JhsL AicUc
- SPICA. JhsL pdamt — MARTAS. JhsL phobkm. — UTOPIA.
They said: "The ideal
society would have no stated rules because it would be so designed that
everyone would do the right thing anyway."
But
Interstellar Security asked:
Was it right for a society to veil everything in secrecy?
. . . To refuse entry to honest visitors?
. . . To incur the hatred of the rest oj the planet?
. . . To greet investigators with rocket attacks?
. . . To set a murder trap for an interplanetary envoy?
It was a problem for I.S. Agents Sixx and Lowry, and it might well
be their last.
JOHN T. PfflLLJPENT,
an engineer
by profession,
is a
well-established writer of
both science fiction and mystery
novels. His works have been published
in the
United States and in Great Britain
in both
hard covers and in paperback.
He has
been a regular contributor to Analog and to
other leading science fiction magazines. Many of his novels
have appeared under the pen-name of
John Rackham. He reserves his own
name for what he considers
his best work—among which, this novel obviously
belongs. He lives in London
with his family.
GENIUS
UNLIMITED
by
John T. Phillifent
DAW BOOKS, INC.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER
1301 Avenue of the Americas New
York, N. Y. 10019
Copyright © 1972 by John T. Phillifent
all rights reserved cover art by jack gaughan
b cd o k s PRINTED IN U.S.A.
One
The Interstellar Security building, at least
that eight hundred feet of it that bulked soldily above the lunar crater floor,
had not been designed with aesthetic considerations in mind. It was intended
to be functional, and it was, all the way down from the star-aimed antenna,
past the line-of-sight wave guides, through communication offices and provision
for the possible bulky cargo that I.S. agents could be called on to shepherd to
and from distant spots, and on down into the complex of departments that made
up the invisible two-thirds below, resting solidly on the mascon shield. It was
unlovely, but to Rex Sixx, catching a brief glimpse of it as the moon tube
carried him and his companion through the crater wall, it looked like home.
His
feelings, as a consequence, were mixed. He would have been less than human,
less than honest, if he had denied a certain thrill, a small tug at his nerves.
But he would have been less than the trained agent he was if he had not at the
same time been aware of a strong spark of suspicion. Jason Horn, the managing
director and virtual owner of I.S., was not in the habit of calling his two
most esteemed agents off a furlough just for trivilalities. Sixx eyed his
colleague as the speeding tube car dived below the surface again and ran into
the maze of tunnels that led to the building's underground section. Roger Lowry
looked to be half-asleep, but that was normal for him. His herculean six foot
six of well-distributed muscle bulked inside his stark-white uniform suit and
was calculated to produce an immediate impression of awe and respect, but a
second glance would take in his ingenuous stare and mild manner, marking him as
big but dumb. And that was of considerable advantage to Lowry, and he
knew it and used it when and as necessary. He
caught and
returned Sixx's wondering look now, and waited.
"What d'you suppose
the old man wants us for this time?" Sixx mused, idly voicing the question
in both their minds. Lowry shrugged fractionally.
"Been thinking about
that. Refresher course, maybe?"
"Go
back to sleep," Sixx advised sadly. "The only refresher treatment I
ever need is precisely that which I have just been diverted from. If that's the
best you can do . . ." Silence came again, but he grasped at the idea for a moment or two. It was a possibility he hadn't
thought of. I.S. was nothing if not thorough, and whenever any individual or
group openly declares it has something of great value that is absolutely safely
taken care of, there are always other individuals suddenly inspired to find out
just how good that claim is, so a great deal of the unseen work of I.S. lay in
keeping one jump ahead of the latest in hijacking and other assorted forms of
unlawfully possessing somebody else's property. Maybe the ungodly had come up
with something very new. It was an interesting thought. It still lingered at
the back of his mind as they were admitted to Jason Horn's office and told to
sit.
"I seem to recall, some time ago,"
Horn began conversationally, sharing his mild stare equally between both men,
"one of you making some supposedly witty comment about you two always
getting stuck with the difficult assignments . . . ?" He let it hang
there, quite at ease behind his vast desk, looking like a much-abused but
determinedly patient grandfather. Sixx promptly forgot all about such trivia as
training courses. He had made the comment in question, and he knew that Horn
knew it And any time the old man needed to sound
abused, misunderstood, and forgetful, all at the same time, you could
bet something hairy was in the pipeline. Horn took a breath that was almost a sigh. "This
time it's something so simple and easy I'm almost ashamed to discuss it. But it
is important to a whole lot of people, and I do not have to tell you two that
at least half of our reputation stems from what we appear to be doing, and this is one of those times when it has to look good. So you two are it."
This ingenuous appeal to simple logic and
reason turned up Sixx's suspicions to full throttle. He favored Horn with a sad
smile. "Now what kind of an approach is that, sir?" he asked gently.
"When have we ever refused a job? So it's a tough one I Why not just spell it out? You're going to,
anyway."
"That
soft-sell routine makes me nervous," Lowry agreed, and Sixx had to be
careful with his smile. Lowry nervous would be like a Mount Rushmore carving
putting its tongue out.
"You're
a couple of cynics." Horn told them. "You don't trust anybody at
all!"
"Right!" Sixx agreed. "And we're still here, which has to prove something
one way or the other."
Horn
sighed, looked at the slip of paper on his desk. "The
assignment. How much do either of you know about a place called Martas?"
"Not a thing."
Sixx admitted.
"Quite
a bit," Lowry stated at the same moment, and then moved in faint
embarrassment as the other two turned to stare at him curiously.
"You
do?" Horn said. "All right. I have a little
data here, but I'd like to hear what you know just to check. Go ahead!"
Lowry
moved his suit helmet from his knees to the floor by his feet, finger-combed
his mane of pale blond hair, scowled in thought. "Man called Jan
Bardak," he began. "Hungarian. Polymath genius. Was in one of the very
early Colony Probe expeditions in charge of the scientific and technical
section. It was around fifty years ago. That expedition had a bad time,
lost their unit chief and a few of the other section leaders. Ended up, anyway, with Bardak in command. They located a
star with planets somewhere in the Spica System, I think. Not too sure about
that, but a star with planets. They named the star Bardak after him. One planet
was 'E'-type primitive, with continental land masses, islands, acceptable
climate. They classed it suitable for colonization and named it Martas. Bardak's idea. He must have had a sense of humor."
"Not
to me," Sixx denied. "Not until you explain it a bit."
"In Hungarian 'Martas' means 'gravy.' He
must have read a book."
Horn took another glance at
his paper. "Any more?"
"A bit. Seems Bardak really was a smart man. He stayed with it, held a high
place with the colonizing parties, organized things.
They took over the major continent. Semitropical, rugged but
fertile, and rich in minerals. He got it all going, turning over, made himself a pile."
"Smart," Sixx
agreed cautiously. "A
good businessman, maybe. But a
genius? That's a
big word,
Roger."
"There's more." Lowry stayed mild, went on.
"Bardak stayed with it,
with the major continent .
. .
they called it 'Dolgozni,' it means
"work' . . . until
he'd had enough. Then he realized
all his
holdings, made enough to be
able to buy outright and in
perpetuity . . . everything
... the
rights to a nearby
island. Big place
that nobody else fancied, so maybe
it wasnt
so difficult.
But then,
off his
own bat, he issued
an open
invitation to any superbrain, genius, expert, whatever . .
. who
felt frustrated and hampered
by civilized
society ... to come and
live on his island and help
work out the plans for
an ideal
social frame, some kind of Utopia.
For free, if
they could pass his tests. He named the island
'Iskola' . . . means
•school*. . ."
"Bells," Sixx
interrupted softly, "begin to ring.
The new Utopia. I have heard snippets,
not a
lot. But as I recall,
the whole thing died,
folded for lack of support
and interest. Seems the geniuses would
rather be frustrated in familiar surroundings than have to
make their theories work in virgin
territory. Something like
that. No?"
"No!" Lowry was
quietly emphatic. "The news value
faded fast, and there
was no
great rush. The qualifying tests are rugged, I hear.
But there
has been
a slow
and steady trickle of people into
Iskola ever since. Nobody ever comes back, and there's
very little genuine information released, but there are
rumors that they are all
doing very well. One thing I
hear is that Iskola runs
a problem-solving
service on the side, only
they pick and choose what
problems they will work
on, and
the answers
they come up with aren't always
too popular.
Effective, maybe, but
not popular.
"One I heard
about ... a new kind
of power
source. Somebody asked .
. .
don't know who ... if
the geniuses
could come up with
a power
source that wouldn't create pollution problems. The answer came
back that they already had
one, were using it. That
it didn't
cost anything, either, after
the original
installation and maintenance. They offered to
give it away free, but
only on condition that the produced
power would also be given
away free. And it seems whoever
asked the question did some
hard thinking about it and decided
they couldn't afford to accept
it on those terms. That's the
sort of thing I hear."
Sixx shook
his head
slowly. "I've heard some queer ones, too. No way of telling whether it's
myth, leg pull, or just plain wishful thinking. For me, I will believe in a
society of geniuses, a new Utopia, when I see it. Maybe."
"All
the same," Horn took charge again, "your account tallies with what I
have here, Lowry. Essentially. I have a few dates and details, not important. By all accounts Bar-dak
is either dead by now or a very
old man, but the island society continues, is just as close-mouthed as ever,
self-contained and hard to get into. Until now. Something
has happened. And that is where we come in."
Sixx
discarded philosophy rapidly, became attentive.
"There's discord in Eden, now?"
"Something
like that." Horn was cautious. "You need
some background to help get the perspective. For one thing, there is no love
lost whatever between Dolgozni and Iskola. So far as I can read it, the
Dolgoznians—or Mar-tans, as they prefer it—have the firm impression that Bardak
played their economy into a phony high, a boom, then sold up and ducked out,
and left them to cope with a whole
flock of hard crises that they never saw coming. The way things are now, the
colony is still thriving, but it is hard work all the way. What you get, you
have to earn. They think Bardak saw it coming and ducked out. So they do not
wish to know about Iskola. And it's mutual. Iskola doesn't want to know about
them any more than is inescapably necessary.
"Next,
the only available law and police body on Mar-tas is, of course, in Dolgozni.
Although it is efficient enough, it is geared to industrial and personal
offenses, casual violence, property rights, stuff like that. By all accounts
Dolgozni proves something, that in a hard-grinding
community there is no time for any smart set, no upper crust, no economic
juggling . . . and no crimes of degeneration. Nobody has much free time, free
capital, free anything. Everybody has to work hard just to get by. So the laws
are simple and basic, and crime is rough, ready, and uncomplicated. And
so," he shrugged, "when Iskola had to confess to itself that it is
stuck with a crime wave among its geniuses, it did not turn to Dolgozni for
aid."
"Hah!" Sixx found it wryly amusing.
"Physician, heal thyself. If they have such a
superclever society, surely they can catch their own bad ones?"
"That's
backwards, Rex," Lowry declared. "If you set away to design an ideal
society, the last thing you'd think of, or need, would be enforcement
or rules
that need enforcing, come to
that. Law and order, rule
and punishment
—discipline from outside—that's only for those who
need it as an assist!"
"That's a good
point" Horn agreed. "When have I ever had to
use the
whip on either of you
two?"
Sixx turned an
exasperated stare on his partner.
"You're so smart, how
come you never ran off
and joined
the School?" And then,
following his own hint, he
added. "Or maybe you did try
once, and that's how come
you know
so much?"
Lowry stirred again
in faint
embarrassment "I made a few inquiries,
sure. No harm in that"
Horn was openly
intrigued now. "I never knew
that, Lowry. What came of it?
Did you
take a test and blow
it?"
"Never got
that far, sir. I wanted to
find out what a man
would be letting himself in for, supposing he
passed and was accepted. But they
don't give out that kind
of information,
so I
let the
idea slide. You say they
have a crime wave? Where does
that interest us?"
"Ah yes." Horn went back to
his paperwork.
"All I have is an outline. Seemingly it
took the Iskolans some time to
realize they had a crime
wave in the first place,
as they do not have any
setup for indicating such things.
Then it took them
quite a while to organize
a group,
or committee, to decide what to
do about
it"
"This is genius?"
Sixx demanded. "What's so difficult
about organizing a committee?
We ordinary
mortals do it all the time!"
"Exactly!" Horn
retorted. "You think about that
and listen. They got a committee,
made a decision, and the
decision was to invite
an external
agency to investigate and help. Not
from Dolgozni, as I have
already made clear. So they handed
it out
to Interstelpol,
and it
eventually ended up at I.S.P.
headquarters And they kicked it around for
a while.
Not a
bit keen.
Nobody seems to be keen to
help Iskola. Do I have
to explain
that?"
"Not to me."
Sixx was emphatic. "I'm sticking
with what I said just now.
They're so smart, they shouldn't
have any crooks, anyway, and they
ought to be able to
catch their own."
"Quite so. That's
the common
attitude."
Sixx scowled a
little at having his attitude
described as "common" but
forebore further comment. Horn sat
up now, a subtle change showing
in his
manner.
"A compromise has been effected. l.S.P. will provide one
special agent without authority, in advisory capacity only, to look over the
problem and apply expert knowledge, give advice. That is where we come in. You two. It is, in other words, a straight
security-bodyguard job."
Lowry
stirred in interest this time. "It looks as if I might get an inside view of Iskola after all."
"I'd
be interested in that myself," Sixx admitted, recovering his aplomb. "Just where is Martas?"
Horn
slid a data sheet across the desk for them to study. The star Bardak is just
off the Spica cluster in Virgo. You'll use your own clipper, but travel in
caravan. Routine stuff that you know as well as I do.
But there is one more item, strictly between us." The new manner was more
apparent than ever now, the tone putting a damper on levity.
"I
can guess part of it." Sixx aimed a finger at an entry on the sheet.
"The l.S.P. agent is a woman . . . ?"
"Is
a lady," Horn corrected gently, moving the switch that isolated the office
from any kind of external interruption or surveillance whatever. He eyed his
two best men. "Louise Latham is the only child of a very good friend of
mine. Wally—Commander Walter Latham—in his own way did for l.S.P. what I've
managed to do for this
business." He made a
gesture that included by inference the whole of Interstellar Security and its
reputation of never having failed to deliver strictly as per agreement.
"My
father started this as a shoestring outfit. I made it grow a name. Wally
studied in the same schools I did, only he preferred to go into a professional
organization. He helped make Interstelpol famous for its claim "without
fear or favor,' you know? That's all water over the dam now. Wally had one
child. We've both watched Louise grow up. She is bright. Brilliant,
even. So, inevitably, a bit odd. Difficult, at times. And difficult for him
to avoid suspicion of nepotism. So I have to assure you she got where
she is on her own steam. And she is good. Very good.
All this is to tell you that any time she seems a bit peculiar, a little off,
that is none of your affair, get me? Your job, both of
you, is to get her safely to Iskola, to guard her at all times, and bring her
back safely. In all other respects you will do whatever she says, right?"
Sixx thought he detected anxiety, put it down
to personal involvement, and offered a reassuring smile. "That's all right
with us, sir. Do we
collect from Earth, or can
she make it this
far alone?"
It was a
legitimate question. Moon-Base was the
accepted Transit Station between Earth
and way
out there,
and riding the Earth-Moon
shuttle was a little more
hazardous man driving downtown to
shop, but not much. All the
same, if Louise Tjtham was all
that much of a somebody, perhaps
the full
panoply might be called for.
IS. men didn't often make
spectacles of themselves in their white
immune suits on Earth, but
it had
been done. Calculated publicity
never did any harm, and
Sixx himself was in no
way averse
to a
little notoriety .
, .
but Horn shook
his head.
"I gave the
wrong impression, sorry. Louise isn't
famous at all, not even among
her colleagues.
I told
you, she's odd. I wanted to
warn you on that, and
I have
done so. You'll have no need
to lay
on the
spectaculars until you're on Martas. Even
then, diplomacy will be called
for. This is one time we
have to be strictly neutral,
offending nobody. I.S.P. is sending
the boss's
daughter to make it look
good. We go along
with that We
do not
offend Martas— mat is a valuable
economy—and we do not offend
Iskola, either, by letting
them get the notion that
this is just going through the motions. Diplomacy is
called for."
Sixx rose,
collected more documents and his
helmet Lowry, also rising, looked puzzled.
"Sounds to me as if we
are just going
through the motions," he said.
"As if nobody really
gives a damn about the
Iskolan crime wave!"
Horn eyed him,
turned to Sixx with a
sigh. "You have the common viewpoint
Sixx. Take him away and explain it to him, will
you? I have things to
do." He moved switches, touched a
button on his desk. "Harriet?
Let me
have the latest progress
report on that Canopus psycho-perfume
shipment would you7"
Two
"So explain,"
Lowry invited as they descended
rapidly to subsurface transport level. "Why
doesn't anybody have any time for
a society
of geniuses?"
"There are times,"
Sixx retorted, "when you bother
me, Roger. How can you say
it like
that and not see the
obvious answer?" They stepped
out of
the shaft
car and
made for the tunnel
platform, buttoned for a four-man,
and waited.
"I know it's
obvious that people do not
like geniuses, Rex. That's not what
I asked. I want
to know
why they
don't."
"That's just as
obvious, hnt it? How do you feel when
you run across somebody
who's a mile ahead of
you in
everything?"
"I don't. Never
met anybody
like that. I have met
plenty who know a lot more
about certain things than I
do. From
them I learn if I can."
Lowry checked his next words
as a car hissed alongside, vacuum-seal doors parting to
let them in, murmuring shut again.
Sixx punched in their destination. The car sped away
under the urging of sole-noidal
fields.
Lowry tried again.
"This suit, for instance," he offered. "I had to
learn how to get into
and out
of it,
how to
maintain it, monitor it, what
it will
and wont
stand up to, all that and
more from people who know
a lot
more about it than ever I
will. They know the how
and why
of all
the protective and support
systems. I don't. That makes
them smarter than me ... on
that. But so what? Maybe
I know
things about unarmed combat
that they don't Are they
worried?"
"Not the
point. We each have our
own areas
of excellence
there. But I said somebody
who'd be ahead of you
in everything. Then what? If you had to go up
against
him, you'd lose every time!"
"So?"
Lowry was unmoved. "Who says I have to win them all? And, anyway, why
should such a man want to go against me?"
Sixx
felt growing irritation, then caught himself with a
slow grin. "You are doing it again, aren't you? You and
that wide-eyed innocent look. You know damned well . . ."
"I
know it's typical of most people to be scared of something they don't
understand, sure. But I have never understood why. If a man is all that much
smarter than me, then he is, and maybe I can learn something from him. As for
him being a threat to me—I suppose, yes— but I can't see why. The urge to
dominate somebody else is a sign of a small mind not a big one. And, anyway, by
me a genius is not just somebody plus, it's somebody different"
"Now
you're changing the rules." Sixx braced himself as the car slid to a halt
and opened up. "You may be eagerly looking forward to moving among a crowd
of crackpots. Me, I intend to keep a very sharp eye on them. And I still say, if they are so smart, they should be able to worm out their
own crooks."
The
Transport Terminus hall was a vast controlled confusion of action, with knots
of intent people being convoyed in various directions, low-flying flatcars
magnetically levitating across the metal floor, piled high with miscellaneous
luggage, the regular chanting of arrival and departure times, and on all sides
the constant ripple and change of destination and time displays. This pair had negotiated the complexity many times and were
unimpressed by it. Sixx consulted his documents, then a distant display,
handed a flimsy to Lowry.
"Earth shuttle is just in. Our
assignment ought to be on it. Ill get her at the
in-gates. You go fix us a berth for Clipper IV in the next caravan heading
Spica-way. Let's hope we get lucky and catch a through trip."
Lowry
moved away through the throng, the various passenger groups giving him an awed
and respectful clearance. The stark-white suit and glitter gold facings were
highly effective in such moments. Sixx grinned and ambled across to the archway
where luggage was already starting to emerge on floats. Now, by twos and
threes, came the travelers. It was easy to assort them into those who had and
had not been this way before. The distracting series of switches,
from zero-gee in flight, to
anything up to three-gee landing, to
Luna's own low-gee in the
tunnels and Terminus, were enough to
unsettle any but the hardiest
set of
reflexes. Novices looked unhappy, even
ill at
times, whereas the experienced
merely looked resigned to it alL
Gee changes
also did strange things to
the delicate
nuances of feminine architecture
and adornment,
and it
was by no means uncommon for
some shapely miss to discover that what had draped
her within
fashionable bounds back home
on Earth
now had
a tendency
to betray
rather too much not-so-solid flesh. Sixx had an
eye open for anything like that,
but not
to the
degree that he was likely to
miss his main purpose.
In a while
he saw
one, alone, showing all the
signs of expecting to be met—and
inwardly distressed. She was of
medium height, nonspectacular in a blue-black cape, the hood back to
show a royal blue lining
and raven-black
hair to her shoulders.
Her eyes
were enigmatic under tinted lenses. He
moved in.
"Miss Latham?
Miss Louise Latham?"
She put out
a hand
to touch
his wrist,
peered up, took off her lenses,
and her
eyes were big, yellow-brown like sunshine through honey. In
the next
moment she squeezed them tight shut
and restored
her protection.
"You got me," she said thickly
in her
throat "Now . . .
find someplace where I can sit,
near a table with a
glass on it, a big
glass. I need it!"
"No problem."
Sixx offered his arm, and
she leaned
on it, allowed herself to be
led. "Bumpy trip? Your
first?"
"All trips are
bumpy to me." Her voice
was odd,
throaty as if she had a
heavy cold, and the words
were slurred, but she was obviously
taking great care to enunciate
properly. "Any gross movement, movement
faster than a brisk walk, upsets my location sense.
Do you
have that?"
"Not sure what
it means,
Miss Latham." Sixx extended his other arm to trip
a door
eye, and they passed within,
into a quiet, discreetly dim-lit saloon.
He steered
her to
a table and buttoned for service.
"If you mean sense of
direction, I have it,
a little.
But it
doesnt get upset that •I know
of. Anyway,
I dont
get travel
sick, and I suppose that's the same thing. What's
your taste?"
A trundling mechanical
halted by their table. She
peered at it, made a faint
head shake of disapproval. "Dial a double whiskey and
a double vodka, and just a
sneeze of lemon, all in the
same glass."
Sixx slowed his hand in midmovement. He
remembered Horn's warning, but he couldn't resist asking. "You're
sure?"
"With
that model, that's the most you can get in one glass. I've tried. Even then it
won't operate without that touch of lemon. Regulations?
Why can't a person just go ahead and order whatever she wants? You know, if you don't dial that properly, it will automatically
serve up two glasses—which is a waste of time, isn't it? And . . ."
"That's
not what I meant," he interrupted hastily, and dialed her order. As the
mechanical began to disgorge, he inserted a modest whiskey and lime for himself
and glanced at Miss Latham to see her glass tilting steadily in one unbroken
movement until it was quite empty.
She
put it down, shivered, and said, "That is much better. Another would be
better stilll"
He
couldn't find any words. Looking away, he saw Lowry looming up and fingered the
dial again. "Yours with soda, Roger?"
"Move
your card out of the slot, mister," Miss Latham urged. "Now that
there's three of us—that thing can count." Sixx removed his credit card as
Lowry sat, took his glass, and stared candidly. She inserted her own card and
dialed another lethal glassful for herself. "Same again for you two?"
she asked, and the glasses appeared dutifully. Sixx took a deep breath and a
small sip.
"Introductions,"
he said. "Miss Latham. I'm Rex Sixx. This is my partner Roger Lowry. We bodyguard you from here on. What's the word, Roger?"
"Fair. There's a caravan due out in a
couple of hours bound for Arcturus. We can connect from there for a Spica run.
I checked, and Miss Latham is already provisionally reserved aboard Canberra
II for Arcturus with ransfer. Her baggage is already going aboard." He
moved his gaze to look a query at the lady, but she was attending to the glass
destined for her. It went the way of the first, all in one long, smooth
swallow, and Sixx expected to see her drop dead, but she appeared to thrive on
the dose.
"Better still,"
she sighed. "Your turn, Mr. Lowry."
Lowry eyed the pair of glasses appointed to
him, then the one sipped, one as yet untouched beside Sixx, looked at her again
warily, asked the formula, and stared at Sixx in unbelief as she pronounced it.
"Don't look at me." Sixx hunched
his shoulders inside his suit "You heard what she said. You also remember what Mr.
Horn told us. Whatever she
says, and if we have
to carry her aboard,
that's no great problem."
Miss Latham chuckled
as Lowry
operated the dial. She removed her tinted lenses again,
laid them aside, and he
saw that so far
from being semiconscious she looked
refreshed, at peace with herself,
and genuinely
amused. "You wouldn't be
the first
to make
the mistake
you're making, Mr. Sixx.
You won't
have to carry me anywhere.
Thank you." She extended
a slim
hand for the third glass,
and the mechanical automatically trundled away, obeying
its built-in program. As
she had
said, it could count There
had to be a ten-minute interval between orders on
any one card, 'but there was
nothing to stop three people
ordering in a row,
or six,
or ten,
even. If you wanted to
hang one on fast,
it wasn't
difficult to beat the machine.
Sixx pondered that as
he watched
the third
slug follow the other two.
"I have a
thing," he said candidly, "about
making the same mistake more than
once, but this time it
looks as if I have to.
Nobody can put away that
much alcohol and stay conscious."
"You're covering too
much territory, Mr. Sixx. There
are exceptions to all
rules. What was that about
my baggage?"
She even
sounded better, easier, more alert
than before. And attractive,
with a glow that wasn't
in the
least like anything from a bottle.
Sixx had the curious, ridiculous
impression that all that alcohol
had acted
like lubrication or some
kind of solvent against armor.
"Your baggage is
going aboard Canberra IL" Lowry
repeated.
"Ah. And
you'd rather I traveled in
your ship?"
"We would," Sixx agreed. "Our ship
is something
special, as you maybe know.
And while
we don't
look for anything to happen, certainly
not until
we get
to Martas,
we got our reputation by not
taking any chances."
"I know your
reputation in I.S. I've called
Jason Horn Uncle Jason for a
good few years now, and
I don't
want to be in any way
difficult You boys fix it whichever
way you want"
"Suppose we do
it this
way." Lowry consulted a flight-program
leaflet "It's only six hours
to Arcturus.
Twenty four hours from there to
Spica, but there will be
a time
lag between while we
connect. So we can leave
your stuff on Canberra until then
and switch
while we wait for the next caravan to form. Unless you need
anything out of
your bags right away?"
"Not
a thing. I don't expect to touch anything until we get where we are going. Just
now I said I know a bit about I.S., and so I do, but I've never been inside a
clipper. I'd like to. Do you have time to show me around before we lift
off?"
"Why not?" Sixx rose, half offering his arm, still convinced that she had to be on the brink of total blackout But Miss
Latham rose with apparent ease and stability, striding along between the two
men as if breaking rules was an everyday event to her. Over her head Sixx exchanged
baffled glances with his partner as they reached the tube-car station and were
whisked away to where Clipper IV stood, waist-girdled in her vacuum seal.
"Acronyms
fascinate me," she said as they ascended from the tube to approach the
ship, "simply because I'm no good at thinking them up myself. This one—Comparator-Loop Integrated Personality-Profile Examiner
and Recorder—hence 'Clipper,' right?"
"Not mat it matters a
lot. We call him Joe."
"That's
the computer that does all the tricks?" She looked up at the immobile
hatchway. "Is he watching me now?"
"You could say that." Sixx was a little pained by her tone, which lacked something of the reverence he
thought was due. "Joe is recording you for future reference. Hell allow you inboard so long as you're with us. He won't
do you any harm, but he won't do a damn thing for you, either, until we assure him you are a friend. Then he will work
with you and for you." And there was a lot more to it that Sixx could have
told her but didn't. Not even Miss Louise Latham, only daughter of I.S.P.'s
Commander Latham and adoptive niece of Jason Horn, and an alcoholic . . . ?
Sixx found that hard to take. It itched the back of
his mind all the while he and Lowry played host and through the routine of
buttoning up and lifting off to rendezvous with the warp ship that would boost
them all to Arcturus. In a quiet moment, while she was elsewhere talking to
Lowry, he put the question to Joe direct.
"Just
how and why does an otherwise nice girl—adult, European, about twenty-eight or
thirty, five-eight, around one hundred thirty well-arranged pounds—put away
somewhat more than eight fluid ounces of alcohol in as many minutes and stay
fully conscious?"
Joe's answer was prosaic and predictable.
Physical reaction to alcohol varies widely according to habitation,
preparation, congenerics, stomach content, medical history, and learned
'behavior. In other words, insufficient data. As for
the "why," same answer. Sixx hadn't really expected anything more.
Horn, of course, had known, had warned them. Odd, he'd said. Peculiar,
but good. But how does an immunity to alcohol
make anybody a good detective? Joe couldn't answer that one, either. By the
time the warp was established and the ships were all in cluster within the
private, artificial universe of Pauli-space that could go skipping and slipping
through and around the absolutes of Einsteinian space-time, Sixx was thoroughly
ill at ease with himself. The only positive way to scratch his itch would have
been to ask the lady direct, and he wasn't ready for that extreme yet. Instead,
he offered a suggestion.
"Nothing
much can go wrong in Pauli-space," he said, "so why don't we use a
moment to jaunt across to Canberra II and pick up your stuff?"
"Why not?" she agreed amiably. "That's something else I've heard about
but never tried. I'm told it's good fun."
The
view from the hatchway platform was something to catch the eye and inspire
wonder even for those who had seen it often before. "The warp ship,"
Sixx explained, more for something to say than anything else, "acts as the
focal point of a microuniverse about a half a mile in diameter. That
pearly-gray backdrop is the boundary. Everything inside is totally isolated. We
have our own atmosphere. We even have a small gravitational effect, but for all
practical purposes we are in free fall. This—" he put a nine-inch
tube-with-toggles into her hand, "—is nothing more than a ducted fan.
Point it which way you want to go. Push the button. That's all. You don't even
have inertia problems here." All the same he took care to secure the belt
of it about her waist to make sure she didn't drop it and get stranded.
The
pearl-glow light showed them some eighteen ships of various sizes and types,
each hanging from its own sensor-cable link with the central warp ship. Already
the ambient space was dotted with gamboling figures exploring a novel
sensation. It compared, Sixx thought, with scuba-diving, but without the slide
and press of liquid, or bubbles, or alien life shapes. This was a man-made
"sea" in which man could clown to his heart's content. A young couple
went by, chasing each other in eel-like looping flight
He turned a side glance on Miss Latham. She held her fly-cycle chest high,
herself almost upright leaning forward into the breeze just a little, her dark
hair and flowing cape lifting in fluttering dance. He was instantly reminded
of himself as a boy, years ago, standing on a high wall and leaning into a
stiff breeze, imagining himself flying like some superman. She looked as
pleased now as he had felt then.
Attractive, too. A good, balanced, almost
classic face. Good bones. Good shape, too. The dark one-piece pants
suit, moulded to her body by the rush of wind, made that obvious. So why the booze? He ran his mind over the reasons known to
him and found no comfort there. Ask ten people why they drink and you will get
ten answers. Ask experts, so-called, and you'll get theories. He was still
shaking his head at the enigma as they slid to a stop by Canberra's gangway and
climbed inboard, where ship's power maintained a constant one-fourth gee. A
steward, consulting his reference reader, pointed them to "B" deck,
cabin 4. It was hardly palatial.
"You
wont lose anything by the swap." Lowry thumped
the cot with a critical hand. "Our spare cabins are bigger and better. This all of it?" He indicated two snap-locked bags on
the floor by a pull-out table. Miss Latham nodded but looked suddenly ill at
ease.
"A
minute," she said, and her voice had gone fuzzy again. "Something
feels all wrong somehow." She edged past Lowry, who had taken up the bags
and now rested them on the table. "Heat," she muttered, and put her
hand gingerly on one bag, shook her head, tried the other, and snatched her
hand back fast as if stung. "That one. Hotl"
Lowry
lifted the first bag away and moved to give Sixx room to enter, to slip off an
armored glove, to feel for himself.
"Nothing
that I can detect, Miss Latham."
"Something!"
she insisted, her face upturned to his, strain lines pulling at her mouth, her
amber-yellow eyes wide with distress. "It doesn't feel right I'd better
open it just to be sure."
"Is
it locked?" he asked, and as she shook her head, he replaced his glove,
waved her back a little. "Better let me do it just in case." He
applied his thumbs to the catches, clicked them free, and the lid started
swinging up of itself. There came a fizz and flare, and he slapped the lid shut
instantly.
"Get her out of here, Rogerl" he
snapped, scooping the bag tight with one gloved hand while he armed his helmet
into place with the other, too intent on his own business to be watching Lowry
scoop Miss Latham similarly and hurl her and himself out of the cabin. The bag was hot now, the plastic already bubbling and yielding to the inferno
inside. Into his helmet radio he said, "No way to stop it, Roger, not now.
Contain is the best I can do. Shut the door and keep it shut."
"Check!"
Lowry's reply came instantly. "Smother it, maybe? Ill get
you some cool!"
