Slave
"Khabu? said the Shah again, peering out at the city.
"The Shah wishes to know, please, where we are now,' said
Khashdrahr. 'I know,' said Halyard, smiling wanly. It had been khabu and siki and akka sahn until he was half out of his mind. He leaned forward. 'Ilium, New York, your highness. We are about to cross the Iroquois River, which divides the town in two. Over there on the opposite bank is the Ilium Works.'
The limousine came to a halt by the end of the bridge, where a large work crew was filling a small chuckhole. The crew had opened a lane for an old Plymouth with a broken headlight, which was coming through from the north side of the river. The limousine waited for the Plymouth to get through, and then
proceeded. The Shah turned to stare at the group through the back window, and then spoke at length.
Doctor Halyard smiled and nodded appreciatively, and awaited a translation.
"The Shah,' said Khashdrahr, he would like, please, to know who owns these slaves we see all the way up from New York
City.' 'Not slaves,' said Halyard, chuckling patronizingly. 'Citizens, employed by government. They have same rights as other citizens - free speech, freedom of worship, the right to vote. Before the war, they worked in the Ilium Works, controlling machines, but now machines control themselves much better." "Aha!' said the Shah, after Khashdrahr had translated.
'Less waste, much better products, cheaper products with automatic control.'
'Aha!'
'And any man who cannot support himself by doing a job better than a machine is employed by the government, either in the Army or the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps.
"Aha! Khabu bonanza-pak?"
"Eh?'
"He says, "Where does the money come from to pay them?" said Khashdrahr.
'Oh. From taxes on the machines, and taxes on personal incomes. Then the Army and the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps people put their money back into the system for more products for better living."
'Aha!'
Doctor Halyard, a dutiful man with a bad conscience about the size of his expense accounts, went on explaining America, though he knew very little was getting through. He told the Shah that advances had been most profound in purely industrial communities, where the bulk of the population - as in llium - had made its living tending machines in one way or another. In New York City, for instance, there were many skills difficult or uneconomical to mechanize, and the advances hadn't liberated
as high a percentage of people from production. 'Kuppo!" said the Shah, shaking his head. Khashdrahr blush and translated uneasily, apologetically.
'Shah says, "Communism." "No Kuppo!' said Halyard vehemently. "The government does not own the machines. They simply tax that part of industry's income that once went into labor, and redistribute it. Industry is privately owned and managed, and co-ordinated to prevent the waste of competition by a committee of leaders from private industry, not politicians. By eliminating human error through machinery, and needless competition through organiz ation, we've raised the standard of living of the average man immensely."
Khashdrahr stopped translating and frowned perplexedly. Please, this average man, there is no equivalent in our language, I'm afraid."
"You know,' said Halyard, 'the ordinary man, like, well, anybody those men working back on the bridge, the man in that old car we passed. The little man, not brilliant but good hearted, plain, ordinary, everyday kind of person.
Khashdrahr translated. "Aha,' said the Shah, nodding, 'Takaru.
"What did he say?" Takaru,' said Khashdrahr. "Slave."
'No Takaru,' said Halyard, speaking directly to the Shah. "Ci ti-zen.'
Sayfa 28 - paladin
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