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 network
How does a telecommunications company function when its right hand often
doesn’t know what its left hand is doing? How do rapidly expanding, inter-
disciplinary organizations hold together and perform their knowledge work?
In this book, Clay Spinuzzi draws on two warring theories of work activity –
activity theory and actor–network theory – to examine the networks of activity
that make a telecommunications company work and thrive. In doing so, Spin-
uzzi calls a truce between the two theories, bringing them to the negotiating
table to parley about work. Specifically, about net work: the work that connects,
coordinates, and stabilizes polycontextual work activities.
To develop this uneasy dialogue, Spinuzzi examines the texts, trades, and
technologies at play at Telecorp, both historically and empirically. Drawing
on both theories, Spinuzzi provides new insights into how network actually
works and how our theories and research methods can be extended to better
understand it.

After receiving a BA in computer science and an MA in English at the University

of North Texas, Clay Spinuzzi earned his PhD in rhetoric and professional
communication at Iowa State University. He served as assistant professor of
technical communication and rhetoric at Texas Tech University for two years
before accepting a position at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. From 2004
to 2008, he directed UT’s Computer Writing and Research Lab.
Spinuzzi’s work has appeared in the Journal of Business and Technical Com-
munication, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Technical Communica-
tion. His previous book, Tracing Genres through Organizations, was named the
National Council of Teachers of English 2004 Best Book in Technical or Scientific
Communication, one of four national awards the author has received.
 Network
theorizing knowledge work in
telecommunications

Clay Spinuzzi
University of Texas at Austin
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521895040
© Clay Spinuzzi 2008

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2008

ISBN-13 978-0-511-43691-8 eBook (EBL)

ISBN-13 978-0-521-89504-0 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 contents

Acknowledgments page ix

1. Networks, Genres, and Four Little Disruptions 1

Networks 4
Disruption 1: Anita Thinks Geraldine Is Slacking 8
Disruption 2: Darrel Thinks Gil Is Being Unreasonable 12
Net Working 16
Genres 17
Disruption 3: Abraham Threatens to Fire Workers 18
Disruption 4: Jeannie Talks Past Local Provisioners 23
The Book’s Trajectory 28

2. What Is a Network? 31
One Dog’s Death 32
Two Ways to Build a Network 33
Three Aspects of Telecorp’s Network 36
Telecorp’s Technological Network 36
Telecorp’s (Spliced) Actor–Network 39
Telecorp’s (Woven) Activity Network 42
Four Characteristics of Networks 46
Heterogeneous 46
Multiply Linked 47
Transformative 48
Black-Boxed 49
Five Events 51
Solution 1: The Cordon Sanitaire 54
Solution 2: The Uniform Regimen 54

v
vi Contents

Garrisoning the Passes and Interrogating the Locals 58

Conclusion: What Is a Network? 60

3. How Are Networks Theorized? 62

The First Stroke 64
Weaving a Network: Activity Theory’s Account 67
An Engelsian View: The Science of Interconnections 68
Mediation 69
Structure of Activity 70
Contradictions 72
Activity Networks 74
Summing Up 80
Splicing a Network: Actor–Network Theory’s Account 81
A Machiavellian View; Or, Sympathy for the Devil 81
Actor–Networks 84
Mediation 86
Translation 88
Composition 90
Reversible Black-Boxing 90
Delegation 92
Summing Up 92
Genuine Differences 93
Common Ground 94

4. How Are Networks Historicized? 96

The Case of Universal Service 96
Articulation 1: Universal Service as the Principle of
Interconnection 98
Articulation 2: Universal Service as Total Market Penetration 103
Articulation 3: Universal Service as Universally Obtainable Slates
of Services 107
Local Articulations: Universal Service in Texas 110
Even More Local Articulations: Universal Service at Telecorp 116
Weaving Universal Service: An Activity Theory Analysis 118
Contradiction 1: Exclusivity or Interconnection? 118
Contradiction 2: Business or Public Utility? 119
Contradiction 3: Competition or Public Good? 122
Summary: What Do We Learn from a History of
Contradictions? 122
Splicing Universal Service: An Actor–Network Theory Analysis 123
 Contents vii

Translation 1: From Disunity to Unity 124

Translation 2: From Unity to Universality 127
Translation 3: From Universality to the Rising Tide 129
Summary: What Do We Learn from a History of Translations? 130
Weaving and Splicing Telecorp 131
Conclusion 134

5. How Are Networks Enacted? 135

Modular Work 136
Net Work 137
Net Work and Informational Capitalism 138
Net Work and the Information Age 140
Net Work and the Informatics of Domination 141
Three Senses of Texts 144
Inscriptions 145
Genres 146
Boundary Objects 147
Four Cases of Net Work 149
Case 1: Following an Order 149
There Was No “Order” 151
There Was No Transportation without Transformation 152
There Was a Surplus of Information for Supporting Workers’
Discretion 153
There Was No Single Genre 153
Summary: Following an Order 155
Case 2: Following the Money 156
Following the Money in Cash Posting 156
Following the Money in Credit and Collections 158
Summary: Following the Money 163
Case 3: Following the Substitutions 163
Summary: Following the Substitutions 167
Case 4: Following the Workers 168
Summary: Following the Workers 171
Conclusion 171

