The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens by L. Sprague de Camp Page A

codes.
    Abreu, keeping a tight grip on his none-too-amiable temper, replied: “Why not let us handle it? The Viagens’ security organization can send a dispatch to Earth by the next ship. As soon as the message is received, the great Earthly police forces will go into action and have your king back here in no time.”
    “What is no time?”
    “Oh—Krishnan time, about twenty-five years. It takes that long for the message to reach Earth and the king to return.”
    “No! Can’t wait. Must go myself. You think I let my poor ancestor be jerked all over universe without escort, lonesome, unprotected? You Terrans don’t know nothing about respect due divine rulers.”
    “Very well. File your application in due form.”
    Thus it happened that the next spaceship for the planets of Sol’s system bore Ferrian bad-Arjanaq, Prince Regent of Sotaspé. Since the space traveler was, on one hand, a person of importance, while on the other he was still a native of a backward planet whose warlike people were not allowed access to technical information, Abreu sent his assistant security officer, the small and modest Herculeu Castanhoso, along as guardian.
    When Abreu saw them off, they were arguing hotly about the Fitzgerald effect. Ferrian refused to believe that if it took a hundred and sixty-some days, subjective time, to get to Earth, something like three thousand days, objective time, would have meanwhile elapsed on Krishna.
    “We have fairy-tale,” he said scornfully, “about the miner Ghalaju who go to Fairyland and spend three days, and when he come back all his friends have grown old. But you don’t expect me, adult and educated man, to take that sort of thing serious!”

    ###

    Years passed.
    There was a scandal about the introduction of the custom of kissing into Krishna. In the resulting shakeup, Abreu was transferred to Ganesha, though it hadn’t been his fault at all. Then a similar shakeup, when the tobacco habit spread to Krishna in the administration of his successor, brought him back again, thanks to Earthly geriatrics not visibly older.
    Then one day the fast new Maranhão settled down on the Novoreceife landing area, and down the ramp trudged Castanhoso and Prince Ferrian.
    “Well!” said Abreu, shaking hands vigorously. “I thought you two should be showing up soon. Did you get your mummy?”
    “Yes,” said Ferrian, in much-improved Portuguese. “It was a most interesting journey, even though this watch-eshun of yours kept me confined like an aqebat in a cage. He’d let me read nothing, even, save a moldy old law book he picked up somewhere.”
    “Those were his orders,” said Abreu. “When Krishna achieves the interplanetary standards of law, ethics, and government, then maybe we’ll let you have access—”
    Ferrian made an impatient motion. “Save your lectures, my friend. Right now I’m more interested in arranging transportation to Majbur for myself and my king. While the trip didn’t seem so long to me, the wait will have been interminable for my poor wives. I must see them again.”
    Abreu, a henpecked man, envied the prince his ability to manage not merely one wife but a whole platoon of them. However, like a wise bureaucrat, he kept his reflections to himself. When Ferrian was out of earshot he asked Castanhoso:
    “How did you make out, Herculeu?”
    “Not badly. He obeyed orders all right; the only trouble is he’s too intelligent.”
    “How so?”
    “He draws correct inferences from the least things. And he can turn on charm enough to lure a fish out of a pond when he wants to! I finally gave him that lawbook to keep him quiet, thinking that Krishna could use some modem law.”
    “You did right. Did you know you’d been promoted?”
    “Why—uh—thanks, but isn’t there a mistake? I’ve just been promoted—”
    “You forget, my boy, that was by subjective time, while for pay and seniority purposes, service is figured by objective time . . .”
    Abreu saw to it that the