There was a
tangible air of anticipation and worry in the Star Chamber of the Universal
Bank as the Twelve Supreme Presidents took their seats and waited for the
proceedings to begin. This special council had been summoned by President #5,
Ramon Asquith, whose speciality was financial history. Every time Ramon called
a meeting something curious happened. The others were acutely aware of this.
The Star
Chamber was not star shaped, nor was the table at which the Presidents sat, but
the ceiling was adorned with silver stars, many of them peeling and tarnished.
The ceiling was too high to make regular maintenance of these objects
worthwhile. Nobody ever looked up anyway. There were more important things to
consider. The Presidents were about to be forcefully reminded of this fact.
Ramon
Asquith wasted little time. He stood and greeted his comrades with a curt nod.
Then he said:
“To outside
observers the Universal Bank might appear to be one of the greatest success
stories in the history of business. All banks have merged into one gigantic
financial house. We are the controllers of that house. And yet we are suffering
from a deep malaise. We have expanded as far as possible, covering the entire
earth, absorbing all economies. All the money in existence belongs to us.”
The other
Presidents began to applaud, but Ramon silenced them with a scowl. “This is not
a good thing,” he snapped. “It means there are no more profits to be made
anywhere.”
He slammed
his fist down on the table. “There is no space left for us to grow. Gentlemen,
we are stuck.”
There was
an uneasy muttering at these words.
After a
suitable pause, Ramon continued with a smile: “My latest research into
financial history leads me to conclude there was only one person who might have
had a solution to this problem — Jakob Fugger, the greatest banker of all
time.”
Livia
Turandot, President #2, rubbed her long chin angrily. “That’s all very well,
but it’s not much use to us. Fugger died in 1526. We can hardly dig him up for
a consultation.”
Ramon did
not alter his expression. “Time travel.”
“It hasn’t
been developed yet,” objected Vikram Brown, President #9, glancing at his watch
for confirmation.
“Exactly!”
cried Ramon. “But within a few centuries it will be. Our successors can travel
back to the 16th Century and ask Fugger for his advice. Then they can return to
their own time and start implementing his suggestions. All we are required to
do here is hold tight until time travel is invented.”
“Can we
last that long? There are already groups of rebels in every city attempting to
sabotage the Universal Bank’s transactions and intimidate or confuse our
staff.”
“They are
becoming bolder,” agreed President #7, Anzolo Galen.
“Technological
progress is inevitable,” said Ramon calmly. “It may even happen that time
travel is invented much sooner than we anticipate, perhaps in the next few
decades.”
Boris
Ageyev, President #11, shook his head. “Nothing is inevitable, I’m afraid. Some
of those rebel groups are even trying to build nuclear weapons in private
laboratories.”
“The
irresponsible little fools!” snorted Livia.
Vikram
licked his lips. “A major nuclear war could set civilisation back five thousand
years.”
Ramon
frowned thoughtfully. “Five thousand years? That’s too far.” His frown remained
but his eyes sparkled until they resembled two stars that had fallen from the
ceiling and settled onto his face. “A major nuclear war, you said?”
Alice the maid wiped sweat from her brow
with a cloth as she waited for the kettle to boil on the fire. Not all her
sweat was produced by the heat of the burning logs. Some of it was due to
anxiety. The future had suddenly become more uncertain.
She was
distracted by a sudden noise from the courtyard. She tried to peer through the
kitchen window but it was too grimy with grease and soot to afford any clear
view. Somebody was stamping about on the frosty cobbles outside. Then the door
was thrown open and a man staggered into the kitchen. Alice stifled a gasp.
He was a
leper or the carrier of some other awful disease. His body was almost shapeless
and his clothes hung in rags. How had he managed to get into the courtyard past
the guards? She recoiled but he clutched her arms and started babbling at her.
“Don’t be
afraid, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m from the future. I don’t expect you to
believe that but I don’t have the energy to invent a plausible lie. I’m here on
urgent business.”
Alice
frowned. He spoke very bad German in a very strange accent. She pulled away
from him but he followed her towards the stove, trapping her in a corner. Then
he added:
“I’m here
to see Jakob Fugger. I don’t have an appointment but when he hears what I have
to say I think he’ll forgive the intrusion. You are one of his servants? My
name is Ramon Asquith and I have travelled from the year 2110. I know what
you’re thinking, nobody can move backwards in time, and in fact we weren’t able
to until very recently, recently in my time that is. I had a great idea, you
see. It was inspired by something a colleague said, an offhand remark.”
Alice
fought to keep calm. “What did he say?”
“It won’t
mean much to you, but he said that ‘a major nuclear war could set civilisation
back five thousand years’. I realised that I only had to travel back 584 years,
so it occurred to me that perhaps a minor nuclear war would do the
trick. My organisation arranged a small nuclear conflict with Luxembourg. It
set civilisation back exactly five hundred and fifty years. Then I used
ordinary explosives, a great deal of the stuff, to travel back another thirty
years. But I still had four years to cross. I managed that with a machine gun.”
“I think
you are a madman,” said Alice defiantly.
“To set
civilisation back smaller and smaller lengths of time, such as months, weeks
and days, I had to employ smaller and smaller weapons, for instance pistols,
knives and knuckledusters. After making these adjustments I finally arrived at
the right moment, the day of Jakob Fugger’s death. I need to ask him a question
before he expires. Please take me to him as quickly as possible. I don’t have
much time left myself. The radiation poisoning is starting to kill me.”
Alice
glared at him triumphantly. “You are too late. My master died exactly one hour
ago. I am making tea for the physician who attended him during his last
moments.”
Ramon sighed
deeply. “In that case I still need to make one final adjustment. My open palm
should be enough to set civilisation back one more hour. I’m sorry about this
Alice, but I’m going to have to slap you to complete my journey properly.”
While he
was speaking, Alice reached for the kettle on the stove and swung it at his
head with all her strength. The hot metal cracked against his skull. He
collapsed to his knees, boiling water streaming down his bruised, shredded
face.
“Just like
that,” he gasped as he keeled over. Alice had set him back forever. She wasn’t
dismayed in the slightest. Madmen had no right entering the houses of their
superiors.
There was a tangible air of depression
and weariness in the Star Chamber of the Universal Bank as the other Supreme
Presidents squatted on the dirt floor and fanned away the flies. The ceiling
was open to the sky and the walls were made of papyrus reeds but it was more
pleasant here than outside in the baking sun.
“How were
we to know that a minor nuclear war with Luxembourg would escalate into a major
nuclear war with all the other countries?” asked Livia Turandot somewhat
rhetorically.
“Now
civilisation really has been set back five thousand years!” muttered Vikram
Brown ruefully.
“4720 years
to be precise,” corrected Boris Ageyev.
“We have to
start our business again from the beginning!” grumbled Livia. “It hardly seems
fair.”
“At least
it gives us a sense of purpose,” pointed out Vikram.
“Well I
have a really good idea,” said Boris. “Instead of buying goods with other
goods, such as exchanging a cow for a sack of corn, why don’t we have a system
whereby the goods can be represented by a small token? We could call this
system ‘money’ and use pieces of metal called ‘coins’ as the medium of
exchange.”
“It’s
certainly worth thinking about,” the others agreed.
A man
entered the Star Chamber. It was Ollie Natty, President #1, Supreme President
of the Supreme Presidents. He was very old and very withered and he squinted in
the relative gloom of the building.
“I’ve been
sent to fetch you back to work,” he announced gloomily. “Break time is over.”
They
followed him out into the bright day. Ahead loomed the rising profile of the
pyramid they were building.
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