The Merchants of Venus Read online

weshould continue spending project funds for nothing.”

  Jaimie raised his eyebrows at this speech, but said nothing.

  ”What do you mean, impossible problem?” one of the interviewersobjected. ”We know what we need--it's just that we're still making somemistake in selection that we haven't corrected.”

  ”That's right, Rod.” Biddington, the project psychologist, took up thedissension. ”We know something is wrong with the selection techniques,or in the personality patterns we consider necessary. But it's only aproblem of finding out what it is. The problem is by no meansinsoluble.”

  ”As long as you're not ready to give us up,” another interviewer said,”we aren't going to quit.”

  ”You can't afford to get defeatist about this, Rod,” Biddington went on.”This project is too important to fail. Whether you like it or not, yourexperience is too valuable for you to back out.”

  Rod grinned and held up his hands. ”All right. That's the reaction Iwanted. If you all still think we can get somewhere, we may as well tryto analyze this last group.” He sat down at his desk. ”I have the fileshere, along with the tapes of the interviews. Let's see what differencewe can find between those who hung on this long, and the ones that quitafter the first three months.”

  * * * * *

  The group settled down to trying to differentiate between a man whocouldn't do a job but could try for six months longer than the next.They took the colonists carefully apart, trait by trait, and put themall back. They reviewed the colonists' records from birth, and comparedthem in endless combinations. Jaimie came into the discussion to showwhat the status of the colonies had been at the time each colonist hadresigned: what diseases had been encountered when one man quit; how muchjungle had been cleared before another did.

  Files came and went in a continuous flux; coffee and sandwiches came andgrew cold and stale. The air became gray with smoke.

  Nothing.

  The same results had come out of every investigation: You needed a manwho was unstable to get him to leave Earth. You needed a man who wasstable to have him stay on Venus. You needed initiative andresourcefulness to survive on a new planet. You needed a man who had solittle initiative and resourcefulness that the competition on Earthwouldn't be profitable. You needed a young, healthy, vigorous specimen.You needed an older, experienced, more mature person.

  You needed A and you needed non-A.

  And even if you found people with the factors balanced just right,assuming you knew what the balance should be, where did you find fivehundred of them?

  The discussion went on. The solutions got wilder and more absurd. Takewhole orphan asylums and bring them up on Venus under military guard.Build a development in the steamiest, nastiest jungle, and test recruitsfor the colony there. Send African natives.

  The men were beginning to make the whole thing look impossible again, soRod decided to call a halt until they could get a better perspective.Tired himself, he dismissed them. They left quietly, not arguing inlittle groups or mumbling half-formed ideas to themselves, the way ateam that has been progressing will do.

  * * * * *

  Only Jaimie stayed. He remained sitting hunched up near the desk, in thesame position he'd held for the last hour. When the others had all left,he grinned at Rod.

  ”You know, for a group of practicing psychologists, this is the softestbunch of suckers I've seen.”

  ”You've proved that to your own profit several times so far,” Rodanswered, rubbing his face as though smoothing the wrinkles could removethe tension. ”Who have you robbed lately?”

  ”I'm talking about your performance just now. Here comes the whole crew,walking in with their heads hanging to the floor. Every last man wasready to tell you he was quitting--that the problem was insoluble. Andbefore anyone can say a word, you tell them that the whole thing isimpossible and imply that _you_ want to quit. Even Biddington fell forit. You can't back out now, Rod, they say. Let's not have defeatist talkout of you, of all people--”

  ”I did feel that way,” Rod said. ”I'm just about ready to quit. I thinkthat whatever our mistake has been, we can't do any better than we have.We just don't know enough.”

  Jaimie wasn't grinning now. ”What will happen if you quit?”

  ”My guess is that Carlson will set up a military outpost there. Make aclearing, build a fort, maybe a town. Then he'll try to get people tocome and live in it.” Rod sighed. ”It won't work. They'll want to knowwhy the planet had to be colonized that way--why wouldn't the _first_colonists stay?”

  ”I agree. The military outpost is a fine method for spreading a cultureto an existing civilization. Rome did much for Europe that way; the mostpowerful cities sprang up near the Roman forts and roads. But as amethod for inducing the populace to a new place, it doesn't work. A freepeople will not willingly move into a military township.” Jaimie lookedsharply at Rod. ”So what do you intend to do--run out and turn it allover to Carlson?”