Three
The bag
was dissolving
now. Sixx dumped it bodily
in the middle of the cot
and tore
at the
coverings, sheets, sleeping bag, and then
the foam-filled
mattress, piling barriers between himself
and the
blast, part of his mind
seeking to analyze what he
had seen
in that
brief glimpse. A
canister of some kind.
A nozzle. Alarm-red color.
And the glare-white of the flare—a
flare! That would be acetylene
and magnesium,
and extras.
And it
wouldn't smother at alL The soft bulk
between him and the fire
started to melt and collapse. He
looked around for more, but
there wasn't anything. Lowry came on
again, breathing a little heavily.
"Keep clear
the cabin
door, Rex, all right?"
Tm clear. Don't
be a
damned fool and open it
now!**
The inside of
the cabin
was thick
with fumes, and hot, but Sixx
was in
no great
distress as yet His suit,
the product of I.S. skill and
ingenuity, was intended to make
him immune to just
about any threat He was
all right,
but he couldn't be responsible if the door was
opened. Lowry snorted disdain.
"You keep clear.
I'm going
to bust
a C02
can through
now!"
With the words
and an
almighty crash the red spike
of a conical fire extinguisher erupted through one plastic
panel of the door
and wedged
there, spouting instant snow with a
throaty roar. Then another joined
it A
third. And a fourth
to complete
the set.
Lowry was nothing if not
thorough. Within a few
seconds Sixx was blind and
lost in a room-sized blizzard of
COa snow. There
was nothing
he could do but
wait now.
"Roger," he said, "if that was
a lifeboat
flare—and it looked
like one—how
long do the
damned things take to burn out?"
"Five minutes, as I recall, but I'll
check. Ship's officers out here, hold it." Lowry was back in seconds.
"Five minutes is right, Rex. You all right in
there?"
"No
problems, but you'd better warn Lulu the Lush that there isn't going to be
anything left here worth a damn. No evidence, nothingl"
In a
moment he heard Miss Latham herself in that thick but studiedly coherent voice
of their first meeting. "Can you hear me, Mr. Sixx? Are you really all
right in there?"
"I've
been worse. The hot spot is buried for the moment No sweat. That thing looked
like a lifeboat flare, a marker. Not too difficult to get hold of, to plant
inside a bag, triggered to go off when opened. You any idea
who didn't want you to get to Martas?"
There
was a background of agitated gossip and then her voice again in obvious effort
"Hadn't we better leave that until later?"
"I
suppose. You realize that whatever you had in the way of equipment in that bag
is a total loss?"
"Equipment?" Her voice squeaked now. "All the equipment I ever use is in my
head, Mr. Sixx. There was only toiletry and clothing in that bag."
"That's
something, anyway." Sixx could see now, over an uneasy sea of simmering
white as the "snow" sublimed into invisible vapor. Over by the cot was a persistent small volcano of activity and the
occasional spit of flame. 'Tell me," he said curiously, "how did you
know?"
"That's
something else we should leave for later, please." Her reply was prompt,
belying the sound of thickness in her speech.
"Hey, Rex, that flare
should be about fizzled by now."
"Last
gasp, Roger. Ill check. Hold on." Sixx waded
through the snow, dabbed at the bubbling mess, and a few solitary sparks boiled
up and went out. He touched something solid, grabbed and hauled it up and out.
The foul, half-melted canister was harmless now. He shook it to make sure. "All gone, Roger. You can open the door. Better warn
the rubbernecks to stand clear."
It must be quite a spectacle, he thought, to
see him come tramping out of a snow-filled cabin wreathed in vapor, clutching
the remains of the flare. A goggling crowd backed off either way along the
passage. It was safe now to grin, so he did. There was Roger, and Miss Latham,
cautiously clear. And distressed officers of the Canberra,
one of whom, in a hastily acquired pair of asbestos gauntlets, took the
canister from Sixx and glared at it.
"It's
a flare, sure. A standard unit. No way of telling
where it came from, but we are having all of ours checked out." Another
officer came to eye the mess and mark that cabin as a total write-off.
"That's
all right," Lowry soothed. "Miss Latham will be traveling with us in
any case. No problem there."
She
looked on the point of keeling over. "I could do with a drink 1" she
mumbled, and Sixx, arming back his helmet, had to grin. To anyone listening it
would sound the most natural thing in the world. Canberra had a bar and the rare
luxury of a bartender.
To
him Sixx said confidingly, "We have just had a very hairy moment, friend.
Gimme three doubles—and make them good big ones,
huh?" On his way to their table he made one out of three and handed it to
her. "I don't know how you do it," he confessed, "but seeing is believing, and if you don't know what's good for you at
your age, you never will, I reckon."
She
took the stagger stuff eagerly, put it away without pause for breath, and the
resulting glow was almost instant. "You know," she put the glass
gently down on the table, "I owe you two. I would have been burned at
least Maybe badly. Maybe even
killed. I usually react but not that fasti"
"It might be faster if you laid off that stuff." Lowry made it blunt,
and her smile for him was something to see. Sixx marveled. She was a lovely woman now, as
normal as spring rain and as delightful as the flowers it brings— with enough
alcohol in her system to nail a strong man to the floorl
"You
have an explanation coming," she agreed, "and you've earned it. Can
we go now, or does some official want to ask us questions?"
"We
go!" Sixx declared. "We have
the questions; let them come up with a few answers. You have our eyewitness
evidence if you want to sue I"
Back in the relative security of the clipper,
with her one bag stowed in a spare cabin and the autochef working on a meal for
them, Miss Latham declined Lowry's offer of another tall drink and relaxed in a
chair.
"I
don't need it yet," she explained, "and I only take what I need. The
thing that really scares me is that I might eventually get to like the
stuff!"
"Now hold it!" Sixx protested.
"Throw us just one curve at a time if you don't mind. I'm confused enough
now. Just start at the beginning . . ."
"Go
on until you come to the end and then stop. Lewis Carroll." She chuckled
gently. "I can wrap it all up in one word for you, but it won't help much.
I'm intuitive." She laughed again at the null-comprehension that greeted
her words. Sixx knew his face was registering bknkness.
"Most
women like to believe they have a highly developed sense of intmtion," he
observed. "That's not new. Whether they do or not is another thing."
"I
have it," she said quietly but with grim undertones. "I can't even
start to explain it I'm no good at that side of it It's just that ever since I
was quite small I have been able to sense—feel, be aware of—a kind of aura
around people and things, places and events. It's like an extension in time, so
that I know what has just been, what is, and what is going to be soon. It's not
visual or pictorial in any way, just a feeling. And it becomes a distress if
and when something is going to go wrong or is dangerous. Does that make sense
to you?"
Sixx
nodded slowly. Lowry said, "111 buy that. We have something of the kind,
me and Rex. In this job you have to. A kind of smell hunch when things don't
add up right But—" he shrugged it away,
"—that's just training,
habit a lot of small
observations, and unconscious processes adding it all up. Isn't it?"
She
shook her head, managing to smile. "I dont find it that simple. For just
one thing, I've never even tried telling anyone any of this, not since I was
twelve, because I knew no one would try to understand. But you two do, and I
knew you would. And again, what training did I ever have? As a girl I breezed
through school, any academic work, my biggest problem being the inability to
see how and why everything wasn't as glaringly obvious to everyone else as it
was to me. And things were, always. You have to remember that This wasn't something I could turn on and off. It was there
all the time. And then I had to grow up a little more and become a woman."
Her smile faded again, her luminous brown eyes clouding at the memory.
"Just
chemistry, of course, but I've thought of it since as the same as if someone
had turned up the gain on my nervous system. What had been a soft broad-band
background now turned into a high-volume scream from all directions and on all
channels. I went out of my mind for a little
while. Until I fell on the answer."
"But
alcohol is a stimulant!" Sixx protested, and she
shook her head.
"Oh no. Believe me, this is something I've gone into in sheer self-defense.
Check with Joe if you like." Lowry took her at her word, swiveled his
chair to reach for the terminal console and screen, started inserting data.
"Alcohol," she said, "is related to ether, has a similar
chemistry. It seems to stimulate mental and physical functions by unwinding the
tensions, but it in fact anesthetizes. First the small aches and pains we all
have. Then it lowers the critical faculties and sense perceptions. You feel
good— better—simply because you are less capable of judging, in general. It's
that simple. For me it damps out the screaming overtones I can't otherwise
avoid. When I am cold sober, in your terms—" she shuddered slightly,
"—it's as if every nerve in my body is operating at maximum intensity. In
hard fact I haven't been completely 'dry' in eighteen years. Just to think
about it gives me the shivers." She turned to Lowry interestedly.
"How does that check out with Joe?"
"All
the way down. But Joe adds this, that alcohol is a powerful irritant and poison, that it tends to coagulate and harden soft
tissues, impairs the physical reactions—and the life prognosis is not
good!"
"I
know," she sighed, "but what would you have me do?"
Sixx
scowled at it. For no reason at all except that he had seen and heard, he
believed her entirely. "But it's crazy!" he complained. "You
have to be stoned out of your mind to slow down to normal! There has to be some
way—training, maybe? I mean, if you could only learn, somehow, how to handle
all the data you're getting, cold, you'd really be away out in front of
everybody!"
She shook her head again but was smiling now.
"It's not like that. I've checked that, too. That way lies
megalomania. Normal people have built-in shutoffs, filters of some kind, simply
because the brain can handle only so much data at a time. And me, I donrt
have that, whatever it is. So I have to shut off by other means. In this case, with alcohol. There are other things, but they
are harder to get and invite suspicion. Booze I can get anywhere. But I want to
thank you two for catching up so fast Can you imagine the many times and ways
that well-meaning people have tried to save me from my *weakness'?"
Sixx
grinned, but at the back of his mind was the thought that surely modern medicine
ought to be able to come up with something? Then, on thinking it further along,
he saw the snags. How would you explain such a thing? He had a brief vision of some well-meaning clinician starting away by drying her
out and shifted hurriedly away from that picture.
"Does
your intuition tell you anything more about that flare, apart from the fact
that it was there?"
"Like
who put it there?" She shook her head slowly. "No. You asked if
anyone would want to stop me going to Martas. There are a few, but not that
way. There are plenty who don't approve of me, for obvious reasons, but none
who'd be vicious enough to attack me physically like that"
"Not even people youVe
helped put away?"
"I
don't work that way, Mr. Lowry. In fact I dont really work at all" Her
smile was wry now. "I just nose around among the data on a crime, just
looking, observing, feeling, until I get a hunch, the feeling that something
doesn't match up somewhere. Then I point to it By now
my colleagues have learned to heed my guesses. On this one I get nothing at
all. A flare like that—you can get one anywhere on a ship. Any
ship."
"Rightl"
Sixx confirmed. "Useless to try backtracking on it But
the event serves one good purpose, a long-shot assumption that it is somehow
tied in with whatever is happening on Martas—which means you need a bodyguard."
"Does that make a difference?"
"Does to us!" Lowry declared. "We were sold this assignment as an easy one. Just going through the motions. But we, too, have
intuitions."
"We
know Jason Horn," Sixx amplified sadly. "Him and
his easy jobs!" The conversation veered away to less harrowing
things. The meal came, went and they were well on the way to building close
friendships beyond the call of duty when the word came from Canberra II that
all its flare canisters had been counted and accounted for.
"So much for that." Lowry said. "We could*ve checked out
their passenger list if we had any idea what or who to look for. Short of a
flash of genius, it looks as if we are just going to have to stick with you
like glue, Louise."
"I can't think of anyone I'd rather be
stuck with," she admitted. "I can't
remember a time I've ever felt so easy in anyone's company. As a rule I'm
smothered in low-key disapproval or badly camouflaged sympathy, like a thin
gray fog. But not with you two."
"You
mean you register the way we feel, too?" Sixx demanded, staring at her.
This was easy to do. She had discarded her dark suit for a pale green
confection she called a harem rig that fitted her at wrists, ankles, and neck
and was airily loose everywhere else. And she had talked freely and at great
length about anything and everything as if some long-locked floodgate had
suddenly come open. Now she could grin mischeviously
at him.
"Call
it picking up unconscious clues if you like, but I usually do know what people
are thinking. Feelings and attitudes, anyway."
"Beats me," Lowry wondered, "why you stay with police
work. With all that talent to spare?"
"I've
worked on that one, too, Roger. Try this. Name me one other profession where it
is taken for granted that you can snoop at will, mind other people's business,
ask all the questions you like, and safely appear to know all sorts of things
you've no real right to know. Go on!"
Lowry
scowled a moment in thought. "Medical work? Psychology?"
"Certainly,"
she agreed. "So long as you produce documentary evidence that you believe
in the recognized theories and standards and that you follow the approved
methodology. Even if it doesn't work? You have to give
that much credit to police work. It's
results which count all the time. And I get those." Even, Sixx had to
remind himself, with a staggering load of hooch aboard. He was still finding it
hard to break away from the conviction that she was handicapped by alcohol.
Neither he nor Lowry was at all puritan, they were as fond of a convivial snort
as anyone, but both men knew the danger of mixing drink with business, their
kind of business particularly, where fast reflexes could make all the
difference between the quick and the dead. And it was an effort to accept the
fact that she was better off stoned. When he pursued that thought further he
kept having the image of a thoroughbred racehorse condemned to puU a farm cart
They
were a few minutes out of warp, lazily orbiting the Arcturus Outer Beacon while
Lowry radio-checked the prospects of a caravan to Spica. Joe was doing tricks,
abetted by Suae. 'This is quite a region for spectaculars," he assured
her, "apart from that—the Whirlpool Nebula. M.51.—there's that one there,
one of the biggest globular clusters you're ever likely to see. M.3., that is. And a few pretty-color binaries. Joe, show us Epsilon Bootes."
"They
don't look reall" she exclaimed "Orange and green doesn't seem proper
for stars, somehow."
"Hey,
Rexl" Lowry, at the radio desk, slid an earpiece aside. "You ought to
hear this. News from Martas."
"Martas?"
Sixx was alert instantly. Lowry spoke into his mike.
"Request
replay from beginning, item reference Sol Senator Arthur Vancec. Over." He moved a switch, and the loudspeaker sizzled
as a flatly nonemotional voice came on.
"Dateline
ARATNI, capital city of Dolgozni, planet Martas, four-month, three-day,
nine-thirty hours, standard time. Police chief Ramon Martinez announced, as
reported to him from Iskola, the body of Solar Senator Arthur Vancec was found in a
guest villa, part of the property area of Bernard Hoff, Iskolan, earlier today.
Report indicates Vancec apparentiy shot at close range by some not-yet-found
weapon of a solid-projectile explosive-charge type. As the Iskolans have no
law-enforcement agency of their own, the tragedy was immediately referred to
Chief Martinez who states for the record that he will not hesitate to use all
the resources at his command in dealing with the unhappy affair. It is
understood here that Sol Senator Vancec was on a fact-finding tour of Martas,
and one of the rare few to be invited to visit Iskola. It is common knowledge
that Iskola is rigidly isolationist. No official visits have been permitted in
more than thirty years. Rumor has it that all is not well in this so-called
super-cultural enclave. For a full discussion and résumé of the known facts on the Iskola phenomenon, hold this channel
immediately following this news roundup. For an appreciation and biography of
the late Solar Senator Vancec . . ."
Lowry
canceled the noise with a finger. "We don't need that I doubt if they know
any more about Iskola than we do. As for Vancec, somebody was bound to shoot him
sooner or later. You're the boss, Louise. What now?"
"Time
is everything now," she said. "For the murder of a solar senator, the
higher-ups will want somebody bigger than me, almost for sure, but it's my duty
to get there as fast as possible, grab all the data there is before somebody
spoils it. How soon can we leave?" She looked
to Sixx,
who passed to Lowry.
"Next
caravan due out isn't for another seventy-two hours yet. Nothing
else going that way at all before then."
"Hmm!" Sixx rubbed his chin. "How important is time, Louise? I mean, we can get you there in around ten hours if we have to, but it will be
rough going. Very roughl"
Four
"I
don't quite understand. If a standard warp ship takes twenty-four hours to
travel that distance . . . ?"
"And a cozy-comfy ride, sure. He has a
big unit. The optima are different. We have our own warp capacity for
emergencies. It's rough. It's a bit like trying to push a rowboat at forty
knots over a stormy sea, but we can do it if we have
to."
"If
you can stand it, I canl" she declared. "Given enough poison."
"That's
another thing," he told her. "Warp fields do funny things to people
sometimes. That's why ships in caravan lay well out from the master, out on the
fringe. We will be right in the middle of ours. Wouldn't want
to see you lose your talents, for instance."
"You
have got to be joking." She rose from her seat readily. "There's
nothing I would like better. Shall we go?"
Traveling
inside their own warp field was every bit as bumpy as
Sixx had predicted. It wasn't a thing they did any oftener than they had to.
The globular field put out by a warp master was big enough to absorb and smooth
out the serial transitions from one artificial field of reference to the next,
the rapidly repetitive leap from one "forbidden" state to another.
The clipper's generator lacked that resilience, hence everything within its
field buck-jumped to each split-second twist. The purely physical effect could
be warded off to some degree by cushioning, by the special suits the two men
wore, or in Miss Latham's case, by the genie from the bottle. But there was no
way of shielding the mental effect. Sixx recalled one explanation he had heard,
on an analogy with image persistence in vision.
"If
the retinal image did not persist after the original stimulus, we would never
be able to see coherent pictures
of anything.
The brain
functions to assemble the persistent
traces of a view-field
scan into a picture. God
knows what we would 'see' if
the traces
didn't persist—a stipple of spiral traces,
maybe? Anyway, our perception of 'reality,' whatever that is,
functions in the same way.
And the
fact is that within the operational
center of a warp field
'reality' is changing faster
than we can keep up
with it The body, being material,
just goes along with, but
the consciousness, whatever that
is, gets
left behind in confusion somewhere, struggling to make
sense out of it."
He lay on
his bunk,
safe inside his suit, which
was safe
inside the ship, and
he knew—and
tried not to feel bodiless,
jellified, impossibly strewn through insubstantial
space, while eddies of
unlikely energy and nameless colors
swirled around and through
him. As in any nightmare
the solid rational knowledge that this
was all
illusion did nothing at all to
help.
Joe, being
"nothing more" than a highly
sophisticated complex of electronic
pathways, suffered no such malaise. He brought
Clipper IV expertly to within
sensor range of Bardak's plasma envelope,
kicked out the warp, and
then dutifully set course
for Marias
as instructed.
Sixx reassembled himself unwillingly, levered up
to his
feet heard Lowry go
heavily by, and reached his
cabin door in time to see
his partner
come back bearing Miss Latham as a limp burden
in his
arms.
"Shell be all right Rex.
I know
what she needs."
"Pour one for
me, too,
Roger. 11 be
down in a minute." Sixx made a rapid check
of the
control room just in case
Joe had gone wild, then followed on down
to the
lounge. Miss Latham was stirring, trying
valiantly to grin, holding a glass
in both
hands. Sixx settled into a
seat, reaching for the drink already
set out
for him,
thumbing the terminal read-out with his
other hand.
"We have
maybe half an hour before
we can
strike orbit," he said.
"It only takes a minute
or two
for this
disaster feeling to wear
off. How d*you feel?"
"Like death
would be welcomel" She sipped
and sighed.
"You're past
the worst
already. You'll live!"
"The awful part,"
she managed
to smile
properly now, "was that it was
beginning to make a kind
of sense
after a while. Fugitive glimpses of
another world showing through the cracks
in this
one."
But it took
only a little while, as
Sixx had said, for the
nightmare to dissolve and
normal clarity to come back.
In due course Joe summoned them to the
control room where an audio signal was repeating, ". . . identify. This is
Aratni Beacon. Identify. This is . . ."
Sixx
did the talking, discreetly from documents, while Joe nudged the ship expertly
into orbit and the cameras gave them a panorama of the planet. It was in many
ways similar to Earth. Two major land masses were crowded into one hemisphere,
with scattered strings and necklaces of small islands to decorate the seas of
the other. But here both continents lay across the equatorial line, with only
stub tails of land stretching anywhere near the temperate zones.
"Hot!"
Sixx mused. "Hot all over. Humid. Plenty of rainfall. Subtropical. Hardly a paradise. What you get you have to work for."
Aratni
had taken a minute or two to digest their information, but once that was done
the rest of the formalities passed quickly enough. "That's our mark, down
there." Sixx indicated a wide-mouthed harbor where the line and pattern of
civilization could be seen even at this distance. "We'll splash down there
next time around. And that's Iskola. Looks as if they haven't
done a thing to it since they moved in."
All
three of them studied the jungle-green expanse of land that lay a little to the
east of Dolgozni. "It certainly looks primitive," Miss Latham agreed.
"But what are those plumes there? Smoke,
vapor—what?"
Higher
magnification, aimed at the long, low, rugged southern coastline, showed that
the while vapor trails were regularly spaced, with just the hint of structural
work between them. Another set of plumes inland showed similar features.
"Mountain-top installations of some kind," Sixx guessed. "Could be anything." He switched to something
else. "You'll notice," he said, "that
the sea lane between Iskola and Dolgozni is around two hundred miles."
"And," Lowry carried the thought
on, "that Iskola has no visible harbor facilities, landing pads, nor
beacon signal."
"Plus the fact," Sixx rounded it
off, "there is only one com-sat, and that is geostationary over Dolgozni.
That we have spoken to Aratni and no one else, and that we are landing in that
harbor. Iskola is introverted, all right."
"But not any more," Lowry pointed
out. "Not with a murder to explain away. Especially when
the body happens to be 'Nosey' Vancec. If somebody had it in mind to
tear down Iskola's veil, he couldn't have picked a better way."
"Now
hold on a minute, you two I" Miss Latham protested.
"Why would anybody want to do that?"
"Plenty of reasons." Sixx watched the island image slide off the
screen and turned to grin at her. "How's this one? The official front is
that Iskola is a haven for discontented antisocial supermen. But it could just
as easily be a prison, too. Two hundred miles is quite a swim! Roger'—" he
turned to his partner, "—when you were digging data on Iskola, did you
turn up figures on renegades? Those who were accepted and later dropped
out?"
"Nil."
Lowry sat back thoughtfully. "Not one in fifty years. I put all the hard
data in Joe's store if you want to look at it"
Joe supplied them with a neat grid of figures, curves, and averages. Sixx studied it curiously. "Average yearly applicants, a fraction over thirty.
Average reject rate, a shade
less than two. That's low!"
"The
preliminary tests are rugged," Lowry pointed out "I never got to see
one. Seems they tailor them to each individual applicant But
I did manage to talk to one or two who'd got that far and then backed off. They
were tough, so a five-percent reject rate isn't all that surprising."
"Perhaps
not but you could read it another way. Once you set foot on Iskola, you have a
less than one in twenty chance of ever getting back!"
"Now just a minute!" Miss Latham protested again, chuckling now.
"You two are committing the basic sin, theorizing ahead of your data.
Let's wait until we know what we're talking about. Crime,
yes. Murder, possibly. But not the internal ethics of
a so-called Utopia. Remember, Iskola is private property, and it's no
one else's business how they live."
"It
is now," Sixx contradicted her. "Vancec's untimely demise has made
sure of it. In a murder investigation there's no such thing as privacy, as you
certainly know." She made a face at him, and then Joe interrupted with a
gentle warning that landing was imminent
The
harbor at Aratni was not so very different from any of a score of trader
planets the two men had visited. If anything, it looked a little cleaner and
was certainly hotter than most, but the backdrop skyline of grain towers and
mineral warehouses was familiar enough. And the organization was efficient No
sooner had the girdle clamps secured the clipper in her appointed berth than a
hydrofoil came skimming alongside to collect them.
"Stone
everywhere," Sixx commented as they were driven swiftly away from the
dockside area into the city proper. "You'd think with the jungle on the
doorstep, they'd use more wood, but they build in this gray-brown stone as if
it came free! Gives one a heavy, solid feeling!"
Miss
Latham was unhappy. Her dress was a compromise between colonial primness and
the sweltering heat, so she was not comfortable, but her unease was more than
just that. Sixx paid attention to her. "What?" he demanded.
"It's
hard to name," she said. "General resentment.
People at constant odds with the environment. The
living is grudging. But there's more. They do not like us. It is a specific and
distinct animus. Can't think why."
Police
headquarters was massive, imposing, and mercifully cool within. Stony-faced
staff saw them to an elevator that lifted them to the roof. Police Chief
Martinez wasted no time in accounting for some of the resentment. He was small,
dark, and with some of the Latin volatility his name would suggest, but
steel-hard purpose showed through his set smile.
"I
recognize your uniforms, Mr. Sixx, Mr. Lowry. I respect your credentials, Miss
Latham I will cooperate with you to the best of my ability—in due course. But I
do not accept, or trust, or welcome you—not yet. If 1 am abrupt, direct, it is
because I have learned that it saves time to state a position clearly. The
formal pretenses, the conventional untruths, have very little value
here." It was all said through a smile that was little more than showing
teeth Sixx, with his helmet under one arm, tried a grin of his own.
"No
need for you to get too involved, Chief. All you need
do is pass on to Miss Latham whatever data you have on the affair and then
point us in the direction of Iskola. We'll take it from there."
"You have not understood." Martinez
kept his toothy smile. "You go nowhere, do nothing, I tell you nothing
until I am satisfied you are what you say you are. Here and now!"
"That's quite an order," Sixx
murmured. "How do you intend doing it?"
"It is already in progress. Your every
movement, action, sound, and appearance have been
monitored from the moment you first entered our ionospace. Those data are being
analyzed now. Also there will be a physical check." Martinez moved to his
desk to touch a button and sound impatient.
"Physical check?" Sixx queried, but before Martinez could explain, doors slid open to
admit a large cushion-tired trolley bristling with gadgetry. Leaning on it to
keep it moving was a tall, lean, startle-haired man of about fifty in a white
dust coat.
"Ahl
Dobnyl" Martinez trotted forward to lend a hand in bringing the trolley to
a standstill. "I introduce. This is Dr. Edgar Dobny, head of our forensic
laboratories. Dobny, this is Miss Latham of Interstelpol who has come to deal
with the affair Vancec. And her escort, two agents of Interstellar
Security." He swiveled to his company. "You are honored. Dobny is a
very busy man. Not often does he perform tests like these in person."
'Tests?" Sixx eyed the gadgetry warily. "That contraption will prove to
you that I am what I say I am?"
"It
willl" Martinez sounded positive as he strode back to his desk. Lowry
shook his head fractionally.
"Looks
like a polygraph with doodads," he murmured. "Yours,
Dr. Dobny?"
The
man in the dust coat, almost a caricature of the proverbial "mad
scientist," turned away from an array of verniers and smiled
apologetically, a smile quite different from Martinez's. "Not my design,
no. I have done small things to it, modifications in assembly and layout, but
the essential circuitry and design was supplied to me from Iskola. At my request. A device such as this is quite beyond my
modest powers."
"You
are too modest, Edgar. You are every bit as much a genius as any of those over
there!"
"No,
no, Ramon. I know my limits." Dobny was quietly firm. He turned his gentle
smile on the others. "I once applied to join Iskola. And
failed. What more proof is needed than that?"
"But
you do have relationships with Iskola?" Sixx asked, hoping to steer the
talk into less explosive areas.
"Oh
yes. They are not ogres. In a way I suppose one should regard them as a
many-headed oracle. They operate a problem-solving service, but one has to ask
the proper questions. Not always an easy thing to do."
"Hahl"
Martinez snorted. "Why wouldn't they tell us what to do about
laterization? Why?"
"I've already told
you, Ramon, perhaps they dont know. Perhaps there is nothing that can be done.
But most probably the answer involves economic advantage, and they do not
answer questions like that As we all know."
"Don't
they charge fees?" Lowry demanded, and Dob-ny's smile grew. He trailed a
heavy power cable away, pushed it into a wall outlet
"A
logical question," he admitted. "No, they do not charge. There is an
automatic radio terminal by the south seawall. All communications flow by that
route. You'll have to use it you know, before you can get in. But, as I meant
to point out, we can and do monitor all questions in and answers out. They
answer about once in a thousand times. And there is no charge. In this
case—" he gestured to the machine, "—I asked if it was possible to
measure personal integrity by a machine. This was the result. So far as I can
understand the circuits, it indicates consistency—or lack of it—between the
speech centers and the premotor lobes. Oversimplifying, if you say one thing
and think another, it will show up."
Out
of the subsequent silence Lowry sighed and said, "That makes sense of a
kind. You couldn't make a profit on it and that's your economic-advantage
angle. But the social benefits are obvious."
"Exactly!" Dobny beamed. "And, of course, the entire raison d'être of Iskola is sociological. Well, it is all
ready. Who will be first?"
"Take
me," Lowry offered. "How much of me d'you want?"
"Only your head. Sit here. I place the cradle over your head
so and adjust things. Then you will state your name, age, sex, occupation, and
office."
Sixx shifted his attention to Miss Latham.
Already he had learned to read signs on her, and she was in distress under her
surface calm. This was not the time or place to ask what was twanging her
sensitive nerve ends. In the hope of diversion he asked softly, "What's
laterization?"
"IVe
no idea," she muttered. "Rex, I'm scared. Something hurts!"
Sixx
touched her hand, turned to look to where Martinez
sat sternly at his desk. "Doesn't your office run to conventions in
hospitality, either, Chief? Like a little something from a bottle,
maybe?"
Martinez
converted his set smile into a sneer by changing small fractions of his facial
set and Sixx shrugged.
"So much for that. You'd better go next, Louise. Get it
over with. Looks like Roger's all through and
clear."
Her
face was pale and set as she moved to take the chair Lowry had vacated. Sixx
caught just a taste of what she must be feeling and shivered. By the pricking of my thumbs, he
thought, there's something cockeyed somewhere, but what? Is she scared of what the gadget will show?
Lowry
had moved back, apparently in innocent watchfulness, but something about his
casual movements caught Sixx's attention and held it. Roger was on to—or up to—
something. What? Dobny busied himself resetting his controls, took the cradle
delicately, smiled at Miss Latham.
"Sit
quite still," he said. "I place this over your head like this and
adjust it. When I ask, you will state your name, age, sex, occupation, and
office. You understand?"
"Yes!"
Her voice came faintly and heavily furred. Dobny turned to his controls. Sixx
had a sudden irrational sense of panic, the itch to call out "Stop!"
but before he could override his natural reluctance, Dobny threw his master
switch. And nothing. For a long moment he stared at
his read-out in wordless wonder. Then—"Damn! There must be something
wrong!"
"Could it be this?" Lowry spoke,
pointing down to the input cable, the plug end of which lay detached on the
carpet. "Must have caught it with my foot!"
Dobny
scowled, mumbled something inaudible, and went down on a knee to replace the
plug. But Lowry had his foot firmly on it. "Rex!" he said. "Get
Louise out from under that thing and clear. Just to be on the
safe side, huh?"
Baffled
but keeping a straight face, Sixx did as he was told, took her hand, led her three steps clear. "What is the meaning of
this?" Martinez blared.
Lowry
ignored him entirely. Grinning down at Dobny he said, "All right, go ahead
and plug it in. Now!"
The
forensic man hesitated, his gentle smile all gone, his brow agleam with sweat.
Then he took the plug and rammed it home. In the same instant there came clicks
and squeaks from the gadgetry, a sudden crackling corona in and around the head
cradle, then the explosive pop of an overloaded breaker. And then a spreading,
loaded silence.
Five
Sixx held his breath and kept still, feeling
Miss Latham's fingers twitch in his. Lowry reached down deliberately with a
large hand, hauled Dobny to his feet by the collar of his dust coat, urged him
toward his instrument.
"Don't
claim to be specially bright," he murmured,
"but I do use my eyes. See this little jigger here? For me you had that
set at one point five volts. See where it is now? Fifteen hundred! You ought to
be a bit more careful, mister, when you're playing with things like that!"
Dobny
stared, goggled—and then his eyes rolled up, and he went sack limp in Lowry's
grasp. Behind his desk Martinez was spluttering incoherencies until Lowry let
Dobny's lifeless form slump to the carpet and marched across the office
deliberately. Sixx stifled a huge grin. This was Roger in rare form, piling it
on, using all his impressive bulk to tower over the police chief.
"Looks
like your pet machine is busted," he announced. "And your pet expert
has fainted from the shock. And you are dead lucky that's all it is, too.
Anything had happened to Miss Latham here, you'd have had the whole of
Interstelpol down on your neck! You—and him!"
"It was
accident—accident!"
"Maybe. He put the machine together. He set it up. You gave the order for him
to do it. Miss Latham could've been killed! Some accident! What's your favorite
charge, mister? Malfeasance, criminal negligence, attempted
homicide, accessory before, during, and after—or what?"
"There
was no crime!" Martinez howled. "It was accident! Not intended! No
one is hurt!"
"That's
your story. This has to be reported, and it will be, just exactly the way it
happened."
"But
you saw! It was unintentional! You cannot say otherwise! Dobny, you fool, get up!" Martinez was bab-
bllng,
jabbing at buttons on his desk. The stink of overheated insulation made itself
unpleasantly apparent now, and Sixx could lift the clamps on his nerves and
begin to shake with the aftermath. But Miss Latham was completely at ease now.
