Meeting at Infinity by John Brunner

existed, they would have been compelled by the resulting anarchy to spend more time fighting the competition openly than making their legitimate profit.
    As it was, most of them divided their attention between finding out how they themselves could stretch their self-imposed bonds, and taking action against colleagues who had stretched them already.
    The first concessionaries who took on Tacket franchises and rescued their parent world from famine and war by turning it into a middleman’s planet were justified in demanding some protection against the then vigorous opposition: “Travel with Tacket now—burn with Tacket hereafter!” And the cultists limped along the streets, crippled by the White Death.
    They got their protection, and they made it absolute. When the cults’ influence declined, when prejudice against “imported” goods dwindled to vanishing point, they would not give it up.
    At first the concessionaries had a sense of mission; they felt they were rescuing their world from disaster. Bit by bit all that waned away. Colleagues became rivals. A franchise became simply a mine of wealth. The principle to be followed became: co-operate when necessary, compete when possible.
    Lyken had not co-operated enough. Now he was being driven down. And his rivals of yesterday, his colleagues of the day before, prepared to become his enemies of tomorrow.
    Unaware of the hour of decision that had come upon them at noon the Directors of The Market met together later in the day to consider an hour of decision they had set themselves: not noon-for-doom, but midnight-for-fight.
    They were dignified men. Some had scarred faces. Many had beards. All of them were richly clothed, and all had resonant voices which seemed to have frozen into the tone used for giving orders. If they spoke, they were almost always to be obeyed at once. The rule failed only at times like this, when they met together as equals and Clostrides sat at the head of their council table and controlled them like a charioteer driving wild horses.
    One bodyguard and one aide stood behind each chair. Each chair came from one of its occupier’s franchises—these men were powerful and none commanded less than three of the sister Earths. In a throne of ivory Dewitt Yorell sat wearing robes of white and red, a cap of platinum links on his almost bald head; he was the senior of them all and controlled five worlds, the most of any of them.
    When they were all assembled and had exchanged cold greetings, Yorell commenced the proceedings with a question to Clostrides.
    “How did he take it, Manuel? Do we fight?”
    Clostrides leaned back lazily in his own chair; that one was handcarved on this original Earth, centuries ago—had to be, for to sit in an imported chair would have slighted all the concessionaries but the giver, and Clostrides could side only with a majority of the Directors.
    He said, “He refused to yield—which was of course what we anticipated. However he had second thoughts; he said that he would exchange his franchise for another of equal value. But I think I was correct to deny him this.”
    In unison, the assembly grunted approval.
    “When I did deny it, though,” Clostrides pursued, “he said that in his view that implied we were lying. He said that if allthat concerned us was the fungus he had allowed to slip through on that grain consignment, we would be satisfied with closing his franchise. Anything else he construed as theft.”
    Amusement showed on the Directors’ faces.
    “This fungus, now!” said Yorell. “It’s an ingenious story for the public. Are we certain it will stand up?”
    Clostrides shrugged. “The fungus is real and exists. It was in fact isolated from grain imported by Ahmed Lyken. True, it’s excellent grain; true, the fungus will flourish on the grain and nowhere else. But we allowed judicious amounts of the infected grain to be sold, and according to my information we can expect independent reports of it to start