POTEMKIN VILLAGE

A Novelet by FLETCHER PRATT

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Startling Stories, February 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Director Unterbaum of the Intercolonial Office rose from his chair as the pair came in. "I take it you haven't met before?" he said. "Mr. and Mrs. Lanzerotti, this is Ann Starnes, the recording photographer, and Robert Heidekopfer, one of our better writers."

There were smiles and acknowledgments. Unterbaum touched a pair of buttons on his desk and two chairs slid out of the walls to make a group of five. "Sit down, please," he said. "Now I'm not going to mince words. The reason you're here is because the Council wants you—three of you, at least—to undertake a mission. Vincent—" he indicated Lanzerotti, who nodded a dark head—"already knows something about it, but for the benefit of Miss Starnes and Mr. Heidekopfer, I will say that we want to send you to Tolstoia."

Heidekopfer smiled and said, "Sounds better than that trip to the polar mines on Mars, eh Ann?"

"Warmer, anyhow," said the girl, turning a carefully-kept blonde head. "But I thought Tolstoia was closed to visitors."

"The patriarch has agreed to let a delegation in for this visit," said Unterbaum, "so we can render a fair and unbiased report on Tolstoia, in word, picture and observation. The point is this; there are some islands about three hundred miles off the coast of Tolstoia, between it and South Bergenland—the Wrightley Islands. They have no resources, but Tolstoia wants to colonize them." He touched buttons again, and a map appeared on the wall showing the almost-round shape of the island nation, with the islands and the tip of South Bergenland at the right.