6. Is Our Network Learning? 173

Learning Net Work: The Problem of Discontinuity 174
How Learning Was Handled at Telecorp: Some Techniques 177
Apprenticeship: “You Never Ever Do a Partial Connection” 177
viii Contents

Formal Telecorp Training Sessions: “Nine Times out of

Ten . . . ” 180
Corporate Training Outside Telecorp: “Nobody Had Time
to Learn from Her” 182
Documentation: “I Need to Do It from This Day Forward” 182
Computer-Based Training: “Basically It’s Just a Crash Course” 184
Trial-and-Error: “Willing to Get Your Hands Dirty” 184
Stories: “There Was Nothing About a Dog on the Ticket” 185
Summary: Making Sense of Learning Measures at Telecorp 185
Theorizing Learning for Net Work: Activity Theory’s Contribution 186
Problems with Activity Theory’s Developmental Account 190
Theorizing Training for Net Work: Actor–Network Theory’s
Contribution 190
Net Work, Net Learning 192
Heterogeneous 192
Multiply Linked 193
Black-Boxed 193
Transformative 195
Conclusion 195

7. Conclusion: How Does Net Work Work? 197

What Do We Know About Net Work? 198
Heterogeneous 198
Multiply Linked 198
Transformative 199
Black-Boxed 199
What Do We Do About Net Work? 200
Implications for Workers 200
Implications for Managers 202
Implications for Researchers 204
How Do We Develop Activity Theory for Net Work? 205
How Do We Cope with Net Work? 207

Appendix: Notes on Methodology 209

Data Collection 209
Data Analysis 210

Works Cited 213

Index 227
 acknowledgments

Finally it’s done. I wrote this book in waiting rooms and lobbies, on buses
and at bus stops, on airplanes, in coffee shops, and sometimes even in
my office; I wrote it on sticky notes and notepads, on scrap paper, on
printouts from rudimentary drafts, and in pieces on my blog. I absorbed
more literature from activity theory, actor–network theory, and knowledge
work than I would have thought possible. And after seven years, I’m very
proud of the result – and very relieved to be done with it.
This book would have gone nowhere without the deep support offered
by many, many people. At the top of the list, the managers at Telecorp
generously agreed to let me study the organization, and its workers let me
observe and interview them. I hope I have represented them well.
This research project was also supported by internal grants, both at Texas
Tech University and the University of Texas at Austin. Thanks especially to
Bill Wolff, a research assistant supported by a TLC Curriculum Development
Grant at the University of Texas. Bill helped compile historical information
on the Texas telecommunications market for Chapter 4.
Many of my colleagues generously gave their time to review the book
manuscript and/or the articles that fed into it. Bonnie Nardi, Mark Zachry,
and Bill Hart-Davidson in particular gave great critical feedback. Bonnie
in particular had some rousing discussions – and disagreements – with
me about actor–network theory. That dialogue, like the one in the book
itself, did not come to a dialectical resolution, but it did improve the book
considerably.
I’m profoundly grateful to Cambridge University Press, which accepted
the manuscript after two thorough and intelligent anonymous reviews. Eric
Schwartz, my editor at Cambridge, expertly shepherded the project through
the process, aided by his assistant, April Potenciano.

ix
x Acknowledgments

Thanks to Gail Bayeta and Bella Bayeta-Spinuzzi, my wife and daughter,

for their patience and moral support.
Most important, thanks to my parents, John and Kitty Spinuzzi. Dad
taught me teamwork, strategy, and tactics; Mom taught me critique, skep-
ticism, and reverence; and both taught me hard work and persistence. This
book is dedicated to them.
 1

Networks, Genres, and Four Little Disruptions

It’s mid-spring in 2001 and you’ve just moved to Midsize City, Texas. You
order telephone service from a company we’ll call Telecorp. You pick up a
phone – not your own, of course, but one that you borrow from a friend or
even one that is thoughtfully provided in the offices of the telecommuni-
cations company itself. You speak at some length with a Customer Service
representative. Several days later the phone jacks in your new place are
turned on. You plug in your phone line and begin dialing. What could be
simpler?
Within Telecorp, however, your information has to undergo an extended
series of transformations. In Customer Service, the information is written up
in a file order confirmation (FOC), a form based on a word processor tem-
plate. It is e-mailed to a supervisor, who forwards it to a data entry worker.
That worker prints it out, highlights particular pieces of information, and
enters data into the centralized database. The FOC also gets forwarded to
other places: Credit & Collections, where workers make sure that you’re
creditworthy; CLEC Provisioning, where you’re assigned a phone number
from the database used by all telecommunications companies in the area,
and your physical address is keyed into the 911 database; CLEC Design,
where your personal circuit is designed and associated with the number
you’ve been assigned. And just as the FOC is transformed in different ways
to meet the needs of those different groups, the transformations themselves
engender more transformations. Your new record in the centralized com-
pany database becomes hooked up with the billing system, ensuring that
you get your bill on time; your new number is put in the switch, ensuring
that you actually receive calls; a complete history of every interaction you
have with the company is maintained in the central database by Customer
Service, the Network Operations Center, Sales, and others with whom you
may have contact throughout your relationship with the company. When
1
2 Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications

