MINISTRY ... OF DISTURBANCE
BY H. BEAM PIPER
Illustrated by van Dongen
Transcriber's Note
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction December1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.[Pg 9]
Sometimes getting a job is harder thanthe job after you get it—and sometimesgetting out of a job is harder than either!
The symphony was ending,the final triumphantpæan soaring upand up, beyond thelimit of audibility. Fora moment, after the last notes hadgone away, Paul sat motionless, asthough some part of him had followed.Then he roused himself andfinished his coffee and cigarette, lookingout the wide window across thecity below—treetops and towers,roofs and domes and arching skyways,busy swarms of aircars glintingin the early sunlight. Not many peoplecared for João Coelho's music, now,and least of all for the Eighth Symphony.It was the music of anothertime, a thousand years ago, when theEmpire was blazing into being out ofthe long night and hammering backthe Neobarbarians from world afterworld. Today people found it perturbing.
He smiled faintly at the vacantchair opposite him, and lit anothercigarette before putting the breakfastdishes on the serving-robot's tray,and, after a while, realized that therobot was still beside his chair, waitingfor dismissal. He gave it an instructionto summon the cleaningrobots and sent it away. He could aseasily have summoned them himself,or let the guards who would be inchecking the room do it for him, butmaybe it made a robot feel trustedand important to relay orders to otherrobots.
Then he smiled again, this time inself-derision. A robot couldn't feelimportant, or anything else. A robot[Pg 11]was nothing but steel and plastic andmagnetized tape and photo-micro-positroniccircuits, whereas a man—HisImperial Majesty Paul XXII, forinstance—was nothing but tissues andcells and colloids and electro-neuroniccircuits. There was a difference; anybodyknew that. The trouble was thathe had never met anybody—whichincluded physicists, biologists, psychologists,psionicists, philosophersand theologians—who could definethe difference in satisfactorily exactterms. He watched the robot pivot onits treads and glide away, trailingsteam from its coffee pot. It might besilly to treat robots like people, butthat wasn't as bad as treating peoplelike robots, an attitude which was becomingentirely too prevalent. If onlyso many people didn't act like robots!
He crossed to the elevator andstood in front of it until a tiny electroencephalographinside recognized hisdistinctive brain-wave pattern. Acrossthe room, another door was poppingopen in response to the robot's distinctivewave pattern. He steppedinside and flipped a switch—therewere still a few things around thathad to be manually operated—andthe door closed behind him and theelevator gave him an instant's weightlessnessas it started to drop fortyfloors.
When it opened, Captain-GeneralDorflay of the Household Gua