“Once the local government is forced to see reason, our people will form an advisory council and oversee the creation of a new abo government. We can expect the defeat of the current government to result in the surfacing of lots of new factions, and we’ll selectively help those factions who go along with our plans for Ishtar. Within two years, three at the most, we should have a functioning Ahannu government in place, one completely friendly to PanTerran interests and compliant to the directions of our representatives. And, of course, the Marines will be there to provide the stick behind PanTerra’s carrot.”
“The gwailos of the western world followed a similar policy once on the shores of the Middle Kingdom,” Chieu said quietly. “The end result was revolution, economic ruin, the collapse of empires, and unspeakable human suffering. Do you really expect your policies on Ishtar to have any different outcome?”
Buckner wasn’t sure at first what Chieu was talking about. He thought-clicked through some download references, pausing just long enough to confirm that the Hegemony’s representative was referring to the virtual land rush in China during the nineteenth century. Hong Kong. Macao. The Opium Wars. The Boxer Rebellion. A dozen nations had staked claims to various trading ports along the Chinese coast, intervening in Chinese affairs, forcing China to trade with the foreigners and on the foreigners’ terms.
“Mr. Chieu, PanTerra has already invested heavily in the development of our franchise on Ishtar. We wish only to see a return on that investment. Frankly, when Ishtar ceases to be a profitable venture, we will be quite happy to return full control of Ishtaran affairs back to the Ahannu. In the meantime, we offer the aborigines peace, technical advancement, the advantages of technic civilization in so far as they’re able to handle them, and stability. Think of it! Ahannu culture has advanced scarcely at all since the collapse of their interstellar empire ten thousand years ago. Within a few generations, they could undergo an industrial revolution and even contemplate a return to space.”
“It’s not like PanTerra to encourage potential competitors,” Camara said. His smile robbed the words of their edge.
“Not competitors,” Buckner said. “Trade partners. Business partners. The point is, all of that won’t happen for a century or two. We don’t need to worry about it. All we need do is think about the money we’re going to make from this one investment!”
“Yes,” Haddad said. “Money. A return on your investment. I believe I speak for a number of us here when I say that your scheme for using the human slaves on Ishtar as an additional return on your investment … this has a very foul smell to it. Am I to understand that PanTerra intends to import slaves, human slaves, from Ishtar? That you intend—if I understand this correctly—to use a campaign to free those slaves, only to ship them back to Earth for use as slaves here?”
“Please, Mr. Haddad,” Buckner said with a pained expression. “We prefer the word ‘domestics.’ Not ‘slaves.’ There are entirely too many negative connotations to that word.”
“Whatever you choose to call it,” Haddad said, pressing on, “the concept is neither moral nor economically viable.”
“Representative Haddad has a point,” Chieu said. “The population of Earth would never accept such a moral outrage.”
Buckner scowled at the assembly. “You want to lecture me on morality? You, Haddad—when for at least the past two hundred years or more your upper classes have imported domestic servants from various parts of Asia and Pacifica and paid them so poorly they cannot return home if they wish? When pockets of outright slavery still exist throughout the KOA in places like Sudan and Oman, and when women still have fewer rights than male slaves?”
“We are all slaves of Allah—” Haddad began.
“Can the sermon. I worship at a different church, the Church of the Almighty Newdollar.” Haddad bristled, but Buckner raised a hand. “Please. I mean no disrespect to anyone here. But it does give me a tremendous pain when people start making a major bleeding poor-mouth about moral outrages when it’s their comfort and their security and their wealth that they’re really concerned about. I don’t like hypocrisy.”
“According to the report you’ve uploaded to us,” Raychaudhuri said evenly, “you plan to partly defray PanTerra’s development costs on Ishtar by bringing freed human Sag-ura back to Earth and selling them as servants. If that, sir, is not hypocrisy—”
“And in your country, Raychaudhuri, a poor man can still sell his daughters,” Buckner said. “But that’s not the point, is it? Everything depends on how it is packaged. You’ve seen PanTerra’s reports … in particular, the reports on these Sag-uras. For ten thousand years they’ve been raised, been bred, as slaves to the Ahannu. They think of the Ahannu as gods … would no more think about disobeying them than you, Mr. Haddad, would think about disobeying Allah. They are conditioned from birth to accept the living reality of gods who direct every part of their lives.
“And now, we’re going to arrive there, backed up by the Marines, and stand their world on its ear. What do you think would happen if we just walked in, gathered up all the Sag-ura, and said, ‘Congratulations, guys. You’re free.’ Hell, they’d starve to death in a month! They don’t even have a word in their vocabulary that means ‘freedom’! Like Orwell pointed out a couple of centuries ago, you can’t think about something if you don’t have a word for it.
“At the same time, we have half the people on Earth clamoring for their release. ‘Humans being held in slavery by horrible aliens! Oh, no! … We must set things right, must free those poor, wronged innocents from their bondage!’
“So PanTerra is proposing a social program that will satisfy the people of Earth, help the Ishtaran humans, and, just incidentally, help PanTerra recover what we’ve put into this project. As we send interstellar transports filled with Marines, scientists, and researchers out to Ishtar, we will begin bringing back transport loads of ex-slaves. They will be reintegrated slowly and carefully into human society. They do not understand the concept of ‘money’ or ‘payment’ or ‘salary,’ so they will be hired out to people willing to provide them with room and board in exchange for their domestic services.
“Status, my friends, is an important coin in human relations. The upper classes on Earth of nearly every culture still derive considerable status from the employment of human servants. And, as they used to say, good servants are so hard to find. Well, PanTerra has found the mother lode of domestic servants. Happy, healthy, beautiful people conditioned to take orders and provide service because that’s the way they were raised, because that’s the only thing they know. And those Sag-ura who are shipped back to Earth, I might add, will derive considerable status from the mere fact of being chosen to return to the fabled home planet. And they will have the chance to slowly assimilate into Earth-human culture.
“And if PanTerra charges for providing this service … what of it? People, don’t you see? Everybody wins! You. The Sag-ura. And PanTerra.”
“Mr. Buckner,” Chieu said, “I thought PanTerra’s sole interest in Ishtar was the possibility of acquiring alien technology?”
Buckner nodded. “It’s our interest, certainly. Not our sole interest, but an important one. We expect to reap enormous profits from our research on Ishtar. The greatest profits of all may well come from aspects of their history and technology and biology and culture yet to be uncovered, things that we’re not even aware of yet. But that is all so speculative at this point, it would be insane to count on that to balance the accounts. We know we will make a profit by bringing a few thousand Sag-ura back to Earth and acting as agents on their behalf. Anything else is, as they say, gravy.”