Happiness: A Planet Read Online Free Page A

to do so, one delegates all work. Then, if the work proves to be of some use, one takes the credit for it. Should the work, however, prove to be unsatisfactory, one then upbraids one’s subordinates.
    The following morning the Director of Communications had reported back to the Sub-director and the Sub-director had reported back to Munred. The machines on the planet Happiness, Munred was told, made regular reports by radio to XE2. Those radio reports were augmented by ship dispatches. If XE2’s machines heard nothing for a week from Happiness they were programmed to flash the message ‘Please Investigate Happiness.’ Happiness was, in its orbit at the time of these events, approximately 7½ days radio distance from XE2.
    Munred had once been Sub-director of Substation Liaison, had had an inhabited planet within his Department. He therefore knew that any inhabited planet had more than one transmitter, that it was therefore unlikely to be an overall transmission failure on the planet. He therefore suspected that the fault might have nothing whatsoever to do with Happiness, but might lie in XE2’s own receivers; or, more drastically, that it might be the first distress symptom of a major machine fault on XE2. Which is a perfectly valid assumption to make when any machine starts behaving unusually.
    Munred instructed the Director of Communications and the Hygeine Director to exhaustively investigate XE2’s machines. Both Directors reported back, after three days, that all machines were in perfect working order, all back up and fail-safe systems responding correctly. The Director of Communications told Munred that all receivers were faultlessly functioning, that radio messages had been received from three other substations within the last four days.
    “Nothing’s wrong,” he concluded.
    “Yes it is,” Munred told him. “Look.” On his central desk screen flashed the message ‘Please Investigate Happiness.’
    Munred summoned to his presence the Directors of Transport and of Substation Liaison. The Director of Transport informed him that ordinarily there were few direct flights between Happiness and XE2. The last ship presumed to have left Happiness, bearing dates, had been bound for a processing plant within the city limits. By indirect linkage they would know of that ship’s safe arrival in three weeks time.
    “That is,” the Director of Transport said, “if its itinerary wasn’t changed on Happiness. You know how it is. Normally we’d have heard about it on their transmission, or when the next ship called here.”
    “When is the next ship due?”
    “Here? From Happiness? One private flight provisionally booked. In twelve weeks.”
    Munred asked the Director of Substation Liaison to tell him about Happiness.
    “Three million inhabitants. No indigenous population. Forty eight percent surface area land, fifty percent sea, two percent permanent ice. Forty two percent of land under cultivation. Timber and fruit principal exports. Other crops domestic use. No manufactured goods. Three urban conurbations. Small. Eighty six ground transmitters. Sixteen satellites. Three continents therefore three semi-independent systems. Failure in all three extremely unlikely.”
    “Mining?”
    “None.”
    “Anything unusual in their last communication?”
    “No personal messages,” the Director of Transport said. “All machine language. Run of the mill stuff. Weather reports, crop evaluations... A request for current market prices. Since transmitted. No human agency involved.”
    Munred sent for the Director of Police Liaison and requested that a police ship be sent to Happiness. The Director of Police Liaison uncomfortably informed Munred that there were no police ships available. XE2, like most stations its size, boasted but two police ships. The Inspector had taken one of those ships to investigate a fraud on one of the processing stations.
    (The investigation into that fraud runs concurrently with the events to be