Stasheff,Christopher - Magnus 1 - A Wizard in Mind

Prologue

A spy can't quit and stay healthy—everybody knows that.

In fact, a spy can't quit and stay alive—but Magnus

d'Armand was still living, even though he had resigned from

the Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent

Totalitarianisms more than six months before—still alive,

and not really terribly worried about it.

Of course, SCENT wasn't a secret service with missions of

mayhem—it was (officially) a private organization dedicated

to subverting dictatorships before they started, by convert-

ing planets to democracy before they developed out of their

Middle Ages. So Magnus wasn't really a spy, though he was a

secret agent. He was also a secret wizard. That helped, some-

times. A lot.

At the moment, he was sitting in the control room of his

spaceship, talking with its robot brain. "Well, Herkimer,

which planet shall we subvert next?"

"There is a wide choice." Herkimer supplied the sound

of index cards flipping behind his rather theatrical sigh. "I

do not suppose I could persuade you to consider a planet for

which democracy is obviously the ideal form of govern-

ment?"

"You could persuade me to try the planet, but not the

10 -^ CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

democracy—at least, not without a massive amount of proof.

After all, that's why I quit SCENT—because I wasn' t willing to

impose democracy on a society it wasn't right for."

"And because you disapproved of some of SCENT'S

methods—yes, I know." Herkimer didn't mention the other

reason for Magnus's reluctance to "impose" democracy—

the young man's father. Rod Gallowglass, who was one of

SCENT'S most famous agents (though Rod himself didn't

know about it), and had spent most of his life laying the foun-

dations of democratic government on Magnus's home

planet, Gramarye. The young man's need to separate himself

from his father, and to establish his own reputation, no

doubt had a great deal to do with both his quitting SCENT

and his reluctance to establish democracies.

"I can't accept sacrificing good people just to give an

edge to your favorite form of government," Magnus told

him. "Societies come in a great number of different forms,

Herkimer, so it only makes sense that they need different

forms of government. If I find a planet that requires a dicta-

torship, I'll work to establish a dictatorship!"

"Certainly, Magnus—if you do find such a society." Her-

kimer had already scanned his complete SCENT database,

along with the d'Armand family archives that he had down-

loaded from Fess, the family robot. With that knowledge in

his data banks, Herkimer could easily see that although dicta-

torship might be good for a society, it wasn't good for the

people, unless there were some way of guaranteeing their

civil rights—in which case, it wasn't a complete dictatorship

anymore, but was on the way to becoming something else.

"The planet Kanark might be the sort you are considering."

He put a picture on the screen.

Magnus frowned, studying the peasants in their felt caps

and faded blue tunics as they waded through a yellow field

with scythes, singing in rime to the sweep and lift of the

blades. "The planet is eight percent greater in diameter than

Terra," Herkimer informed him, "but with ninety-eight per-

cent of Terra's gravity, presumably indicating fewer heavy

metals in the planetary core. Its r tation is twenty-two hours,

A WIZARD IN MIND •w- 11

forty minutes, Terran standard. The axial tilt is nine degrees;

distance from the sun is one-point-oh-five AU."

"So it's slightly colder than Terra?"

"Yes, and the ice caps are greater, as is the landmass. Still,

there is no shortage of free water, and maize, millet, barley,

and wheat grow well.''

"Presumably brought in by the early colonists."

"The records of the pioneers indicate that, yes," Her-

kimer confirmed. "The economy is still agricultural, though

with an increasing industrial base."

"So the majority of people are farmers?"

"Yes—yeomen. Eighty percent of them own their own

hectare or two. The remaining twenty percent are approxi-

mately evenly split between merchants and agricultural la-

borers employed by the largest landowners."

"Who are, of course, the government."

"Yes. The government is pyramidal, with small landown-

ers governed by larger. The wealthiest dozen men in each

sovereign state constitute the highest authority. They agree

on legislation, but each acts as both judiciary and executive

over his own estates. Land ownership and rank are heredi-

tary."

