Money Is the Root of All Good
BY PATRICK WILKINS
Urgent! Class AA emergency for Universal Relief!
Stock market crash on planet Lyrane, where people live
by economy based on good deeds. Cause unknown. Suspect
galactical manipulators of watering stock.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kalgor, capital of the Galactic Empire, is not, as one would expect, one solid city. As a matter of fact, it is more suburban and rural than many farming planets.
The reason is obvious if but considered. The galactic government and the equally large galactic businesses are so immense that they must be distributed throughout the whole galaxy, with only the very cream of the hierarchy located on Kalgor. Thus, each company would have only one small building—but with a communication web that enfolded macroscopic enterprises.
Universal Relief Incorporated was typical of this arrangement. Although its warehouses and offices throughout the Empire could form a megalopolis in themselves, the fountainhead on Kalgor was a two story building.
In that building there was excitement. People were rushing frantically—the teletypes chattered in a frenzy—the air was static with urgency. It manifested itself in the quick jerky motions, in the voices held just below the cracking point.