It was generally known that there were natives on Uva whose heads resembled strange clusters of grapes and whose eyes had a disconcerting habit of never being in one regular place on their heads. Some years after the discovery of Uva by the Gonzales "space-shot" it was found that the Uvans had a peculiarly facile brain. They could take any problem, no matter how tough, and crack it down into simple formula. You gave them a problem and an equals sign—they gave you the answer. It was a wonderful discovery.
Brains were no longer at a premium. Uvans did all the thinking, technicians did the work and the Interworld Government did the administering. It was administrators that counted now.
Bill Petrie wasn't an administrator. He was a freebooter, one of that rare, declassed group who still clung to the idea that they could do their own thinking instead of having it done for them.
He squinted hard at the Uvans who crowded beneath the pillory and shuddered. Something was wrong. The Uvans were supposed to be very mild and not at all addicted to the use of ancient tortures. This time he shut his eyes and held them that way, cutting out sight while he tried to think back.
He recalled the first scene: shooting upward to the top offices of the Interworld Fuel Monopoly....
Bill worked for the Monopoly as a kind of glorified errand boy. Everyone worked for monopolies in this day and age, freebooter or not. As he rode upward, he had an inkling that something important was disturbing the smoothly regulated mechanism of the world. The entire IWFM building buzzed with feverish activity.
"Another fuel crisis," Bill murmured thoughtfully. He stepped from the elevator and hurried down a hall to a door marked—Commissioner Castlebottom, Fuel. Bill rapped.
"Come in," said a voice. It was a smooth feminine voice, not Castlebottom's.
Bill entered and was stared at from behind a desk. The eyes that were fastened upon him were worried and balloon-like. They belonged to Castlebottom, a youngish, rotund individual with a great deal of front.