"An aristocracy, and a rather authoritarian one." Mag-

nus frowned. "Let's see how these noblemen live."

The picture of the field workers was replaced by an inte-

rior picture of a large, circular room, paneled in wood but

with the roof beams showing. Tapestries adorned the walls,

large windows let in sunlight, and a fire burned in a huge

fireplace. Half a dozen people were moving about. Magnus

frowned. "They're all dressed decently, but not richly.

Where are the rulers?"

"The duke stands near the hearth. The others are his

family."

Magnus stared. "I would scarcely say they were dressed

sumptuously—and the room is certainly not richly furnished!

In fact, I'd call it rather Spartan. Let me see a yeoman's

house."

The picture dissolved into a view of a similar dwelling,

12 —&- CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

except that the roof was only a foot or two above the heads

of the eight people. Three were obviously teenagers, two

middle-aged, and the other three children. The windows

were smaller than in the duke's house, and the walls were

decorated with arrangements of evergreen branches instead

of tapestries.

Magnus frowned. "It would seem that wealth is fairly

evenly distributed. Is there evidence of oppression?"

"Only in the punishment of criminals—which includes

political dissenters. It is not a wealthy planet."

"But most of the people are content." Magnus shook his

head. "There isn't much I can do there to make them richer,

and they seem happy enough in any case; I might make their

lives worse. Let me see people who toil under a more oppres-

sive regime."

The screen cleared, and Herkimer put up the sound of

cards flipping again, to indicate that he was searching his

data banks. Magnus waited, feeling oddly troubled. The aris-

tocrats were no doubt acting in their own interest first and

foremost—but they seemed to be aware that their own pros-

perity depended on that of their people, and that their

power was based on the yeomen's contentment with life.

Magnus really had no reason to interfere. He didn't doubt

that government of the people should be for the people—he

just wasn't all that sure who should be doing the governing.

In this case, the aristocrats seemed to be doing well enough

for everybody—which seemed wrong.

"Andoria," Herkimer said, and the screen lit with a pic-

ture of a row of people wearing only loincloths, bent over to

cut grain with sickles.

"Spare me the geophysical data." Magnus leaned for-

ward, feeling his heart lift. This looked like a more promising

setting for oppression—though now that he looked more

closely, he could see that each of the peasants was well fed.

They, too, sang as they worked, and the song was cheerful.

"Begin with the government!" Magnus was already feeling

impatient.

A WIZARD IN MIND •v— 1

"The government is an absolute monarchy," Herkime

said, "with overtones of theocracy, for the monarch is a god

king."

"God-king?" Magnus frowned. "Is this Neolithic?"

"Bronze Age, but with some surprisingly sophisticatec

notions, no doubt supplied by original colonists whos<

Terran-style culture fell apart without a high technology t(

preserve the infrastructure. All land is the king's, and is ad

ministered by his stewards, each of whom supervises a hun

dred or so bailiffs."

"How are they chosen?"

"Candidates are selected by examination, but the final se

lection is the king's."

"A civil service!"

"Yes, but one that is largely hereditary. The king tends t(

appoint the sons of the same families, generation after gener

ation, century after century. New blood enters the civil ser

vice only when one of the families fails to produce a mal(

heir, or the scion of the line chooses another profession—foi

example, the priesthood, or the army."

"There's a standing army, then?"

"Yes, but it's the king's, and only the king's. The officer;

tend to come from the old families, but may be promotec

from the ranks. In both civil service and army, new appoin

tees constitute approximately twelve percent of the person

nel."

"So there's some vertical mobility." Magnus pursed hi;

lips. "I gather, from the fact that the king feels it necessary tc

maintain an army, that his civil service's main purpose is tc

assure abundant income for himself and his household."

"No, though that purpose certainly seems to be wel

served." Herkimer replaced the picture of the field with the

interior of a stone palace, lush with decoration, a marble

floor polished mirror-smooth, and a double file of bare

chested soldiers with spears leading to a golden throne on z

high dais, on which sat a tall man wearing a robe richly orna-

mented with golden beadwork interspersed with gems. "The

14 —»• CHBISTOPBEB STASHEFF

god-king charges his stewards with seeing to the welfare of his

people. They gather every bit of surplus grain into royal gra-

naries, yes—but the people are fed from those granaries, and

clothed from the cotton and linen produced by the corps of

king's weavers."