Accounts Payable Data Network Products

Administration (including Accounts Receivable) Human Resources

Alarm Management System Information Services

Bill Verification Internet Help Desk

CLEC Local Operations Network Coordination

CLEC Network Administration Network Design & Inventory

CLEC Provisioning Network Operations

Computer Services Network Operations Center

Credit & Collections Sales

Customer Service Wholesale Markets

figure 1.1. Functional groups at Telecorp, 2001.

you place calls, those calls will go through a patchwork of lines, switches,
and fiber owned by several different companies. If you make a call regularly
(say, to your mother in Ohio), it will rarely follow the same pathway twice.
Each company leases lines from the others and reconfigures its long distance
routes each month on the basis of fluctuations in lease prices.
What’s more, during your relationship with the company, the list of
features available to you will continue to grow. Telecorp began by reselling
long distance service – that is, it offered only long distance service, and
even that service was actually provided by another company and simply
rebranded as Telecorp’s – but now it offered its own local and long distance
service, calling cards, long distance pagers, DSL, Internet dial-up, mobile
service, conference calling, and on and on. That increasing complexity is
accompanied by an increasingly complex division of labor. From a handful
of people in the 1980s, Telecorp grew to over 300 in 2001, grouped into about
20 heterogeneous functional groups (depending on how you count them).
See Figure 1.1.
Few of these groups actually understand each other’s work. When I began
researching Telecorp, my research question was: How do genres circulate in
a complex organization? By the end of the project, I inflected the question
somewhat differently: How on earth does this company function when its
right hand often doesn’t know what its left hand is doing? How do such
knowledge work organizations function and thrive, and how can we develop
a better theoretical and empirical account of this sort of work? Like many
 Networks, Genres, and Four Little Disruptions 3

knowledge work organizations, Telecorp was surprisingly heterogeneous

and multiply linked, and those characteristics are not especially conducive
to the centralized control that we associate with traditional, hierarchical,
modular work.
Here are four ways in which the right hand doesn’t know what the left
is doing – four minor, quotidian disruptions that occurred regularly in
Telecorp’s ongoing knowledge work.

Disruption 1: Anita Thinks Geraldine Is Slacking. At the Internet Help

Desk, Anita receives a note from Geraldine in Sales to call a customer
who has a technical problem. It turns out that the customer has no
technical problems, he just wants to sign up for Telecorp’s dial-up Internet
service – something that, according to Anita, Sales should handle. After
transferring the customer back to Sales, Anita angrily logs the incident;
later she tells me that she hopes upper management will see a pattern
of this sort of behavior in the logs. Although she is convinced that Sales
should have taken responsibility for the customer in the first place, Anita
confesses that she doesn’t really understand what Sales does.
Disruption 2: Darrel Thinks Gil Is Being Unreasonable. Darrel, a sales
representative who has only been on the job for a few weeks, is happy to
take a rather large service order from a company. Darrel sends the order
to Credit & Collections for approval. Soon, he receives a terse e-mail
from Gil in Collections saying that this customer is not a good bet and
that this kind of customer should be avoided – but no explanation of
why the customer is rejected. Incensed that his customer is treated so
shabbily and (more to the point) dismayed that his large commission is
about to disappear, Darrel enlists the help of more experienced workers
as he writes an e-mail urging the vice president of Sales to intervene.
Disruption 3: Abraham Threatens to Fire Workers. Telecorp’s database
of customer accounts includes time-stamped notes, called “F1 notes,”
that Customer Service workers enter to record changes to each account.
(They’re called up by pressing the F1 key.) In Telecorp’s early days, F1
notes were rarely used and tended to be only a couple of words when they
were. Since Telecorp was much smaller then – just a handful of people –
knowledge likely circulated through conversations and paper files. But as
the company grew larger and the division of labor grew more complex,
documentation became more important and workers were asked to use
the F1 notes more thoroughly. Several months before my study began, the
crisis came to a head in Customer Service and Abraham, the manager,
threatened to fire workers who did not use F1 notes as prescribed; later,
he introduced a script for workers to use.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
She smiled. "I am the foreign minister," she said, bobbing a curtsy.
"Lindrew Fishdollar, at your service, Mr. Ambassador, and welcome to
Fishdollar Five. The president is waiting in the state reception hall."
"Thank you, Madame Minister." He stepped down with dignity,
saluting, and followed her into the building. She danced ahead with
vivacity unbecoming a foreign minister.
The hall was large, with bare slag walls and rough wooden furniture.
Coming to meet him was another pretty young woman in another
white chlamys that molded itself to her walking. He stopped short.
She was smiling ... milk white skin and jet black hair ... thick
eyebrows, black eyes ... small, sweetly curvesome ... holding out a
hand....
"Oh my God!" he said shakily. "You! You are Wendrew Fishdollar!"
"Wendy to my friends, Captain Wennocky, and I hope you will be
one. We do so want a Patrol treaty. Won't you sit down?"
The ambassador sat down, head whirling.
"How many of your officers of state are women, may I ask, Madame
President?"
"All of us," she said brightly. "Our charter population, fifty-two in all,
is entirely feminine. Since our founding we have naturalized eleven
men."
"Well, Madame President ... you must realize ... most unusual...."
"I understand, Captain Wennocky. Perhaps you're tired. Quarters are
ready for you upstairs and the minister of the interior will show you
to them if you wish. General Cobb will berth your men in the tender."
"My name is Welnicki," the ambassador said, rising. "Captain Stephen
Wel-nicki."
"Oh, forgive me, Captain Welnicki. General Cobb—but there, poor
man, you're tired and I won't keep you. Will you and your aides
attend an informal dinner tonight with my cabinet officers?"
"Yes ... delighted...."
The minister of the interior skipped along apologizing prettily for the
crude furniture. She was Wandrew Fishdollar, call her Wanda, and
she would see him again at dinner. His bedroom was also the
Fishdollar National Library.
The ambassador called a council of state. His aides were equally
overcome. Who'da thought it? ... all women, all named Fishdollar ...
cute as crystals, too ... always liked them Sigma Velorum planets ...
hey, Chong, you old goat?...

