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cloth. Each one's of a different weave, with different yarns, and has a
different value. What's your standard going to be?"
"Grain," somebody suggested. "Everybody has to eat. Say a cubic tenth-lance of
grain "
"Grain's never worth the same from one year to the next!" someone yelled out.
"I
should know, I deal in it!"
"Lead!" Reeda Sambro piped up. "There isn't a man, woman, or child who doesn't
carry a gun, and a gun's no use without bullets."
"A unit of value will have to be decided upon," Kartho Alvararro said. "We'll
find one that we can all mutually agree on. It doesn't really matter what it
is, you see; as long as it's the same for each certificate, any place within
the combine territory, at any time.
There are things to be said for a number of possible standards. It might be a
good idea, for example, to use grain. If we made it the standard of value,
that in itself might have a stabilizing effect on the trading of grain. But,
on the other hand, if it doesn't, then the fluctuating value of grain would
affect the worth of the certificates in a way that people might find
unacceptable."
"We could use a sort of 'box of commodities,' one of the farmers suggested.
"Say we pick out the ten or twenty most important commodities and take an
average of their relative values for the last ten years, and work out some
kind of common denominator.
Then everyone can figure out the value of his own goods or services
accordingly; the prices of other commodities will naturally adjust themselves
according to demand."
"That sounds more complex than the system we're using," Reeda Sambro called
out, "I
would have thought it impossible!"
"There's another, completely separate problem," Dwallo Vallado said. "When
these certificates are in use, what's to stop some unscrupulous person or
gang from imitating them? At least with a bale of hides, you have the bale of
hides. With an imitation certificate, what would you have?"
"That is a very real problem," Kartho Alvararro admitted.
"We'd have to make the certificates on some kind of fancy paper special paper
that nobody else could get hold of," Lyssa Grassano suggested. "And make them
as intricate as possible; all over little curlicues, pictures by master
engravers, very hard to duplicate.
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And make only one set of plates to print them, and keep them under reliable
guard."
"We could organize a special gang to go after imitators," Taldo Kunnizo, the
Telegraph Gangs Combine man said. "Hunt down the makers of false certificates
and kill them. If this special gang is efficient, it should discourage the
practice."
"If the gang is efficient enough," Kartho commented, "it will eliminate the
practice entirely."
"Your notion is good, Lyssa," Dwallo Vallado said. "If we add a few little
hidden mistakes in the engraving, things that only those who regularly handle
the script would notice, it might help."
Kartho Alvararro noted that the representatives of the two feuding steel-gangs
seemed to have put aside their shoot-on-sight enmity, and both seemed
enthusiastically in favor of the proposal. "Do you two think that you can work
on that idea together without jumping at each other's throats over the Painted
Hills business?" he asked. "Lyssa, I know you're good with drafting tools, you
can work up a design, with Dwallo to help you."
"You know, if we can make a go of this scheme, our gangs could probably get
together on the Painted Hills mines. There's enough ore there for both of us,
if we could figure out some fair way to divide it."
"Well, how would this Trading Combine sup port itself?" somebody asked. "And
how about possible disasters, like the cattle-plague of 274, or the Balsambo
explosion?
Wouldn't something like that still put the Combine out of business?"
"To the first question," Kartho said, "the Combine will take a percentage,
like a milling or distilling gang takes a percentage of the grain. It can be a
very small percentage. As to the second, destruction of any kind of product
will not affect the value of the script, because it will carry its own value
when it trades for the products. Any script destroyed by fire or flood can be
replaced if the holder can prove the destruction.
We do have to guard against theft, but that is true of any valuable goods. I
think we'll probably have to have a few special strong-rooms in different
areas, and keep them well guarded. Small losses, even ones that would be major
to any one gang, will simply even themselves out.
"Look, Feerk; you remember reading about how the old Hoona River Railroad was
put out of business in 65, when their only two locomotives and thirty of their
cars were wrecked in a collision? Well, what would happen if somebody had a
wreck like that now?"
Feerk considered. "If they belonged to the Railroad Combine," he said, "they'd
borrow an engine here and an engine there, and cars from all around, and the
combine would get them new rolling stock as soon as possible, and let them
trade for it as soon as they were able. A thing like that wouldn't interrupt
service for more than a sleep-period or two. And besides, most of the railroad
gangs have enough of a reserve " He stopped. "I think I see
what you're getting at. A combine like you're proposing would be too big to be
hurt by any local disaster; Skystabber's too big to be knocked down with a
cannon."
The meeting continued, with only short interruptions for food and rest, while
the sun crawled thirty degrees across the sky. They hammered out compromises,
raised and disposed of objections, convinced each other that the idea would,
indeed, work. Finally
Brammo Lazanthro rose to his feet. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've been at this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]