"It's
gone" she announced. "All clear. For a while, anyway."
"Hmm!" Sixx glanced to Dobny's unconscious sprawL "Was it him? I mean,
was it deliberate? Can you tell?"
"Not
to be sure, no. I did get an odd sensation from him, almost like fear, but
there was so much general animus—still is—that it's hard to be specific. Nothing at all from him now, of course. And Roger is scaring
Chief Martinez sick. I had better rescue him, poor man."
She
did it very well, too. With no apparent effort she hushed Lowry, moved him,
took his place, and without raising her voice she laid it on the line for
Martinez in no uncertain terms. He was already in the spotlight glare over the
Vancec business. Unless he wanted the full severity of a hard-nosed Interstelpol investigation on his neck, into his office and
the total workings thereof, he would be wise to start cooperating right away,
totally.
"Begin," she advised, "by
assuming that we are what we say we are and go on from there. Your machine is
useless, forget it. I want the full dossier, everything you have, on Solar
Senator Vancec. You will arrange communication with whoever is in charge on
Iskola. And I believe Mr. Sixx suggested something to drink?" She had her
own brand of magic. Sixx was impressed—and enlightened, too. It must help, he
thought, to know what the other person is feeling. And that was how, he
realized belatedly, she had slid so easily into familiar terms with himself and
Roger. That was something he promised himself he would think more about later.
Just now, things were happening fast. Many hands came to remove Dobny and his
device. A slim folder was produced and put into her hand. A shapely bottle made
its appearance—and glasses.
"Local
produce," Martinez apologized. "You may find it crude. It is robust.
To be delicate one should add it to water, thus."
Something like absinthe, Sixx thought, and
with the same syrupy consistency but lacking the anise bouquet. He approached it with caution. Miss Latham,
using the minimum dilution, threw hers down her throat with no more than a
blink and returned her attention to the dossier in her hand, reading and
turning the pages swiftly while Martinez goggled. Sixx had his own questions.
"Did
you have any trouble with Senator Vancec while he was here in Dolgozni,
sir?"
"Nothing to remark, no. Security-wise he was no problem. I have only the layman's knowledge of economics, you understand, but I understand he was satisfied that no individual or group is or was making
a large profit. One gathers that to the senator it was a crime to become rich.
On that principle we of Dolgozni are all law-abiding citizens. To make enough this year to live on next—that is an achievement
here."
"Jan
Bardak got rich," Sixx pointed out. "That ought to have made him
Public Enemy Number Onel"
"He still is! If he still lives!"
"You're
old enough to remember him, sir, and obviously not with any affection. Just
what did he do, anyway?"
Martinez
scowled, visibly restraining unpleasant thoughts. "He made fools of us,
all of usl" he growled at last. "We came here in high hopes, Mr.
Sixx. We had a lush, green, fertile continent to our hand, adequate machinery,
and a vast market ready and waiting for our produce, our foodstuffs, our
minerals. Bardak was our great man. He spun the plan for us. We would work
hard, yes, for three, four, even five years. But then we would reap, each man
his own, not to give anything away in punitive percentages to some absentee
franchise-holder, none of that. We were scientifically cooperative, you see?
And it was hard work. That jungle, it is ferocious and insatiable. We had to clear
it to get at the soil and the rare minerals, to make roads, towns, places to
work and live. But we did it. We began to win.
"We are divided into regions, you
understand, each with its own general problems. Bardak had a small share in
everything. He worked harder than any of us, here, there, everywhere, to help,
show, explain, advise. Always patient,
wise, helpful. A hero!" Martinez snorted
at the memory. "Who was surprised when at last he said he wanted to drop
out7 No one. It was too much for one man, he said, and we understood. The
problems were dissolving, the way ahead was clear, and he was weary, he said.
And we believed him. We were willing—eager, even glad—to buy out his share of
everything. We made him rich, but we didn't mind because we were all going
to be
rich, too. We forged ahead on our own—for a
while."
The
toothy smile 'became a grimace. "For a while. But
then, somehow . . . everything went . . . stiff! The crop returns dwindled. The
machinery-failure rate escalated. The jungle crept back. The soil grew poor.
The minerals were harder to get, not so rich. He knew!" Martinez slammed
his desk. "He knew it was coming! 'We are over
the hill!' he said. How true. Now we are down in the hole! And he sits over
there in Iskola—and laughs at us!"
"li
he's still alive," Sixx cautioned.
"He
lives for us in infamy. We remember him with every drop of our sweat, Mr.
Sixx."
"Sorry
to break in." Miss Latham was brisk. "This dossier is fine, is
thorough, but it's data only. A computer could handle it. I need to be where it
happened, and soon. By your time the body was found yesterday, early. That is quite enough delay, we shouldn't have much more."
"Of course!" Martinez was all anxious eagerness now. "Transport—" he
touched buttons and spat orders, "—is waiting. Do you wish anything more of Dr. Dobny?"
"Ill leave you
to deal with him. I wouldn't say no to another glass of your local product,
though. What do you call it?"
"Villaml"
Martinez told her, watching in awe as she threw down one more
hefty slug. "In the Hungarian it means lightning."
"It
certainly hits the spot!" she agreed cheerfully, and they departed before
Martinez could think of an adequate comment. This time they were driven north
and east, through the city, and Sixx turned a different eye now on the solid
stone building. The shapes and designs made little or no concession to grace or
ease. Life, he mused, is full of care, with little time to stand and stare. All in grim earnest.
To
Miss Latham he said, "The common animus seems to be against Jan Bardak.
Seems he outsmarted them so much they can't ever forgive him. That's their
story. A motive?"
"For the crime wave or the murder?" Lowry demanded. "They differ in
emphasis, Rex. The Iskolans asked for help about their crime wave. That was a
private thing, internal. The murder is something different."
"I
won't buy it as a coincidence, Roger." Miss Latham was quietiy positive.
"I've seen too many that looked it and weren't. And you have to add in two attempted hits on me. Put that
all together and the pattern begins to look familiar. To me,
anyway."
"You've
been attacked before?" Sixx queried, realizing the obvious answer even as
he spoke. She nodded gently.
"More times than I care to count. The criminal mind is pragmatic to a degree.
If a method or technique works, you use it again and again, why not? And if
your plots and plans regularly fall apart in the presence of a certain
individual, then somehow that individual is responsible. So, to ensure success
next time, eliminate that person. It's really very simple. Fortunately for me I
have my own built-in alarm system."
Of a
kind, Sixx thought, but it's only
an alarm, not a protection. He shelved that idea and looked ahead with interest. By now they were
clear of the city and following a narrow causeway over a shingle beach, aiming
for a bleak pier that thrust into the sea. The police car halted within ten
yards of a low, featureless building that straddled the pier.
"From
here," the driver said pointedly, "it is up to them."
"And
a long walk back if they don't admit us." Sixx watched the car swoop
around and depart. He felt no premonitory tingles. Louise looked interested but
unwor-ried. They marched ahead and in, through automatic doors, into busy
quiet, the subdued chatter of relays, the ghost dance of fugitive lights over
panel arrays but a clearly obvious pathway to be followed.
"There's no one here." Miss Latham
was positive. "Just machinery. A sense of neutral
curiosity, if there is such a thing."
"Follow
the arrows." Lowry pointed practically, and they came soon to a minor
auditorium, a place where a semicircle array of benches faced a screen that
covered one entire wall. The bench arms were inlaid with contact buttons. Sixx
eyed these respectfully.
"I
imagine we are supposed to sit," he said, "but I suggest we don't
touch anything else just yet. Whoever laid out this lot didn't believe in
labels." The act of sitting must have triggered something, for as soon as
they were settled, the screen glowed and in a moment dissolved into the
hole-in-the-wall effect of well-cared-for electro-optics. Sixx nodded in
approval both of the technique and the scene. They saw into a cool green
garden, with a subdued riot of
flowers on either side and
an expanse
of carpetlike
turf inviting the eye toward
a far
archway between two dark-trunked
trees. They heard bird song
and the
indefinable drowsy hum of
insect life. "Prettyl"
Sixx murmured. "Good sales line.
I like
it. Anybody home?"
A quietly impersonal
voice told him, "Human Tillet has been called, is
approaching now. Wait, please."
"Nice voice, too,"
Lowry murmured. "They keep their
electronics in good shape,
Rex."
"I'm
a little
surprised they use any at
all. Maybe I have it all
wrong, but I'd always imagined
your superman as being above that
kind of thing."
"Hush!" Miss Latham urged. "Someone coming. She might be able to
hear what you're saying!"
That it was
a "she"
there could be no doubt
from the moment she appeared in
the tree
arch and started walking across the turf to the
camera. From bosom to hip
she was
loosely draped in something
creamy yellow. The rest of
her was a poem
of golden
browns, the tints of a
blonde who has lived long in
sun and
air. Barefoot, bareheaded, she
moved in perfect resonance with
the trees,
the flowers,
the tamed wilderness, as if she belonged
there. The movement sold Sixx
long before she was near
enough for him to see her
attractively homely grin, her amused
blue stare. He had seen pretty
girls before, beyond count. This
was a
beautiful woman, a rare
and different
thing entirely. When
she was head and
shoulders in the picture, she
halted, glanced aside, and
the scene
moved with her to a
tree-shaded, tile-floored corner with a
chair. She sat, did something
that turned up brighter lights
in the
little auditorium.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Alma Tillet."
There was just the faintest hint of Scottish angularity
in her
speech. "I assume you're from
Interstelpol. Will you identify yourselves,
please. The slot
for your
I.D. cards is in the
left arm, front"
"I'm Interstelpol,"
Miss Latham offered, inserting her
card. "I'm Louise Latham.
These men are—bodyguards, I suppose you'd
call them."
The Iskolan
looked aside and down as
the two
men used their cards in the
required manner. After a moment
of study she nodded
to herself.
"Interstellar Security,
yes. That
explains it. Your benches are designed
to provide
me with metabolic data, among other things,
but your
suits, gentlemen, are interfering with that. I must ask you—there's a
plate, green, rectangle, front right. Your bare hand, please."
"What
are you looking for, Miss Tillet?" Lowry asked as both men complied with
her request.
"Many things, Mr. Lowry. General state of health about covers it. I
am getting wild variables from you, Miss Latham. Is there an explanation you'd
care to give at this time?"
"I'd rather not just now.
It's complicated and personal."
"As you wish. My concern is only to collect the data. Others will interpret it and
use it My function is to explain."
"Just
that?"
Sixx queried, as she didn't go on.
"Just that, Mr. Sixx. I explain one person to another. Interpreter? Generalist? Analogist? There are
many possible labels. I keep busy."
"I can imagine!"
he agreed warmly, and she laughed.
"It's
not so wonderful. You'll see if and when you ever have to explain yourself to
me in the first place. I'm told I help people to think straight. Maybe I do. Ah
well, there's a surface craft on the way. I will meet you here and be your
guide."
"I feel we are putting
you to a lot of trouble."
"Not at all, Miss Latham. It is my routine duty period for being
available to new applicants, if and when, so I am spared that. It is no
pleasure at all to reject people, which we do, nine times out of ten."
"You do?" Sixx
asked, and she shook her head.
"Not personally, no. You are sitting in
the middle of some very delicate and comprehensive test machinery, Mr. Sixx.
All I have to do is read off."
"You
seem to rely rather a lot on gadgetry." Miss Latham said it with a suggestion of disapproval. Alma Tillet chuckled.
"That's
the coarse screen. We use devices extensively to do all those things a machine
can do better than a person. Why not?"
"Why not?" Miss Latham agreed. "Thus leaving you
free to concentrate on human problems, things a machine wouldn't
understand?"
"Yes." The Iskolan looked wary now.
"So why don't we catch our own criminals?"
"I'm sorry to be so obvious, but yes.
After all, if the legends about Iskola are true at all, every last one of you
is head and shoulders smarter than I will ever be."
"Not like that." Alma Tillet was
prompt and positive. "We have our differences, certainly, but they are not
vertical. Not easy to explain, either, not in a few words. Let me offer an
analogy. Your personal health and welfare are your own concern always, but if
and when you fall ill, or suffer injury or infection, you immediately put
yourself into the hands of an outside expert, a doctor. Would you agree?"
"Yes,
but—" Lowry objected quickly, "—the way I hear it, the entire point
of the Iskolan venture is to work toward an ideal society, and a proper study
of that surely has to include crime, just as a gardener has to know all about weeds."
"Well
put." The Iskolan smiled. "I must remember that line. But it is not a
parallel. The gardener and the garden are separate. We are Iskola. And we are not in any sense trying to build a society here. We
are a society, the optimum pattern for us. What we are doing is an analysis of
the various social designs thrown up by mankind over the centuries in the hope
of being able to set a pattern that will work for ordinary people everywhere.
It is complex. Try this, for instance, Mr. Lowry. The ideal society would have
no stated rules as such because it would be so designed that everyone would do
the right thing, anyway. Like a suit of clothing that would fit anyone and
everyone perfectly?"
"I
still don't see it," Sixx objected. "If you're studying social history, that has to include crime. I admit you sent for
Louise before the murder came up, but that's only a matter of degree, surely?"
"Not
quite. We use data. A social analyst must use data. As
objectively as possible. But we are now involved in this, so it is no
longer data but phenomena. We hope . . . Louise . . . will provide us with
data. A doctor, if I may reinvoke my analogy, should never diagnose himself
when ill because, being ill, 'his critical judgment is impaired. You see? And
we are involved now." Alma Tillet chuckled again,
glanced aside at some indicator or other. "Your transport should be almost
there by now. Ill see you again soon."
Six
The picture illusion winked out, and Sixx
consulted his watch. "Half an hour for two hundred
miles! That's some boat, if it is a boat!"
"Some girl, too!" Lowry declared as they passed through the small auditorium and out into
the hot sunshine again. "She's bright. I liked that bit about how a society should fit like a well-made
suit."
"I
didn't," Miss Latham said. "I'm no expert in sociology, but I have
touched it a little. One has to in my job. And basically social 'behavior is a
learned process, which is just another way of describing conformity to a given
set of rules. Training. And all training has to be, at
bottom, yes you can this and no you can't that."
"There!"
Sixx pointed to where a V of white spray heralded the skim of something over
the blue sea toward the pier end. The split bow wave subsided as the craft
slowed and slid alongside. It was unmanned, a teardrop shape that looked
anything but fast as it wallowed in the waves while they scrambled down and
into the cushioned stem well. Athwart the bows was a flat panel with a speaker
grille. Sixx spoke to it.
"That's
the lot," he said. "Only three of us. All aboard. Home, James, or whatever your name is." To
his delight a gendy impersonal voice answered.
"Thank
you. Please distribute your weight evenly and remain seated." There came
the muted mutter of power as the ungainly craft swung away from the pier and
into speed, squattering over the water, bouncing more and more until all at
once the bump and bounce ceased and the power hum deepened.
"Down
foils!" Sixx assumed, turning to look aft. The glassite windbreak around
the gunwale climbed higher to cut off the growing gale, and he saw, astern,
that the
screw was now canted up out of the water and
acting as an air screw inside a snug, tubular housing. "Very neatl"
he commented. "We are now flying low. Smooth, tool"
"If you're impressed by that kind of thing!" Miss Latham sounded irritable now.
"Machinery is all very well in its place, but my concern is with people.
That approach to sociology we just heard is so obviously a fallacy that it is
suspicious in itself."
"How a fallacy?" Lowry challenged mildly. "What's wrong with a social system that
fits people instead of the other way around?"
"Because it is nonsense! Suit of clothes indeed! That immune suit of
yours is tailored to fit you, of course. But what is an ordinary suit of
clothing for? Clothing in general has a double function. It fits you, and it fits you into society. In the privacy of your own room you can take
it off, you can wear what you like—or nothing. But in public you wear what
society approves, only. We have had various degrees of exposure and cover-up,
over the ages, as we all know. It's called fashion.' But we have never had
total anarchy in dress, nor have we ever had total nudity, not for very long. Except in nudist camps, which exception makes my whole point.
There has to be some outward sign that identifies the members of a society, one
to another, if it's only a lick of paint In other words society requires you to
give something in order to get something. It has to be restrictive in some way
or it doesn't exist!"
"They
didn't have any nudity taboo in Ancient Greece," Sixx offered.
"Quite so!" she
retorted. "And how long did that last?"
Crushed, he sought a
different tack. "Is it important?"
"To
me, yes. IVe told you, I just get impressions. Hunches.
I need other people to implement them. And that requires social machinery. And by the sound of it the Iskolans haven't got any!"
"No
problem," Lowry murmured. "You have them over a barrel, Louise. The
murder of a Sol Senator moves this thing out of the parochial level. They are
going to have a full-scale investigation, one way or another, by you or
somebody else whether they like it or not. So all you have to do is lay it on
the line. Total and immediate cooperation or else! They'll play!"
"You
make it sound simple, but I'm not that kind of person, Roger."
"Still no problem." Lowry gave her an easy grin. "That's
what we are for, Rex and me. You just say, well fix it And
you sound as if you need this to be getting along with. For
motion sickness." He produced a flat flask from a recess in his
suit, and she took it gratefully, dealt with it at once. Sixx had to stifle a
sigh. Even though he knew her reasons, it was still ingrained in him to expect
a lurch and stagger, and thus an unconscious offense when she visibly
brightened and became more alert Then a dismaying thought struck him.
"Hey,
suppose Iskola is so utterly civilized as to have risen above the indulgence in
alcohol altogether?"
Miss
Latham opened her amber eyes wide in distress. "Oh no!" she breathed.
"Let's not anticipate any more bogies than we have to. There will be
enough headaches in this affair without inventing any."
"I
can think of a few," Lowry said. "Without
intuition. Just arithmetic and geography. Like
for instance, this is a mighty big island, and there are only a few Iskolans,
comparatively. So how do they keep out the unwanted?"
"Simple
question," Sixx admitted. "I'll bet there's a simple answer, too, but I can't think of it
offhand. Any more?"
"This one. My information, from the official records, says the rate of recruitment
into Iskola has been around twenty-eight out of thirty per year. But that Alma
Tillet just told us they fail nine out of ten. It could've been just a figure of speech, but I doubt she's that sort. She said nine out of ten, that is what she meant. And that is a long way from two
out of thirty. There has to be something cock«eyed
somewhere."
"Well
find out," Sixx soothed. "That's one nice thing,
we can ask questions and demand answers. If there's anything good to be said
for a murder, that's it." Then he lost his easy grin and turned curiously
to the coldly impersonal panel control and its speaker grille, as the subdued
hum of the hydrofoil's engine suddenly declined. "Why are we slowing down,
James?" he asked.
"Collision course, collision course!" The machine's voice held no note of alarm,
just precision. "Other craft are crossing our path. I am monitored to slow
down and wait for them to pass."
Lowry
was already on his feet and peering. "Over there, Rex. Looks like a power
tug and a long line of barges, about seven or eight of them."
Sixx joined him,
stood and stared where he pointed. The dark hull on the skyline was
featureless, the smaller blobs following in equal anonymity. He shrugged.
"So we will be a minute or two late at the other end. No harm done."
But even as he said it, he didn't believe it. Icy fingers traced out a message
along his spine, making him uneasy. He tried to laugh it off.
"I'm
catching the apprehension bug from you, Louise!'* He turned to her
half-apologetically, then forgot all his humor and tightened all over at her
pinched expression. Aside he muttered, "Keep a sharp eye on yon craft,
Roger. Looks as if Louise has smelled something foul
again." He moved close to her, took her hand. "What is it this
time? Can you give us any kind of hint or a pointer as to method,
anything?"
"I'm
sorry." She sounded choked and breathless. "I don't know a thing
except that it is very bad. I'm aching all over. And I'm cold all at
once."
"I
don't see how?" Lowry's growl came from up there, his internal problem not
diverting his hawk-eyed attention for one moment. "It doesn't make any
sense. That string of scows can't possibly run us down, or anything like it This foil can make rings around them."
"Right." Sixx agreed. "Only, it is computer-controlled, steered in response
to a set of stored patterns, and what will you bet there's nothing in there
that deals with marine warfare?"
"Even
then," Lowry argued, "it still doesn't add up. We know it is
programmed to avoid, so that string of craft can't possibly get closer than so
much. And it can't be any kind of armada. Nobody could whip up anything like
that at the drop of a hat!"
"They wouldn't have to," Sixx
responded promptly, appreciating the exercise. He knew full well that his
partner was not for one minute denying the threat, merely trying to chop it up
into logical fragments, to reason it out, and thus to analyze it down into
basics. It was a routine they had found very useful in the past. Eliminate the
impossibles and whatever was left had to be it "Look," he offered,
"they probably do a lot of sea haulage up and
down here. It would be a sight easier than flogging it on wheels through a
jungle. So a tug and convoy like that is by no means novel."
"Right!" Lowry agreed. "And no trouble at all to
persuade the skipper to make a little more room on board for a few laddies
with some lethal toys."
"That's
the way I would do it" Sixx backed away, squeezing Louise's hand
reassuringly and joining his colleague to stare at the enemy again. The tugs
and barges were closer now, a little more than a mile distant and to starboard
but steady on a course that would bring them dead ahead soon. "Where would
you plant 'em?" he asked.
"On a barge!" Lowry was prompt and confident "That
way the tug master and crew can claim they didn't know a thing about it should
it ever come to awkward questions afterwards."
"You
have a wicked mind." Sixx chuckled, then went back to crouch by Louise,
schemes spinning through his mind. She still looked cold.
"Can
you swim?" he asked, and she nodded, managed a painful grin.
"That's what it feels
like, the cold part In water."
"All
right You be ready for that, just in case. I need to
have words with our tin-brained friend here." He eyed the grille
thoughtfully, trying to estimate the capacity of the circuitry within.
"James,"
he said. "Boat Craft Hydrofoil. Robot How do I address you properly, please?"
"I
am programmed to respond to Navigator, as required."
"Thank
you, Navigator. Now, tell me, how do I override your course program and take
over manual control?"
"That
is not possible. I have only one program, to collect passengers from the
target point and return them safely to home base. I am equipped to use various
strategies to achieve that objective, but there is no way in which you can
take over manual control."
Sixx
scowled thoughtfully at that "What about emergencies?"
"Define emergency.'*
"Surely. Suppose, for Instance, one of your passengers should fall over the side
into the water?"
"In
that event I am constrained to remain within reaching distance of such a
passenger until such times as he returns inboard or, after a predetermined
lapse of time with no visible activity or attempt to return, to use the
hoisting equipment I have to bring him inboard and proceed with the course as
already laid down."
"That's fine!" Sixx patted the
grille approvingly. "Well keep you to that, friend." He moved away,
rejoined Lowry
at lookout. "Anything
new?"
"Difficult
to tell, but it looks as if the convoy is slowing down, losing speed. What
d'you expect them to do, Rex?"
"They
haven't much choice, as I see it. Either they throw something at us and/or the
foil to kill and/or sink or they come and get us. Or any
combination of all of those. Whatever, it wants some adjusting to, this
slow crawl. I've read about sea battles, but I never realized before just how
slow they must have been." He hadn't realized before, either, just how
isolated one could be in the midst of open waters, with the horizon shortened
into no more than five miles or so, but he didn't think that was worth
mentioning in the circumstances. Miss Latham came now to stand between them and
struggle to hide her distress.
"It
certainly looks," she said, "as if someone doesnt want me to get to
Iskola. I seem to be letting you boys in for a lot of trouble. I'm sorry."
"Don't
give it another thought," Sixx assured her. "This is all part of our
job. We deliver. We are used to it. AU you have to do is pay attention and do
exactly as we tell you." He eyed the wallowing barges, now uncomfortably
close and visibly slowing down. "At this stage we can't do a lot of
planning, so let's stick to basics until we see what they have in store for us.
Basic to all is that you keep us between you and them at all times. It is
perfectly natural for us to exhibit a little curiosity, which we are doing, but
you let us do that bit. We are being rude and standing
in front of you, right?" He drew her gently backward and joined shoulders
with Lowry to offer a screen of armor, at the same time making the fast and
practiced movements that sealed him into near-impregnability. He knew that
Lowry had done the same.
"My
guess would be laser rifles." Lowry's calm voice came in his ear.
"I'd pick the middle barge, myself."
"Ill
bet on the tail-end one." Sixx argued idly, his eyes raking the bulky
silhouettes hawklike for the first sign of movement. "If we got half a chance,
I think our best ploy is to fall artistically overboard and play dead. That way
we might save an attack on the foil itself. If they sink that, we are in real
trouble." He knew he was just talking to pass the time, not telling Lowry
anything he didn't already know. When a man is near-impregnable he learns to
think in backward terms, to let the enemy think he is helpless or hurt, to take
seemingly foolhardy chances. "There he is! End barge!"
A
dark head and shoulders showed suddenly against sun-dappled water, a man
hunched in the unmistakable attitude of aiming a weapon. Both men tensed. There
came a spit of orange-red flame, another, and a third, in snap-quick
succession. There were thin threads of barely visible fumes, a curious triple-echo cracking sound, and Sixx had barely time to guess
that the enemy was using something rocket-assisted when there came a leaping
fountain of water only a yard short of the foil and the hammer blow of
some kind of projectile over his left breast. There was no need at all for
artistic pretense. Whatever the thing was, it struck him hard enough to stagger
him backward, to set him grabbing at Lowry for balance, and all three of them
went over and backward into the water with an almighty splash.
"You
all right, Rex?" Lowry's voice came as he went down.
"No harm done." Sixx righted
himself and let the suit's buoyancy heave him to the surface. "Didn't even
dent me, but it packed a lot of punch, whatever it was."
"I
heard the third one go by me," Lowry growled. "Rocket-assist
supersonic solid, at a guess. They want to play rough, looks like."
It was his way of saying that the gloves were
off. Sixx felt the same. Shaking water from his visor, he looked around, saw Louise chin-deep and paddling gently. She seemed
calm enough. He switched to external speaker, stroked near.
"Grab
hold the side and hang on until we find out what's
next. It'll be nasty, whatever it is, so take no chances. Roger, where are
you?"
"By the stem. I can see them. Two-three of them at least.
They are lowering what looks like an inflatable. Coming to
check up on the damage. Do we split?"
"Check.
You have the best bangs in your kit. Go, man. Ill stay
and welcome the curious ones."
"On my way. Don't take any chances with those rocket launchers close up. The impact
won't be pleasant in the water."
"You
don't have to tell me that." Sixx paddled closer to Louise. "You
heard that?" She nodded. "How's the water, cold?"
"Not now. I can stand this for quite a
while. What happens next?"
"All sorts of things. Roger is submerged to about seven-eight feet by now and on his way to
do unpleasant things to yonder barge just to seal up one bolt hole. The enemy have lowered a boat and are on their way to do the
same sort of thing to us, but 111 tend to them. You just stay where you
are."
"Isn't there anything
I can do?"
"In a while, yes. I'll tell you when. That boat is going to circle us, obviously. Soon as
I see which end they are making for, I'll tell you, and you be
ready to paddle around the other side to keep out of sight."
"But I want to see
what goes on!"
"Don't
be difficult, now. I'll tell you all about it afterwards. You ready to
go?"
At her nod he paddled gently toward the bows
and edged himself around to where he could see. This low in the water, it
wasn't easy to pick out the small bulk of the bouncing inflatable, but he got
it as it reared up on a wavecrest, saw that it was heading almost directly
toward him. Turning, he splashed the water to attract her attention.
"Coming, this end,"
he called. "You make your way around the stern, all right?" As soon
as he was sure she understood and was moving, he made ready for his next move.
From a flat pocket in his suit he retrieved a knife, a highly useful implement
of flexible vanadium steel with a razor edge one side and a
fine-diamond-toothed saw the other. Against rocket-powered missiles it seemed
inadequate, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. There was another worry,
one that he tried to keep well to the back of his mind. He had heard of the
unpleasant consequences of being in water too close to an underwater explosion.
Roger wasn't one to waste time. And Louise had no armor, only her slight
clothing and her skin. However, no time to dwell on that now, here came the
inflatable, bouncing ahead of the stutter of an outboard motor.
He
rolled over flat on his back and gave just one small shove to set himself clear
before going still and motionless, hopefully dead-seeming. The small motor
throbbed in his ear. He tried to imagine the thoughts of those who were now
staring at his stark-white suit hobbling lifelessly in the swell.
They've got to be curious enough to come
close and look! he reasoned
hopefully, and lay still, waiting and listening. The motor noise died, and he
heard the slap of wavelets on rubberized plastic.
A low voice muttered, "He looks to be
out cold to me."
"That's not good enough," another demurred. "We have to make sure. We wouldn't want
him to wash up on some beach for stupid people to get curious about, would
we?"
"Well all right, go
ahead and sink him!"
"Not
this close, you fool! The shock wave would sink us!"
"Ill back off a little. Tell me when. See anything of the others?"
Sixx had been squinting through slit eyes, saw the gray-green bulk of the boat close enough to
reach. He decided it was time to come alive. He did not fancy the shock wave
any more than they did. With a sudden power-assisted snatch he reached and laid
hold of a rope bight, hauled, swung over his other hand, and slashed
vigorously, hearing the slurp and whoosh of air and the frantic yells of the
opposition. He hacked thoroughly, thrashing about until he was sure the surface
was clear, then he let go and bobbed up, looking about. A seal-wet head rose up
close by with dripping beard and a white snarl of teeth. And with him came the
dark muzzle of a weapon, gushing water momentarily.
Irrelevantly
Sixx could marvel at the insane ferocity of a man who would cling to a weapon
at a time like this. He even had time, so curiously does the mind work, to
observe that it was made of durable plastic and therefore not all that heavy. A
rocket launcher has no need of a precision barrel and pressure to send a
projectile on its way. Roger had guessed right, for what good that was in the
circumstances. But all that fled through the periphery of his mind as his
reflexes sent him into a desperate surge and grab to deflect the barrel enough
to have the lethal projectile miss him by a fraction of an inch, and then his
armored fists closed on the bearded one and stayed closed.
He tripped his suit to zero buoyancy and held
on. In a while the man in his grasp stopped struggling and became inert. He let
go and drove up through the water, back to the surface urgently, shook his face
plate clear, and was in time to see the other man scrambling aboard the hydrofoil,
clutching his weapon.
That
was not so good. With the slim advantage of surprise all used up, Sixx was
very badly placed. On the surface and visible he was an easy target for that
man up there who could shift and aim faster than Sixx could hope to evade. And
while those rocket slugs couldn't penetrate his armor, they could cripple him
with the energy of impact. Not good at all, he decided, swimming gently,
trying other alternatives for flavor. He could submerge and come up. Where and
how? Again, that man up there had the advantage of speed. Unless
he tried wrecking the hydrofoil itself, and he didn't want to do that.
Not unless there was absolutely no other way.
And
where was Louise? Even as the question crossed his mind, he saw her. She was
inboard, on the foil, creeping desperately along from the stern, holding
something long and solid-looking, stalking the enemy. Choking back on his
instant and instinctive urge to yell at her, Sixx hoisted himself in the water,
splashing, making a target of himself, catching the enemy's eye, anything to
distract his attention, aiming, and Louise stepped close, raised the thing she
held in both hands, and flailed down with it like the hammer of doom. Sixx
heard the impact distinctly over the water, saw the
man lurch and pitch headfirst over the side into the water.
In
the next instant he groaned as an enormous fist punched him from all sides at
once, hard enough to stun him and rattle his teeth. It seemed a curiously long
time before the sound of that explosion came rolling across the water. Shaking
his head to rid it of bells, Sixx leaned into a crawl and came up to the foil
to reach and grasp and haul himself carefully inboard.
Into his suit radio he said,
"Roger, you all
right?"
"Be with you in a
couple of minutes, Rex."
There
was his white helmet cleaving the water. In less than the stated time his glove
came over the side, followed by his dripping bulk, a broad grin showing through
his visor.
"You
clown!" Sixx spoke severely. "You might have mangled Louise with that
blast."
"Not
a chance!" Lowry retorted easily. "I knew she was clear. I saw her
clobber that laddie. Clown yourself for letting him get the drop on you like
that. What did you hit him with, Louise?" He turned to where she stood,
still propping the object against her thighs.
"I think," she said unsteadily, "they call it a thwart."
Lowry took it from her,
hefted it appreciatively, dropped it back into the slots it had come from.
"Say something, Rex," he suggested.
"All
right, I was going to." Sixx hunched his shoulders at her. "I owe
you. You shouldn't have done it. Never do anything like that again. You are the
job, and it is our duty to safeguard you not for you to take risks and protect
us. But I owe you just the same. That merchant would have given me a very bad
time."
The
navigator-robot spoke, its calmly impersonal voice surprising him, rescuing him
from embarrassment.
"The
obstruction is still present. Unless you can suggest a logical alternative, I
will adopt an avoiding course, resume speed, and return to my original
program."
Sixx
was momentarily at a loss for comment, giving Lowry time to ask, "How much
tolerance do you have to accept alternative suggestions?"
"It
is possible for me to expend enorher eight minutes and still be able to arrive
at the prearranged time."