Dinner ... elfin faces with white skin and black eyes ... short, kilted
skirts, sleeveless blouses ... Cindrew, Rondrew, Sandrew, Dundrew ...
minister of this, minister of that ... the ambassador was still dazed.
His aides did well. Kihara talked slaggers and nuclear furnaces to the
minister of public works—Cindy, was she? Rutledge, expansive, held a
group bright eyed and breathless with his account of the volcanic
north. Chong was saying, "No offense, General Cobb, but in a fight
the marines...." Defense Minister Bondrew listened admiringly.
The ambassador felt better. Born diplomats, these men. That came of
roaming the starways ... a cosmoplanetary polish ... charm no
provincial could resist—"What did you say, Madame President? My
mind wandered."
"Let's take our teacups into the next room where it's quiet. I want to
tell you the story of the Fishdollars."
"Of course." The ambassador rose with courtly, cosmoplanetary
grace.
She sat beside him on the single cloth draped bench, and smoothed
her short red skirt.
"In the second century After Space, Stephen—may I call you
Stephen?" she began. He nodded indulgently.
The eighty-fourth planet colonized from Earth, she told him, was
Fishdollar One, so named for Andrew Fishdollar, who founded the
settlement and brought along many kinsmen. The settlement
prospered but the planet had a strong Rho effect. Did he understand?
"Yes, Madame President. An excess of female over male births until a
certain population density is reached."
"It may take centuries. It's terrible. Stevie, I've actually heard the
Patrol sometimes sends ships...." She blushed prettily and looked
down at the teacup on her rounded knee.
"Yes. Yes, Wendrew. There is a special clause—oh, most delicately
worded—in the standard Patrol treaty with Rho effect planets.
Spacers call them good liberty planets." He felt warm, tugged at his
tight collar and kept his gaze on the president's teacup.
She took up her story. Genetic strains varied in susceptibility to the
Rho effect, of course he knew, and it was terribly severe on
Fishdollars. The clan became immensely wealthy through pioneer
land holdings, but the name was dying out. Male Fishdollars were
recruited from Earth and the other planets until the name was extinct
elsewhere, but it was no use. Sex control was no good—bad psychic
effects in the resultant males. Finally, in the fourth century, the
Fishdollars settled a new planet, seeking a reduced Rho effect.
"But Wendy, why not adopt boys, change names and so on?"
"Against the laws, Stevie. People with low-Rho names believed the
effect worked through the name and not the gene pattern. Silly
superstition of course, but they had the votes."
It was the same story on Planets Fishdollar Two and Three. Fishdollar
wealth grew and Fishdollar males dwindled in inverse ratio. On
Fishdollar Four, in the Sigma-3 Velorum system, they vanished
altogether. A few hundred women still bore the name.
"It's pitiful, Stevie, when a name dies after thousands of years," she
said softly. She put down her teacup and smoothed nervously at her
brief skirt.
"I can imagine. Ten generations of Welnickis have served the Patrol."
"We tried hard to keep the name alive," she went on, vainly tugging
the pleated skirt lower on the smooth white legs. "Stevie, some of us
here are haploid and some are illegitimate."
Her head drooped. Wordless, he watched her hands. She raised a
rosy face to him impulsively.
"You mustn't think I'm one," she said rapidly. "My father was the last
Andrew Fishdollar, the last man. He died two years ago."
The younger Fishdollars, she continued, planned one last effort to
settle a new planet, to be named Fishdollar Five. They recruited a
group meeting Patrol standards and got sponsorship. It cost them a
great deal of money. Their constitution and legal codes were those of
the parent system, with minor changes correcting the unfair laws
against high-Rho names.
"And then—oh Stevie, those superstitious, ungrateful, low-Rho
settlers! While we were still in subspace they began amending the
laws and the constitution. They even changed our planet's name to
Rewbobbin, the ugliest, lowest-Rho name among them!"
"Rewbobbin!" He shuddered.
"We were just frantic, Stevie. We wanted to scratch their eyes out
and we wanted to die. Then we thought about seceding. We learned
that Rubberjack's tender was preloaded to care for an advance party
of two hundred. We talked to General Cobb—you know the rest."
"Yes, Wendy. How imaginative ... a random inspacing into unexplored
vastness.... Wendy, I salute your courage!"
"We weren't really so brave. The tender was a last resort, to force
Captain Kravitz to settle us on another Carina planet. But when he
reacted so violently—oh, Stevie, you should have heard the language
he used to me—we knew we must go. We really had no choice, now
did we?"
The ambassador coughed and licked his lips. "No, I suppose not,
Wendy. Captain Kravitz is unimaginative ... aging...."
"Stevie, did we do wrong? Do you think we did?"
"No, Wendy. Not you, whoever else may have. You were magnificent.
I will use all my influence to see that your settlement lives."
"I'm so happy, Stevie. I feel safe now. Tomorrow Linda can work out
a treaty with you. Shall we join the others?"
The smooth white legs stood up.