"So every facet of life is governed and everything is taken

from the people, but everything is given to them, too—at

least, everything they need," Magnus mused.

"It is. In sum, only fifteen percent of the wealth goes to

support the luxury of the king and his administrators."

"Scarcely excessive," Magnus said in exasperation. "I can

hardly call that oppressive. Don't you have anything more

promising?"

"Searching," Herkimer told him, and the card ruffle

sounded again as the screen filled with dancing points of

light. Magnus sat back, feeling nervous and edgy, then won-

dered why he should be so dismayed to find two societies that

didn't need his help.

But he didn't have any other purpose in life—his family

could take care of themselves and their home planet, Gra-

marye, quite nicely without him—and he had already given

up on falling in love and devoting his life to a wife and chil-

dren. He was only twenty-one, but had already had some bad

experiences with women and romance—some very bad, and

none very good. What else was a rich young man supposed to

do with his time? Well, not rich, exactly—but he had a space-

ship (a guilt offering from the really rich relatives) and could

make as much money as he needed whenever he needed—

make it literally, being a wizard. Well, not a real wizard, of

course—he couldn't work real magic—but he was tremen-

dously gifted in telepathy, telekinesis, and other powers of

extrasensory perception. Of course, he could have devoted

his life to building up as great a fortune as his relatives had—

but that seemed pointless, somehow, without anyone else to

spend it on, and a rather unfair use of his gifts. His brief ex-

perience with SCENT, and his rebellion against it, had given

him a solid feeling of satisfaction at helping an oppressed

A WIZARD IN MIND "-"- 15

serf class who really needed liberating. He had been looking

forward to that feeling of elation again—perhaps even look-

ing forward to the strife and suffering that produced it. He

wondered if, somewhere deep, he secretly believed he de-

served punishing.

"This would be considerably easier," said Herkimer, "if

you would also allow me to investigate planets that currently

have SCENT projects under way."

Magnus shook his head. "Why waste time and effort when

someone else is already working to free them?" Besides, he

found himself unwilling to oppose his father's organization.

On the last planet, when he had seen for himself that what

the SCENT agents were doing was wrong—or rather, that

they were doing wrong things in order to accomplish some-

thing right—it had been another matter; he had felt the

need to step forward and take a stand to protect good people

whom the SCENT agents were willing to abandon. But delib-

erately landing on a SCENT planet with the intent to upset

what they were doing was another matter entirely. "No, there

is no need to duplicate effort."

"As you wish," Herkimer said, with a tone of resignation

that made Magnus long for the good old days when robots

were unable to mimic emotions. "Your next possibility is the

planet Petrarch." A pastoral scene appeared on the screen, a

broad and sunny plain with the walls of a medieval city rising

from it. Carts rolled along the road that ran from the bottom

of the frame to the city's gates.

Magnus frowned, not seeing anyone being oppressed.

"This is a retrograde colony, I assume." Aren't they all?

Not quite, he answered himself. A handful ofTerran colo-

nies had been so well planned, and so fortunate, that they

had been able to establish industrial bases before Terra cut

them off, in the great retrenchment of the Proletarian Eclec-

tic State of Terra. Most, however, had fallen apart as soon as

the support ofTerran commerce and new Terran equipment

was withdrawn, some even reverting to barbarism and Stone

Age technology. Most, though, had regressed no further

16 —fc CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

than the Middle Ages and, without electronic communica-

tions to hold together continent-wide governments, had

fallen into feudalism of one sort or another. Petrarch, at

least, seemed to have pulled itself together a bit.

"Petrarch orbits a G-type sun at a distance of one and

one-third astronomical units," Herkimer began, but Magnus

cut in to abort the lecture before it started.

"Once again, spare me the geophysical data until we're

sure whether or not there's any political problem worth our

interference."

