behrmann. "Shoes or glass, when we want them we make them. As for newspapers, they are forbidden by the word of the Master. I know there must be such things, because they are mentioned, but I have never seen one and do not really know what they are."

* * * * *

The road had begun to rise toward a cut in a range of low hills. "Uh-huh," said Heidekopfer, "and I suppose radio falls under the prohibition on newspapers. Well, let me put it this way; suppose someone had an idea for a new kind of machine. Would he have to make all the parts himself?"

"There is a law against machines. They interfere with simplicity."

"But doesn't anyone ever have an idea for a machine so brilliant that he simply has to make it in spite of the law?"

"How could he? It is against the law."

"Do you mean that the law here is always obeyed?"

"Always. That is the superiority of Tolstoia to all other peoples. Those who come to our happy country by accident never wish to leave when they find that through the doctrines of the Master we have established the brotherhood of men."

Ann gave a little giggle. "I know," said Heidekopfer rapidly in English, "I think we can take that with a cellar full of salt." He switched to Russian; "Then you have no crime?"

"In our happy country?" said Behrmann. "No. Look how beautiful is the arrangement of the cows in that field?"

Heidekopfer sighed. Then he said, "Tell me something about the government of your country. I don't want to be too inquisitive, but I have to report on these things when I get back."

Behrmann's face flashed a frown. "It is hard to explain this to an outsider, but we know of what you call government only from the works of the Master, who spoke of it as it was in the old days, in the old Russia, the holy Russia." He lifted a hand to his face, and Heidekopfer was dumbfounded to see the man was wiping away a tear. "There is the patriarch, but he is only the general secretary of the Supreme Soviet."

"Well, who makes the laws?"

"The Supreme Soviet."

"How are they elected--or chosen?"

"We all agree on them."

Heidekopfer was saved from going mad by a cry from Ann Starnes. They had passed through the cut into the hills and now, as they swung round the brow of one, a wide valley lay spread before them under the soft Venusian light. It was dotted with little clumps of trees and had houses here and there, mostly low and with curiously bound-down thatched roofs. With the green fields and grazing animals, it made a scene of truly pastoral beauty. Ann said, "Tell him to stop for a minute, will you? I want to get this."

Behrmann looked at Heidekopfer. "Is it your will also that we stop?"

"Sure, why not," said he. "Isn't even necessary to ask if the girl-friend wants it. Do you have a law about women getting permission for what they want to do, too?"

"No. Stop, Pavel Josephovitch." He turned to Heidekopfer; "But the will of one must become the will of all."

"Now I don't understand," said Heidekopfer, as Ann adjusted her camera to take a sweeping panorama of the valley. "Would you mind explaining?"

"In happy Tolstoia when the desire of one person would cause others to do what they might not desire, all must agree before it is done. To allow anything else would be compulsion, and as the Master says; 'Anything that savors of compulsion is harmful.'"

"I can see where there must be some prize family arguments in happy Tolstoia," said Ann, in English. "Would I like to be married to a man if I had to get his agreement every time I wanted to buy a new hat? No."

"If you'll marry me you won't have to--" began Heidekopfer, but Behrmann was speaking again:

"It was not always so. When our people came from holy Russia, they were like others on earth, with only the desire for universal brotherhood and the writings of the Master to guide them. But there was so much love among them and they obeyed the law so well that a hundred thirty-one of our years ago, brotherhood was attained and the will of all became the will of the one. Now it is possible for us to extend the privilege of agreement to outsiders. This is why none who have felt it wish to leave."

* * * * *

By this time, they had almost caught up to the leading droshky, which was just turning into a tree-lined alley at the end of which stood quite the largest house they had yet seen. It had two stories and a couple of jutting wings beside the central door. "This where we're going?" asked Ann.

"The residence of the Patriarch Pitrim Androvich Samsonov," said Behrmann, with the sonorous accents of one who is aware of saying something impressive.

The others got out and waited for them. When they had assembled Vikhranov led the procession, opening the door himself, and they found themselves in a neat hall with whitewashed walls and plain chairs standing against them. The light from the door was helped out by a couple of candles in bracket holders on the wall. Vikhranov said, "You will wait here," and turned through a door to the right. It could not have been more than a couple of minutes before a tall, strong man came out, wiping his hands on his smock, as though he had just been interrupted in something. Heidekopfer experienced an almost physical shock at the emanation of personality that seemed to flow from him. He might equally have been a general or a prophet, but either way there was no doubting that if he wanted somebody to do something, they would probably do it. Ann too was affected. She lifted her camera and let the photographing light play on the patriarch, but he moved his head slightly, the light went out and she put the camera back to her belt, an expression of awe suffusing her face.

Vikhranov said, "Little Father, these are the ambassadors from the Council. They did not tell me their names."

Lanzerotti gave him a peculiar look and said, "I am the ambassador and my name is Lanzerotti. This is--"

The big man lifted a hand. "It is good for simplicity to address all persons by their patronymics," he said. "Mine is Pitrim Androvich." Instead of looking at Lanzerotti he was, staring fixedly at Ann.

"Oh, I see," said the diplomat. "Well by that system, I suppose you'd have to call me Vincent Guidovich. And this is my wife, Rosa--uh--Mariovna."

Heidekopfer and Ann similarly identified themselves. Samsonov said, "We will show you your rooms. Is it your custom to change the clothes after travelling?"

Rosa Lanzerotti spoke for the group, "I think I'd like to change my shoes at least. They got rather muddy."

Samsonov turned to Kazetzky: "Pyotr Ilyich, will you and the horse-drivers bring the baggage of the ambassadors to the rooms in the west wing, in the name of the Master? There is a special law that this service may be performed for them."

He reached out a hand, calmly took one of Ann's, and began to lead her along the hall toward a door on the opposite side. There didn't seem to be anything to do but follow.

"Do you have any children?" said Samsonov, as he turned down a corridor at right angles to the first. "It is Nature's way of life for women to have children."