The ambassador could not sleep. His own copy of Patrol Regulations
was lost, but providentially he found a copy in the Fishdollar National
Library beside his bed. He thumbed it.
He was, indeed, still captain and therefore ambassador while his crew
was intact. But that other article ... here it was:
"In exceptional circumstances involving galactic security the
commander of a ship or squadron may assume plenipotentiary status
and execute finally rather than provisionally binding agreements ... as
soon thereafter as practicable he shall report to Prime Reference for
plenary court martial."
So. If he dared.... He remembered old Borthwick's lectures in Patrol
Jurisprudence at the academy. Only two men, both squadron
commanders, had ever used that article. One had been shot, one
cashiered.... The ambassador slept.

Over coffee next morning the foreign minister produced copies of the
Patrol treaty with Sigma-3 Velorum, with appropriate name changes,
and proposed they sign them.
"These won't do, Madame Minister," he protested.
"Why not, Stephen? We have almost the same constitution."
"Your planet, Lindrew. Almost four thousand parsecs beyond the
sphere of settlement. Do you know why we have a frontier?"
"Oh, Patrol policy ... no, why?"
"Other intelligent beings may be settling the galaxy just like we are.
We're afraid to meet them too soon."
"Why?"
"Maybe hostile. Lindrew, just because the Patrol prevents inter-
planetary wars, it's the only deep space fighting force humanity has.
But with no wars, and support of the Patrol voluntary, it isn't very big.
Not big enough for galactic war."
"Will it ever be?"
"We hope so. We add a new ship for each new planet. We increase
as the cube of the radius and our frontier only as the square, as long
as we enforce the sphere of settlement concept."
"The Patrol enforces it?"
"Yes, by denying sponsorship and protection to non-treaty
settlements. We can't actually use force against a sovereign planet,
except blockade under certain conditions."
"Do settlements ever defy you?"
"Not for long. They give up and we move them to a settled planet
that wants them, wiping out all traces of their stay."
"Oh. Stephen, do you approve of that policy?"
"No, Lindrew, I never have. It's—it's unimaginative. But they'll tear
their beards at Prime Reference about your planet."
"But you'll help us, won't you Stephen? How must we change the
standard treaty?"
"This is an outpost planet and the aliens, if they exist, will surely find
it first. We'll need a Class I base. You must in time support extra-
planetary defenses."
"You make the changes, Stephen. Whatever you say. Then we'll
sign."
He shuffled his feet. "I'm afraid I can only initial it, Madame Minister.
Prime Reference must ratify. I will urge most strongly—"
"Oh Stephen," she interrupted, pretty face stricken, "might we lose
our treaty after all?"
"There's a chance, I can't deny it."
"Oh dear! I haven't the heart to tell Wendy."
"I need to think," the ambassador said. He excused himself
unhappily.

Days passed and the settlement grew. The ambassador put away his
blue and gold and worked with his hands. The native strap-leaf
vegetation flowered riotously through long, warm days, and so did
Earth plants in the test plots. The shapely Fishdollars became golden-
tan and more charming than ever.
The Patrolers worked like fiends erecting buildings and plants, striving
to outdo the merchant spacers. The girls helped where they could
and bubbled admiringly at the prodigies of labor. The minister of
public works told Chong privately that one marine equalled two
merchant spacers. The latter, as if unaware of their lesser worth,
worked like fiends too.
Kihara and his two petty officers were the engineers. Corporal Crespi,
with a gang of marines and Fishdollars, milled fragrant lumber from
native hardwoods. Houses went up and were filled with furniture
rough-styled by General Cobb. The ambassador worked on the power
plant, the materials converter, and then the air conditioning. The men
became hard, deeply bronzed, strongly alive as the native trees.
With his aides, the ambassador worked out treaty revisions.
"PR will never ratify," Rutledge said.
"Look. Maybe the aliens don't exist," the ambassador argued. "If they
do exist, they may respect boundaries. Then Fishdollar Five stakes a
huge claim for humanity. If it's war, we make our fight around an
outpost planet, far from settled regions."
"We ain't Prime Reference," Chong growled. "Who you trying to
convince?"

Fishdollar Five ratified the treaty. Ambassador Welnicki looked

unhappily at his initials and told the foreign minister, "I'm sorry,
Linda."
"We understand, Stephen. We know you're doing all you dare for us."

