"Yes. These raids have moved from the small north continent—" Van Isaac touched one of a row of studs on the desk. An immense rear projection lantern view on the wall where the map had been, settled into focus.
"The raids are the combined effort of the people of the north continent, which is small. The attacks are focused across the channel to the larger south continent. Somehow, the people on North have been inveigled into believing they have a right to South. Our only bit of information is that a man named Bruschloss—" Koven suddenly straightened in the theatrical gloom where his cigarette smoke floated torpidly. "Bruschloss? The one you used to call The Hog?"
"The Hog, yes. He is a citizen of the Betelgeuse Bloc with right-of-entry to any of our planets. He claims to be solely interested in setting up a trading company on Valaya, with headquarters at the village of Maru. But the attacks date from two weeks after he arrived. So," said Van Isaac, tone hardening, "I know he is undoubtedly behind all this, and I want him stopped."
"Any G. C. I. A. men around Maru?" Koven inquired.
"The local agent for the continent, named Spotwood. He says Bruschloss has conversed privately with the local ruler. Spotwood couldn't plant cameras or sound equipment at the conferences—our own blasted code forbids it. But the rub is that the ruler has in no way communicated with any of the other tribes on North. In no way," Van Isaac repeated, with a fist on the desk for emphasis. "They have drums. The drums say nothing Spotwood can't understand. All perfectly innocent. They have runners. No runners. No flare signals. No secret meetings. Spotwood has hired three or four dozen breeds to do his spying, but he has absolutely no idea of how the ruler manages to organize the other tribes into these precise, well-timed, well-generaled raids across the strait."
"I'm to find out?" asked Koven. "And stop the proceedings?"
"Exactly. Spotwood's good, but...."
At the spaceport, Koven pushed his way through the jabbering crowd, checked his baggage onto the Valaya flight, had coffee, and got something to read from a Vendobook. He chose a volume entitled The Twilight of Meaningism, by Dr. Reywill of Memphis University. As the long iron dagger of the rocket cut burning through the blue curtain of the sky, he settled down in his compartment to read.
Dr. Reywill's work turned out to be an historical analysis of the forces which, toward the end of the twentieth century, catalyzed the arts into pure sensation, utterly devoid of meaning or communication. During the middle of that century, with poetry restricted to the hands of the few who wailed that their mechanized age did not understand them, poetry became exceedingly private in imagery and meaning. In a natural evolution, it completely lost all meaning and became a charming musical form several cuts above the primitive. When the masses found they could merely accept verse as a pleasantry whose sound intrigued them as a rattle intrigues a child, poetry, regained its audience. The same condition held true for music, the dance, painting and sculpture. To Koven, born when Meaningism was two hundred years dead, the notion that a poem could say something seemed quaint and even a trifle peculiar.