The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online Page B

our hospitality. But you realize, of course, that this is an extraordinarily small world, as far as land surface is concerned. How many people did you say were aboard your ship?”
    “I don’t think I mentioned a figure, Madame Mayor. In any event, only a very few of us will ever come down to Thalassa, beautiful though it is. I fully understand your – ah – concern, but there’s no need to feel the slightest apprehension. In a year or two, if all goes well, we’ll be on our way again.”
    “At the same time, this isn’t a social call – after all, we never expected to meet anyone here! But a starship doesn’t delta-vee through half the velocity of light except for very good reasons. You have something that we need, and we have something to give you.”
    “What, may I ask?”
    “From us, if you will accept it, the final centuries of human art and science. But I should warn you – consider what such a gift may do to your own culture. It might not be wise to accept everything we can offer.”
    “I appreciate your honesty – and your understanding. You must have treasures beyond price. What can we possibly offer in exchange?”
    Kaldor gave his resonant laugh.
    “Luckily, that’s no problem. You wouldn’t even notice, if we took it without asking.”
    “All we want from Thalassa is a hundred thousand tons of water. Or, to be more specific, ice.”

11. Delegation

    T he President of Thalassa had been in office for only two months and was still unreconciled to his misfortune. But there was nothing he could do about it, except to make the best of a bad job for the three years it would last. Certainly it was no use demanding a recount; the selection program, which involved the generation and interleaving of thousand-digit random numbers, was the nearest thing to pure chance that human ingenuity could devise.
    There were exactly five ways to avoid the danger of being dragged into the Presidential Palace (twenty rooms, one large enough to hold almost a hundred guests). You could be under thirty or over seventy; you could be incurably ill; you could be mentally defective; or you could have committed a grave crime. The only option really open to President Edgar Farradine was the last, and he had given it serious thought.
    Yet he had to admit that, despite the personal inconvenience it had caused him, this was probably the best form of government that mankind had ever devised. The mother planet had taken some ten thousand years to perfect it, by trial and often hideous error.
    As soon as the entire adult population had been educated to the limits of its intellectual ability (and sometimes, alas, beyond) genuine democracy became possible. The final step required the development of instantaneous personal communications, linked with central computers. According to the historians, the first true democracy on Earth was established in the (Terran) year 2011, in a country called New Zealand.
    Thereafter, selecting a head of state was relatively unimportant. Once it was universally accepted that anyone who deliberately aimed at the job should automatically be disqualified, almost any system would serve equally well, and a lottery was the simplest procedure.
    “Mr. President,” the secretary to the cabinet said, “the visitors are waiting in the library.”
    “Thank you, Lisa. And without their bubble suits?”
    “Yes – all the medical people agree that it’s perfectly safe. But I’d better warn you, sir. They – ah – smell a little odd.”
    “Krakan!In what way?”
    The secretary smiled.
    “Oh, it’s not unpleasant – at least, I don’t think so. It must be something to do with their food; after a thousand years, our biochemistries may have diverged. “Aromatic” is probably the best word to describe it.”
    The president was not quite sure what that meant and was debating whether to ask when a disturbing thought occurred to him.
    “And how,” he said, “do you suppose we smell to them?
    To his relief,