"Can
you steer us into hailing distance of the front end of the . . . obstruction
and then wait there?"
"It is possible. Seven
and nine-tenths minutes."
The
idling motor coughed and boomed up to speed, the hydrofoil heeled over and
picked up forward speed rapidly, making a stiff breeze.
"What's on your mind,
Roger?"
"What
Louise said. Somebody definitely doesn't want her to
get to Iskola. Maybe the tug skipper knows who."
"Maybe. But maybe he and his merry men also have nasty weapons that spit
slugs?"
"I'd
bet against it, Rex. He hasn't helped any so far. And, like I said before, I
can buy him giving a few fellers an emergency lift, but I can't see the
opposition finding a whole hostile armada offhand."
"Yes.
We've done that bit. All the same though, we will parley with him, ask him questions.
You—" he turned a severe eye on Miss Latham, "—will hide behind us as
before."
The precaution proved to be unnecessary. As
the hydrofoil slowed once more and matched speed with the laboring tug, the
face that stared at them out of the wheelhouse window was wide-eyed, fearful.
"I know nothing!" he shouted in
response to their queries. "A man I have never seen before, he came, gave
me much money, asked me if I would make a small change in course, thus and so,
to meet a small boat and stop for a while. To talk, so he said. And then go on.
That is all
I know."
"If
he's lying, we'd have a sweet time proving it," Lowry muttered. "We
can't twist his arm at all."
"We
can shut his mouth, though. Like this." Sixx raised his voice to shout.
"Do you recognize this boat?"
"From
Iskolal" the tug skipper spat into the water. "Their business is none
of mine. You tell me something. How am I to explain the loss of a barge and ten
tons of precious ore?"
"You'll
think of something. You had better make it a good story, too. If you try to
drop us in for anything, you'll find yourself explaining to Police Chief
Martinez. He is a very good friend of ours. Ail right, Navigator, on your way,
it's all yours."
As
the convoy dropped swiftly astern and the breeze of motion grew fresh, Sixx
turned to Miss Latham.
"Now
you're cold," he said, pointing the obvious. "You'd better strip out
of those wet clothes and lay them out in the sun to dry or you'll catch
pneumonia or something."
"Worried about the job again?" she
asked, starting on zippers.
"That, of course. But if you have any sensitivity at all, youll know it's more personal
than that. You're nice people, Louise. I'd hate to have anything happen to you.
Me and Roger will sit up front and give you privacy if that's all right with
you?"
"Don't
be silly, Rex," she told him, already half out of her wet dress. "I
shouldn't have twisted your arm like that." She stretched the wet garment
over a seat where it fluttered in the breeze. "I know how you feel, both
of you, and it's a great compliment to me, so don't spoil it by treating me
old-fashioned. You saw how that Alma Tillet was dressed? It's pretty obvious
that in their society clothing is whatever they happen to fancy at any
time." She handed a wisp of something to Lowry, busied herself with what
was left. "I've been itching to shed at least half of this lot,
anyway." She gave the last item to Sixx to drape in the sun and settled on
a seat "Besides, we have talking to do between us."
"Such as what?" Sixx demanded. "That attack back there? It's all over. I doubt if
the tug skipper will talk any more than he has to, and the others certainly
won't. They can't"
"Just so," she agreed. "But I
like the way you two argue a thing out, and that attack is a good case,
somewhere to start from. As I said, somebody wants to keep me out of Iskola. But who, and why? Or, put it a different way, is it somebody
on the outside, back there, or one of them?" She aimed a slim arm ahead in
the direction they were speeding.
"I
like the look of Dobny as the mastermind." Lowry was prompt and confident.
"He has the brain. He's in the right place. And he had an 'accident' no
right-minded scientist should ever have. But that's all I've got on him, no
reasons why at all."
"It
can't be from the inside," Sixx argued. "That idea comes out bent. If
the threat is from them, then they can't be the perfect society they are
supposed to be. With one breath they call you in, with
the other they try to rub you out. That makes no sense."
"Unless,"
she came back at him, "that's what they are trying to avoid, trying to
stop me finding out just that."
"But
that's stupid, too," he objected. "If they do anything to you, they
will merely postpone the inevitable because that would bring down a full-scale
Interstelpol investigation on their necks. It doesn't add up."
"You
win." She grinned and drew up her knees to hug them in the sun. "So,
I vote we say nothing at all about this unless we have to. If that robot is to
be believed— and we are really hopping along now, if you hadn't noticed—we
should arrive on time as if nothing had happened. Let's keep it that way
unless and until we get evidence that somebody on Iskola is surprised and/or
worried about our arrival, right?"
"You're
the detective," Sixx assured her, and she laughed. Her black hair was
almost dry and lifting in the breeze. Her honey-brown eyes had a glow in them
that hadn't been there earlier. She was a very attractive woman, he thought, as
she turned to speak to Roger.
"How
in the world did you make that tremendous bang?" she asked him.
"Detonite,
and a radio trigger. You know about detonite?"
"A little. It's the most powerful chemical explosive ever invented. Was that
really necessary?"
"There
were four more aboard that barge, and they had a lot of stuff that wouldn't
have been any good to us at all."
"I suppose you're right," she
agreed. "They were trying to kill us. I can never get used to that idea.
People have tried to kill me often, but I can't ever think that way about them
in return."
"What
you should think about," Sixx declared, "is that you were stood up
there to be shot at—and four of them back there capable of doing it. Ill say it once more. Don't ever do anything like that
again."
"I
knew they wouldn't I knew the danger was over. Just as I know it is all right
for me to do this right now with you two. You don't suppose I would sit around
naked with just anybody, do you?"
"I believe that's a compliment"
Sixx retorted, "but I'd have to ask for time to think about it."
"Oh,
come on, nowl" she teased him with a smile. "You're not really the
sort that regards a woman as an enemy, someone to be conquered. That's just an
attitude that you've made into a habit I'm not putting you down when I say I
feel perfectly safe right now."
"You're not?" he
still wasn't sure.
"I
felt you look at me just now. It was a nice warm feeling. I liked it. Rex, a woman
likes to be admired even when she feels inside she doesnt really deserve
it."
"You
need never be bothered with that feeling, anyway," Lowry told her flatly.
"You deserve it all the time."
"Not all the time, Roger, but thanks,
anyway. You
know—" she looked over the sea, "—this is very pleasant just for this
moment. What do you boys do with your time off?"
"We usually grab whatever happens to be
going, any opportunity to relax; we don't usually get much chance to plan
anything ahead."
"Maybe
well change that. I'd like to spend a lot of time with you two just like
this—but there, look, seems to be part of the answer to that other problem we
were discussing, about how they keep people out"
On
the blue horizon ahead a gray rock wall of coastline had grown, stretching to
far left and right Evenly spaced rows of vapor plumes
along the rim helped Sixx place the scene alongside the aerial view he had seen
earlier.
"If
that's the typical coastline, Rex, they don't need anything more."
"But
this is only part. About five or six hundred miles of it.
It's not like this all the way around. And those steam puffs are artificial. Too regularly spaced. Some kind of
thermals, possibly?"
"On the top of a cliff? That doesn't sound right, somehow. What I'm
looking for right now—" Lowry was practical, "—is how we get in
there?"
In
the event it was childishly simple. The foil, headed directly in, began to
slow. They saw a cave mouth, too smoothly arched to be natural, and abruptly
they were sliding along an underground channel barely big enough to pass them.
Eventually the hydrofoil slowed to a crawl and nudged in alongside one wall of
an open chamber. And there, perched on an oddly designed cart, was Alma Tillet,
waiting for them.
"Climb
aboard," she invited. "As a rule our way lies over there to the
testing rooms, but that doesn't apply now. We go straight ahead."
The
cart lifted as soon as they were settled and began to skim with no more than a
gentle hiss of air noise.
"Cushion car?"
Sixx queried, and she smiled.
"Modified. Instead of riding on one air bubble with side-walls, this has hundreds,
each variable, computer-controlled. Less noise, more
flexibility. Each bubble is like a foot in itself. Call it a centipede car."
"You
must have bypassed the test rooms for the senator, too," Miss Latham
suggested, and the Iskolan nodded.
'Two
days ago. Poor man, he didn't get the chance to see much, after all. And we
went to such a lot of trouble."
"You laid on a special
show for him?"
"Of course, Mr. Lowry. We intended to show him what he wanted to see. As far
as possible, anyway. Ah, sunshine!" The
cart slid out into bright light and a garden wilderness very similar to that
which they had seen on the screen. In a moment, rounding a leafy corner, they
arrived at the tiled nook itself, and the car halted. Alma Tillet waved a slim
arm. "Welcome to my temporary home."
The
picture had failed to bring the rich scents of growing things, the warm
immediacy of everything. Miss Latham caught a word. "Temporary?"
"Yes.
We take turns to guard the gate. Year and year. I'm
not the only explainer, by any means. Will you rest, eat, and drink?"
Sixx
caught the tiny tickle of amusement in her voice and looked all around, seeing
nothing but semi wild garden apart from
the tiles
and table
nook where they stood
now. "All
right," he said, "111 buy it. Where?"
Miss Latham looked
at him
in wonder.
"Can't you feel it, Rex? Nor you,
Roger? It's subsurface, of course!"
Alma Tillet lifted
a brow
just a fraction. "That's right," she said. "Come." And when they were
all clustered
around the small table,
she said
simply, "Down, please," and
the entire
nook sank swiftly and steadily.
"There are many
reasons." Alma Tillet
spoke as if answering their unvoiced question. "Aesthetic. Few, if
any, animal species build homes on the surface. Think of
a cave or a burrow. Convenience. We have solidity, constant
controllable temperature and lighting,
simplicity, no need for massive supports
or foundations.
And we
avoid interference with the environment
as a
whole. And that is important
here. Does the word laterization
mean anything to you?"
"We've heard of
it," Sixx admitted as they
stepped off the platform and into
a long,
low room,
soft carpeted but busy with clicking,
ticking machines. Their
host waved an apologetic hand.
"Data room. Every
home place has this. Think
of it
as a combined library and reference
reading room. An
interface with the rest of
the community.
If we
have one really hard rule here,
it is
that we do not hoard
information. We put it into
the common
pool for everyone to use."
She conducted them on
and into
a bigger
room, this one with low tables,
even lower reclining chairs, cushions
scattered at random, thick carpets
underfoot. "Be comfortable,
please," she ordered. "There
are no
formalities whatever. For instance,
if your
clothing hampers you at all
..." A gesture completed her
sentence. A cross-track serving machine
trundled in to take their
orders.
Sixx grinned at
it as
he punched
in an
order for a mixed grill and
coffee, caught Alma Tillet's eye,
and explained,
"Those things always touch
my funny
bone. There's a gadget that can
move in any direction at
will without turning 'round, and
so simple.
Take a square base and
establish one track on each
side, and it sounds like
stalemate except that each
track is made up of
rollers that spin at right angles
to the
track. And there it is.
Nothing to it. But the
man who
first thought of it really
made a leap. That kind of thinking fascinates me, the simple and
obvious solution to the seemingly
impossible."
Alma Tillet
eyed him thoughtfully. "It's a pity," she
Baid,
"that we
have no way, as yet,
of developing
that kind of appreciation for the
simple and elegant solution. People
resist change because they
expect it to be complex
and difficult, but they
can be
encouraged to struggle with it The simple elegant solutions
can be
found quite often, but getting people to accept those
is much
harder than getting them to struggle
with something complicated."
She was
going to add something
but held
it as
the scuttling
serving machine came with
a tall
glass for Miss Latham, who
took it and looked her apologies.
The Iskolan
shrugged. "Please ... if
you feel
you need
it"
"I do." Miss
Latham sank the dose in
a steady
series of swallows, and Sixx saw surprise
for the
first time on Alma Tillet's face.
"I double-checked your analysis," she admitted,
"just to be sure. The alcohol-in-blood
level is incredibly high. By
any normal standards you
should be unconscious. Can you
talk about it?"
"Might as well get it over
with." Miss
Latham sighed, and the Iskolan scrambled
up and
away, came hurrying back with a
mobile terminal.
"Data," she explained.
"Olga will be interested in this. Olga Glink, specialist
in the
biosciences. If you
don't mind?"
They're
a polite lot, Sixx mused as
Miss Latham started, hesitantly
at first
and then
more fluently once the first
hurdles were passed. He
ate, and listened, and thought
Politeness made sense. Genius
is difference,
so a
society of geniuses had to be
polite or explode. But possibly
it was more than that
"Absolutely true." He
confirmed a point as it
came up. "She's normal when she's
full up and ragged when
she runs dry. I don't believe
it, either,
but I've
seen it and it's so."
"Very interesting. Olga
will be keen to meet
you, Louise."
"Meeting." Miss
Latham caught at it. "You
realize 111 have to
meet everyone involved, see the
scene of the crime, all that?"
"Oh yes, we
appreciate that. Let me explain."
Alma Til-let cleared the mobile
screen with a touch. "We
seldom meet each other in person.
With the instrumentation we have available
it is
seldom necessary, and we place
much value on total privacy, but
we are
all aware
of times
when exceptions must be
made. Now, this is Iskola."
She put
up a fine-line outline of the
island. "Here is the gateway.
We are here. And here are
the home
places." The outline became spotted
with small dots, apparently at random. Sixx made a guess.
"About fifty-five
. . . sixty ... is
that all?"
"Less than that,"
she said.
"Our numbers are quite small. Now our small
section in greater detail." The relevant
part grew large, the included
spots changing into small circles. "For
the benefit
of Senator
Vancec, who had only a limited
time to visit, we arranged
a meeting,
a gathering. That
was something highly
irregular for us in itself, but
the whole
event was an irregularity, anyway, so we made
allowances for it. We chose
Bernard Hoff's place as the most
suitable. Bernard specializes in ekistics,
and his establishment is extensive. It has to be
for someone
who sets up scale-model
cities for experiment. Also, that
kind of inquiry comes
closest to what Senator Vancec
would have been able
to understand."
She made
it a Statement, without any
suggestion of condescension.
"How big is
a home
place?" Lowry asked, and she shrugged.
"There is a
five-mile diameter limit, not enforced,
seldom reached. Most are about
a mile
across. Who needs more? Bernard agreed
to play
host to a small, representative
group."
"A moment!" Miss
Latham interrupted. "Why did it
all happen, anyway?
I know
as much about
Iskola as anyone, only that it
is rigidly
exclusive, that you value privacy
almost to the point
of mania.
Yet you
suddenly throw your doors open to
Vancec. Not, I may say,
the happiest
choice you could have
made."
"We didn't choose
him, he chose us. We
were afflicted with our own internal
problems, which seem small now
but were a distress
at that
time. We had need of
help and good will. Vancec was
handy and sufficiently spectacular. So we made a gesture. It seemed logical at the
time. Now—" she shrugged
it away
wryly. "—We arranged a group. Myself, of course.
Bernard Hoff. Lea Lawrence . .,
that's her home place there.
She is
in biosonics.
Music and other noise,
and its
effects on the organism. Graham Packard, here, who
covers the whole history of
law and
order. Ivan Rilke . . .
here ... his field fringes
on Lea's.
He's a physicist specializing
in the
interaction between organisms and electromagetic and gravitic fields. Fascinating stuff!"
"I didn't
know there was any such
interaction to speak of," Sixx admitted,
and Alma
Tillet smiled with that hint
of mischief again.
"Let's try a
long shot," she suggested, wiping the screen clear and setting up a
program on the console. In
a moment
she turned
to Miss
Latham. "Can you point to
Earth right now?" she demanded. The
amber-eyed policewoman stared, blinked,
then extended her arm as
if groping,
angled it almost straight
down to the floor.
"There, I thinkl" she said. Alma Tillet
touched a button.
"Come and check
it, Mr.
Sixx," she invited. "You should be able to read
astrogation plot. This is the
big cast,
Spica to Sol," she used a light
pen to
etch the line, then jumped the
magnification in rapid stages, holding
the line
until he was satisfied.
"All right, so
she has
a homing
instinct, so what? So does an
eel!"
"And you spoke
of a
leap! There are a score
of explanations
for homing
instinct and territorial instinct. Familiarization. Experience. Polarization of sunlight Even
the flavor of sea water. And others.
All argued
over and dubious. But when you
have a sane person some
tens of light years away from
home and with no clues
whatever who can still point right
at it
how else
can you
explain it except by some interaction
with electromagnetic and gra-vitic field
forces?"
"I don't.
You're doing it. But you're
putting ten questions in the
place of one. How do
you set
about studying something like
that? And if she can
do it
and others,
how come I can't. How come
we can't
all do it?"
"How do you
know you cant?" the
challenge came back; then Alma Tillet
chuckled and waved a hand
to dismiss the topic. "Later, perhaps. You must talk to
Ivan. Where was I? Ah yes,
one more.
Olga Glink, biologist
specializing in the whole
art of
how to
live properly. And that
was our
little gathering—and still is."
"You mean they
are still
assembled now?" Miss Latham demanded.
"Yes. Waiting for you.
At great inconvenience
to ourselves
but in
this case unavoidably.
Everything has been held exactly as
it was—except
the body,
of course.
That had to be taken away."
Seven
"Who moved
the body?"
Lowry was suspicious in a moment, but Miss Latham waved him
down with a quiet smile, snowed him the dossier
she still
had.
"It's all in
here, Roger. Dr. Dobny and
two policemen
came to take the
body away and examine it,
noting times and places. Vancec was
shot at close range by
some explosive weapon, something primitive
that threw a slug."
"That sounds
like it wasn't found."
"Yes. Dobny reports looking for
it but
without success."
"That's bad." Sixx frowned. "That weapon could maybe tell us a lot. Like
who made
it, and
how, and where?"
Alma Tillet sharpened
her tone
just a shade as she
said, "I know I've just steered
us away
from one set of irrelevant
questions, however entertaining they could
have been, but I'm afraid I
have more now. Just what
are you
for, Mr. Sixx? You
and Mr.
Lowry?"
'That's obvious, isn't
it?" Lowry retorted. "We are
delivery men. We brought Louise
here. We protect her. We
get her home again.
And, between times, we help
out any
way we can. Why?"
"Aren't you somewhat
redundant now? She needs no
protection here!"
"I bet you
could have said that to
Senator Vancec two days ago, too!"
Sixx pointed out, and she
lost her easy manner altogether for a breath. Then
she firmed
her lips
and shook her head.
"I deserved that.
But I
am sure
that was not Iskola's doing. And it could not
possibly happen again."
"Now wait!" Miss Latham inserted her
quiet voice. "Let's not strike any
attitudes or get too far
out on
any limbs, not yet. I'm here
to see
what's to be seen, and
the boys are here to help
me do that. If
you don't
like it this
way, just say so and we'll
go home
again. But someone else will come,
and you
might like that a lot
less!"
"I'm sorry!" The Iskolan made a
visible effort. "We are none of
us at
our best
in person-to-person
contacts. You'll have to make allowances."
"All right. Can
we move
on now
to Hoff's
place?"
"Of course!" Alma
Tillet regained her smile with
an effort. "There's a borer waiting
for us.
Just one thing— we do prefer
to be
informal here at all times.
It helps.
Please call everyone by
first names as soon as
introductions are made.
Please? Louise, Rex, Roger, I'm
Alma. Shall we go?"
The "borer"
was something
to see.
The centipede
car took them smoothly to what
was obviously
the perimeter
of Alma's estate. The
transition between park and jungle
was knife-clean. There, seeming
to crouch
in readiness
to leap at the wilderness, was a
squat, solid machine on tracks with
a many-toothed
wheel mounted in front. But
Sixx, in studying the
borer, noted something else.
"Metabolic screen?"
he guessed,
nodding to the precision-drawn perimeter and the slim,
innocent-looking poles at twenty-foot
intervals marking out the area
where nothing grew. He and Lowry
were fairly familiar with the
neuron-field effect. Their ship
could mount it if necessary, and it was in
reasonably common use for this
kind of protection, a fence
that nothing living could pass.
Within the field sustained by those
posts any metabolic process whatever
was amplified
far beyond
endurance. To go near was
to ache and develop
cramps, which grew more intense
the closer you went.
In theory
nothing living could pass that area.
He exchanged
a cautious
glance with Lowry as Alma instructed
her household
master robot to break the
field just here to
let them
out. A moment later the
centipede car was docked into
the stern
of the
borer, and it growled into life.
The monster wheel
ahead began to spin, was
two counterrotating wheels against
fixed blades inside a razor-toothed
tubular hood. In effect, to
the whip
crackle and screech of sliced greenery
and the
rich scent of new-mown jungle it bored a tunnel
through the wilderness and towed
the centipede car after
it. In
a moment
Alma raised a transparent dome that
reduced the noise, the scents,
and the humidity considerably.
'That twist field,"
Sixx murmured. "Is that common
to all your home places?"
"Yes. It's
silent and clean, and it
keeps out the few predators we have. Snakelike creatures and
a species
of pig. And scores
of insects,
of course."
"And is that
how you
build a fence all the
way around
Iskola?"
"All around?" She
looked startled, then
laughed. "Hardly! Four thousand
miles? Apart from the physical
difficulties, we have
hardly that much power to
spare. We do have an efficient
power plant, but it's not
that good."
"All right,
but you
must have some kind of
fence?"
"Yes indeed. Jan
Bardak devised it many years
ago. Except where the cliff walls
make it unnecessary, he organized
the planting
of a
certain species of thorn. It
is native to Dolgozni, and here,
in places.
It thrives
on the
sandy borderline soil of
any beach
and is
extremely unpleasant to deal with."
"I'd have to
see it."
Sixx shook his head. "You're
in a
knot, Alma. Naturally you
want to claim that your
crime, murder or otherwise, is not
Iskolan, is from outside. And
the outsider has to
get in,
somehow. Up a vertical cliff
wall, or
through an impassable thorn barrier?"
"Even if he
could do that," Lowry added,
aiming a thumb at the passing
jungle, "he would still have
to fight
this stuff. And it
is practically
solid. The odds against it
being an outsider are
way up!"
"But it can't
be one
of us!"
Alma protested. "What would
be the
motive? Look here,
even if you totally discard
all our
in-depth personality inventories—and
they are not so easily disregarded—even
then, we are all here,
all of us, because we like it here. What
we have
here we just can not get
anywhere else. Let me list
some of it for you.
On my home place I have
absolute freedom to do whatever
I like.
There is absolutely no interference
whatsoever. I have the gift of
a clean
and healthy
environment, too. And immediate contact with like minds at any time. Endless interest
and excitement,
my kind.
What more could anyone possibly want?
And who
would want to jeopardize that? It has to be
someone from outside, isn't that
obvious?"
"Sure, but you've
just finished explaining how it
can't be," Sixx reminded
her, and Louise put her
hand on his arm.
"That's why we're
here, Rex, after all. If
it had
been simple, they would never have
needed us."
"And where
have I heard that one
before?" he sighed.
"All right,
111 leave
the detecting
to you.
But you
mentioned laterization, Alma, and I'm
curious. Words I've never heard before
bug me
until I know what they
mean."
"When a problem
has a
solution, you find it. When
it doesn't have a solution, it
becomes a fact of life,
and you
learn to live with
it. Somebody
said once, I don't know
who, laterization is one
that hasn't any answer. It
starts right there." She aimed a
finger at the jungle going
by. "Rich. Fertile. Lush, and so on,
yes? But it isn't. This
jungle, also on Dolgozni,
is very
similar to the kind of
thing you could have
found in Brazil, South America,
Earth, not so long
ago. It is fantastically fertile in
its own
peculiar way. The way
one pictures
a jungle,
the leaves
and branches, flowers and
fruit, fall and decay into
soil, into humus, rich and thick.
But not here.
This type of growth gets almost
all its
nourishment from fungal spores, mycorrhiza, which attack and break
down organic litter almost as fast
as it
falls. The fungus, in synergy
with other agencies and enzymes, works
so efficiently
that the cycle of decay and
return to nourishment is virtually
complete at soil level. In other
words the rich layer of
topsoil is only inches thick, if
that. There is reason to
suspect, in fact, that this type
of cycle
develops because the soil is
poor in itself."
"You could have
fooled me," Lowry admitted. "I
would have expected the humus layer
to be
several feet thick!"
"One does. The
first settlers on Dolgozni, those
who went for agriculture, made just
that assumption. They cut back and
cleared off the jungle over
large areas. They worked hard, they
fought off pests, built homes,
storage buildings, brought in
machinery—and things grew wonderfully for a year or
two. Then things began to
happen. The fungus went first, destroyed
by the
new conditions.
Then there was rain, regular and
heavy. The jungle could take
it. The bared soil
couldn't. The sparse nutriments were leached out, all the
very precious trace elements. What
remained were mostly oxides of
iron and aluminum, strongly acidic. In the brief but
very hot, dry season that
mixture makes a very good, very
durable stone. That is laterization.
The laterite cycle. Once it has happened, there is nothing
to be done. That land is
sterile."
'There's no
remedy at all?" Louise demanded.
"Oh, you can break it up
by physical
means and then put down vast
quantities of fertilizer and humus.
But to
do that you have to get
it from
somewhere else, which makes
the whole
exercise pointless, doesn't it?"
"I can see
now why
Jan Bardak
ducked out," Sixx observed, and Alma shook her
head at him.
"Don't buy that propaganda, please. Bardak
knew what to do, but he
had no
way of
getting it across to agricultural
experts. Obviously, the key is
not to
let the
laterite cycle happen in
the first
place. By using
special and expensive defoliants which rot instead of
sterilizing. By composting rather than scorching and
burning off. By planting those crops which in themselves
enrich the soil. Other very obvious ways. But that kind
of thinking
requires that leap we were talking
about. Have you ever tried
telling a professional expert his
own business,
telling him how wrong (he is?"
"Know what you
mean." Sixx chuckled. "Can't be done!"
"That is
why—" Alma took on a
dedicated look, "—Bardak set
away to study society as
a phenomenon
in itself. Society, he says, is
fundamentally antigenius because its survival depends
on uniformity
of response.
Which is true. Society as we know
it can't
work any other way. But
he believes that it
is, or
should be, possible to devise
a form of society that will
have room for genius. Hence
this place we call Iskola. We
haven't found the whole formula
yet, but we have
learned quite a lot of
very interesting things."
"Such as a totally pollution-free power system?" Lowry
queried, but she denied
that with a quick shake
of her
head.
"We have it,
yes, but we didn't invent
or discover
ft. That was done almost a
century ago by someone else—
only no one followed
it up.
You have
already seen it, you know."
"We have?"
Sixx wondered. "Oh! The vapor
plumes. That? But, you'll excuse me,
that looks like pollution of some kind,
in itself."
"That's the one
thing it is not. It
is pure
water vapor. And it is a
by-product in any case. The
whole idea seems dreadfully simple, even
to me,
and I
just explain things, I do not
necessarily understand them. Allow me
just three things." She
put up
her hand.
"Moist air is lighter than
dry air. Warm air
is lighter
than cold air. And a
chimney in normal circumstances will create
its own
updraft. Will you grant me those?
Yes? Then the rest follows.
You choose an area that is
damp and hot—a lake in
the jungle
or the salt marsh by the
sea at
the bottom
of a
cliff. You build your chimney. Not
straight up—not necessarily— you
can run
it up
the side
of a
cliff or mountain, up to
say four thousand feet or so.
You have
your updraft. You design your intake
to draw
warm, moist air from your
lake or marsh. You can warm
that up a bit by
spraying with suitable chemicals
that form thin layers to
absorb radiant heat, thus helping evaporation.
You design
the top
end of
your updraft to turn
tangential-wheel turbines. There's
your power. You pass
your hot moist air through
breeze-cooled baffles, and you get
fresh, distilled water. All free,
after the original building.
On the
side you can have a
mountain-top laboratory for power-physics
studies. And gardens. Controlled irrigation. Controlled
rainfall, if you like! The only
astonishing thing is that such
an idea
had to lie on the shelf
so long!"
"Niagara in
reverse!" Lowry
grinned. "Neat! Eh,
Rex?"
"Not me, Roger.
I'm beginning
to itch.
Everything is too simple, too obvious,
too right.
Either you are a very
slick explainer indeed," he said, frowning at
Alma, "or the rest of us
are just
plain dumb!"
"Oh no!"
she said
calmly. "That's just the point.
You are not dumb, any of you. You can
see the
points, the leaps. Now Senator Vancec,
he couldn't.
To him
simple and obvious were dirty words.
I suppose
that is occupational. It has
been said that a thinker
always tries to say exactly what he means, whereas
a politician
always tries to avoid saying exactly
what he means. At any
rate he was quite convinced, all the short while
he was
with us, that we were hiding
all sorts
of things
from him. We weren't, of course."
"You were!" Louise surprised them all.
"By being simple and obvious on
your level, you were being
totally incomprehensible to him. I
know. I've had that problem
all my
life, only I never
had anyone
to explain
me to
other people, and I can't do
it for
myself, not very well. I've
always counted that as
failure on my part. In
the same
way, you fail if
you can't
get across
to ordinary
people— like the senator."
"Yes." Alma
looked troubled now. "That certainly is a point to
be considered."
She consulted
a dial
before her, then peered ahead. "We're nearly there. We have
made good time" because, of course,
I've been this way a
time or two just recentiy. Normally
it would
take twice as long to
chop a path through
raw jungle.
Just one more
reason why we almost never visit
each other."
"Then you have
to somehow
get through
Hoff's fence?" Sixx assumed.
"By shield, or do you signal
him to
open up?"
"Signal," Alma answered, putting out her
hand and then withdrawing it again
to turn
and stare
at him.
"We use very little radio, only
short-range stuff for matters such
as these or robot
control within a home place—you
said —shield? Against a metabolic field?"
"You didn't know?
In this
suit I could stroll through
that fence at any
time. Does that surprise you?"
She touched buttons
to halt
the borer.
"The fence is only a yard or two ahead," she said.
"With all respect, I'd like to
see you
do it,"
"Why not?" Sixx
grinned. "You have to be
convinced."
"It's not that
at all.
Part of my function is
to separate
data from opinion. It
gets to be second nature
after a while. Put it this
way. You believe you. I
believe you. But a demonstrated fact requires no support at
all. In the ordinary way I
would signal to Bernard to
open the fence for me. I
will do that as soon
as you
have passed through."
"Right!" Sixx
stirred, climbed out as she
opened a panel of the canopy
for him.
In the
brief moment it took him
to flip his helmet into place,
the thick
and humid
effluvium of crushed undergrowth filled his
nostrils. He sank almost knee-deep in spongy, reedy decay,
but he
could see clearness ahead. He
started away for it readily
but by
no means carelessly. It was quite
in the
cards that Iskolan genius had come
up with
some new and improved version
of the metabolic field effect. In
a moment or two he was clear of
jungle, then on to bare
soil where even grass wouldn't grow. A sensor clicked
close to his ear, he
felt a faint tickle
on his
skin, a thin, pale whine in his ear,
but that was all. He moved
forward, noted the two nearest
poles, and strode confidently
between them and on into
the formally tailored garden
beyond.
This was
a completely different style from
Alma's. The grass was cut to
pool-table precision, there were no
flowers at all, and the pathways
were dark, glossy plastic, geometrically
laid out between trees that
were shorn into bare columns for the first ten
feet or so of their
height Order and design spoke everywhere,
order and restraint, until he caught
a flicker
of movement
by one
of those
trees and spun by reflex
to face
it. A
tall man, lean and weathered
like an aging Pan,
came slowly to meet him.
"Who the devil
are you?"
he demanded
in mingled
outrage and curiosity, "and how
did you
do that?"
As soon
as the words were said, he
unhooked a gadget from his
belt, drawing it with all the
speed and skill of an
old-time gun-fighter, to thrust it
forward. There was a breathless
moment of silence as he
stared into the tiny muzzle
of the
needle gun Sixx had
drawn with the same reflex
speed. And then Sixx rearranged his mind, recognized the gadget as nothing more
than a minirecorder, vanished his
weapon as fast as he had
produced it, and flicked back
his helmet,
grinning.
"Other side of
your fence," he said, aiming
an arm,
"is Alma Tillet, about to signal
her way
through. You ought to be Bernard
Hoff. I'm Rex Sixx, escort
to the
expert from Interstelpol. Put that to
music and you should have
a hit number. Excuse my levity,
won't you? You never ought to make a draw
like that, not to mel"
"Draw? Oh, this!
Pardon me. Purely
reactive-defensive. This business of entertaining guests—very upsetting.
Territorial intrusion. Quite strong
and positive
reactions. And you, of
course, walking in like that.
I can
feel it still. Hostility, you know. Remarkable!" He looked down at
his hand, then put the recorder away.
"So silly. So seldom have face-to-face contact with others that
I have
this itch to get everything on record. Totally different from
vision contact. Intrusion. Remarkable!"
He wheeled around
as there
came the soft
purr of the centipede car. "Alma!"
he lifted
a palm
in greeting.
"Welcome. And this
is the
detective? Miss Louise Latham? Charmed. My home place.
Welcome. Mr. Lowry? Welcome."
"Were you
waiting for us, Bernard?"