Resting one day from pipefitting, the ambassador asked Kihara, "You
know math, chief. Isn't it true this damned, sacred 'sphere of
settlement' really takes in the whole galaxy in subspace?"
"Yes, in a way."
"It's fossilized, Einsteinian thinking. Damn the admirals!"
"The admirals think Einstein is God. You better think the admirals are
God," Kihara warned.
The ambassador thought. The outpost planet ... last, loneliest,
loveliest, exquisite, apart ... one man with imagination ... serve
humanity and be damned for it now, canonized later....

One afternoon he walked with Wendy to their favorite spot on a

headland above the sea. She climbed before him up the steep,
narrow way, and the sea wind fluttered her skirt. The outpost planet
... democracy ... daughter planets teeming with pretty girls like
Wendy and stalwart young men like ... really imaginative galactic
ecology....
Sunset neared and half the sky, as usual, flamed gorgeously. The sea
sent back the color and beat hypnotically against the cliff base.
Wendy stood on tiptoe, arms raised, skirt wind-molded, sweetly
rounded form outlined against the sky.
"Stevie, Stevie," she whispered, "isn't our planet beautiful? I would
rather die than leave it. I feel ... fulfilled, somehow."
"Wendy, I haven't told you, but—"
She came to him in quick concern, her hand on his arm. Then it came
out of him in a rush.
"Regulations permit me to assume plenipotentiary status. If I do and
then sign that treaty, it will bind the Patrol absolutely. Wendy, I'm
going to do it!"
"Can you really, Stephen? Won't they find a way...." Her face was
grave.
"I can, for sure. I'll undergo court martial after. But the treaty will
stand. The pledged word of the Galactic Patrol is sacred. Only the
Patrol binds humanity into any kind of unity, and its very existence
depends upon planetary trust in Patrol good faith."
"It's so much power for one man."
"Not every man is made a Patrol captain. Believe me, Wendy, your
planet will live. And I'm glad."
Then she was in his arms and they were kissing, and Captain-
Ambassador Welnicki trod on air back to the settlement feeling that
the game was worth the candle if they took his head for it. He signed
with a flourish, Stephen Welnicki, Captain, GP, subscribed
Ambassador Plenipotentiary. Then he called his aides into council and
assumed the status formally, just for the record.
Days passed, shorter and warmer, fruits forming on the native plants.
Basic installations were complete. Exploring and mapping teams
brought in mineral and biotic specimens for testing. It was
midsummer of the four-hundred-two-day year. President Fishdollar
brought up a delicate subject with the ambassador plenipotentiary.
Four of her citizens were, well, you know, and they wanted to marry
four of his marines. Could he authorize it?
"Of course, Wendy. Enlisted men may marry on any treaty planet."
He spoke to Chong.
"I told 'em hell no," the sergeant said. "Us marines depend on higher
authority to protect us from that. You're gonna back me up, ain't you,
captain?"
"No I'm not! What's so terrible about marriage?"
"Ask Corporal Hodges that, captain. He's married and the Fishdollars
know it."

Chief Justice Sandrew married the four couples in a mass ceremony.

President Fishdollar wept and the ambassador plenipotentiary
comforted her.
She was distrait and melancholy in the days that followed, and the
ambassador plenipotentiary was himself obscurely troubled. Eight
more couples married. Then one evening they were again on the
headland in a flaming sunset and she began crying softly. She didn't
know why, unless it was because the sunset was so beautiful.
So he held her and they talked in low voices until, as the sun's red
disk touched the sea rim, he had to tell her that no Galactic Patrol
officer could marry until he reached the rank of commander.
"But you're a captain already, Stevie."
"Only in a special, temporary way—"
"But your heroism, finding us, losing your ship—surely they'll make it
permanent."
"Wendy, they'll want my head for all that. I ... I've tried to think that
way myself, but I can't. I do believe, in the far future the name
Welnicki will be honored by what I have done, but now—when
Captain Kravitz comes—I have no right—"
"Every man has a right to happiness, Stevie. What if you married
anyway?"
"Cashiered, automatically. Ten generations of Welnickis have given
their lives to the Patrol with not one dishonorable action—"
"Stevie, you make me furious! How can marriage be dishonorable?
We'll keep it secret and you can command the base here until you
make commander. It's all so simple, really."
"I need to think," he said sadly. She laid her dark head on his
shoulder and cried.
He thought: make her happy ... secret ... impassioned speech before
the admirals ... galaxy to fill ... creative imagination confirms me now,
gentlemen, time will vindicate me ... so tearfully anxious ... in for a
copper, in for a solar ... make her happy....
"Wendy," he said in a low, halting voice, "let's do get married."
"Oh yes, Stevie! Yes, yes, yes!" She melted into his arms.
The crimson sun dropped below the sea rim and the sky faded to
somber red. They walked back hand in hand, the president chattering
gaily, the ambassador plenipotentiary oppressed under the
cumulative enormity of his command decisions.
The wedding was beautiful. The bride wore her chlamys of state and
the groom stood very erect in blue and gold. Chief Justice Sandrew
wept but managed to get the words out clearly enough through tears
and sniffs. All the Fishdollars wept. Even hard, unsentimental Sgt.
Chong snorted nervously.
Married life was wonderful. The president melted with affection and
the ambassador plenipotentiary loved it. Never had diplomatic
relations between the Patrol and any planetary government been so
cordial.
Even the weather reflected it. The days, cold and rainy as winter
came on, turned clear and warm again. The native trees were
deciduous and their long strap-leaves became a blaze of color
carrying the dawn glory through softly bright days, carpeting the
ground with sunset. Thinking and worry were fantastically
unnecessary.
Then one beautiful morning after an intimate breakfast, the
ambassador plenipotentiary learned that maybe, just maybe now,
darling, he was going to be a father. A few tearful moments later an
excited quartermaster called him to his door. G.P.S. Carlyle was in
orbit and would ground next day. Captain Kravitz instructed Ensign
Welnicki to report aboard as soon as grounding was secured.