"I assume you mean 'intervention,' " Herkimer said

primly.

Magnus had the fleeting thought that perhaps he should

change the robot's voice encoder to give it a crisp, maiden-

aunt quality. "Is there reason for it?"

"Abundant reason," Herkimer assured him. "When

Terra withdrew its support, the culture virtually crashed. The

infrastructure could not be maintained without electronic

technology, and on every continent, the result was anarchy.

People banded together in villages and fought one another

for the litde food and fuel that remained. As one village con-

quered its neighbors, warlords arose, and battled one an-

other for sheer power."

Magnus turned pale; he knew what that meant in terms of

the sufferings of the individual, ordinary people. "But that

was five hundred years ago! Certainly they have progressed

past that!"

"Not on two of the five continents," Herkimer said re-

gretfully. "They remain carved up into a dozen or more petty

kingdoms, con tinually warring upon one another."

And when petty kingdoms warred, peasants did the fight-

ing and dying—or were caught between two armies if they

weren't quick enough about running and hiding. "What of

the other three?"

"There, barbarism is the order of the day. There are

hunting and gathering societies, herding societies with prim-

itive agriculture, and nomads who follow the great herds.

A WIZARD IN MIKD •\B- 17

Here and there, small kingdoms have risen ruled by despots,

but there are no empires."

"Let's hope nobody invents them." Fleeting visions of

torture chambers, armed tax collectors, and starving peas-

ants flitted through Magnus's mind. "Yes, this sounds as

though there might be work worth our doing. Now tell me

the history."

"Petrarch was originally colonized during the twenty-

third century," Herkimer told him as the screen filled with

the towering plasticrete towers ofaTerran colony. Women in

full-length gowns of brocade and velvet passed before them,

with men dressed in doublets and hose. Here and there, one

wore a rapier, though it had a rather solid look, as though

scabbard and hilt had been cast in one piece.

"Yes," Magnus mused, "that was the century that was fa-

mous for the Renaissance revival fad of its last decade, wasn't

it? I remember Fess teaching us children that it was a prime

example of mass silliness."

"That was indeed the century, the decade, and the fad,

though the silliness passed quickly enough everywhere else

in the Terran Sphere. On Petrarch, though, it became per-

manent."

The picture changed, though the dress styles remained.

The background, though, was that of the low plasticrete

buildings typical of any early Terran colony, with here and

there the timber-and-stucco houses of the first phase of

building from native materials. Magnus saw the occasional

costume with wildly exaggerated shoulders, two-foot-high

hats with crown upon crown, or veils that fluttered behind a

lady for several yards of fluorescent color. "They seem to

have made some very flamboyant developments."

"They did indeed, but only within the Renaissance con-

text. On Talipon, an inland in the center of an inland sea,

dress styles fossilized—and so did architecture, painting, and

all aspects of its culture."

"An odd occurrence." Magnus frowned. "Was there a

cause, or was it merely a mass aberration?"

18 -^ CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

"The cause was the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra's

coup d'etat. When PEST became the government of the Ter-

ran Sphere, it cut off contact and support for the outlying

planets, and Petrarch was virtually frozen at its current cul-

tural level."

"It was fortunate that the colony had developed an econ-

omy and technology that could sustain that culture." Mag-

nus frowned. "I'm surprised that constant war didn't force

them back to the Stone Age, as it did on so much of the rest

of the planet."

"They seem to have formed alliances between resource-

rich states and manufacturing states," Herkimer explained.

"Alliances, or conquests?"

"Some of the one, some of the other. The more remote

districts did regress, some even becoming rather primitive."

"So there are three barbarian continents, two feudal con-

tinents, and an island of modern culture?"

"Definitely not modern—perhaps late medieval, even

Renaissance."

"How large is this island?"

"Approximately four hundred ninety kilometers by one

hundred thirty-five. It contains a group of independent city-

states, constantly feuding with one another—but their wars

are limited, they share a common language, and there is a

constant interchange of people moving from one city to an-

other."