  ”I don't know, Jaimie. I just don't know. Six years is a long time.”

  ”Damn it, Rod, you had much worse jobs than this one in industry! Howdid you select a computer man, a communications man, an engineeringphysicist, out of a group of men with similar backgrounds? It seems tome a harder problem than this.”

  ”We don't really know much, as I said,” Rod said. ”Ours has often beenan imitation science. When we had to select a computer man, we just gavea battery of tests to successful computer men--structural vision,vocabulary, tri-dimensional memory, ink-blots, syllogisms, practicallyeverything. Then we weeded out the tests whose scores appeared to haveno statistical relevance. Any future computer man had to duplicate thoseresults, whatever they were. If we had a recently pioneered civilizationaround, Jaimie, you'd find this whole staff running through it likepollsters before an election.”

  ”What was all this talk about balance, instability, initiative and allthe rest?” asked Jamie.

  ”That's what we do when we don't know, Jaimie. We try to predict what weneed; then we try to find ways of finding it in people.”

  * * * * *

  Jaimie made an explosive sound. ”But I thought you _must_ haveprogressed from empirical methods! I would have said something long ago,if I hadn't thought you knew what you were doing all the time!” Thehistorian was on his feet, stalking about the room. ”Why didn't you tellme about this before?”

  ”Why? What difference would it have made?” Rod frowned, failing tounderstand the other's excitement. ”Sure, we've progressed from theolder methods, in that we now have pretty complete data for all presentjob descriptions. And we can synthesize data for a new job, if it's nottoo different. But there isn't any information on the kind of personneeded in a new world. What the devil are you getting so upset about?”

  The historian threw himself into a chair and glared at Rod. ”If youcouldn't find the kind of people you needed to test, you could haveasked a historian if he knew anything about them!”

  Rod shook his head puzzledly. ”Subjective data, such as that--”

  ”Don't bring subjectivity into this, damn it! We get enough of that fromphysical scientists.” Jaimie held himself in the chair, almost shakingwith the intensity of his feeling. ”Look, Rod, you know I want to seethe project succeed. And you admit that you haven't got an answer. Well,baby, I think I have! It's an idea that has about a fifty-fifty chanceof being right in this case ... would you be willing to try it?”

  ”If I had been betting on your side for the last few months, I'd beseveral dollars richer,” Rod smiled. ”Yes, I think I might go along withyour idea, if you can convince me it has an even chance for success.Three failures out of three tries makes for poorer odds than that. Whatdo you have in mind?”

  ”H'm,” Jaimie said. ”I imagine your stock isn't so high with oldscabbard and blade right now, is it?”

  Rod laughed. ”I don't think he'll shoot on sight, but I'm not positiveenough to stand in front of a lighted window.”

  ”Well, then--if I h
ad an idea you agreed with, the surest way to kill itwould be to have you present it to him, right? And if you _fight_ it,that's sure to convince Carlson!” Jaimie thought hard for a moment,tapping the chair-arm. ”Rod, I have to do something you aren't going tolike. Do you trust me?”

  ”You mean you're going to try this without even discussing it with thepersonnel group?”

  ”That's right. If I don't tell you what I'm doing, I know you'll fightit. And I'll need that kind of help from you to push Carlson into doingit.

  ”But I have to do something far worse than that, Rod. I'm going to tellthe general that you knew my plan from the start, and have been sittingon it because I'm not a psychologist. I'm going to ruin your reputationwith the worst set of lies since the Red purges. I'll say you'refighting me, because you can't accept an idea that came from a manoutside of your own group. If the scheme doesn't work you'll be ruined,because there'll be no way to retract the lies. If it does work, we canannounce that we put on an act to sell the plan to Carlson. Can you takeit?”

  Rod was thoughtful for a few minutes. He liked and trusted Jaimie, butthe man had no experience in this field--and this sounded like anall-or-nothing shot.

  Then he remembered his despair over the latest set of resignations. He'dbeen ready to quit--he had nothing to offer, and neither did his men.Even a wild idea was worth a try, he