The Final Circle of Paradise

Devon was not employed at all… Next, the marketing section is concerned with expanding the slug distribution, while the strong-arm section terrorizes the population and interdicts all debate on that topic… The intimidation of the people…"

Now I understood it all.

"Just a minute, Oscar," I said. "Can you guarantee that in the entire city there are only two secret organizations?"

"Yes," he said. "Only the Art Patrons and the Intels."

"Please continue, Oscar," said Matia with displeasure. "I would ask you not to interrupt, Ivan."

"Sorry," I said. Oscar continued to talk, but I was no longer listening. Something flared in my mind. The traditional initial model for all our undertakings, with its invariant axiom predicating the existence of a ramified organization of evildoers, had been shattered into dust, and I was only amazed that I had failed heretofore to recognize its inane complexity in the context of this simple-minded country. There were no secret shops guarded by gloomy persons with brass knuckles, there were no wary, unprincipled businessmen, there were no traveling salesmen with double-walled shirt collars stuffed with contraband, and it was quite for nothing that Oscar was drafting the elegant chart of squares and circles, connected by a confusion of lines, and inscribed with the words "center,"

"staff," and numerous question marks. There was nothing to demolish and be and no one to send off to Baffin Land… But there was modern industry involved in everyday trade, there were state stores where slugs were sold for fifty cents apiece, and there were – but only in the beginning one or two individuals not devoid of inventiveness and dying of inactivity and thirsting for new sensations. And there was the medium-sized country where, once upon a time, abundance and affluence were the end to be attained, and they never did become the means to another end. And that was all that was needed.

Someone inserted a slug into a radio by mistake and lay down in the bath to relax and maybe listen to some good music or to hear the latest news – and it started. The news oozed and remnants of phonors found their way into the garbage ducts, then someone figured out that slugs could be obtained not only from phonors, but could simply be bought in stores. Someone was inspired to use aromatic salts and someone employed Devon.

People started to die in their baths from nervous exhaustion, and the statistical department of the Security Council submitted a top secret report to the Presidium. It became apparent at once that all such deaths occurred with people who had come here as tourists. And furthermore, that there were far more such deaths in this country than anywhere else on the planet. As so often happens, a false theory was constructed on well-verified facts, and we, one after another, well schooled in conspiracy, were sent here to uncover the secret gang of dealers in a new and unknown drug, and we arrived here and did stupid things. But, as always, no labor goes for naught, and if you must look for the guilty, then all were guilty, from the mayor to Rimeyer, and if so, then no one was guilty, and now we have to -

"Ivan," said Matia irritably, "are you asleep?"

They were both looking at me. Oscar was extending me his notebook with the diagrams. I took the notebook and threw it on the table.

"Listen," I said. "Oscar has done wonders, of course, but we have come a cropper again! Oscar, you have seen such a lot, but you understood nothing. If there are any people in this land who hate slug, it's the Intels. The Intels are not gangsters, they are desperate men and patriots. They have but one aim – to stir this bog. By any means. To give this city some kind of purpose, to force it away from the trough They are sacrificing themselves, do you understand? They invite fire upon themselves, they are attempting to arouse the town to come sort of common emotion, even if it has to be hatred. Can it be you haven't heard of the tear gas, the shooting up of the shivers? They are not making slug in the laboratories, they are building bombs and cooking tear gas… and generally breaking the laws on weapons technology. They are preparing a putsch for the twenty-eighth, but as for slug – here it is!"

I shoved one at each of them, and simultaneously expounded everything I thought on the subject.

At first, they listened to me in disbelief. Then they stared at the slugs, not taking their eyes off them until I'd finished, and when I did, they were quiet for quite a while.

Matia held his slug as though it were a buzzing wasp. There was displeasure written on his face.

"Vacuum tubusoid… Hmmm… In fact… and radios…

there is something to it."