, as any Earthman knew, was the only monopoly in the
Confederation, and Earth had maintained that monopoly by treaty and by
force, despite numerous efforts to break it. There were some good
reasons for the policy, ranging all the way from vice control to taxable
income, but the latter was by far the most important. The revenue
supported a considerable section of Earth Central as well as the huge
battle fleet that maintained peace and order along the spacelanes and
between the worlds.

But a light-weight, high-profit item like tobacco was a constant
temptation to any sharp operator who cared more for money than for law,
and IC filled that definition perfectly. In the Tax Section's book, the
Interworld Corporation was a corner-cutting, profit-grabbing chiseler.
Its basic character had been the same for three centuries, despite all
the complete turnovers in staff. Albert grinned wryly. The old-timers
were right when they made corporations legal persons.

Cigarettes which cost five credits to produce and sold for as high as
two hundred would always interest a crook, and, as a consequence, Earth
Central was always investigating reports of illegal plantations. They
were found and destroyed eventually, and the owners punished. But the
catch lay in the word "eventually." And if the operator was a
corporation, no regulatory agency in its right mind would dare apply the
full punitive power of the law. In that direction lay political suicide,
for nearly half the population of Earth got dividends or salaries from
them.

That, of course, was the trouble with corporations. They invariably grew
too big and too powerful. But to break them up as the Ancients did was
to destroy their efficiency. What was really needed was a corporate
conscience.

Albert chuckled. That was a nice unproductive thought.

* * * * *

Fred Kemmer received the news that Albert had been taken to detention
with a philosophic calm that lasted for nearly half an hour. By morning,
the man would be turned over to the Patrol in Prime Base. The Patrol
would support the charge that Albert was an undesirable tourist and send
him home to Earth.

But the philosophic calm departed with a frantic leap when Shifaz
reported Johnson's inspection of the oiled-silk pouch. Raw tobacco was
something that shouldn't be within a thousand parsects of Antar; its
inference would be obvious even to an investigator interested only in
tax revenues. Ke