A for Anything (aka The People Makers) by Damon Knight

Author:Damon Knight [Knight, Damon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi., Science Fiction
Published: 2011-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

Melker’s reception, as usual, was crowded and colorful. Mel-ker himself was there for a wonder, a gnomish, unpleasant little man with a really repulsive beard. His rooms were big but rather shabby; Melker had vague Army connections but was nobody himself, as far as Dick could determine: why everybody seemed to come to his Saturday night receptions, he ^couldn’t tell; but since everybody did, he went too. The entertainment was good—two accomplished dancers tonight, and a comedian who had once been attached to the Household. Towards eleven o’clock, though, as always, the evening turned unaccountably dull; all the pretty women began to go home, the waiters with the drinks disappeared, some old gasbag like Colonel Rosen would take the floor and start fighting the War of Establishment all over again—people would be yawning all over the suite, and at this point, Dick always drifted out with a gang of acquaintances who were looking for something livelier.

Tonight, however, Clay drew him aside as he was moving toward the door. “Going so soon? Wait a while.”

Dick nodded toward Colonel Rosen, who was holding forth in a parade-ground voice at the other side of the room. “And listen to that?

No, thanks.”

Clay didn’t release his arm. “There’s a reason. Wait.”

Puzzled and intrigued, Dick found a seat and watched more

alertly. For a while, if anything, the assemblage merely got more desperately dull. Then, after one incoherent drunk was helped out, the atmosphere miraculously changed. Colonel Rosen shut up and poured himself a neat drink; waiters were again moving among the chairs; there was a murmur of talk and laughter; even the lights seemed brighter but less glaring.

Dick looked around him. Most of those present were men in their prime; there was a sprinkling of young men and oldsters, and only three women—two dowagers who had settled themselves close together, each with her own body-servant at hand, and a youngish but very plain woman in the far corner.

Melker, who was seated near the fireplace, now rapped for attention with a wineglass. “Men and ladies,” he said, “the subject for tonight is ‘Slavery.’ Colonel Rosen, will you oblige us by opening with the traditional view?”

Dick groaned, not quite inaudibly. Rosen, a florid, nearly bald man in his fifties, cocked an eyebrow in his direction as he began.

“Slavery is an institution of every civilized society, from the most ancient times to the present. Using the term in the broadest sense, there never has been a time when civilized arts and sciences, to such an extent as they existed, have not beeir founded on forced labor, that is, on slavery. We may distinguish—” ,

“Objection!” said a vigorous-looking, dark-skinned man, pointing his pipe at Rosen. “Do you maintain that the peasant of the Middle Ages was a slave?”

“I do, mister.”

“He was not, he was a serf, and there’s an important difference. A serf was attached to the soil—”

(“—Like a pumpkin,” murmured an ironic voice in Dick’s ear.)

“—and could only be sold with the soil, whereas a slave was absolute property and could be sold at any time.

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