[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 asthe pair came in. "I take it you haven't met before?" he said. "Mr. andMrs. Lanzerotti, this is Ann Starnes, the recording photographer, andRobert Heidekopfer, one of our better writers."
There were smiles and acknowledgments. Unterbaum touched a pair ofbuttons on his desk and two chairs slid out of the walls to make agroup of five. "Sit down, please," he said. "Now I'm not going to mincewords. The reason you're here is because the Council wants you—threeof you, at least—to undertake a mission. Vincent—" he indicatedLanzerotti, who nodded a dark head—"already knows something about it,but for the benefit of Miss Starnes and Mr. Heidekopfer, I will saythat we want to send you to Tolstoia."
Heidekopfer smiled and said, "Sounds better than that trip to the polarmines 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," saidUnterbaum, "so we can render a fair and unbiased report on Tolstoia,in word, picture and observation. The point is this; there are someislands about three hundred miles off the coast of Tolstoia, between itand South Bergenland—the Wrightley Islands. They have no resources,but Tolstoia wants to colonize them." He touched buttons again, and amap appeared on the wall showing the almost-round shape of the islandnation, with the islands and the tip of South Bergenland at the right.
Unterbaum went on: "They're uninhabited, so there isn't any objectionfrom the Demographic Commission, although it's unusual for one of thehermit-states to expand. But there are certain features of the requestthat make the Council inclined to go slow; or at least to want moreinformation."
He stopped, seeming to wait for a question, so Heidekopfer asked it."What are they?"
Lanzerotti answered, "To begin with, the place was founded inaccordance with the philosophy of Count Leo Tolstoi, a Russianwriter of some centuries back. The Russians discovered that a sectof people who believed in his ideas was growing up in their country,and considered it a threat to the organization of their state. Theycouldn't dispose of the Tolstoians under the genocide laws, so theyappealed to the Council and it agreed to expatriate all the Tolstoiansthe 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 wasmade, the Tolstoians came forward in numbers and identified themselves.But they thought they were going to have a reservation set apart forthem in Russia itself, and when they found they were going to an islandon Venus, there was a certain amount of resentment."
"Do you think it still exists? That if they're allowed to get hold ofthe islands, they'll do something drastic—say start a war?"
"Not after all these years," said Lanzerotti. "It's nearly threecenturies, and national resentments don't last that long withoutsomething 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 worryingthe Diplomatic Division. Asking for more territory indicates a risingbirth-rate, but the kind of territory they're asking for doesn'tpromise a ris