"Not really." He led the way
to a
formal glass-walled enclosure. "I
had to
get away
from the others. Remarkable! We all seem to
have lost the art, the
lesser gift, of idle conversation. Miss Latham—Louise—the sooner you
can bring this unhappy
business to a conclusion, the happier we all
will be!"
Eight
As soon
as they
were all clustered in the
glass house, the floor sank away
down to bring them to
one comer
of a huge, minimally furnished room,
the walls
of which
were almost solidly book shelves. Their
arrival brought a touch of animation
to the
people there assembled. Alma made
the introductions,
and Sixx
took the opportunity to study
each one candidly.
Lea Lawrence was
slender, inclined to drift rather
than walk, and her choice of
a long
and shapeless
white robe augmented her ethereal appearance,
but her
accent was down-to-earth hard Australian. Olga Glink, on the
other hand, despite her angular name
was as
chubby and curvaceous as any
Greek marble and almost as
negligibly covered. The brief twist
of cloth
about her hips was startlingly
white against her glow-tanned
skin. She was the best
possible advertisement for her
own field,
the art
of living.
Graham Packard, a
long, angular, austere hawk of
a man, came to offer a
handshake, but Sixx had the
impression that he was entrenched
behind a facade, watching and noting everything. His neutral gray
one-piece fitted him both in body
and atmosphere.
Rilke, by comparison,
was squat, sturdy, and
deliberately strong in handshaking, a knuckle-buster who got nowhere
with the two men. He was inclined to scowl
at nothing
in particular,
and his
loose robe was violent
orange, suiting him
Although he
was studying
the party
of oddballs,
Sixx was keeping an eye on
Louise, too. He had come
to accept,
almost without knowing it, that
she was
the key
character here. Right from
the start,
of course,
he had
understood that she was
the official,
the detective,
and he
and Roger merely the
guard, but that was on
an intellectual
level. It was in his
bones and temperament to assume,
to take for granted,
that he would be able
to stay
up front
and level with her in any
investigation. It came
as a
distinct and uncomfortable novelty to
him, here and now, to
realize that he was
a long
way behind
her—and that she was probably away
out of
her depth,
too, with only her instincts to lean on. She
seemed composed enough, though, as the oddly assorted group
dispersed once more to distant
corners of the room. It
was as
if they
could barely stand to be with
one another.
"You all
right, Louise?" he asked softly,
and she
nodded.
"There's nothing here
so far.
Mild tensions only.
They don't like each other—not as
we understand
it—more a discomfort. .."
"You don't have
to be
intuitive to see that," Lowry muttered. "They shy away from each
other like a bunch of
north poles."
"No wonder," Sixx suggested. "They were all here when
Vancec bought it, so
they are all under direct
suspicion, and that's enough
to put
a chill
into any festive gathering."
"I think that's
only part of it," Louise
said. "Let's find out In a case
like this, atmosphere can be
important." She raised her voice, talking to
Alma but including everyone within earshot. "I get the
impression that everyone is avoiding everyone else. Is this
true? If so,
is it
usual, and why?"
Alma smiled,
turned her head. "Ivan? That's yours, I think."
Rilke, with
a darker
scowl than usual, cleared his
throat. "All living things,
organisms, generate, maintain, and are
surrounded by affective fields
of various
kinds and intensities. The metabolic
field effect in our perimeter
fences is but one immediate example
of this
phenomenon. Social groupings form among organisms
whose fields harmonize and reinforce each
other. This is an extensive
subject. It involves, for instance, the
male-female relationship, the herd instinct, the
sense of being welcome—or not—the ability to identify and
recognize a fellow member of
one's own group, colony, or species,
to tell
friend from foe, and so on.
In every
species there are always the
few odd
individuals who clash, who do
not harmonize,
who are natural
solitaries. We are all of
that type. For us it
can be—
it is—acute discomfort to be in close
relationship and involvement with anyone
else. Does that answer you?"
Louise nodded as
if that
made everything clear to her,
but Lowry had words
of his
own. "I'd like to ask
one," he said. "I'll go along
with the lone-wolf bit, the
solitary one.
I've known people
like that. It figures that
the admission
tests you all had
were geared to select out
that type of person, am I
guessing right?" He spoke ostensibly
to Alma, who nodded curiously.
"All right, so
my question
is obvious.
How can
you possibly do anything practical in
the social
sciences if you're all antisocial types?" He swept them
all with
a glance. "It's cock-eyed, isn't it?"
The entire room
moved with instant, muttered response,
and Sixx grinned. Trust
Roger to set the whole
group on its ear with a
simple question. Then Graham Packard
made a grunt that got silence.
"Perhaps I can
answer that, young man, from
my own
field," he said. "Until
about the middle of the
last century history was not regarded
as a
science at all. It consisted
of voluminous reports and records, mostly
compiled by those who were immediately
involved with the events and
then heavily edited, biased, even rewritten,
by later
savants. All were intent on plugging
their own point of view.
One has
only to compare, for
instance, three parallel accounts of
the events leading up
to World
War One—from
French, German, and British
sources—to see how impossible ft was for those writers
to be
objective—because they were
involved. In precisely the
same way is it impossible
to study sociology, to be a
social scientist with any degree
of objectivity at all
if one
is a
naturally social person. Incidentally, it is not fortuitous
that not one of us
is an
accredited social scientist. Nor yet a
psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychoanalyst. It may
occupy you a while to
work out for yourself why this
is necessarily
so."
Packard left ft
there abruptly. Sixx felt irritation
and guessed that Roger would be
feeling something similar. This
flat, stone-wall way of answering
questions killed any kind of conversation
stone dead. Louise seemed unmoved,
somewhat distrait.
"Can we
get on,
please?" she asked. "I'd like
to see
the place where it happened, and
I shall
probably want to ask you all
questions afterwards. But there's no
need to stay all in one
room if you'd rather not.
Just so long
as you're
all available."
"This way." Hoff
came away from his wall
and extended
a guiding
hand to lead them into
a long
gallery. "Accommodation is no
great problem for me," he
explained as they went, "because
for my
own purposes
I have
a large number of
chambers, each capable of being
furrushed in all sorts of
different ways, and with full-surround
wall screens and visuals
I can
simulate the living feel of
any city you can
imagine—and quite a few you
can't. A city, you know, should
be a
machine to live in."
"Did that
kind of thing impress Vancec?"
Sixx asked.
"Oddly enough, no. I believe he
had a
touch of claustrophobia. Didn't like the
idea of being underground. Surprising. The man must have
spent more than half his
life in a box, surely?"
"Maybe not. His
angle was always the underpaid
common man, with a lot
of emphasis
on common
sense, grass roots, no-nonsense,
back-ito-the-land stuff. He
would fight anything big whether it
was brains,
money, success, repute, anything.
Maybe he really had a
fear of being boxed in."
"Possibly. He
admired what he saw of
Dolgozni and the hard-working community there.
He was
kind enough to tell me that
he considered
Aratni as near the ideal
city as he had ever seen.
Good solid stone and no
fancy nonsense about it!" Hoff
snorted gently, reaching a door
and palming it open. "It was
pointless to tell him that
stone is just about the cheapest
commodity they can get, there
in Dolgozni." The door
slid aside, and he waved
them in.
It was
a bright
room. One wall carried the
conventional cook nook and
toilet stall, shelves and cabinets
for stowage,
while the other three were
picture window views that gave the
sense of being on a
sunny windswept hillside so faithfully that one had an
instant sensation of slope. The
furnishings were neat and
standard turn-of-the-century in-flatables,
carefully contoured. The only solidly
substantial item was the
large, glass-topped desk that held
the center
of the room. "Nothing,"
Hoff said, "has been moved
apart from the body
itself. It's all untouched."
Sixx took
in the
general feel with one comprehensive
glance, then moved to
one side,
watching Louise. She looked tense now
and wary.
"It's here," she said. "There's
something here, something bad."
"After effect, maybe?"
"No, I can differentiate
that much. It's still here,
now."
Hoff was watching
curiously. "This sensitivity to environment—so
acute—Ivan would be very interested,
Ivan.. ."
"Can wait!" Sixx
cut him
short. "Can you home in
on it at all, Louise?"
"I'll try."
She moved
farther into the room, slowly
casting about, and Lowry strode
clear, went to stand by
Hoff.
"Where was
he found?"
he asked
in an
undertone.
"At the desk"
Hoff pointed. "I can show
you if
you like. All these chambers are
equipped with scanners. I got
several visual records while
I was
waiting for the police to come."
"Sounds useful. Hold
ft a
minute, Louise. Let's look at
some pix first. Go
ahead, mister."
Hoff moved to
one of
the picture-window
walls, fiddled with a box for
a moment
or two,
and the
blowy sunlit scene winked out. In
its place
came a mirror image of
the room they stood in, with
the immediate
difference being that they were not
in the
picture, but the body was.
Sixx studied it carefully. It looked
as if
Vancec had been shot while sitting at the desk.
Or he
had been
put there
afterward to make it look
like that.
"Can you zoom
in?" he asked. The image
ballooned, and he set
his jaw.
It was
not pleasant.
The back
of his
head was a mess.
A pool
of dark
blood lay on the glass
around his fallen head.
Hoff obliged with other views
from other angles, filling in a
few details
while juggling with his controls.
"This was at
eight-thirty, day before yesterday," he said. "One of my
mechanicals called him, as he
had asked,
to take his breakfast order. When
it reported
no response,
I came here myself, thinking perhaps
he was
a heavy
sleeper or was having
some difficulty with the fittings
or something. And there he was.
I didn't
go anywhere
near him. There was no need.
The blood
was already
starting to dry around the edges."
"Then Dr.
Dobny and his assistants came from the mainland at eleven-fifteen."
Louise followed him. "That's in their report," Hoff agreed.
"And by their examination he must have been killed
somewhere between midnight and two in
the morning.
Is that
all right?"
"He retired just
before midnight," Hoff said thoughtfully.
"That's the last any of
us saw
of him
alive."
"And nothing has
been taken or moved except
the body," Sixx murmured,
looking at his partner. Lowry
nodded fractionally.
"Must have
gone right through, Rex."
"Right. And
that means it's still here.
But where? That's a swivel chair he
was sitting
on."
Louise stared at
them. "The bullet!"
she cried,
and half
raised the dossier, let
it fall
again. "You're quite right. It
isnl mentioned here at
all, just that he was
shot in the throat and the
bullet exited at an upward
angle, just clearing the occipital
bone."
"That don't help
much, either," Lowry pointed out,
"if he was sitting down. He
could've been leaning back, looking
up—anything!"
"I find this
very interesting." Hoff
rubbed his hands together. "Why do we not
attempt a reconstruction?"
He moved toward the chair, and
Sixx halted him hurriedly, not liking the look on
Louise's face.
"Easy!" he cautioned.
"Let's not rush at anything.
I assume
everything has been checked for
fingerprints and such?"
"Oh yes.
The police
did that
There were no
prints, only those of the senator.
My mechanicals
take care of such things."
"And they
cleaned up afterward?"
"Of course. Fortunately
everything, all the surfaces, are
stain-proof. So there was
no need
to remove
anything or replace anything."
"It sure looks
as if
he just
sat there
and let
somebody walk right up to him
and shoot
him!" Lowry grumbled, shaking
his head.
"Can you see it any
other way, Rex?"
"No, but
Louise can. Is it very
bad?"
She was pale
now, making her way by
unwilling steps toward the desk. "It's
herel" she said unhappily. "It's still here!"
"There's a way
to find
out." Lowry flipped his helmet
into place and settled
in the
chair, making it creak under his weight.
Sixx turned to Hoff, touching
a lapel
mike at the same time so
that his partner could listen
in.
"When Vancec retired
that night how was he?
Mood, I mean. Relaxed, excited, angry,
even? Had there been any argument?
Any sort
of suggestion
he might
want to see somebody privately afterward?
Hints, anything like
that?"
"Not that
I can
recalL I can play you
recordings of almost everything that was
said by all of us.
Rather stilted gossip, most of it.
And speeches. Senator Vancec had that
manner of making speeches
rather than conversing."
Louise caught her
breath, and Sixx
spun around to see his partner
extending a gloved hand toward
something on the desk.
"Easy, Roger,"
he cautioned.
"What goes?"
"Looks like
some kind of bag, case,
toilet gear, maybe?"
"Ah!" Hoff
came in. "That—it belonged to
the senator.
He carried it with
him everywhere.
I had
assumed it was some kind of
briefcase."
"Might give
us some
kind of a lead." Lowry's
voice was calm. He put his
thumb to a catch, released
it, and
there was a distinct click. The
flat lid reared up and
back, and a cardioid
microphone raised itself from a
well and aimed itself at Lowry.
Then there was another click
of a
quite different kind.
"I think we
found it, Rex." Lowry sounded
amused. "A booby. Come and
take a look!"
Moments later Sixx
was peering
over Lowry's shoulder and down the
dark barrel of the microphone.
Barrel it was. The cover grille
was pierced
and the
interior quite dark. He investigated more closely, then shook his
head in admiration. So beautifully simple, yet
so utterly
deadly. The recorder was designed
as a
whole unit The
catch release lifted the lid,
and that
caused the microphone to rear
up from between the
reels and aim itself toward
the sound
source. Voice activated, all automatic. He stressed
the fake
microphone with one hand
to test
the spring
legs. They were quite adequate to
take the recoil. And a
man would
quite naturally aim himself
at the
mike. He would start talking. Boom! Just like that.
And then
in the
ensuing silence it would
patiently switch itself off and
fold itself away, and just rest
there.
"Slick!" he said. "Not too hard
to do,
either. It wouldn't take much more
than half an hour to
remove the real mike, patch in
this tube, ready and loaded,
with a spark-fire switch. We
ought to be able to
find the slug now."
They found it
by switching
off the
picture wall right behind where the
senator had been sitting, and
then it was obvious, in a
patch of ruined electronics. Lowry shook his head at
it.
"Hunk of lead. Doesn't tell us a
thing."
"Ah, but—" Hoff scowled at the
slug, "—this does at least establish
convincing grounds for our innocence.
Doesn't it?"
"Don't ask
me," Sixx muttered. "She's the detective."
Louise seemed relieved
of her
fears now but a trifle
downcast just the same.
"I'm satisfied with it," she
sighed. "I believe I
am right
in saying
that from the moment the
senator arrived, he was
continuously with one or the
other of you until he retired?
And that
he carried
this personal recorder at all times?"
"I'm sure
the others
will bear me out on
that, yes."
"That won't be
necessary. Not unless you're all
involved in some pointless conspiracy. And that doesn't make
any kind of sense intellectually, and ft offends all
my instincts
into the bargain. No,
it's obvious to me that
someone on the mainland fixed this
deadly trap, someone who knew
of his habits, knew he was
in the
habit of recording his thoughts before going to bed.
That is how I read
it."
"So now what?" Sixx demanded. "You don't look
too good. You need a drink,
maybe?"
"In a moment. There's something I
have to do first. Can
I get a radio link direct
subetheric to Earth from here,
Bernard?"
"Of course. Each
home place is linked in
with the central computer complex
and data
bank, and with each other, and with outside. Into Aratni
and the
sUbether station there. This way, 111 show you." He led them away
to a data room, a duplicate
of the
one they
had seen
at Alma's place. He did certain
things delicately, then
turned the terminal over to her.
"It's quite straightforward from now," he assured her. "Just
carry on as for any
normal radio link."
"No need to
back off." She smiled wearily.
"It isn't private. I'm going to
request a full background on Vancec and further instructions
after I tell them what
I've got so far. Iskola is
in the
clear, by me. It will
take about forty-eight hours before
the word
comes back, but whatever it
may be—we are certainly
all through
here. You can tell your friends.
It will
be a
weight off their mindsl"
Nine
Hoff moved
thoughtfully away, out of listening
range. He seemed in no great
hurry to spread the good
news. Sixx drifted close to him,
Lowry close behind. "Where did I
get the idea," he murmured, "that you don't use radio
a lot, only short-range stuff?"
"Quite true, just
for household
robots, things like that Radio is too open, too
easily overheard. No, in all
our communications we use
land lines. Armored multiplex sodium cables, in fact. Much more
reliable than radio."
"It's a point
of view,"
Sixx admitted, "but it must
be some job to lay all
those cables!"
"Not really." Hoff waved a finger
at it.
"It has only to be done
once in each case, you
see? You have seen a
map? Then you will have a
fair idea of our power
centers, yes?"
"The pretty
vapor plumes." Sixx nodded.
"Quite so. Now,
assume you were a new
entrant. You'd need a home place.
You would
be quite
free to pick your own spot.
Anywhere. As soon
as your
coordinates are entered into the master
computer the rest follows, all
preprogrammed. In the
nearest power center to you
a borer
is activated and starts
out towing
a train
of fabrication
mechanicals, supplies, and a
cable layer. Once that is
done, you see, the
new site
has full
power, total data, and all the
necessary machinery to do whatever
you require.
I believe sodium cables
are very
much more efficient than more ordinary
carriers, but Ivan is the
man to
ask about
that aspect of it.
Ah, Louise, all
satisfactory?"
"As far as
can be
expected," she said
ruefully. '1 can't do anything more now,
not of
any great
use, until I have more data
on Vancec's
history. It looks as if
I shall
have the whole of Dolgozni to
check over for motive, means,
opportunity, the usual routine
drill."
"That's not
the way
they do it in the
drama tapes," Sixx 82
complained. "In
all the
crime plays IVe seen, the
great detective puts his
finger on the crucial fact,
thinks hard, and then says, 'Aha!
So that's
who done
it!'"
"Clown!" Louise
managed to grin. "It is
very seldom like that It is usually
just plain, dull, hard work.
I could
use that drink now."
Back in the
big room,
in that
strained atmosphere that Sixx himself could
feel now, she caught their
attention with a gesture.
"I'm satisfied," she told them,
"that Senator Vancec was killed
by a
mechanism that he brought with him from the mainland.
Which means that
there is now no reason at
all for
any of
you to
remain here any longer than you
wish. There is just the
remote possibility that I may want
to see
you again,
to ask
questions, but that is extremely unlikely."
"For this relief,
much thanks." Lea Lawrence came
drifting, her voice almost
a chant
"I'm sure I speak for
all of us. For myself, I
invite you to visit my
home place while you are here.
You will
be welcome!"
Alma Tillet,
who had
been in close-head mumble with
Olga Olink, now stood
apart to offer an opinion. "We
had already arranged a tour of
inspection for the late senator
to visit one or
two more
home places, a power plant
our computer center, and Jan Bardak—"
a momentary
hush of reverence at the sound
of the
great name, "—so why do we
not go
through with that plan? Louise,
would you accept that as a
formal invitation?" Alma swept the
group with an inquiring eye, saw
agreement, returned to Louise. "You don't have to rush
away at once?"
"Not at
all. I have to
wait on radio instructions and information from Earth. That
will take at least two
days."
"And you can
accept that anywhere there happens
to be
a terminal. So you
wfll agree and accept? Good!"
Hoff raised a
hand, obviously determined
to be
hospitable. "It will be my
pleasure to offer you all
a meal
before you depart. A
unique occasion!"
They're no different from anyone else, Sixx mused.
The load of suspicion has come off, and they are overcompen-sating as a result.
Olga Glink, radiating
vivid health from every square
inch of her person,
came up to Louise. "My
dear, Alma has been telling me
about you, your metabolism analysis. Please permit
me to
prescribe a drink for you.
It will
be just a little different from
what you would usually select
I am quite sure most of
your trouble is in diet"
She of-
"Very well!" She
beamed at Lowry, and Sixx
could feel the heat of it
himself on the side. Different
kind of signals altogether, he thought.
But she
was about
to make
a point
"If now," she declared,
"someone was beating a drum
close by, we would
have to shout at each
other to hear and be heard,
and that
would be noise. Unpleasant. But if we
were shouting and screaming at
each other, and there was no
drum at all, that would
be distortion
and just as unpleasant. Your trouble,
my dear,
is not
noise— is not too much information
but distortion.
The quality
is wrong."
Louise was halfway
down her drink, sipping it
politely. She looked dubious. "I'd always
thought of it as getting
too much information too loudly. Too much for
me to
handle all at once."
'Too much
for the
brain to handle?" Olga
shook her head. "Never!
My dear,
think! Have you ever listened
to a vast orchestra with a
choir and been able to
identify every note, every
instrument, every voice? And that
is just auditory. Oh no, the
brain can handle anything supplied
to it
if the
quality is there. Not consciously,
perhaps, but then what is consciousness
but a
selective focusing? We choose what we
will attend to; we tune
out everything
else, but it is
still being handled. You will
see. I will prescribe for you, and soon
you will
no longer
need anesthetic to stop the
scream, you will be able
to absorb
it all
properly, comfortably."
Sixx thought it
was time
to ease
himself away. He
found Olga a shade overpowering after a while. Hoff
was conjuring
up chairs
and tables, screens to blot out
the book
shelves. Rilke and Lea
Lawrence, between them, were planning a
music program. Sixx circled and
came up with Packard.
"I'm no great
history student," he opened, "and
you could put me down any
time, but I've always understood
there's a kind of
savage truth in the old
saying that we don't learn from
history. Is that in fact
true?"
"It was," Packard growled. "In the
days when that aphorism was coined,
all we
had in
the way
of history
was the record of
the follies
of our
forebears. And that of course, made
it possible
always for 'man now' to
convince himself that he was
going to be a whole
lot smarter
than 'man then,' so
he didn't,
in fact,
learn the lesson. As a.science, history
is seen
as a
record of the interplay of
inborn, innate tendencies in the human animal
and the
environment with its changes.
A science
does not allow you to say
that you will be smarter
than hard facts. It can
say on study, 'You can't do
it that
way, periodl' We
have learned to regard history as
a valuable
record of a vast series of experimental human situations.
Very valuable reference. As Bardak
has said,
'What you know is very
useful. It helps to
point to what you don't
know, which is much more interesting.'
The human
animal is a highly complex creature, Mr. Sixx, but
he is
not infinitely
variable. He is prisoned between
certain limits whether he likes that
or not"
"Like survival
patterns?"
"That's another myth."
Packard was flatly positive. "It
is a common error to believe
that our one basic instinct
or drive is to
survive."
"An error? You
mean it's not true?"
"Of course it
isnt The individual does not survive. Isnt that obvious. Furthermore, he cannot survive. Individual immortality, like the
value 'infinity,' is an abstraction.
What can survive is
the society-as-entity.
And that
is one of the built-in values of an
organism."
"Hold on a
minute!" Sixx objected. "I can't
go along
with that one. I
can see
a man
risking his life for his
family, sure. Animals will
do that
too, in some cases. But a man
laying down his life for
a society
. .
. ?"
Packard smiled gloomily.
"Astonishing, the way
we would rather believe myths than
evidence. Poems, plays, masterworks
of the
arts, have been created around
the eternal triangle, about men who
have fought each other, risking life for love. All very
dramatic and inspiring. But how many
actual cases have you known
or seen
on record?
On the other side, think of
the uncounted
millions who have taken up arms,
donned uniforms, and marched away
to fight and die
in wars,
an endless
succession of wars— in defense of
what? A nation,
a homeland,
an abstraction,
a society-as-entity. History, Mr.
Sixx!"
Hoff broke in
to announce
the meal.
Sixx, battered but ready for more,
elected to sit alongside Packard.
"Maybe I'm being stupid
again, but do you foresee
a formula
for the ideal society at all?"
"For the
ideal, no. That would be conceit. But
there are certain ground rules for
the optimum.
You'll have to hear Bardak on that. He will
make you think. On equality, for
instance. A society is
dying when it demands equality
for all regardless of achievement because that is to
deny intellect ability, and
excellence. And what we were
saying just now about instinctual drives—any fool can obey
an instinct blindly. That is why
so many
fools get into such a
lot of trouble. And you must
make a point of hearing
him on evolutionary theory."
Sixx gave necessary
attention for a moment to
the processes
of eating
and drinking,
decided to change the drift
of the conversation into channels he
had more
hope of following. "All
at once,"
he said,
"you people seem keen to open
up. This
blanket invitation to Louise to
follow the program originally laid down
for Vancec.
The invitation
to Vancec in the
first place . . .
?"
"Yes. That is recent"
Packard scowled at it. "We are isolationist
by design
and nature.
I explained
that, didn't I? But it wasn't
until our machines began to
yield up indisputable evidence of
criminal practices amongst us that
we realized the full
extent of animus against us
from outside. We do keep
in touch
with the outside world, of
course, but we have
niters. People like Alma, and
others, who eliminate the unnecessary. We prefer to intake
data not opinions. But then, when
we made
our request
to Interstelpol for help,
then we were made to
realize that there was, shall I
say, a distinct reluctance to spring to our aid.
I suppose
we were
naive there."
Packard coughed,
struggled with his gloomy smile.
"I suppose it is
inevitable that an unknown will
take on the aspect of a
threat. At any rate we
realized we had to do
something to soften that
image, and of course the
senator's request came very
opportunely. Unfortunately it has turned out to be exactly
the reverse
of what
we intended.
So now we are willing to
extend the open band to
Miss Latham and yourselves to repair
some of the damage."
"In other
words you have nothing to
hide?"
"That's not strictly
true. We do have information—call
it that—which we would
rather not release. But that
doesn't make us unique.
It is
true of any society, surely?"
"Right." Sixx
agreed, grinning. "In fact there's
nothing particularly unique about
any of
this. A bit
of a
letdown for geniuses."
"We do not
particularly care for that word."
Packard frowned. "We—but Bardak has already said
it, quoting
someone else. Genius is
just the art of seeing
what everyone else sees and
then thinking what no one
else has thought. Seeing the obvious
but thinking
about it in a different way. And to do
that one has to be
detached.
Passionately disinterested. As far as possible.
It is
not possible, of course, to be
completely objective. We use machines to keep us up
to that
mark."
Packard shut down
abruptly as the background music suddenly grew into dominance.
Sixx heard a dancing melodic line weaving its way
through a mesh of interlaced
counterpoint, the whole thing
skipping merrily over an almost inaudible
argument away down in the
bass register. It lasted no longer
than a minute, but somehow
it conclusively
ended the meal. Lea Lawrence
stood.
"That was a
Bach bourree on the surface,"
she announced,
"but with added subsonics to
aid the
digestion. So much nicer than that
awful full' feeling, don't you
all agree?"
Sixx didn't For all
the fine
food and the elevating conversation,
he was
glad it was time to
leave. He wanted to see fresh
sunshine and air, to get
away from the sense of
being manipulated and watched
like something on a microscope
slide. He settled close to
Lowry as the departing guests arranged themselves on the
centipede car and was pleased to see the rear
seats left for himself and
partner, with Alma and Louise right
ahead of them.
"You get the
feeling they are parrying, Roger?
You ask
a question, you get
a lecture.
Arm's length. Nothing personal."
"Depends on the questions. I get the feeling
Vancec could've suicided. The
way Olga talks, he was looking for somebody or something, like a
man with
a bomb
all ready to drop. Ready to
pouncel"
"Wonder why
he would
come here to do it?"
"We might get
a line
on that
when we get his data
back. You find out anything about
their criminal activities, what they called
Louise for?"
"No, damn itl"
Sixx snorted at himself. "Packard
could've told me and
I let
it go
on by.
Alma would know, though."
He leaned
forward to ask and saw
that she had a small read-out
screen between herself and Louise,
making a map.
"We're here," she said, "and we
head almost due north to Lea's
place. Graham will get off
there, too. His place is
west of there. We
will continue northward to Ivan's
place and then strike northeast from
there to Olga's. By then
it will be nearly
sunset, and you will have
had a
long day, so we will rest
there overnight. If
you've no objection?"
"Won't Olga mind? Does she
know?"
The answer
had to
wait until they had waved
good-by to Hoff and were hooked
into the borer again. Then
Alma said, "She won't mind. It
was her
suggestion. She's very interested in you
as a
problem. How do you feel?"
Louise took her
time. "Comfortable," she
admitted. "And alert, too.
I think
Rex has
a question."
"Mind reading
now?" Sixx
grinned. "I do, at that.
Something we should have asked
long ago. The criminal activities
that drove you to ask
for help
in the
first instance. What were they exactly?"
"Ah yes." Alma rotated her seat
and Louise
copied, making a cozy
head-together foursome. "It's housekeeping, I suppose you'd call
it You must have realized that
as a society we are wide
open to abuse. That it
hasn't happened so far
is a
testimonial to our selection processes.
Until recently.
We are
provided with everything we need,
so it is obviously possible to
overdo, to be ridiculously extravagant to waste.
You agree?"
"Within reason. Hard to define that
sometimes."
"Not here, Rex.
Not with
us. Until,
quite by chance, someone needed some
typical consumer values out of
store and chose our
own as
a standard
of comparison.
And ours were ridiculously wrong, much
too inflated.
That was a start. Others made
similar checks, found similar discrepancies.
And then
a more
serious aspect emerged. Someone was deleting data from storage!"
"That's vague.
Can you
be more
specific?"
"I can indeed.
I was
the first
to find
it Programs
missing. I use analogies extensively.
Useful ones I code into
store in case I
forget them and to help
anyone else along the same line
of thought.
Often one can forget the
precise wording. And there was
one I
needed, a proverb-type story dating
from the nineteen fifties about
the unsolicited
gift and the human brain.
I knew
it was
there, but I needed refreshing on the wording. But
it had
been deleted. It was difficult to
believe at first, but there
it was.
Or rather, there it wasnt. And that prompted me
to start
searching for other things.
It is
difficult to search for what
may be missing if you think
about it. But we found
enough evidence to establish
the fact
that someone is cheating!"
Ten
"It's nice!" Sixx approved as he
thought it over. "Somebody, one or more, is
taking advantage of your built-in
patterns."
"Exactly. It
is an
intolerable situation. Even though we
must be by any
standards a highly unorthodox society, we still have to
follow the William James rule.
That a society exists and functions
only when each member of
it can
go about his business in the
secure knowledge that all the
other members are doing
likewise."
"And you are
stuck," Lowry murmured, "because you have this noninterference value. No face-to-face contact Solitaries. You
all mind
your own business."
"But surely," Louise suggested, "you have
a computer
complex, and it would
be a
relatively simple matter to set up
a program
to search
..."
"For what
isn't there?" Alma retorted, and
Louise hunched her shoulders.
"Yes, I suppose that
would be contradictory."
"And, you'll remember,
we do
not feed
personal data into store, not theories
or opinions
or anything
like that."
The conference broke off for a
moment as the borer halted to let off Lea
Lawrence and Graham Packard. The
hot miasma of the
jungle flooded in for the
brief while the canopy was down,
and Sixx
was struck
by the
contrast. Seething wilderness
everywhere, pockmarked by little enclaves of superorderliness that were
human home places. And all
were separated. Linked by mechanisms,
yes, but separated from each other
physically. Barriered off
by the
wilderness. He had the
feeling, without any explanation for it, that this venture,
the whole
of Iskola,
was founded
in fallacy, was a
group that wasn't a group,
a community
of individuals, all busily
working away at their own
little angles. Then the
canopy closed again, and the
borer
growled, veered
away to skirt Lea Lawrence's
home place. Olga Glink came back
along the centipede car, balancing
easily to the pitch
and sway
to stand
in the
middle of the four.
"I have discussed
with Ivan, and he agrees."
she said.
"We would rather remain
aboard with you and go
direct to visit Jan Bardak. This
happy conclusion to our distress
—we should make a
special effort to tell him
in person.
Does everyone agree?"
Alma frowned slightly,
touched the buttons on her
readout, and studied the new
map that
came up. "That will take us
on a
new and
unused route," she mused. "The
going will be very
much slower. Still, we ought
to arrive,
anyway, before sundown." She looked up again
at her
three guests. "I am
thinking of you chiefly. It
has been
a long day for you, and
you aren't
as healthy
as we
are."
"Thought you didn't
deal too much in opinions?"
Lowry countered mildly. "I
don't see how you can
apply a ruler to a thing
like health."
"There are several
criteria." Olga took
the bait
promptly, squatting lithely between the
seats, distributing her bright
smile equally among the three.
"Equilibrium is one. General appearance.
Skin tone. Muscle tone. Reaction time. History of ailments.
All can
be quantized.
Do you
dispute that I am
healthier than you, Roger?"
If she meant
it as
a challenge,
Sixx thought, carefully restraining
a grin,
she got
her wish.
"Depends on what you're measuring." Lowry told her. "I
don't know a lot about skin
tone, muscle tone, stuff like
that. But I reckon I do
know about reaction times. You
ever slapped a man's face, Olga?"
Her smile blinked
away into surprise for a
moment, then came back as amusement
"You think I am not
fast enough to slap your face?"
"Right. Once, maybe. But you won't do
it twice!"
Lowry had hardly
done saying it when her
left band moved in a blur
that ended with the explosive
briskness of a smack. Then another
blur as her right hand
came up and across, but no
slap came this time. Somehow
her wrist
had got itself caught
in Lowry's
gloved hand. Even Sixx, expecting it, didn't see it
happening, only the accomplished fact. Nor did he see
the whole
of the
repeat effort with her left hand,
only the fact that Roger
was now
holding both her wrists gently but
firmly.