All along her six-hundred-foot length, ground shores probed out to

equalize tensions as G.P.S. Carlyle eased her lift. The shriek died with
the slowing generators, and the starboard personnel port swung
open. Beyond the zone markers Ensign Welnicki looked into his wife's
face, then marched toward the ship. He wore his blue and gold.
Carlyle's passageways seemed more cramped than he remembered.
He felt foolish in his dress uniform, exchanging greetings with
coverall-clad shipmates. He ducked past the saluting orderly into the
captain's office almost with relief.
Captain Kravitz, behind his gray desk, had never looked more
austerely forbidding. As the ensign made his report, the grizzled
eyebrows raised, then two fingers stroked the gray mustache. When
the ensign reported his binding signature of the treaty, the captain
raised his hand.
"Very well, Ensign Welnicki. Remain in your room incommunicado
until further notice."
Ensign Welnicki stood very erect and raised his chin. Then he walked
directly to his stateroom in the bow, ignoring greetings from former
shipmates. He clanged the door shut, and never before had the tiny
room seemed so microscopic.

A long week's pacing, three steps each way. Thoughts ... defense at
Prime Reference ... first the grave statement of facts, for the record
and for unborn historians ... for some future Welnicki burning to
vindicate his triple-great grandfather ... then the exhortation to
courage and imagination, powerfully restrained emotion almost
breaking through ... deep, ringing sincerity ... then the gray courtyard
and the firing squad ... I die without resentment ... my short life
justified, its meaning found in action....
Thoughts about his planet ... his planet?... Wendy, the child ... a boy,
of course, the Welnickis were quite low-Rho ... never to see his son
... knowing that in the gray courtyard.... He wanted to cry.

