Читаем There Won't Be War полностью

The Magellenics took in the situation quickly, and had flowers and paper streamers handy to give our boys a proper welcome. There were no unfortunate incidents, aside from several local women getting trampled in their eagerness to show our boys a nice welcome.

Magellenic is a very nice planet, prosperous, and with a nice climate except at the poles where we don’t go. We have seen no signs of the alien invaders that Hurtevert told us about. Either they are holed up in the hills, or they all left when our ship approached.

Now it is a week later. We have been very busy and I am writing hastily so this letter can go out with the first load of booty which we ‘re sending to Earth.

Our Art Squads have done a find job of combing the planet. As we promised the men, the first haul is theirs.

Frankly, the stuff doesn ‘t look like much. But we’ve collected whatever we can find in the way of furniture, postage stamps, silver, and precious stones, and that sort of thing.

It’s too bad that we have to ship it all back to Earth at government expense and sell it for the troops. But that’s what we promised and otherwise they might mutiny.

We‘re also sending back some of the local food surpluses. I just hope there’s a market for cranko nuts and pubble fruit back on Earth. Personally, I can do without it.

I forgot to mention, we are sending back to Earth our first draft of Magellenic workers. We had no trouble collecting them. A lot of people on this planet have volunteered to do stoop labor in the fields and unskilled crap work in the factories for starvation wages. This is useful because nobody on Earth wants to do that stuff anymore.

I’ll write again soon. Much love, my baby vulture.

Six months later, Vargas received the following message from General Gatt, now on Earth fulfilling his duties as Supreme Leader and Total Commander:

Getulio, I’m dashing this off in great haste. We need a total change in policy and we need it fast. My accountants have just brought me the news that our occupation is costing us more than it is bringing in by a factor of ten. I don’t know how this happened. I always thought one made a profit out of winning a war. You know I’ve lived by the motto, “To the victor goes the spoils.“