"You're pretty
fast, Olga," he told her,
"but you need to mix with
people a bit more. All
this studying all by yourself can fool you into
that kind of mistake." She struggled now not savagely
but strongly.
She might
just as well have tried to
uproot a tree. Her smile
went
There was an
edge to her voice as
she protested,
"You have some special
talent, some assistance!"
"Not the
way you're
thinking."
"But this is
impossible ... 1" She struggled
more, both physically and to contain
her anger
and humiliation.
"Keep still and
111 explain.
Look, there is a top
ceiling on how fast anybody can
react no matter how good.
It is
limited by the speed
of transmission
of the
nervous system. You can't beat that
any more
than you can beat any
other absolute. So even
you can
move only so fast. And me,
too, naturally. So we
are even,
that far. But I have
an edge
on you because I'm in the
habit of dealing with people
direct In my job
I have
to read
a sign
fast and react to the
other guy, or maybe wind up
dead. So I learn to
anticipate. You got me the first
time, sure. But that was
enough to tell me your pattern
and what
to look
for. Eye movements, body sway, shoulder set—stuff like that.
And the
way you're
wearing next to nothing
makes it that much easier.
I could see
you coming
before you started."
He released her
wrists, and she crouched there,
slowly sliding one hand
across the other in puzzled
wonder. Sixx watched her. Roger, so
very easily, had put his
finger right on the key weakness
of this
whole place. A society, any
society, is people reacting
to and
with other people. Take out that
datum and all the rest
is so
much academic waste of time. He
was framing
words to that end when
the borer's whine suddenly modulated and
died away to a purr. Up
front, Rilke seemed as surprised
as anyone
else.
"The controls
indicate we are infringing a home place perimeter," he called
back, "but there is nothing
on the
map to justify it. There should
not be
one here.
That, or we are
somehow far off course!"
Sixx moved
quickly to where he could
read the course over Rilke's shoulder.
Ahead he could see the
distinct break in the
green wilderness. On the screen
the perimeter
line showed plainly.
"It must be
a course
error." The physicist prodded the
panel a time or
two. "I will reset to
avoid and resume our original direction." The borer backed,
swung away, and the perimeter line
slid off the screen. Sixx
felt a tingle at his nerves
and turned
to glance
back. Lowry had come halfway to join him, looked a
query.
"Something smells, Roger.
Look, Louise is getting it,
too. Better be with
her, see if she can
put a
name or a direction on it"
Lowry went back
to the
tail end. Sixx stayed up
front, staring ahead over
Rilke's shoulder, peering through the
whirling blades of the
borer. The noise was subtly
different, their speed slower than
it had
been, and he knew, on the
side, that this was because
they were now hacking a virgin
trail into the jungle. Had
they followed the originally planned route, they would
have been recutting a trail already
traveled before. But that was
academic. It was the unexpected home place that bothered
him now,
dropping away and behind
to their
left. Again he had that
sense of stark contrast,
of small
spots of high-sophisticated
civilization buried in primitive
jungle, each completely introverted,
cut off
from all the rest. But
now the
borer, for all its heaving and
rolling, was developing an overall
upward cast
"Mountainside?" he suggested, and Rilke agreed,
pointed ahead.
"Bardak's home place
is just
below the first power plant
that way. All that
side of the mountain is
cleared, is a
kind of park scene.
Very beautiful. Flowers in
profusion, waterfalls, rainbows—a kind of living monument
in the
wild to our great
man. We are approximately one hour's journey away from
the first
clearing. What . . .
?"
He choked off
in astonishment
as the
borer's whirling blades screamed
suddenly into high speed before
the automatics
could take over and slow
them. Sixx reached out and slapped
the control,
halting the forward motion. All
around them was a
strange, unhealthy, straw-brown color, a death blight
several feet wide and extending
away to left and right. Rilke
goggled at it.
"It's all dead!"
he cried.
"Scorched!
This is defoliation, the wrong kind,
the kind
we do
not use!"
"Somebody does,
mister. Somebody has been this
way with a spray and not
all that
long ago, either. Hold still
a minute" Sixx stared
at it
trying to comprehend it. Alma
came hurriedly, looking as
baffled as Rilke, to gaze
at the
blighted strip.
"I've never seen
anything like this before," she declared. Sixx snapped at
her grimly.
"You know your buttons. Set up a track on
this, will you? Line it
up, see
if it
points
toward that
home place we just passed,
the one
that
shouldn't be
there. Go on!"
She stared at
him blankly
for a
moment, then spread her fingers and
used them. In a moment
the picture
was plain, even to Sixx. It
was exactly
as he
bad guessed.
This open trail of forbidden defoliant
that cut across their course led straight to that
home place that shouldn't be
there.
"And now what?" He passed the problem back
to her.
"Do we check this
out now?
Or do
we just
keep on our way and pretend
nothing happened?"
"Someone," she said slowly, "is using
the type
of defoliant
we forbid.
We use
the growth
hormone, overgrow type, which promotes compost. This
is a
sterilant, a scorch. We should report
this data into store at
once!"
"And that there is an interloper? That
there is somebody here who has
no business
to be
here?"
She couldn't take
that in. "It's not possible!"
she declared.
"One home
place, not on your register,
right there!" He pointed left along
the lane
of death.
"Possible or not,
there it is!"
"And danger!" Louise said raggedly. "From that direction, over there,
coming closer." She
pointed in the opposite direction
from the mystery, and Sixx
was trapped
for a moment in frustration. The job, the duty,
said stay with Louise, pay attention
to her,
guard her. Natural inclination pulled the other way,
proclaimed a mystery, urged
him to
investigate. But then the decision
took itself right out of his
hands. A distant growl grew
very quickly into a clamor. An
approaching chaff mist of scorched
leaves, branches, and roots
carried the roar within it,
gave them a frightening picture to
stare at. It was another
borer, whirling away the
dead stuff, coming up fast
"Hit it!"
Sixx snapped. "Go ahead, full
speed. That laddie is all set
to run
us down!"
Rilke struck
the controls
fast, and the borer howled
into life again, surged
forward into movement gnashed its way into the greenery.
"This is
ridiculous!" the physicist
objected after a moment or
two. "An unjustified
series of assumptions!"
'Think so?" Sixx
craned to stare back. "Then
why has
he turned to follow
after us?"
"Going to
catch us, too." Lowry
estimated calmly. "He has it made
so long
as we
are cutting
a trail
for him
to follow."
The Iskolans, all
three, were totally baffled now,
completely useless. Sixx could understand
why. One impossibility
was bad
enough, but to have a
string of them erupt in rapid
sequence was too much for
them to take. All the same,
that purusing borer was catching
up, had
to, in the circumstances. And the
centipede car was badly placed, trailing, caught in the
middle, right in the voracious
path of those whirling
blades. Strategies scampered through
his mind.
Open country, in which they
might have had a chance, was
an hour
away. Forget that But what else
was there?
By the
nature of things the pursuer
had all the best
of it
Unless—and he
tapped Lowry gently on the shoulder.
"You loaded,
Roger?"
"Always. I had to
make room for that flask
for Louise,
but I reckon I still have
enough to discourage those fellers
a bit.
Detonite, maybe?"
"It seems to
be the
only way left. You go
down the tail end. As soon
as you're
ready, we'll drop the canopy.
Right?"
Lowry went away, slapping his helmet
into place with one hand, reaching
into a suit pocket with
the other
for detonite capsules. Those innocent-looking little
silvery eggs came loosely stuck together
like beads on a string.
You pinched one off,
crushed it firmly, then threw it.
On a slow count of five
the resulting
explosion was astonishingly violent. Lowry
reached the tail, knelt to
make the most of what cover
there was, raised an arm.
Sixx turned to Alma.
"Get ready to
do exactly
what I tell you when
I say
ft. Ill want the canopy down
and everybody
to duck
at the
same time." To Rilke
he said,
"Slow right d«wn, nowl" To Alma. "Right!"
and he
armed his helmet into place.
The canopy fell away,
letting in a rush of
humid scents. Lowry threw . .
. one
. .
. two
. .
. three .
in quick succession. Sixx scanned to make
sure everyone was properly ducked down.
The pursuit
borer filled the air with
clamor, there was a
sudden change in the sound
of it
and then the tropical humidity blew
apart in three king-sized bangs, filling the back track
with flying debris and momentary
confusion.
Sixx peered through
it, scowling
as he
realized that whoever had been steering
that pursuing machine had slapped on his brakes fast
enough to avoid total destruction.
The whirling
blades were bent and ruined
beyond hope, but the tracks still
worked, the borer surged forward,
and then
there was something else, something
that altered the balance irreparably. There came a wink
of intense
light, sudden shadow by grace
of his
helmet sensors, and the protruding edge of the glassite
canopy spat and bubbled into ruin.
"Hold it, Roger."
he growled.
"We are in worse trouble
than we thought. The
opposition is using laser rifles
on us.
Better yield. We have
innocent bystanders to consider." He switched to external speaker
for the
benefit of the others. "Stop everything. Cut engines. Give
up. Elevate
your hands. Surrender, dammit! They've got burners
aimed at us!"
Lowry's voice came
in his
ear, grim but calm. "We
need heavy help, Rex. Better split,
huh?"
"Right!" he said just as grimly.
"One of us has to
duck out. Not nice. Better be
me. They
can see you, right? Keep in touch."
He ducked, backed
up to
the front
of the
centipede car, and saw
Louise and the Iskolans turning
to watch
him. The enemy borer, coming close,
ground to a halt. On
outside speaker again he rapped
at them,
"Don't do that! Look the other
way! Face the enemy! Don't
mind me, I'm going to run
away and get help. I'll
be back.
Go on,
turn around, dammit!"
Still semistunned,
not really
comprehending, they revolved
with their hands raised. He
scrambled hurriedly over the centipede car's
bows along the squat body
of the
borer, wormed his way
through a gap between the vicious
blades, and plunged into
the raw
green beyond. It offended all his basic instincts to
tackle the matted wilderness like this, to run away,
but hard
logic insisted that there was
nothing else to be
done. The opposition was hostile
and armed, and although he and
Roger might have stood a
chance in armor, it
was out
of the
question to risk Louise to weapon
fire. To say
nothing of Olga, Alma, and
Ivan Rilke. So he
plunged on angrily, striking a
compromise between dodging the
more massive obstructions and preserving
his original
course.
His suit mechanisms
helped greatly, but he was
under no illusions as to the
magnitude of the task ahead.
Rilke had said the cleared mountainside
began about an hour's journey away. That would make
it somewhere
between
twenty-five to
thirty miles, a shocking distance
for a
man on foot in this jungle.
In his
ear came
Lowry's quiet comments at intervals.
"Seven or eight of 'em. All in green coveralls.
Each one has a beamer rifle
and handgun.
Surrounding us now. Looks like
they don't know what to
do next
One has
something looks
like a radio." After a long
pause. "They are going to take
over our borer. That figures.
Theirs is a mess. I could
clobber three or four of
them from here, easy."
"Better not Roger. No sense in stirring them
up. It
will help us if we can
find out a bit more
about their background, who they
are."
"That figures.
They seem to be waiting
orders."
"AH right I'm
signing off a while, Roger.
I'm going
to need all the signal power
I can
get for
a while.
Out!"
Still slogging on
through the wilderness, Sixx cut
out the transmission circuits usually employed
for person-to-person.
Then with care he canceled
other circuits section by section until
he had
reduced his assist systems to
zero and could barely move. Then,
concentrating all his suit power into one seldom-used pattern, he encoded a
precise and highly secret series of
impulses, let them go, and
waited. Much to his
relief the crisp acknowledge signal came within brief seconds.
"Hello, Joe," he said softly. "Sony
to disturb,
but I
need you. I'm in
bad trouble."
The apparently
commonplace words were enough, he
knew, to alert the clipper's
computer into total attention
on him.
He felt
better, a lot better, at that
thought
Eleven
"Give me
the ship-to-shore
band," he ordered. There came a click and then
a bored
voice.
"Aratni Tower, reading. Go
ahead."
"Clipper IV to
tower, request clearance for takeoff,
soonest"
"Acknowledge, Clipper IV, wait!"
Sixx waited, not liking the
increasing foulness of his air
or the
climbing temperature but enduring it.
The bored
voice came again. "Clipper
IV, clear
to proceed!"
Sixx acknowledged, ordered the link broken,
spoke to the computer. "Routine takeoff, Joe.
Ceiling, ten miles.
Fix on my signal, take up
position directiy above and call
me back. Out!"
With that done
and much
heartened to know that help
of a kind was on its
way, Sixx restored his systems
and started forward once more. At
a very
conservative estimate he didn't expect
to hear
from Joe again in anything
less than an hour.
It would
help if he could get
as far
as possible along the way to
Bardak and open ground by
that time. The green
wilderness seemed deliberately designed to
be perverse,
full of loops and tangles,
ruts and roots, all branches and
barriers. As he labored on,
around and through he debated with
himself whether it was worth it
trying to bomb a way
through with a few detonite
capsules but decided against
it. That
would be a big loss
in striking power against
a very
small gain in speed. He
tramped on, shoving and
struggling, then to freeze to
a sudden halt at a nearby
rustle and crackle. A moment
later he snatched for
his needle
gun as
undergrowth parted to show him a
snouted and fanged beast not
too unlike
a boar. But bigger than he
imagined they came.
It looked annoyed.
It snorted
and charged
him without
further ado or provocation,
showing that it had more
in
common with the pig family than
just looks. He slid three
knockout needles into its
hide fast, then
went reeling as it slammed into him by sheer inertia. He scrambled up
warily, but it was
solidly unconscious.
"Next time," he promised, "111 get mine in first. You take a
bit of
stopping, friend."
He plunged on.
His helmet
speaker clicked, brought him Roger again.
"We're in that
scorch track again, heading back
to that
mystery home place. Two
men guarding
me, the
rest of them taking
it easy.
That Alma—all of them—they are
still fogged. They just
can't get it that there
can be
a non-registered
home place, not by their
system."
"I've been thinking
about that, Roger. This must
be where their housekeeping accounts have
gone wrong, obviously. They have been
invaded. But for that kind
of thing to show up, there'd
have to be more than
one, surely?"
"Check. There could
be hundreds
here, Rex. The place is big
enough."
"Right. And
that has to mean they
have somebody planted in a key
spot by a power-supply plant."
"Check. But there's a lot of those.
If they've
picked the nearest, according to the
routine, that should be close
to Bardak's place—hold it, we've arrived."
After a moment or two Lowry
came on again. "Looks just like all the
rest. Twist fence, up-and-down elevator, everything."
"Got any
idea who they are, Roger?"
"Not so far.
One thing
is sure, they don't have this
antisocial bug. These characters
work together real good." The voice in Sixx's ear
dwindled in volume suddenly, and
he spoke urgently.
"Boost your volume
a bit,
Roger, I'm losing you. Must
be the earthworks shielding the signal."
He turned
up his
own power, heard Lowry's
answer, clear but suddenly grim.
"We lost
out again,
Rex. Listen, this has to
be fast.
The bossman is Dobny, and he's
no fool.
He has
a squeeze
on Louise for leverage. She gets
hers if I dont peel
out of
this suit fast. I've
no choice.
You're it. Out!"
Sixx knew
a sudden
savage rage. So far the
exercise had been humdrum, academic, tedious at times. Even the
recent display of force, the
rough and tumble, was merely
an annoyance. But now
it got
through to him that he
had lost Louise—the job—which was very
bad. And Roger,
too, which
was disaster!
He hoped and
assumed that Roger would immobilize
his suit as he
shed it, a reasonably safe assumption, as there were
systems and surprises in that
set of
armor that outsiders were not supposed
to know
anything about And he knew well
that Roger, even reduced to
his one-piece
body suit and bare
hands, was by no means
an infant
innocent. All the same, things
couldn't be much worse.
He slogged on
grimly, impatiently awaiting the signal
from his ship, meanwhile
casting over various schemes and possibilities in his mind.
The crop
was slender.
Bar-dak was something to aim
at. The bossman,
the presiding
genius. And
the power
plants and the central computer
complex. Key
spots. But time was precious,
too, and it was slipping remorselessly
away. He felt savage frustration
as he
shoved and struggled and cursed
at the
stubborn green nightmare. He could
get very
little sense of real progress. One
bit looked
very like another. He knew
for sure that he
was holding
to a
direction, but he couldn't be sure even that it
was the
right one.
He could have
used some of Louise's special
talents right now. He thought of
her and
the Iskolans,
and swore
again. Isolationists,
hence wide-open to infiltration. That assumed habit they had of
wearing very little more than
just skin, it could
be justified,
of course.
It freed
them from uniform, ridiculous taboos and
labels. It maybe made them more
sensitive to interaction with their
environment. But it also left
them vulnerable in the face
of violence. That was their whole
weakness, that they were vulnerable to almost anything unplanned
for. It remained to be seen
whether they had any reserves
of strength.
Sixx was inclined to doubt it.
The long-awaited
signal from his ship beeped in
his ear,
and he
halted abruptly beside a forest monster
shrouded in nightmare creepers.
"Surface scan," he ordered. "Pinpoint on me, scan east
to nearest vapor plume.
Estimate distance."
"Miles, one four
eight," the reply came promptly.
Sixx visualized that as
best he could,
issued another instruction.
"Scan to nearest
open ground along that same
line, estimate distance."
"Miles. Fifteen"
"Hell!" he muttered.
"That's going to take me
hours— no, wait!" Inspiration
came suddenly to him, and
he issued
the next instruction with great care, keeping
perfectly still to give Joe the
best possible chance to read.
In a
matter of scant seconds he heard
the overhead
stutter of jet fire growing rapidly from a growl
into enormous thunder, hammering
violently enough to shake him
inside his suit He tuned down
his outer
sensors and headed for the
noise as fast as he could
smash his way through the
hampering undergrowth.
Very soon he
was plunging
into swirling smoke and steam, then crackling embers, sparks,
clouds of smouldering carbon, spurting
flames, the ruin left by
the ship's
jets. Virtually blind, shaken
almost silly by the noise
that was by now a tangible
thing, Sixx ran doggedly on,
wallowing and plunging thigh-deep at every
step into glowing coals and ashes.
But he
was able
to run,
to make
good time, and the ship, delicately
tuned to his precise location,
slid ahead of him, keeping a
constant separation, blasting out a trail
until its sensors read off
the start
of open
space.
Sixx became aware
of it
only as a rapid falling
off in
the deafening clamor, down
to a
silence that rang with echoes. He shambled on, leg-weary
and breathless,
flailing his arms to shake off
the worst
of the
soot and ashes, dabbing at his
face plate until it was
passably clear. The scene was freshening
just by itself, a tonic
to his
spirits. Ahead and beyond,
for miles
the green
turf, ornate with flower beds and
decorative bushes, stretched to the
first gray-blue slopes of
the low
mountain range ahead of him.
White vapor drifted lazily
away against a blue sky
darkening into late afternoon. More importantly, just a
short stretch beyond where the ship
had settled
inside a dark circle of scorched
turf was a glass window
and slant
shingle-roof cabin.
Or a house. Sixx couldn't be sure. It
looked like something from an
archaic picture postcard. Unless all
his calculations were miles
out, that ought to be
Bardak's place—and it looked
as if
Joe unwittingly
had set
his tail
down smack on the
perimeter fence. Sixx trotted steadily,
regaining breath and confidence,
his eye
on the
cabin. If you're in there, he thought,
this should ring every
alarm bell you've got! So come on out and check!
He drew
level with the ship and
the fence,
and halted,
undecided what next to
do. Then
there came movement by the cabin.
Somebody lean and
sun-browned in a white loincloth
striding slowly but purposefully. Sixx took
a chance,
moved forward to meet
the new
arrival. This was an old
man, wispy gray hair
carelessly over a fine skull
and heavily lined face. But he
was in
no way
senile or feeble. Craggy brows were
clamped down over an angry
glare as he halted, raised a
flat palm to halt Sixx.
"You intrude!" he said in a
good strong voice only faintly accented. "Who are you?
How did
you pass
my fence? And how dare you
bring that machine on to
my ground?"
Sixx marched
straight on, flipping back his
helmet, halting when he thought
he was
near enough to speak normally.
"You must be
Jan Bardak.
By reputation, a genius. Let's see you
prove it by listening carefully.
There's no time to throw away
in repetitions
and silly
explanations. You, meaning Iskola, sent for
experienced advice and help to
catch what you thought
was a
criminal element in your midst. The help came. I
helped bring it, me and
my partner.
You were
right, there is a criminal
element. That enemy now has your
help, a lady prisoner. It
has numbers
and organization and weapons,
offering violence, possibly death,
to the
lady, to my partner, and
to some
of your
people. Alma Tillet, Olga
Glink, Ivan Rilke. Are you
up with me so far?"
The old
man scowled
but nodded.
Sixx went on briskly.
"I avoided capture.
I needed
help, with muscles. So I called my ship. I'm sorry it
landed on your home place.
That was not intended.
I still
need help. From
you!"
The old
man hunched
his shoulders.
"What can I do?"
"Plenty. Point
the way
to the
nearest central computer complex
and the
nearest power plant and stores
base."
"Why?"
"Do it!
Ill explain as I go if
you like.
Go on,
point!"
Bardak shrugged again,
spun on his heel, and
aimed an arm up the slope
to where
a glass-glitter
hemisphere nestled in the
green. It looked to be
a half-mile
or so
away. Sixx started his
trot again. In a moment
Bardak was at his side, keeping
level.
"You can't
go in
there. No one ever goes
in there
except by some very special
arrangement. Maintenance. Very rarely."
"Is that
just a rule, or are
there reasons for it?"
"There are
reasons." Bardak spoke
in spurts
now, conserving his breath. "Maintenance . . . necessary,
of course
. . . but by skilled
men ...
in pairs.
Any other
intrusion
. . .
could create damage
. .
. even
to break
the seals
. .
. can do harm. Besides .
. .
there is no read-out No
information. It is a brain
only. For information . .
. you
need a terminal!"
"Oh!" Sixx broke
to a halt "That's no good.
All right
the nearest power plant,
where?"
Bardak pointed still
ahead, slightly to one side.
"The steel-clad
structure there."
"With a terminal
read-out?"
"Yes, certainly."
"All right, come
on!" Sixx started jogging again,
and again Bardak came up level
with him, but the old
man was
beginning to look angry
now. Sixx grinned aside at
him.
"Save your breath.
Listen. And believe. You have
been invaded. Not suddenly, not like
that. Over an extended period would be my guess.
And by
somebody who knows your internal setup
inside out and backwards. Like how to set up
home places—at least one, and
I will
gamble more—that you know
nothing about. Like
making highways in the jungle
with scorch defoliants.
Like an efficient gang of men
all armed
with laser weapons. That, just
for a start, is where your abnormal expenditures
are going.
You want more?"
Bardak jogged heavily, looked puzzled. "Invaded? But how and by whom?"
"Not clear
on that,
not yet.
I have
a name,
just one. Dobny. Edgar Dobny. Seems he
was a
candidate for entry a long time ago. Never
made it. Stayed
on as
chief forensic scientist of Aratni.
Mean anything to you?"
Bardak jogged
on in
silent furious thought. In a
while he said, "I think I
remember. Vaguely. A paranoid
case. Like so many .
. .
with freak intellects . .
. odd
people . . . tend to
be unbalanced.
But how
... did
they get in?"
"Your fence technique,
any fence,
be it electronic
or natural, is not going to
stop any man with a
mind to pass and a little
imagination. You may be pretty
smart about some things, Mr. Bardak,
but you
don't know a damned thing about people!"
The old man
scowled, his eyebrows jutting farther.
"Who are you?" he demanded again. "That silly uniform!"
"Interstellar Security. Bodyguard
to the
Interstelpol detective you sent for.
The name
is Sixx.
I'm no
sociologist mister, but even
I know
that putting up a 'keep-out'
fence is an open invitation to the curious to
climb it and find out
just what you are
trying to hide."
They were
level with the geodesic dome
of the
central computer complex now,
the slanting
sunlight striking fire from its facets.
Sixx was aware of an
odd parallel.
This thing was the brain, or
one of
them, of the whole of
the Iskolan "body," and just like
the human
brain it simply stored and processed
data. It was entirely without
eyes, ears, or sensations of its
own. It was a disturbing
thought
Bardak was keeping
up well
for an
old man,
but he
was getting more and
more angry all the time,
his thinking
processes beginning to catch
up.
"Why—" he puffed,
"—are we .
.. running there?" and he aimed at
the metal-clad
power center ahead. Just beyond
it was
the base
of a
squat tower from which drifted
vapor plumes, lesser brothers
of the
majestic ones higher up on the
ridge.
"Because that's the
most likely place where we
have a chance of finding out
just what has been going
on." Sixx himself caught up on
a point
or two
of elementary
precautions. "Does anybody live there?
Any opposition likely?"
"Not a .
. .
home place!" Bardak grunted. "No
one lives there. Certain ones visit
. .
. special
experiments... maintenance. There is
... a
fence!"
"I see it."
Sixx had noticed the frieze
of slender
poles, now only a matter of
minutes away, was already wrestling
with the problem of
getting the old man through
the obstruction.
He was
so engrossed
on that
teaser that he almost missed the
tiny flicker of movement at
the corner
of the nearest structure. Unthinking reflexes saved him and Bardak,
made him thrust the old
man aside
powerfully with one hand, shouting,
"Go down! Flat!" even as
he went flat down
himself. Bardak bounced away into
a grunting sprawl. Sixx
fell flat and skidded a
foot or two, arming 'his helmet
into place and then elevating
his head
to look.
There, just
by a
massive double door, part open,
stood a man in green coveralls,
carrying something in that certain
way and
stance that labeled it "weapon,"
beyond all doubt Long-range, Sixx estimated.
A little too
far for
accuracy with his needle
gun. He rolled over, peered
across the grass to
where Bardak lay in a
heap but visibly breathing.
"You all right?"
"No!" the
old man
grunted. "I am hurt My
arm, see?" and Sixx saw the
angry red scorch mark of
a fringe
hit by
a laser beam, even
as he
rapped.
"Put it down!
I see
it. Yon
character over there can see
it, too, if you
wave it about like that.
Keep still and listen. You are satisfied now that
there is an opposition? All right, let us now
find out how many we
have just here. You stay put
and watch.
Don't move at all until
I wave
you to come on. Right?" He rolled
over again, got his needle gun from one pouch,
a slim
extension barrel from another, screwed the two
carefully together. It was still
long-range for a skinny,
lightweight knockout needle, especially
in the
freshening evening breeze, but he
could do something about that. He
rose steadily and purposefully and started striding toward
the fence
and the
waiting enemy beyond.
"Come on, brother,"
he invited
softly, carrying his loaded right hand
well back and partly obscured.
"Come on. This white
suit makes a good target,
no? You'll
never get another chance like this."
The distant man
in green
moved now only a step
or two, then went down on
one knee,
leveling his weapon, apparently doing something
to it
first
"Set for fine
beam, full power," Sixx guessed,
and went
steadily on, gambling on
the technical
brains of I.S., who had designed
this suit to be immune
to just
about anything. His helmet visor,
for instance,
had filter
sensors far faster than any reflex
of human
nerves. Three snapped blackouts
in fast
succession were all that he
knew of three accurate blasts. Then
he saw
the baffled
marksman get to his feet and
start back.
"No, don't do
that," he urged. "If you
duck back inside there, I'll have
the devil's
own job
winkling you out. You hang on
a bit!"
He had
reached a fence post now.
He leaned against it, ignoring its
output, steadied himself, did fast estimates
on range
and windage
as he
raised his extended needle gun and
aimed. The opposition stopped to
stare. Sixx put his
thumb down and traversed his
tolerance area, expending ten needles.
The man
in green
moved again, just one step and
then an ungraceful nosedive. He
lay still
Sixx waited,
ever cautious, then grinned fiercely
as another
green coverall came out of
that half-open door in a
fast run and stoop,
trying to grab the fallen
weapon. That run ended in another
nosedive. Sixx waited for a
count of
fifty. Nothing. He turned and
waved a come-on arm to
Bardak who scrambled
up, awkwardly
favoring his arm.
When he was
near enough to feel the
first twinges, he
stopped.
"I can
go no
further. I cannot pass the
fencer
Twelve
"All right,''
Sixx called to him. "Back off
a bit, lie down, cover up
your ears. This next bit
will be crude." He watched Bardak
obey and nodded appreciatively. No fool, anyway. Then he
groped for a couple of
detonite pills, pinched one, and tossed
it accurately
to bounce
close to the next fence post
on his
right Revolving, he repeated that to his left hunched
his shoulders
to ward
off the
two blasts and the sudden clattering
rain of turf, soil, and
stones. Then he swung
around and waved to Bardak
to come on again.
"Sorry about that,"
he said.
"You'll be able to get
it fixed later. You do know,
I take
it, that
it's the interference between the
pole fields that ties the
knots in you? And now, let's
take a closer look at the enemy."
Bardak ignored the
chaff, going up another notch
in Sixx's estimation because of that.
Instead he dove straight for the immediate puzzle. "Why
here?" he demanded. "Why would they be here of all places?"
"Well now, just
suppose I had smuggled you
inside Jskola, and I
wanted to fix you up
with a home place, how
would I get access
to the
preprogrammed constructor machinery without
alerting the entire network? You
can figure it from there, surely,
that I have to have
somebody on the inside just here?"
They reached
the shadow
of the
building. Sixx was intent on
the weapon,
which be examined and then
ruined with expert effort. Bardak was
much more interested in the fallen
men, crouching to examine one
of them
then looking up in bewilderment
"This man,"
he said,
"I remember. Paul Massenet He
is a brilliant physicist, also with
a burning
interest in social problems. He thought
we would
leap at the chance
to have him with us. But
he was
obsessed by the idea of
the rule of the
elite. Plato's theory.
You know
it?"
"I've heard of
it Self-appointed
superman guardians...?"
"Something like that, yes.
Of course
it failed
him for
us. That is not
our thesis
at alL
But that was
more than a year ago, almost
two!"
Sixx checked his
helmet, his systems, then eased
in through the half-open door into
the diffused
light and murmuring quiet of a
huge chamber where placid machines
purred softly to themselves and the tiled floor
underfoot shimmered gently to
the beat
of power.
"You know the layout,"
he said.
"You point the way to
where the central controls are located.
And tell
me, just
how many new applicants do you
get in
any average
year, and how many do you
take?"
"For the precise
figures I can refer you
to a
terminal as soon as we reach
one. Roughly, if that will
do, we
have about thirty a year, of
which we accept two, sometimes
three. About
one in
ten, in fact Why?"
"Just checking. Alma
Tillet said the same as
you. But the outside figures, the
best we could get, say
a different
story. They say thirty
a year
like you, but only two
or three of those fail to get in!"
"That is ridiculous!"
Bardak, who bad aimed him
at a
smaller door, caught up
with him now. "On that
basis there would be five hundred
of us
now over
a twenty-year
period."
"That doesn't
sound such a lot"
"But it is.
Originally there were ten of
us, myself
and nine more, all with the
same inspiration. I evolved the
plan, the
other nine helped me hammer
it into
shape. And now we are—positively and precisely—fifty one! I
know each one personally. Young man,
no one,
no one
at all,
enters Iskola unless I
myself personally approve."
"Well see about
that," Sixx promised him as
they eased in and among standing
panels where dancing, winking lights told stories to each
other. And Bardak hung back,
came to a halt,
his craggy
face setting into stubborn lines.
"No!" he growled.
"There is too much here
that I do not like. I
am not
satisfied. There are impossibilities. You say listen and believe.
I am
not prepared
to believe
so easily as that!"
"Ill bet your
arm doesn't
hurt, either!" Sixx snapped at
htm, wanting to be
patient but feeling every passing
minute as a personal pain.
"Ill bet you didnt expect
to be
shot at on your
home ground, did you? And
those two bodies out there, you
didn't believe those, either, did
you? Come on, now, I can
only lead you so far.
The rest
you have to do for yourself."
Bardak snorted, breathing
hard, then raised his good arm. "There
is a
terminal. That is what you
were looking for."
"All right, come
on. Let's
see if
we can
rub your
nose in it a bit harder.
Let me
get this
right. Everything starts from here, machinery,
power line, materials, supplies, right?"
"That is so.
The power
input—I will show you .
. ."
Bardak approached the terminal,
struck the keyboard rapidly, produced
a schematic
of colored
lines. "Input to transformers
and fhyristors,
to ring-main
all around
the plant. Heavy machinery
below. Prepackaged units. The newcomer
selects his location anywhere, and
the links
are made automatically from there on."
"That bit
I already
know. Show me*all the home
places!"
"Very well!" Bardak
struck the keys again, and Sixx
saw the same diagram
Alma Tillet had shown him.
Bardak shrugged at it.
"Count them if you wish."
"No need. I've
seen that before. You had
a preset
program for that, didn't you?"
"Of course!"
"Right. Now
try this.
Program for a
full read-out of all presently active power and information
links. Go onl" "But you already
have it there!"
"No I haven't.