Ensign Sotero, armed and brassarded, came to conduct him to the

captain on the eighth day.
"Damn orders, Steve," Sotero said, standing in the door. "We know
most of the story and we're all for you. Your wife and the skipper
have been going round and round for days, beating each other over
the head with that treaty, Patrol Regulations and the constitution of
Sigma-3 Velorum. Somebody heard him say she's the smartest space
lawyer this side of Earth. Don't let him stampede you, Steve!"
"Thanks, Juan, I won't." Ensign Welnicki's own voice sounded strange
to him after the silence.
The captain was disconcertingly un-fierce. He looked tired and sad
behind the gray desk.
"Sit down, Stephen," he said dully. "Let's talk about this mess we're
in."
Ensign Welnicki sat down gingerly, his back stiff.
"My head falls too, of course," the captain went on. "You're too little
a goat. They may even chop down Sector Admiral Carruthers."
He sighed and looked at the overhead. The ensign opened his mouth.
"I see my error now," the captain forestalled him. "You are not
mature enough for command. But I was ensign under your
grandfather Welnicki in the old Ashburton before you were born. I
thought I sensed in you the same intangible that made him great.
Well, spilt milk, Stephen. What can we do?"
Ensign Welnicki suggested unsteadily that the Fishdollars might
consent to removal to an approved planet.
"First offer I made, Stephen. They voted it down unanimously. Bluster
was no good, pleading no good. With that treaty they've got us cold
and they know it."
Ensign Welnicki wished he were dead but did not see how that would
help. After a long silence the captain spoke again.
"I have one last hope, Stephen. Something you've overlooked. I got it
from Rutledge."
The ensign looked his question.
"You didn't formally assume plenipotentiary status until after you
signed, so technically your signature is not binding. Now if it was a
forced subterfuge to counter logistic pressure, your ship being lost
and all, we can repudiate the treaty without breaching faith. Only you
can really know."
Ensign Welnicki breathed deeply. "The Fishdollars with no treaty, how
they can survive, I don't know, captain...."
"We'll leave message capsules. When they call for help we'll dump
'em on Rewbobbin."
"I ... I don't know, captain."
"We can fix everything else, save your career."
"No, sir. The treaty stands."
"You signed falsely and you know it."
"I can say—I hereby do say that I signed second copies afterward.
The treaty stands, sir!"
Ensign Welnicki stood up, suddenly feeling good.
Captain Kravitz stood up too, face tautly impersonal.
"All right," he said, shuffling papers on his desk. "I want to lift out as
soon as possible." He pulled out a paper and looked coldly at the
ensign.
"As you may or may not know, your marriage makes you a citizen of
Fishdollar Five," he went on. "As you may or may not know, your
precious treaty forbids removal of a citizen to another planet without
governmental consent. I doubt the admirals at Prime Reference
would choose to come all the way out here just to court-martial one
small ensign. But as you certainly know, your marriage means the
automatic revocation of your commission. You will save me trouble
and delay by signing this resignation."
He shoved the paper across the desk. Ensign Welnicki looked at it
stupidly. His inner song was muted.
"Sgt. Chong will stay to command the temporary base force," the
captain was saying. "Within a year you may expect a Patrol
construction fleet to open your communications and start work on the
base. Your pay accounts can be settled then. There! Sign it!"
Ensign Welnicki bent and signed. The captain looked at the paper and
handed it back.
"Use your right name," he said.
Ensign Welnicki looked blank.
"Stephen Fishdollar!" the captain roared.
The ensign looked blanker still.
"Ensign Fishdollar, some day you really must read through the legal
codes of your adopted planet," the captain said mock-earnestly. "One
of the changes made by the Fishdollars in the Sigma-3 Velorum codes
was to make marriage and descent matrilineal. That way their name
escapes Rho-death."
Ensign Fishdollar sagged. His inner song faded to a whisper.
"Very, very clever of the Fishdollars," the captain said musingly. "To
link their name with the X-chromosome rather than with the Y. So it
becomes as low-Rho as it was high before. Very clever indeed.
"Ensign Fishdollar, you utter lamb, did you honestly not know that?"
he finished with a roar.
Ensign Fishdollar swung his head dumbly.
"You know, Ensign Fishdollar, that the Patrol regards as null any
marriage with a citizen of a non-treaty planet," the captain said softly.
The savage self-biting of his autonomic nervous system almost made
him grimace as he bent wordlessly to the paper and signed "Stephen
Fishdollar." The inner song was dead.
"You may go home now, Mr. Fishdollar," the captain said. "I will send
your personal effects, less uniforms, ashore before I lift out."
Mr. Fishdollar turned away. Captain Kravitz came around the desk and
laid an arm across his shoulders.
"Sit down again, Stephen," he said soberly. "I had to play it out to
the end, but I don't want you leaving on that note, lad."
They sat down, on the same side of the desk.
"Stephen," the captain said gently, "all youngsters worth their salt
chafe at the policy of restricted settlement and exploration. I did and
I still do, but I never had the courage to act directly."
He paused and closed his eyes, then continued.
"Graybeards in conclave never make the important decisions for our
species. They are always afraid. The decisions well up from the four-
dimensional life-continuum that is our species, and the graybeards
accept, with what grace they can muster." He tilted back his head,
eyes still closed.
"The decisions always come through crooked, unmapped channels,
through poets and prophets and dreamers, to enter the
consciousness of man. Dreamers drove man to be free when he
feared freedom. A few centuries later they drove him into space,
shrinking and trembling. Now this. Dreamers, giving vent to that will
of our species which no graybeard can gainsay."
The captain opened his eyes and looked again at his companion.
"There is an old saying, Stephen: 'Beware of the dreamer who
dreams concretely.' Perhaps the Patrol version should be 'Never put a
dreamer in the way of dreaming concretely.' I will never know for
certain how much I have really had to do with this. I will be in grave
trouble before it ends. But I know, as you have just learned, that
dreams can be merciless."
Mr. Fishdollar smiled weakly. Captain Kravitz stood up and so did Mr.
Fishdollar. The captain held out his hand.
"Goodbye, Stephen," he said. "Good luck, lad, and I'm proud of you."
They shook hands and Mr. Fishdollar turned to the door. He rather
thought that, just as he turned, the captain snapped him a salute.

Mr. Fishdollar stumbled toward the settlement. People passed and he

did not see them. He was not thinking. Someone ran squealing. Then
Wendy was running toward him, crying.
"Stevie, Stevie, I'm so glad!" she sobbed against his shoulder. "They
tried to browbeat us into taking another planet, but we remembered
and fought for your dream of an outpost planet. We've won, haven't
we won, Stevie?"
"Yes, Wendy, we've won," Mr. Fishdollar said slowly.
She pressed closer and he hugged her convulsively.
"Let's celebrate tonight," she cried. "A Thanksgiving—"
"All right, but let me go now, sweetheart. I need to think." He
hugged her convulsively again and released himself.
Alone on the headland, he looked out over the sea for a long time.
He took off his blue and gold tunic, folded it neatly, and thrust it deep
into a crevice of the rock. The day was gray-chilly and he shivered in
his undershirt.
Evening drew on, red-gray over the water. He stood very erect with
his chin up. He heard the signal gun and then the roar as Carlyle
lifted out, and his chin rose higher. Finally thoughts began coming
through the hurt. Thoughts were still to be had for the thinking.
President-consort Fishdollar walked through ghostly, tentative
snowflakes toward the settlement on the lonely outpost planet ...
standing like a great rock in the way of the aliens ... or in the way of
the sickly pale cast of conscious thinking ... aliens both, to the
unsearchable mind of the species ... aliens, then, war or negotiation
... President Fishdollar down with nervous strain ... the First
Gentleman in de facto control ... triumph ... reception at Prime
Reference ... medal of honor....
With a spring in his step and warmth inside him, Stephen Fishdollar
came home.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FISHDOLLAR
AFFAIR ***

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