Magnus smiled sourly. "It almost sounds like one nation

with a great number of rival sporting teams."

"A good analogy," Herkimer said with approval. "Some

of the sports are rather lethal, of course, and the different

cities are adamant in not submitting to anyone's law but their

own—but they do indeed constitute one nation."

"With no national government?"

"None at all. In fact, each city-state governs itself as it sees

fit. There are monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies—even a

fledgling republic of more or less democratic tendencies."

"It could be used as a center for enlightenment about the

A WIZARD IN MIND w- 19

rights of humanity, then," Magnus said thoughtfully. "I take

it the city-states are agricultural?"

"Several are early industrial, and a dozen coastal cities

are mercantile. Two have risen to prominence, establishing

virtual trading empires—Venoga and Pirogia."

"Ideal for spreading advanced ideas! Yes, I think Talipon

will do nicely as a base of operations. Are there any obstacles

to my efforts?" Magnus remembered the futurian anarchists

and totalitarians who continually tried to defeat his father's

efforts to develop democracy.

"None except AEGIS," Herkimer said helpfully.

Magnus sagged. "No obstacle but an off-planet do-gooder

society trying some uplifting of its own! Only an unofficial

branch of Terra's interstellar government! Should I really

bother?"

"Oh, yes," Herkimer said softly. "AEGIS is not a prime

example of good organization."

That, Magnus reflected, was an understatement. AEGIS,

the Association for the Elevation of Governmental Institu-

tions and Systems, was a private, nongovernmental organiza-

tion that nonetheless received hefty donations from the

Decentralized Democratic Tribunal, the central government

of the Terran Sphere, because its activities helped bring ret-

rograde colony-planets back into contact with the civilized

worlds, and prepared them for membership in the DDT.

AEGIS was dedicated to raising the cultural level of the plan-

ets with which it worked. In order to do this, it tried to mini-

mize war, improve the economy, and inject the fundamental

ideas of civil and individual rights into the culture—it consid-

ered human rights to be prerequisite to education and devel-

opment in the arts. Its members approached their work with

an almost missionary fervor, but frequently didn't realize

what the results would be. Their efforts usually did tend to

produce some sort of predemocratic government, though.

Usually. AEGIS had been known to come up with a monar-

chy or two. They didn't care, as long as it promoted the devel-

opment of the human soul.

20 —&- CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF

"Amateurs," Magnus said scornfully. "They're incap-

able of seeing the results of their own actions. Bumbling,

clumsy.. ."

"But well-meaning," Herkimer reminded him.

"Well, yes, but we all know which path is paved with good

intentions. Is AEGIS working throughout the whole planet,

or only on Talipon?"

"Primarily on Talipon, but with the idea that the island's

influence will spread to the rest of the world, through its en-

ergetic merchants and merchant marine."

"Well, they had one idea right, at least—the most obvi-

ous. I think I'll see if I can augment their work in some unof-

ficial manner. At least, if AEGIS is working there, I can't do

much more harm than they will."

"There is that," Herkimer agreed. "How do you intend

to proceed?"

Magnus took on a contemplative look. "Given the inces-

sant feuding, I would probably be most effective if I fell back

on my former disguise—a mercenary soldier."

"You will certainly have entree to any city you wish to

visit."

"I'd rather not wind up as an entree .. ."

Herkimer ignored the remark. "Will you use your previ-

ous pseudonym, too?"

"Gar Pike? Yes, I think I shall." Magnus pursed his lips.

"It would be a little too obvious if I simply showed up in the

middle of Talipon, though. I had better land in one of the

less developed kingdoms on the mainland, and work my way

to the island more or less naturally."

"That should disguise you from AEGIS'S scrutiny," Her-

kimer agreed. "After all, you will rather stand out among the

Taliponese."

"Really?" Magnus frowned. "Why? You will give me a

crash course in their language, won't you?"

"Of course—but the average Taliponese man is five and a

half feet tall."

Magnus was nearly seven.

1

Stasheff, Christopher - Magnus 1 - A Wizard in Mind

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