You do
it the
way I
said. Power and
information links. Not home
places. Be specific. Go on!"
"Very well." Bardak
shrugged, winced at his arm,
took a bit longer at the
keys this time. "You realize
this is not a standard program."
He struck
the read-out
key and
caught his breath. The
bright spots blazed in profusion,
far too many for
the eye
to count
or even
guess at
"A total!" Sixx
snapped, and the old man
fumbled, goggling at the screen,
got his
fingers to obey him. Sixx
saw the number and sagged. "Six
hundred eighteen!" he breathed.
"It is
not possible!"
Bardak croaked.
"It's a disaster,
that's for sure!" Sixx glared
at the
awful evidence, his mind
spinning. All those home places . . . and not
necessarily one person to each
. .
. and
none of the people indicated would
be simple
by any
means . . .
the impact
was storming
for a
moment Then he grabbed
Bardak's arm
urgently.
"Work off your
astonishment later, old man. Right
now, listen to me, answer me
some questions. All home places
are near enough identical,
yes?"
"A basic design, yes. The
owner can modify, of course."
"But they
are all
subsurface?"
"Oh yes.
That is a standard rule!"
"Let's hope not
too many
have broken it. Now listen,
and get this right,
all the
way down.
This is what I want
you to do. First of all
you'll prepare a general alert
of some kind, something that will
summon everybody to his terminal and keep him there.
Paying attention. Right? You don't use it yet,
but have
it ready.
The idea
is to
have everybody clustered around
their screens, got it?"
"Yes, of
course. But why?"
"That's the next
thing. You will set up
a blanket
command, order, hard and positive,
to cut
. .
. break
... remove
and lock
off ...
all connection,
all power,
supplies, information . .
. the
lot .
. .
with all nonregistered home places. You understand that? Can
you do
it?"
"Cut off the
life lines?" Bardak made it
sound like mass murder,
and it
probably was to him. "I
can't do that!"
"What do you
mean, can't? Won't? Bardak, look!" Sixx flung a band at
the message
on the
screen. "You have been invaded. You are about to
be taken
over by an army of
power-mad paranoids because you
have something they want."
"We are
not power-oriented."
"No, maybe. But
they are. They are going
to use
you— you and the things you
have discovered. All
your secrets. Isn't it obvious?"
Bardak shook his
head, showing his age all
at once.
"We have power, it
is true.
But not
to be
abused, not like that!"
"I know!"
Sixx struggled to be patient.
"I know you dont intend to
abuse it. But they do.
And they
have it almost in their hands.
Man, you are outnumbered twelve to one by desperate
men with
weapons who know what it is
all about.
You haven't
a prayer
unless you act now, right away!"
"And you said—"
The old
man mumbled,
shaking his head, trying to grasp
something solid, "—this plan .
. .
?" "Listen. I said
you had
to make
an alert,
something that
would grab them, bring them to
their communicator screens. Right? Then, snap .
. .
you cut
their life lines
. .. and
you've got 'em. Because . .
. look
... a
subsurface home place complex
is a
wonderful idea when it works. But it
is a
prison when the power fails.
Isn't it? So we get
them all into their
traps . . . and
then we spring the catches . . . and
we've got 'em! Come on, now, think!"
Bardak did well.
It hurt
him to
slash through all his ready-made values, but there were
visible signs that logic was making
headway. "Very well," he said
at last
"But it cannot be done here,
not at
this stage. The various subassemblies
will have to be set
manually to drop out on
a signal."
"Go ahead and
do it, whatever you have to," Sixx urged,
and the old man
trotted away to yet another
door. Prickling intuition made Sixx
check and spin around just
in time to snap off a
needle at yet one more
of the
opposition who, in the outer
doorway, bad a beamer coming
down on Bardak. The
green coverall went one way,
the beamer another. Sixx revolved again.
"You all right?"
Bardak shrank away
from a glowing spot on
the metal
door, then
nodded speechlessly.
"You go
on. Ill
keep watch. There
may be
more."
He waited and
was rewarded.
In came
another green-suit, crouched and cagey,
aiming around with his weapon
but too distracted by the inert shape
on the
floor to do a good job.
Sixx picked him off deliberately, watched him
go down quietly beside
his colleague.
How many
more, he wondered?
He eased his
way back,
found a spot, stepped up
on to
the top of a
panel, lay there
where he could command both doors. The one where
Bardak had gone was safely
shut was metal, was
part-proof against laser fire. The
enemy seemed to hunt
in pairs,
which was smart of them.
Footsteps, now that he
was listening
for them.
One more
greensuit showed very cautiously.
Sixx held his fire, watching,
saw him
come all the way in
and kick
at one
of the
bodies, not too gently.
"Hans? What the—"
Crouch, now, make a quick
investigation. Turn and
peer back and call. "Not
a thing,
Bergen. Just like the
other two. This is crazy.
They are both down and well
out but
not a
mark on them!"
"There's got to
be something."
Bergen appeared, walking warily, eyes
all around.
"Anyway, there's no other way out,
so it's
in here,
whatever. Hey, look at that
bum mark on the door! That's
the heavy-duty
switch gear and relay system chamber.
Come on!" Sixx let them
get as
far as the door,
then put them to sleep
like the rest. And he
waited a while, but
nothing else happened, so he
came down from his perch and
prowled as far as the
outer door. Nothing. Nobody. He went back in
time to see Bardak reappear, almost stumbling over the
new bodies
as he
passed the door.
"It is all
arranged." he said,
swiping at a smear of
oil on his cheek. "Do I
call them now, yes?"
"Yes, sure. Make
it good!"
"Never fear, I
will!" The old man seemed
on fire
now. "My Iskola, indeed!
We shall
see!" He approached the terminal again, this time with
a resolute
air, started keying in a set
of commands.
A spotlight
flared, and a pickup eye
swung, lined itself on
where he stood. He struck
the master
key.
"Geetings to
all my
fellow Iskolans. This is Jan Bardak. I have a matter of the extreme
importance to tell you, all
of you. I will
delay three minutes to give
you time
to attend,
to warn
others if necessary. This is
of the
utmost importance. Three minutes!"
He let
it hang
there, standing sturdily and patiently. Sixx felt an itch
even though he approved the performance.
He tried
not to
wonder just what Roger would be
doing. And Louise.
He tried
to visualize
a total
blackout in a subsurface dwelling and wondered how
long the air would last
out. Speed was important. Three minutes crawled by.
"Greetings again,
my friends. Listen
carefully. We are in danger, very
grave danger. Please remain alert,
ready to respond at once if
I should
ask for
your help. That is all for
the moment."
And then
he struck
the key
to activate
the programs he had
set up.
In that
instant the chamber lights brightened, and the droning machinery
stirred angrily, grumbled, shook the
floor. But it was only
for a
moment, and then everything
was as
calm as before. Bardak smiled.
"We built well,
young man. Such a massive
load-shedding was never
a part
of our
plan, but it is done,
and we
are still functioning. But what
now? You seem to know
much more than I
do about
what is going on. We
have all the rats in the
traps, but what do we
do with
them?"
"They can wait,
most of them. My concern
is with
one in particular. My partner is
trapped in there together with
the detective lady you
requested and for whom I
am responsible. We—I have
to get
them safely out somehow."
Sixx turned away,
scowling to himself at the
problem. Bardak caught at
his arm.
"You started to say 'we,'
and I agree with you. This
is also
my affair.
How can
I help?"
"I dunno, not
yet, but I'm not in
a position
to refuse
anything. Come on, let's
get outside."
They headed for
the outdoors
at a
trot, but Sixx hadnt lost his sense of caution
altogether. The enemy might all
be caught underground, and then again they
might not He spent a moment
in the
big doorway
surveying the sunset scene before deciding
it was
all clear.
Then he grinned at the old
man.
"Ill bet you
don't fancy running as far
as my
ship. No more do I, and
mere's an easier way." He flipped his helmet
shut, triggered the intercom, and
said gentiy, "Sorry to disturb you
again, Joe," and then added
the code
commands that gave him control
of liftoff
and steer.
The obedient ship roared and climbed
up off
the ground,
hung, started to drift. Bardak galloped
back from the comer of
the building urgently.
"Ojmingl More of
them!"
Sixx strode forward
to where
he could
see a
centipede car skimming, descending the slope.
It was
heading for the fence and making
very good time. He made
a fast
decision, adjusted his signals
to set
the ship
on a
collision course right by
the fence,
and waited.
The ship
bellowed along, thundering no more than thirty
feet above the surface, spreading
a fearsome
swath of scorched devastation several yards wide.
"They better back
up," he murmured. "Joe can cover
a hell of a lot more
ground than they can, and
faster, too." He grinned as
the scurrying
car slowed
its mad
rush. He ordered a little more
elevation, a slight veer, and
the car
sheered off rapidly, swung
away.
"All right, now!"
he shouted
to Bardak.
"This will be lively. You get
behind these doors for cover.
I'm going
to put Joe down right outside.
I can
stand the heat and noise. You can't. So use
the doors.
Just as soon as ever
the ship is down,
you jump
on my
back and hang on. It
will be hot but
not for
very long. Right?
Here we go!"
He stood in
the gap
between the doors, shaking to
the slam and smash of shock
waves as the ship slid
down over its jet blast and
bounced on sprung feet. The
jets snapped
off, Sixx
waved, felt the thrust and
weight of Bardak on his back.
He ran
heavily forward.
"Open up, Joe,
it's me," he said, "and
I'm in
a hurry!"
The gangway struck ground
only seconds before he reached it. He galloped heavily
up, into
the lock,
three more steps and gave a
great sigh of relief at
the rumble
and clatter of armor
closing after him.
"Still all
right?" he demanded as Bardak
climbed down.
"I am well,
thank you. Young man, I
have spent a lifetime preaching
against violence in my own
small way, but you have shaken
me. But
for you
I would
be dead
several times over!"
"Forget it." Sixx
led the
way up
to the
control room. "I haven't been straining
myself on your account, not
in the first instance. I have
a job
to do,
that's all. I don't like
violence, either. Given the
choice, I'd rather use brain
than brawn any time,
but sometimes
you don't
have any choice at all. Let's
have a picture or two."
He activated
screens to give him
an all-round
look at the terrain. There
was the centipede car
and four
men aboard,
all with
laser rifles.
"There's violence," he said. "Those laddies seem very well off
for weapons.
Not that
they can hurt us, not
now. And if they don't back
up once
again, they are liable to
get fried. Up we
go!"
Thirteen
The sunset
scene fell briskly away, shimmering
in the
heat waves from jet
fire. Sixx stared at it,
thinking of something else.
"It occurs to
me," he said, "that those bandits down there might just be smart
enough to undo all our
good work."
"I think not."
Bardak stared at the several
screens in fascination as if this
was a
new perspective
for him.
It probably was, Sixx realized. "No,
I think
not. I changed the coding patterns.
I was
a power
man originally,
did you know that? All my
life I have been intrigued
by the
concept of power in
all its
aspects. The power to influence,
modify, control other people and
life forms, even events. Possessed by all
forms of life to some
degree but deliberately used and abused
only by man. Look .
. .
down there . .
. those
raw yellow
streaks! What are they? Not a natural phenomenon,
surely, not in such straight lines?"
"There's a point,"
Sixx mused. "If you'd had
regular aerial surveys of
your domain, none of this
would ever have happened. Those are
ground links in between the
illegal home places of
your invaders. Permanent highways, you could call them. Scorch
defoliant."
"The fools! Again
and again
I warned
them not to burn out the
vegetation like that A rot spray
is better
if it
has to be done."
"Yeah," Sixx agreed
absently, winding up the focus
on a different kind of scorch
mark, the blackened, smouldering track left by the
ship when it had rescued
him. Using that as a marker,
he was
able to pinpoint the scorch-yellow
track where the opposition had first shown itself
and from there to
the home
place where Roger had to
be.
And Louise. As
a double
check, he set the ship's
sensors
sniffing after
the beacon
in Roger's
suit.
"If the big
lunkhead had the sense to
activate it, that is," he muttered.
But the
implied rebuke was unjust There
it was, a small
but positive
"pip" at precise
five-second intervals. So much for
that. But now Sixx had
really hard problems. He debated them
with himself, but aloud, not
caring one way or
the other
whether Bardak heard or understood.
"For just one
thing,*' he said, "there's fuel. Hanging
like this gulps it up pretty
fast so whatever I do, I don't have
a lot of time for it.
In the
second place, Roger is in
there and parted from his armor.
So, too,
is the
job, Louise. And
a few innocent bystanders.
So I
can't afford to get too
rough. I can bust
a way
in, all
right, but somebody is liable to
get hurt
while I do it."
"Can I help in
any way?"
Bardak offered.
"Maybe. When
you were
designing your subsurface units, just what
provision did you make against
power failure?"
"None at all!" Bardak protested, but looked foolish. "Why would the power fail?"
"You're no help."
Sixx chewed his Hp irritably.
"Why do I keep on thinking
of air?
Unless—" He spun to Bardak
suddenly. "Is there provision—no, damn it, there has
to be air intakes somewhere. Got to be!" He
touched his controls to sharpen the
picture of the home place
below. "Where?"
"They are peripheral."
Bardak stared at the screen,
studying it his experienced
eyes seeing through the shrubbery
camouflage. "Those clumps there. Four. North and
south, east and west
Regular. See?"
"Got you. That's
my way
in. One of
those. But which? Damn! If I
could only talk to Roger."
He pushed
the button that would get that
five-second beacon again, just to make
sure. And there came nothing
at all.
He scowled
at it angrily. What now? And
then the speaker in his
helmet gave tongue very
faintly.
"Rex? Do you
read? Let me hear from
you if
you read?"
"Roger!" Sixx's
fingers danced on the console
to catch
and hold that waveband
and amplify
it on
open channel. "I read but not
too loud.
What goes?"
"Plenty. Who
pulled the blackout switch, you?"
"By courtesy
of Jan
Bardak, yes. Good?"
"Depends. You
have the opposition eating their
nails trying to figure out a
way of
making a light. They had
split Louise and me
off from
the rest,
put us
in a
chamber two levels down, pretty cold,
loaded with some goo or
other, smells like sour
yeast, mash, something like that''
"That's the culture vat,"
Bardak muttered. "Basic-protein-producer
unit."
"And you
got out,
of course?"
"Didn't take much. All I had to do
was find
the draft,
the air vents. I
maybe should have come all
the way
out there and then, but I
wanted my suit first. Then
came the blackout, anyway, so I brought
Louise along with me. And
glad to have her,
too. I can find my
way around
pretty good, but she leaves me
a long
way back."
"So you found
your suit, you're armored again—
where?" Sixx demanded, throwing
the "stand
by to
go down" switch on the autopilot.
"Second level. Some
kind of storeroom, I imagine.
Full of disposable gear, drapes, sheets,
tissues, stuff like that Nothing solid."
"Right. I can line
up on
your signal, and that covers
Louise, too, as she
is with
you—but what about the others?
Alma, Olga—wait,
Louise! Can you hear me?"
"Hello, Rex.
I hear
you. Where are you?"
"Right over your head and about
to drop. More
important, have you any idea
where the Iskolans are? Near you
at all?"
"Yes. They
are very
near. Above. Very close."
"I'll have to
gamble on that. Right, hold
on to
your hats, I am coming down,
but hard!
Out!" Sixx hit
the flight button and the finder
in the
same movement. The scene below started
growing huge swiftly. "Better relax in your chair," he warned Bardak. "This
is not
going to be any textbook landing.
And there
he is!"
he added
as the
direction finder drew intersecting
lines to one side of
the expanding circle below.
Grabbing manual override,
he nudged
the ship
away from dead center, away from
Lowry's signal, and set his
teeth as the parklike
surface rushed up to meet
him. Several seconds too late
he threw
in the
braking thrust and groaned down in
his seat
as weight
fell on him hugely. Sudden impact hammered him down
more, close to blackout, as the tripod feet
of the
ship struck and telescoped inward against overworked shock absorbers.
He had
no fear whatever of damaging the
ship. Like his suit, it
was designed to
absorb enormous punishment, sometimes more
than frail human flesh
could match, even with help.
Breathless, aching in all
his muscles
and joints,
he held
on to the controls for a
count of ten, just in
case the ship was going to
topple, it did lurch a
little, and he fired a
ready blast, but then
it settled
firm.
"That's given them
something more to worry about,"
he muttered, levering up
in his
seat and craning around to look
at Bardak.
The old
m»n was out, quite still, but breathing. Sixx got all the
way up
to his
feet "More violence,"
he said
regretfully. "Who's to blame, huh?"
Then he flipped his helmet into
security and ran stiffly, noting
the way the deck
was canted
off level
as he
reached the inner air lock. "Roger?"
he called.
"How was that?"
"Like the
end of
the world!
Where did you hit?"
"Opposite side
from you." He reached the outer air
lock; and there was
no need
for the
gangway. From where he was standing,
he saw
turf and then a six-foot
layer of streaky soil, and then
the gray
and glitter
of ruptured
foamcrete and reinforcing metal strands. The turf
was just across and down a
little. An effortful leap got
him to the momentary insecurity of the edge, and
then a scramble and he was
on level
footing. Smoke and steam swirled in lazy coils out
of the
hole the ship had dug
for itself.
"It's a mess!"
he reported.
"But I'm going to augment
it somewhat before I
start looking for a way
down. Maybe you could try
finding the Iskolans by an
air trunk
or something?"
"On my
way. They
must be scared out of
their britches by now!"
Only
they don't wear anything so practical!
Sixx commented
silently, drawing crosses in his
head. The ship had smashed down squarely over one
air duct
so that
one over there had to be
where Roger was. And that
put the
other two to left
and right
They needed treatment
just in case any of the
opposition had been smart enough
to figure them as a way
out
He trotted heavily
away to the right, ploughed
through a pretty stand of vivid
scarlet blooms to find a
stone mushroom head with a
metal grille. Delicately he seeded
it with three detonite pills in
quick succession, then turned and ran as hard as
he could
for the
opposite one. It was almost the last thing he
ever did. He had just
one wrenching
sensation of agonized impact in
his right
leg, then the deafening blast of
an explosion
that smashed him aside and down,
hard.
Only half-conscious, he moved painfully, got elbow and knee to
the turf,
fought bis way up, swaying
as his
right leg wanted to fold under
him, and as tie haze
cleared from his senses, he was
looking at a scarecrow in
ruined green, smoke-blackened and bleeding from
a scalp
wound but glitter-eyed purposeful.
And he
was aiming
a strange
but impressive-looking hand weapon
square at Sixx's middle not
more than a yard away.
He was
growling something.
". . . rocket-thrust
missiles. Explode
on impact
Heard all about your trick suit,
mister, but I say this
will put a dent in it.
And you. So you hold still
now, or we will both
find out who's right"
Sixx almost fell
as the
turf under him jumped to
three quick explosions underground.
He was
too immediately
involved to give that
phenomenon any heed now. "You
have the handle," he admitted, hearing his
own voice
as if it was in a
tin box.
"What d*you want?"
"That!" The scarecrow thumbed over his
shoulder at the ship. "You and me
and that.
We will
take it back where you've just
been, and we will put
the power
on again."
"And then
what?"
"Then you'll
get yours!"
"No deal," Sixx mumbled. "You offer
no inducement
You're going
to kill
me, anyway.
Where's the point?" Unreality wavered between him and
the smoke-stained
sight before him, like a dream on the point
of breaking
up. The
scarecrow brushed at a
trickle of blood down his
cheek.
"The point," he said, showing his
teeth wolfishly, "is a simple one.
This weapon holds ten. I
know what it can do.
I made it I tried to
tell Dobny—the fool—but never mind
that now. You have
experienced a glancing blow from
one missile. The next
one—I Wow your arm off. Then the other arm.
Then a leg, depending on
how tough
you really are. The other way
you get
a quick
death. That's the point!"
The unreality shook
itself and went away. The
impossible was real, shockingly so. Sixx shook his
head slowly. "I don't like you.
I don't
trust you, either. Why all
this bother with me? There's the
ship. Go ahead and grab
it I cant stop you!" Sensation screamed
back into his leg now, for
all the
good that might be, and
sweat crawled on his face
as the
enemy snarled and took careful
aim,
demonic against
the swirling
smoke.
"I can't fly
your ship, mister. I know
it, and
you know
it, don't try any
more games with me. Come
on, move,
or here goes your left arm!"
"Drop it!" The
barked command came from the
ship's air lock where Bardak 'bad
appeared, stood holding something long and glittering in his hands. The
scarecrow whipped around, and
Sixx hurled himself forward in
the same instant, crashing into his
opponent, striking at the weapon. In the next moment
they were in a crazy
struggling tangle in which Sixx
kept all his desperate attention
on that weapon and
had no
time at all to think
about his aches and knots. The
scarecrow was just as desperate
and as savage as he looked,
but his
fury was pointless against Sixx's armor. It could be
ignored. At last Sixx managed
to clamp a hand
on that
lethal wrist, to squeeze it,
shake it, get the weapon free, to
kick it clumsily aside.
The balance shifted
abruptly. The enemy launched a
mad dive for his
weapon, and Sixx kicked him
hard, tramped forward to kick him
again, then bent and reached and lifted that head
with one hand, clouted it
hard with the other.
Then at last he could
inhale a much-needed breath and
relax just a little. He
was shaking
all over as he shambled across
and picked
up the
missile thrower and studied
it.
"Neat and nasty,"
he muttered.
"This place is awash with geniuses. How is your
end, Roger?" For reply he
got only heavy breathing. "Roger?"
"Busy, Rex. Bottom
end ...
air shaft
. .
. two-three
others ... got similar
notions. Be coming out .
. .
soon's I've taken care ... be
a while!"
"Have fun!" Sixx hefted the rocket
gun, gripped it, wrenched until he
heard things snap and part
in it,
then threw it away, hard. He
tramped over and looked across
and up at Bardak, still standing
in the
air lock.
"You can throw
me that
crowbar," he said.
"It will come in handy. And
if you
look back along the bulkhead
a bit, you'll see a coil
of steel-core
cable. I can use that,
too, please." Bardak ducked
out of
sight, came back
in a
moment to toss out
the cable
and the
crowbar. Sixx collected them, flexing
his leg
experimentally, reassured that
his suit was relatively
whole.
"Thanks for the
help," he called, "but I
hope you wont have to
try anything
like that again. I mean
. .
. this
thing doesn't even look
like a weapon. And
you're too valuable, anyway, to take
chances like that Stay put"
He started the
long, limping trek across the
garden to the flower bed that
camouflaged Roger's air vent. He
had no apprehensions whatever about his
partner. If anything he felt a
trifle sorry for the opposition.
The air
grille was exactly as he remembered
the other
one, an expanded mesh of heavy
gauge alloy. He leaned close
and called
out, "Below! Mind your
eyes. I'm going to bust
this cage open. There might be
some dust!" He heard a
distant shout applied the crowbar lustily,
leaned on it and there
was dust and protest,
but the
metal yielded, folded back to where
he could
get his
hands on it and rip
it the
rest of the way.
"All clear now!"
he called,
but not
so rashly
as to
stick his head in for it.
Failed geniuses, he was learning,
were just as dangerous as any
other kind, possibly more so.
He heard a reply,
thought he recognized the voice.
"Olga—that you?" She
assured him it was. "Stand
clear," he told her.
"Here comes a rope." He dropped the cable, making one end fast
to the
mushroom head itself. In a moment
the dangling
end grew
taut and here came Olga Glink
walking up hand over hand
to leap
clear and stare around in surprise.
"Sunset? Only? My time sense
is thoroughly
muddled!" There were dirt
stains on her loincloth, arms, and knees, but otherwise she was unhurt.
"That was easy for you," Sixx commented, "but what
about the others?"
"It is all
arranged, Rex, you will see.
Alma comes next,
and then Roger the
Terrible!" She made
it sound
like a title. "Ah, here—" and she went to
extend an arm to Alma who
hadn't quite the catlike skill
of Olga
but was
managing very well. She,
too, was dusty and had
managed to rip her yellow
drapery into ruin, but that
didn't seem to bother her at
all as
she dropped
to the
turf.
'Total darkness," she said. "It's an experience. One feels .
. .
less . . . somehow.
And never
did I
need body-field awareness more. But
Louise is par excellence, dont you agree, Olga?"
"Yes, indeed,
a rare
gift! I am so glad my dietary additions
have done something to help
that"
Sixx shook
his head
blankly, kept a hand on
the cable.
Murder and mayhem, a
revolt, a hairbreadth rescue from
entombment—and what were they
so excited
about? Some talent or other! Now
came Lowry, glare-white
in his
suit, monstrous in the
gloom as he leaped down
to the
turf.
"What's this?" Sixx chided. "Leaving Louise down there?"
"And Rilke . . . and
six of
the opposition,
sure. You fancy
the job
of hauling
them up on your own?"
He leaned back in to shout,
"When you're ready!" and laid
hold of the cable.
Even with two of them,
and the
ladies helping, it was
an arm-aching
labor before the six battered
and unconscious
invaders were laid out on
the sward.
Dobny was among the
fallen.
"The head man,"
Lowry said between breaths. "Bent
as a corkscrew, but he had
the whole
thing sewn up. All set to
be some
kind of galactic dictator, I
reckon until we blew in and
ruined it. Big,
too. The net stretches all
the way back to
Earth at least, probably several
other places,
too."
"How many
down the hole, do you
know?"
"I figured eight,
to start
One got
squashed... six there ...
maybe I miscounted...?"
"No," Sixx corrected
mildly. "There's the last one
over there, look." And now here
came Louise being hoisted but
helping by walking. Sixx
reached her down as Lowry
dropped the cable one
last time for Rilke.
"I'm glad to
see you
all in
one piece,"
Sixx said inadequately.
"I'm glad to
be out
of there,"
she admitted,
smiling through dust and
grime. "But it was fun
in a
way."
"Fun?" he echoed,
and she
laughed. Even in the purple
gloom she seemed to
glow with well-being.
"That's right, fun.
I've never felt so well.
You know,
I think it was
because I was being pushed.
Under pressure. Total darkness,
for one
thing. I couldn't see, and
I was scared sick. But then
it came
to me
that I knew— and I did
know—where everything and everyone was.
I knew! And so I had to accept
it. And
once I had done that much,
it all
seemed all right!"
Sixx shook his
head slowly, trying to understand.
"You make it sound
like some kind of desperate
commitment . . . ?"
"That's right.
That is exactly it. I couldnt
run away
from it any more.
I had
to face
it And it's not frightening anymore."
Fourteen
Last of
all out
of the
air shaft
came Rilke. Despite a rapidly purpling
bruise over one cheekbone he
was grinning,
a startling
change from his habitual scowl.
"Physical violence," he said, "has a
remarkably cathartic effect I must make
a note—"
He joined
the others,
and Sixx
limped over to his
partner, feeling curiously lightheaded.
'Total darkness, Roger?"
he murmured.
"What happened to your helmet
light?"
"Nothing. Didn't need it. Would've made
me a
fine target for the opposition, anyway. And our Louise—she
has some kind of
dark sight—she could give it
to me,
somehow. Something like that. I
don't understand it but it came
in handy.
Made things simple.
What now?"
"Well... Bardak is
over there... in the
ship. That's quite a gap. I
jumped it coming, but I
now have
knots in my leg. Over to you.
The gangway
will have to be hand-steered. Get everybody aboard—" Much to his disgust
he felt
his vision
going, his balance failing. Reeling,
putting out his hands
to take
the shock
of falling—and
there came a blurred
hiatus, the sense of being
carried, of being helpless. Light and
clarity came back after a
while, and he was
in the
ship's lounge, stretched out in a
comfortable chair while Roger carefully
unfastened his suit looking grim. Remotely
there were voices.
"We are past
the moment
for academic
discussion." That was Bardak,
and there
was a crispness
in his
voice. "We have learned
much about our weaknesses, and out strengths, our
ideals, our theories. I ask
you now
to think
more narrowly. We are
faced with the immediate problem
of more
than five hundred intruders, under restraint for the moment
but not
for much
longer. And actively
hostile. What to do
about them? What do we do about them? For if we cannot
solve the problems of our
own society, we stand condemned as
futile. Once, already, we
have made that error. Let us
learn from it. Let us
begin with one thing—in this instance
we must
discard our policy of independent isolation and work together
on this. Obvious, I think?"
"It fits the
equation." That was
Alma's voice. Sixx spoke up over
the fire
that burned in his leg
as Lowry
eased the suit away.
"What equation?"
Alma moved to
enter his line of vision,
smiled at him. "It is really
very simple, Rex. All living
organisms have three essential needs. Assurance of
identity in some form. Adequate stimulus to respond
to, which
is what
life is all about, isn't ft?
And security of
living survival, which is obvious. But those three are
always in constant conflict and uneasy balance. That is
the dynamic
of living.
Threaten any one and it
grows stronger while the others
diminish in proportion. For example, lack
of stimulus
can bring
boredom and the drive
to risk
life and security by some
excitement or merge your
identity into some cause or
other. To gain status
and fame—which
is identity—you
will risk security, and
so on.
At this
moment our security is under attack,
so we
will be ready to hazard
individual identity and those
kinds of intellectual stimuli that
we would otherwise prefer. That's how
it is,
Rex. We don't make those rules,
they are built into us.
Our advantage
is that we understand
them rather well."
Sixx had the
uneasy sensation that he was
still a little lightheaded. Or dreaming all
this perhaps. Roger had removed the lower part of
his suit
completely now, and that damaged leg
felt twice its normal size.
Bardak came.
"Thank you, Alma,
for the
academics, but we must not waste
any more
time. Young man—Mr. Lowry?— can you take
us back
to my
home place now? I have
a multichannel terminal there.
We must
rally all our resources in this emergency, all of them!"
"That leg needs
attention!" Lowry spoke
sternly. Olga came with a competent
wave and smile.
"Leave it to
me, Roger,
I have
the qualifications.
You two are not made of
iron, you know. You only
act as
if you were. Go along now!"
"It'll be all
right, Roger." Sixx grinned at
him. "You take it. Joe knows
the way.
And nothing
much can happen inside the
ship. Geniuses! Even with a
take-over war on their hands they
have to spout theories!" He felt a firm touch
on his
knee, a moment of exquisite
agony, and then the pleasant easement
of some
of the
original pain. He looked
down at Olga's dark head,
lowered and intent on what she
was doing.
"I wonder how many of
the opposition are climbing
out of
air shafts
right now?"
"Wont do them
much good, not without power.
Ill take your suit,
Rex, and check it out
just in case." Lowry hovered just one more minute.
"Don't sell the brains short. They can pull it
out when
it's wanted. Ill bet they
come up with plenty
once they start!" He went
swiftly away and up to the
controls, leaving Sixx to look
down again at Olga. She was
investigating his leg with her
fingertips as if listening
through them. She smiled up
at him, rose, went away to
the autochef.
He felt
the stir
and shudder of liftoff. She came
back with a glass.
"Drink it," she
ordered. "I shall have to
rearrange your leg bones
a' little,
which will hurt. You will
find this a help. Better still
if you
just lean back and let
everything go." The drink
certainly helped. The next thing
he remembered
clearly was blinking at 'bright
lights and realizing he was
in Bardak's
home place data room. He
was just in time to hear
the old
man laying
it on
the line
for his associates in bleakly practical
terms.
"We need now,"
he said,
after giving them the stark
facts and figures of
the situation,
"urgent ways and means of disarming
these intruders, ways to render
them helpless and harmless, so
that we may dispose of
them. As painlessly as possible. Consult, all
of you,
with your fellows in knowledge.
Here again is the enemy!"
and he
put up for them that schematic
that showed all the illegal
home places and link
lines.
Then, in a
matter of moments only, Sixx
was irresistibly
reminded of a vast orchestra
tuning up, snatches of separate melody somehow meshing together
and making
sense to the players
but a
mighty confusion to the onlooker.
All four
Iskolans were in there, each
at a
terminal screen, and the
separation between them and the
three onlooking Earthlings was more than just
physical They were on a different
plane altogether.
Sixx, in
awe, caught snatches! Rilke in
interchange with others, tossing to and
fro suggestions
and designs
for paralyzing fields, modified
short-range tractor and pressor beams, various permutations on the
metabolic-field screen; Alma catching data and deftly
converting it for Olga to
grasp—the basic structure of
nerve gases that could be
produced merely by subtle
and skillful
operations of the autochef range; Bardak
himself linking up with
Lea Lawrence
and others,
fostering the development of hypnotic
and tranquilizing frequencies, to be fed in
through the link lines—which could be
partly restored for just that
purpose—the generation of paralyzing
flicker frequencies in the lighting systems.
"Dobny had something!"
he muttered,
looking up at Lowry and Louise.
"If he could have laid
his hands
on this lot, somehow—what they have
tucked away—he would have been something
to stop!"
"They have power,
all right,"
Lowry agreed. "Dangerous
power. But that's where Bardak's
rules came in. This sort of
thing is only dangerous if
you want
to use
it against other people to gain
control. That kind
of power. And the
natural solitary doesn't have that
bug, doesn't need status that way."
"I will buy
that," Sixx agreed. "But what
turns them on now? If they
are solitaries,
Why are they
suddenly all hand in glove?"
'Territory, I reckon.
You know
the way
they fence off their home places?
Well, the whole of Iskola
is home
place to all of
them, isn't it? And they've
been invaded. That's my guess. Anyway,
it looks
as if
they are going to be able
to handle
it. Lets us
out."
"Is that right,
Louise?" Sixx glanced up at
her. "Is the job over?"
"Almost," she said. "There are only
a few
loose ends to tie off. Dobny
was the
key that
unlocked everything else."
"How about him,
anyway?"
"Oh!" she shrugged.
"He told us. A man
like that has to stand big,
to parade,
to brag
in front
of somebody.
To gloat! You see,
he and
Vancec were half-brothers. Both
were power-mad types but along
different lines and always competing with
each other. Edgar—that's Dobny —he was
a whiz
kid, a brain, whereas Arthur
was more
the politico type; and
that, incidentally, was why he
was always distrustful of anything that
even looked like excellence or superior intelligence. He grew up with
it, you
see? So he went
strong for the common-sense vox populi angle. They fought, those two. Of course
Edgar jumped at the original announcement
of Iskola
He made
a big
brag about it, how
it was
inevitable that true genius would
transform and rule the
human universe. He still believes
that. So off he went
to enlist
with Bardak and was never beard
from again. So Arthur had
to assume
that he was safely tucked away
in Iskola
in his kind of power and prestige, nothing would
stop him from a visit
to
Martas and, if
possible, a confrontation and showdown
with his smart brother.
But he
was outsmarted."
"Because brother Edgar
was now
chief forensic scientist and a big
wheel in the law-and-order department of Arat-ni, in
exactly the right place to
be able
to pull
some very important strings."
"Apparently he was
able to commute in and
out of
Iskola by his own
route virtually at will. Of
course he was monitoring all the
radio traffic in and out,
too. And diligendy recruiting
all he
could get out of Bardak's
rejects, all the paranoids, scooping them in. In
a way
he was really a brilliant man.
He was
literally poised to take over Iskola,
and it
was sheer
bad luck
that his brother showed up at
just the wrong moment for
him."
"So that's it."
Lowry spoke with unusual gravity
for him. "It's all wrapped up,
done, finished. The Iskolans can handle it from here."
She turned to
look up at him, and
Sixx saw a curiously reserved expression on her face,
belied by the sudden rapid rise and fall of
her bosom.
"Go on!"
she invited,
and Lowry
shrugged minutely.
"So you write
up your
report, and me
and Rex
will take it..."
Sixx wanted to
protest but only with half
his mind.
The other half had
seen this coming, could share
Lowry's reasoning. Louise, aglow
and clear-eyed
with health, wonderfully and brearhtakingly
lovely now, belonged here with these
idealists. Half of him ached
vainly, the other half saw the
reason and logic of it,
and he
turned almost angrily as Bardak
approached him,
"What now?"
"I regret," the old man said,
"that I am driven to
appeal to you yet again
for help.
I would
rather not, but I have little
choice, and the matter is
urgent, very urgent"
"What?" Sixx demanded,
and despite
his chagrin
the old man smiled.
"We could
learn directness from you. Here,
I will
show you." He wheeled
a free
read-out screen to where Sixx
could overlook it with
him, tapped buttons to put
up an
aerial view showing coastline,
enlarged it, and pointed.
"About forty miles from here. One of our power
plants. Here is the complex
of intake
chimneys down by the water surface
at the
cliff bottom, and here again
is the
power plant itself, on
the cliff
top. Like all the others,
it is unoccupied, but we use
external scanners to monitor weather conditions, storms, winds, and
so on..."
"I think
I'm ahead
of you,"
Sixx interrupted. "The enemy
is there?"
"Yes. A number
of them,
we do
not know
how many.
It seems they have
surface craft at their disposal."
"We could have
told you that How else did
you imagine
they were getting in and
out of
Iskola?"
"Yes. It is
obvious now. Apparently they use
radio more than we do, also.
Those rogues must have been
alerted somehow while they
were abroad. We know for
certain that we have
everyone else safely enmeshed by
narcotic gases, hypnotic sonics,
and augmented
field fences. We know that for
sure. But this group is
free, attacking the plant, and we
cannot use any of those
measures there, not to a power
plant or a chimney. And
although we are quite willing to
assist you with physical violence,
hand-to-hand combat if necessary, we lack the strategy
and skill at such things." Bardak squeezed out the
final phrase as if it hurt
him. Lowry was attending now,
grinning.
"No need to
feel bad, sir. Experts are
there to be called in. And
it's a bad spot. They
could wreck that power plant easily,
which would be bad enough,
but these
laddies are smart. Given
the time,
they will probably be able to
dream up something a whole
lot worse
than that."
"Hold on a
bit Roger."
Sixx was still a little
irritated. "We are stepping
out of
our ground
now, just for one thing. Louise has done what
she came
for, and that's as far as
our assignment
properly goes. For another, I
can just about walk. That's not
too bad
if my
suit is O.K.... ?"
"Fixed!" Lowry
told Mm, "A dent or two, but all
systems are go."
"That's something, sure. But I would be no use whatever in
a brawl.
This needs to be figured
out. No point in rushing away
half-cocked. And you cant do it
alone, Roger."
"Sure enough," Lowry admitted, "I cant cover both ends of a
four-thousand-foot chimney by
myself. Incidentally, Mr. Bardak, can
they climb up inside those
things with no special trouble?"
"Quite easily. There
are internal
ladders and staging fitted for inspection.
But I
promise you this,
no one
will hurry up there. As you
say, Mr. Lowry,
four thousand feet... and straight
up!"
"Gives us
a moment
or two. What
we need
is a
volunteer or two who knows
the internal
layout, the ideal solution being
to cover
both ends of the chimney
and trap
them before they can
do any
damage."
"Myself!" Bardak
was prompt, and Sixx was just
as prompt waving him down.
"No, sir. You're
an old
man. You're much too important,
anyway. The penalties of fame,
I'm afraid."
"We need more
than just knowledge of layout,"
Lowry offered. "Whoever gets to climb that
chimney with me is going to
need stamina as well."
"You would accept
me, perhaps?"
Ivan Rilke was close enough to hear, to turn
and approach
with a fierce grin. "I am not doing anything
very important I know that
plant well. And I
think you already know that
I can
be violent when it b called for?"
"Glad to have
you." Lowry grinned. "You have
quite a wallop. But
how about
you, Rex? You'll need somebody
who can move real
fast up at the plant
end of
the show."
Rilke showed his
teeth in that wolfish grin
again. "I think I can help
you. Olga! Come
a moment!"
Sixx's irritation returned as she came
trotting over, all bubbling eagerness. The careless twist of
cloth about her waist seemed destined
to fall
off at
any moment
and her golden hair was a
wildness about her face, but
she was utterly unconscious of all
that, sublimely self-confident It
took only a moment to
give her the gist of
the emergency.
Sixx expected to hear her
raise a doubt or two,
but she seemed to
gather even more eagerness as
she turned to him for approval.
"But of course
I will
partner you if you will
have me," she declared.
"I have nothing to do
here now, and I am all
stirred up with the excitement,
anyway. Action is exactly what
I need
to relieve
tension. Also I can shoot
very well. Does that surprise you?
It is
only coordination, after all.
Am I
acceptable?"
"It's your skin."
Sixx levered himself up from
his couch
and tried his leg
gingerly. "Where's that suit, Roger?"
Louise came to
stand as he slid himself
into his armor again and checked
it swiftly
but thoroughly.
Her face
was grave, her honey-gold
eyes solemn.
"I wish I
could come and help," she said. "But this
is one time I'm no use.
I feel
part of the team, somehow,
and I
shall worry all the time
you're gone. You'll take care and
come back, won't you?"
"Dont worry." He gave her a
grin. "I'm very fond of me.
Ill be back."
"Ill be waiting. We
have something to talk over,
something important to all of
us, so
be sure
not to
take any silly chances. The job
is not
over yet by any means."
She squeezed his
hand before it disappeared into an armored glove and left him wondering
just what that
meant. Even with
power-system assist he found it
none too happy walking and was
thankful when he reached the
clipper and could relax in the
control chair that had been
built to fit him.
Taking the ship
straight up was routine that
he could
do and still ask, "Got anything
figured out, Roger?"
"Odd bits. I'm
none too happy about fuel.
We're pretty low."
"My fault." Sixx
thought guiltily back to his
devastating pathway through the jungle.
"Still, we have enough for a straight splashdown by the bottom of
the chimney.
Ill go
in as
close as I can. There's
the plant
now, down there." He had it
on the
screens, a neat and tidy
doll-block array of four long
halls side by side, with
squat block towers, two and two,
flanking them. Fleecy white vapor rolled from the towers
ceaselessly. Olga leaned over his shoulder
to point.
"The entrances
to the
four turbine halls are on
this side," she indicated.
"Across the grass
from the gardens. You had
better put down just there
in the
gardens. You will destroy a few
flowers, but they will grow
again, a power plant wont."
"Ivan!" Lowry turned to the Iskolan
engineer-physicist "Well go straight
down alongside the chimney foot
and splash down. Better let me
hop out
first just in case they've
left a rear guard. Ill wave you on when it's
clear. Rex, give him time to
get out
from under, then you come
back* here and we'll meet up
one way
or the
other."
"Check!" Sixx put the ship into
a vertical
drop, watching the gray cliff
wall unreel upward. "Better go easy
on the radio, too, just in
case they have somebody listening
out. Emergency
only, right?"
The huge box
frame of the chimney slid
past, in places half obscured with
creepers and bushes, and he
had time
to reflect how much
easier it must have been
to build
this structure than an
equivalent free-standing stack. Now the
restless blue ocean came
rushing to meet him, and
he braked delicately and expertly.
Lowry got up
and went,
taking Rilke with him, and
Olga settled her curves
into the seat beside him,
stretching a shapely leg in
complete ease. Her all-but-naked presence was at
once a warmth
and a
disturbance to him, even through his
armor, and he had the
curious sense that she knew it,
knew she was making impact
on him, and he felt his irritation return. Damn this place
where everybody had some
special talent or other, some
unfair advantage, making him
feel as out of place
as an
extra thumb.
"You two have
extremely good reflexes," she remarked.
"Both of you. Do you have special
training for it?"
"I wouldn't call
it training,"
he said
grudgingly. "Practice. We have
plenty of that." He juggled
the controls
delicately. "A lot of
this job is just sitting
around in beween times, waiting for
something to happen, and a
man can get stale
doing that, so we practice
all sorts
of skills." The ship
fell the last few feet
into a brief bump and sway,
and he
struck a switch that lit
a red
winker, reporting the hatchway
opening, canceling all thrust in
the same instant with
his other
hand. "There's more to it than
that, though. When you're working
with a complex machine, you
try to
'be as
fast as the machine if
you can—and that is
quite a mark to keep
up to."
"That is a
very good point," she agreed.
"One needs the pressure of challenge.
This invasion... is a
terrible thing... and yet good,
in a
way...
we were
all getting
lazy-minded, I think."
"There goes
Roger." He had switched to
the over-door
sensor and they were
now looking
from just above water level, over restless waves, toward
the nearest
edge of the vast chimney complex,
green-weeded and darkly gloomy underneath. Lowry's white bulk slid
rapidly through the water, the foam
of his
splashes whipping away in evidence
of the
powerful updraft "Making for that
skimmer. That must be What the enemy came in."
"There doesn't appear
to be
anyone in it" She leaped
forward to peer. "It
should be safe for Ivan,
don't you think?"
"I don't. Ill
bet Roger
doesnt think that, either. If
Ivan has any sense
at all,
hell stay put until Roger
gives him the word." Sixx had
his eyes
on that
skimmer, apparently idly bobbing. All
at once
a longhaired
head rose up into view and
poised to aim.
"Oh!" Olga gasped,
clutching Sixx's arm, but her
concern was needless. The stranger
stood, swayed, aimed, and then seemed
to lose
all interest.
His arms
fell. He slumped and pitched headfirst
out of
the skimmer
into the sea. Seconds later Lowry's
white bulk heaved up by
the craft
for just a moment
and then
he turned
and waved
one arm in a plain invitation
to come
on.
"Now it's
safe," Sixx murmured, and saw
the brief
splash as Rilke went
into the water and surfaced,
swimming strongly. He was aware
of her
hand still on his arm, even
through the armor. He turned,
and her
face was very close, all big
blue eyes and intense curiosity.
"Why did that
man fall?"
she asked.
"I don't understand."
Sixx smiled at
her. It was easy to
do. In
this childlike mood she was very
appealing. "You'd know, I guess,
about fast-acting drugs that
can knock
an organism
right out? The kind of go-to-sleep
stuff they use when they
want to knock down a wild
animal without lulling it? With darts?"
"Yes, of
course," she said. "But I saw no dart How was it
done?"
"With one of these." He
moved his right hand smoothly
and with the speed
of long
practice, and let her see
the needle gun in his palm,
watched her eyes look down
and open wide. She
put out
her hand.
"May I?" She
took it into her grasp,
hefted ft, seeming to "taste"
ft with
her touch;
then she stared at him
again, her blue eyes
very wide. "But it is
beautiful," she enthused. He had always thought
so himself,
although it hadn't been designed with
that intention.
"You surprise me
a little,"
he admitted.
"I wouldn't have expected you to
use that
kind of word."
"But why not?" She curled her fingers around
it twisting
her wrist
and arm
tentatively, then opened her hand
again. "It fits into
my hand;
it has
a natural
balance; it js as natural to
aim as
pointing with a finger; and
it has
no ugly edges at
all. How does it work?"
"Simple enough." He
produced its twin and showed
her. "There's a power
pack in here, circuitry that
delivers a brief but powerful pulse
to magnet
coils here, a stack of cobalt-samarium
alloy needles in here—drilled and loaded with the drug—and
the flash
gauss field yanks a needle out
and sends
it on
its way
with enough zip to make it
effective up to half a
mile. I don't have to
tell you how to
hold and aim, you're doing
that now. There's no trigger—that's the major flaw with
most projectile weapons, you have
to use
the finger
you should
be pointing with. That
one has
a thumb
stud in the most natural place. The full pack
is fifty."
"May I keep this
one in
case I need it?"
"You?" He
met her
gaze directly, revised his earlier
opinion, and made a
smile. "You hang on to
it Believe
me, I wouldn't say that to
just anybody, but you...
you'll be all right with it."
There came one of those
moments that hovered on the edge
of something
else, but training took over, brought
his eyes
back to the screen, canceled wayward thoughts.
'Time to go,"
he said.
"Ivan is clear. Hold on
to your
girdle, we're going up
fast!" He struck buttons and
the cliff wall streamed rapidly downward
past his cameras. Problems flooded into
his mind,
so important
that he almost missed her indignant
retort
"It is not
a girdle.
I do
not need
anything like that This
silly piece of silk is
a gesture,
a sop
to convention
for those who might
take some kind of offense."
"Forget it!" He
cut her
off. "I have other things
to worry
about. I want to
come down close to that
plant, in the gardens, as you
said, but I am not
going to be able to
see a damned thing through that
constant vapor bath I"
"Is that all?"
She chuckled
cheerfully. "Just go down. It will
be no
problem. Those vapor-tower blocks are
more than one hundred
fifty feet high, and the
vapor comes from the top. You
saw them
from above, remember?"
"You make
me feel
stupid," he muttered, juggling with
studs as the plant
swam into view below. "I
didn't think of that"
"Not stupid, just
underinformed, Rex. That
is what
I am here for, isn't it,
because I know things you
don't? Abo, you are not completely
well and under pressure."
"I'm not yet
at the
stage when I need somebody
to hold my hand!" He sent
the ship
straight down now, braking
it to
a gentle
bouncing halt amid a ruin
of exotic
blooms and riotous bushes.
"I'm remembering, for instance, to switch off all
systems because this ship will
only work for me and Roger,
nobody else. That's just in
case any of the enemy happen
to get
by me."
"You mustn't
be too
hard on yourself. Come, I
will explain the layout as we
go." She strode with him
along and down to the air
lock, down the gangway and
into a heavily scented breeze, a
component of which was the
acrid tang of scorched
greenery. "There—" she pointed a
shapely arm, "—are the four turbine rooms,
halls of power. The chimney divides
into four sections about five
hundred feet down, beyond
the edge,
one flue
to each
turbine."
It wasnt obvious until he thought
about it that she was deliberately
matching her walking speed to
his painful
limp. It
seemed the most natural thing
in the
world that she would take his
arm and
stroll with him as if
they were on a
Sunday afternoon walk. With his
helmet back he could savor the
scented breeze. As they left
the flower groves and moved on
to a
carpet of green turf, the sunshine
struck rainbows from the drifting
vapor. And she had discarded that
"silly piece of silk" and was a natural Eve
alongside him. It needed a
real effort for him to keep
his mind
focused on business, to study
the approaches to the
four turbine halls as areas
to be
covered against a ruthless enemy.
Regretfully he armed his helmet into clicking security, chinned
his external
speaker, and took a gentle
hold of her arm.
"Wait up
a moment,
Olga," he ordered. "This is very pleasant, but I
have to remind you that
it's not what it looks. We
have problems here. Four big
doors, each one pierced with a
smaller door. A
spread of about eight or
nine hundred feet. And we don't know
how many
people are coming up that chimney
or where
they are likely to come out.
And no cover.
We are
right out in the open
I"
"You are too
gloomy, Rex." She faced him,
staring upward into his
anxious eyes. "That little boat
could not possibly have held more
than six people. One is
accounted for, thus five
are in
the chimney;
and it
takes time to climb four thousand
feet."
"And you
are not
the expert
now," he interrupted angrily.
"I ami I know about
attacks, and I'm armored. You have only your pretty
pink skin! You have to
be protected." There was
no more
time for debate. A flicker
of movement caught his
eye, and he reacted before
his conscious mind bad time to
analyze it, planting a palm
firmly on her breast
and shoving
her vigorously
away in the same movement that
swung him around, brought his pistol up in his
other band to loose a
burst of needles at a green-covered
figure that had come halfway
out of
the main door of
the second
hall from his left. His
visor went black for just a
twitch, and then the green
figure slumped and plunged
face downward on the tiles
in front
of that door.
"Keep absolutely
still where you are!" he ordered, and edged his
way toward
her without
once relaxing his vigilance on the spread of
doors. 'Takes time, does it?"
You don't seem to realize we
are dealing
with fanatics here! With crazy people
all bets
are off."
He flicked
a glance
down to see that
he was
close and in front of
her prone
form. He crouched with
his back
to her
to create
a better
shield. "Are you all
right, Olga?"
To his
enormous relief her voice came,
muffled but calm. "I felt heat
by my
head. I think I am
a little
scorched, but I am
all right
otherwise. Tell me what happened."
"Counting from the
left, one, two, three, and
four, right? A man came out
of number
two. He is taken care
of now, but that
leaves at least four more,
going on your estimate. He seems
to have
been on his own." Sixx kept his eyes restlessly
moving. "Which suggests that they have staggered their climb, which makes a kind of sense for them and maybe gives me a time edge.
Count out number two. I'm guessing
that number three is the
next best bet. Maybe the flues
curve outward to the two
end ones,
do they?"
"Yes, there
is a
considerable curve."
"That's it, then.
They'd choose the straight-up path as the shortest. So
I'm going
in. Number
three. Tell me what I'm going
to find
in there."
"I will show
youl" He heard the rustle
of her
movement and spun around in
time to see her spring
lithely to her feet. Despite the
protest from his leg he
was standing
as fast
as she,
to grab
and hug
her savagely
close to his chest so that
she gasped
a little
under the pressure.
"Now listen!" he said. "Dont you have any sense
at all in that pretty head
of yours?
You've been burned once already—you won't need a haircut
for some
time, that's for sure." The golden
wilderness of her hair showed
singes and flaking ends without in
any way
detracting from her beauty. "You might
not be
so lucky
next time. I'm going in there.
They cant hurt me. You will
take cover back there among the
bushes."
"I will
not. If I am to
run and
hide, why did I come
at all? It is
my skin,
and this
is my
home. It is my fight
You can't
shut me out."
Sixx shook
his head
resignedly. He knew pigheaded determination when he
saw it
and this
was it.
"All right have it your way,
but let's
do it
in a
sensible manner. I'm going to let
go and
turn around in a moment.
You will stick right behind me,
real close, understand? Let's do that—now!"
With the
maneuver complete he scanned the
tiled frontage again. There was
no movement.
"So far," he sighed, "we are in business again.
Now I'm
going to walk to number-three door. You will stick
tight behind. You will tell me
what I am looking for
in there.
When we get there, you will
stay outside, alongside the wall,
just in case anybody gets by
me. You
will shoot anyone that
comes out
instantly and regardless. Is that
clear?"
"Yes, sir!" she said, and he
had to
grin as he started walking, feeling her hands on
his shoulders.
"The small door opens on to
a long
avenue," she said, "which runs alongside the turbine, left
side. You will turn sharp
right, past the exciter cage at
the end,
and thus
reach the avenue on the
other side. The avenue is
of instrument
panels, which need not concern you.
At the
far end
is a
metal wall. In that wall is
an armored
door, opened and closed with a hand wheel. That
is the
access to the flue. So
far as I know, it cannot
be locked
in any
way. Is your concern for my
safety purely professional, or is
there some other reason?"
Not
that again! he thought. Aloud he
said, "The trouble with your lot
is that
you're working your society theories
in a vacuum. You have a
nice argument, that you mustn't
get involved because that
would bias your observer status.
That's fine up to
a point,
but societies
are people involved
with each other not
integers in a computer simulation.
And that makes all
the diffeernce
in the
world. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes, I thank
you. It also gives me
an idea.** "Forget the
ideas for now. Pay attention."
The massive
screen door of the
turbine hall loomed up now,
giving him a true perspective of the vastness of
the space
inside. He halted within two steps
of the
smaller man-door. "You get
up to
the wall,
go on!
And stay
there. Keep your eyes busy. Shoot
anything that moves, all right?"
He waited until
she was
in position
then grabbed the catch, turned, and
stepped in over a low
coaming. The subdued hum that he
had scarcely
been aware of outside came like the sustained note
of a
cello in here. Matte surfaces of chased alloy met
his stare.
He saw
the chatter
and blink of recorders,
the squat
and monstrous
bulk of the generator itself, the
cage end of the exciter
wreathed in a dancing halo of
brush sparks. Turn sharp right,
she had said, and he did
that, and looked along a
lane of instruments to the metal
wall to see the dark
blot of an open door!
Where are
you, Buster? he asked himself, backing up to the
wall and scanning the interior
intently, unhappily aware of a hundred
and one
spots where a man could
take cover. "You have
to come
out this
way," and a movement up
there, over the curved hump
of the
turbine itself, drew his hand
and eye
around. Before he could fire,
his visor blacked out,
and a
whine from his servos told
him he was under laser fire,
and close.
He could
do nothing
but wait,
curse the delay, and be
ready. The safety screens clicked off,
and he
was just
in time
to see
a green figure scrambling frantically for the exit door.
He sprayed needles and ran heavily
and painfully
to follow
up. Reaching the door,
he saw
a body
in green
lying inert on the tiles and
craned his head out to
advise Olga, poised with her pistol
in the
act of
firing.
"He's taken
care of, you can relax."
The words had
barely left his mouth when
a solid
body impacted on him from behind,
staggering him forward into a trip
and sprawl
over the coaming. Wrenched by
agony from Ins leg, falling heavily on
his knees,
he felt
heavy feet stamp savagely
on his
back to plunge him down flat
for a
moment. Then, as he rolled
over and started back up to
his feet,
a voice
with edges in it came
to him.
"Dont do anything
rash, mister, or she gets
this right in the belly!"
Sixx stayed on
one knee
and stared.
This green coverall was different. It clung snugly to
a figure
that had curves in all the
best places. Above the shape
was a
vivid face that might have served
as a
model for Lady Macbeth, all bone structure, dark hair,
and snapping
eyes, teeth gleaming in a savage
smile. But what was more
to the
point was the laser
rifle she held at arm's
length, just inches away from Olga's
naked stomach, her
finger on the stud. Sixx's brain
raced in futile effort. His
pistol, even given the chance to
use it,
was useless
here. The drug was fast, but
hardly fast enough for this
impasse. And this woman, he knew
from just one glance at
her face,
was as fanatic as all the
rest. She started to move
now, inching slowly, never taking
her eyes
off Sixx,
working herself into a position where she
could cover the two of
them with negligible shift of aim.
"You, white knight,"
she sneered,
"will back up. Go on! Back
up and
pass inside that door, or
I burn
your lady friend a little at
a time.
A leg, maybe,
or an
arm. Back up!"
She wasnt
so crazy,
Sixx reflected, as he started
to move, like it or not.
Her strategy
was good.
Once she had driven him inside
that door and closed it,
he would
have no way at
all of
knowing what was going on.
He kept backing, dragging it out,
until he felt the treacherous
coaming against his heels,
and still
no strategy
offered itself. So long
as Olga
was the
target he was helpless. He
studied her face, oddly
different now that her golden
locks were scorched short, but there
was no
expression there at all, just a
set calm.
As he
lifted a foot to explore
behind, she moved, catching him
completely by surprise. The woman with
the laser
was just
as astonished.
Olga spun, a
pink blur that grabbed and
heaved and wrenched that weapon clear
and away
all in
one violent
act. Her pistol went
the other
way. With just her grasping
hands she darted forward
and grabbed
hold. For a moment the
action was so fast that
the eye
couldn't follow, but then it resolved
itself into a famfliar design.
Sixx saw Olga launching herself backward,
both hands engaged, one foot
up as
a pivot,
and the
helpless green-clad woman screeching, flying through the
air in
a dive.
He winced at the expected impact,
but the
dark one managed, just in
time, to duck her head
and roll
heavily. It earned her only a
delay.
As she came
up to
her feet,
Olga was already there, nimble as a dancer, to
seize a handful of dark
hair and use it to steer
that high-cheek boned face precisely
into the up-smashing pathway of her
knee. The hard click of
jaw and teeth was
distinctly audible. Lady Macbeth sprawled back, lay a moment,
started to get up again,
and Olga trod lightly,
stooped, seized her hair once
more, and used it to bounce
that head solidly on the
tiles. And that was it
"You make me
feel useless!" Sixx mumbled as
she came to face him and
smile radiantly, but she didn't
seem to hear.
Instead she threw
her arms
around him and said, "How
can I kiss you while you
have that silly helmet on!?"
"What for?" he asked stupidly, triggering
the helmet
free.
"Because you have taught me much,
and I
am grateful—and
for my
own personal
reasons."
The next down-to-earth
thing Sixx heard was the
micro-voice of his colleague speaking
from his pushed-back helmet.
"By the way you're celebrating
victory, Rex, I gather the war
is over!"
He pushed
Olga away, firmly but not
roughly, and looked away, across the
frontage of the buildings, to see the massive whiteness
of Lowry
approaching from number one hall
area. With him was Ivan
Rilke, whose gleaming grin was
visible even at that distance.
He brought
his eyes back to Olga.
"All good
things have to come to
an end
sometime,
lady," he sighed. "We had a
job to
do, and
it looks
as if
we've finally
wrapped it up. It's all
over." "You are in
a hurry
to be
gone?"
"You know that's
not true,
Olga, but we have no
choice. We have our orders." He held her hand
gently, wondered what went on
under her enigmatic smile, wondered whether she could even
appreciate what it was like
to get involved with someone else.
"You're pretty good in combat," he said. "I maybe
could teach you one or
two things, but not much. And
you look
great with that boy-cut hair
style. You're a wonderful person,
Olga"
Her smile became
a radiance. "And you really
think I am going to let you go
away, just like that, after
such a speech? You wait!"
He had no
time to argue. Lowry arrived,
all grins
and reports of how the remainder
of the
invading party had been taken care
of, and
then over the grass came
a centipede
car, at speed, carrying Bardak
himself and Louise, full of questions
and apprehensions.
The next
hour or so was something of
a blur
as the
effects of exertion and the constant
pain from his leg conspired
to depress
him into a half-coma. He was
only vaguely aware that they
were once again transported
back to Bardak's home place
but this time seated
at ease
in a
nook on the surface, warm in the sunshine. His
suit was off and lying
on the
grass by his feet.
Roger, also in only his
gray cotton undersuit, sat by his
side on his left, Louise
on his
right All three, he realized with
a start,
were supposed to be attending to a discussion between Olga, Rüke, and Bardak
himself.
"We have completely
missed one essential point of
the scientific method." Olga was laying it
down firmly for them. "We have
theories. We work out solutions.
We sometimes give them away. But
when do we perform the
controlled experiments?"
"Your point is
not valid,
my dear,"
Bardak protested. "Truly it
is desirable
to carry
out controlled
experiments to test theories,
but in
this particular discipline it cannot
be done. One cannot
experiment with people!"
"And why not?"
she retorted.
"Isn't it true that any
new community, any new
gathering, is in itself an
experiment with people?"
Rilke stared
at her.
"Are you suggesting that we
set up
such a group? Here?"
"Certainly. Why
not? We have plenty of
room. We can construct a village,
a small,
flexible development for, say, ten or
a dozen
people, for a limited period,
and see
what happens. Look—" she became intent
and Sixx
almost lost the thread of her
argument in his admiration of her graceful movements,
"—it has been done before.
Once, may
years ago, there was
such an establishment for testing
out remedies for the common cold.
Just ordinary people were invited to spend a vacation
there, all expenses paid, if
they would agree to
have themselves infected with cold
virus and then to
try various
remedies. And it worked. Similar ideas have worked in
other fields. Why not here?
Why not create a
vacation village, invite perfectly ordinary
people to come and stay—for
a month,
perhaps, if they will agree to
being observed and advised—free of all expense, why not?"
Bardak looked sour,
dubious. "I would want to
see a
pilot scheme first," he declared, and Olga
pounced on that. Heads went together
in close
mumbling. Sixx turned to Louise in
mild wonder.
"What's this to
us?" he asked softly. "You
should be writing out your report
for me
and Roger
to take
back."
"You said that
before." She had a curious
smile on her face. "You seem
determined to go off and
leave me here."
"You belong
here with these people," Lowry put in. "You have their kind of
talents. Much as we love
you ..."
"Ah!" she said,
and Lowry
reddened, made protest "I didn't mean
it like
that."
"Don't spoil it,
not for
me, Roger.
I know
differently. I do have
that talent. But, boys, I'm not these
people at all. I'm a social
person, not a solitary. Olga
has gone
a long way to curing me
of my
other trouble with that diet
of hers, but that
only makes it clearer. And
you've helped me to be sure
of it
where I was doubtful before.
No, I
don't belong here. I
get involved
with people."
She broke off
as Olga
crossed the grass to come
and crouch lithely among them. "Did
you hear
that?" she asked. "About
the vacation
village?"
"Sounds like
a good
idea," Sixx offered.
"It should be.
I got
it from
you, Rex. But Bardak is
quite right,
we need
a pilot
scheme first. And for that
we need experimental subjects. And we have
you three here."
"Us?" Sixx
spoke in astonished unison with
the other
two. "We can't stay
here, not now the job
is over!"
Olga grinned at him
in pure
mischief. "You think not?
Listen—I have
not yet
finished with your diet, my
dear. It will take at least
another month of tests and
observations. Donl argue.
I am
expert."
"I'm not
arguing," Louise said
faintly.
"And you." Olga turned to beam
on Sixx.
"You are ilL Your
leg, it will take a
long tune to mend. At least
a month."
"You'll never get
away with that, dear. Jason
Horn will never believe it for
one minute
1"
"I am
expert!" she repeated. "Just leave it to me."
"What about me?"
Lowry demanded. "What's my excuse?"
"So very simple. Your ship is almost out
of fuel,
isnt it? And we have nothing
like that on Iskola. It
will take a long while, at
least a month, to have
some shipped in from somewhere. Yes?"
"We yield." Sixx spoke for all
of them.
"I've said it all along, you're
all geniuses
here. Who are we to
argue with that? We stay."
"Good!" Olga chuckled.
"I said you wouldn't get
away from me as easily as
that, didnt I? Now you
can teach
me those tricks you
spoke of about fighting and
other things, yes?" She turned her
smile on Louise. "And you,
you are going to
learn a lot of new
things, too, I think."
"I'm sure," Louise laughed. "I've learned quite a few
already. I am looking
forward to the rest of
the treatment."
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If you had a high IQ, a yen to do the
science-thing
in your own way, then Iskola was your place.
Iskola was an island on the colony planet AAartas, and it was owned and
controlled by the man who had led the colonists.
*
To
qualify for Iskola, besides talent, you needed something else—you had to mind
your own business about the other experimenters and the rest of the world.
Which sounded wonderful for
certain kinds of mental wizards and do-it-yourself idealists.
And was also quite perfect for another
sharp-eyed type...the kind that perfected villainy to a complex scieVice. That is where Interstellar Agents Rex Sixx
and Roger Lowry came into the picture. Because something
very, very evil was coming to a boil in Utopia.
-A
DAW BOOKS ORIGINAL-