2: THE CARTOGRAPHERS

...Unquestionably the greatest scientific achievement up to its time, and well beyond it, the Department of Cartography—and most especially the complex at Caliban—soon took on an importance undreamed of by the populace at large. For the first time since Man had reached for the stars, the military was totally subservient to a scientific arm of the Republic, and the expansionist movement took on a high degree of order and direction.

The various segments of the Cartographic Department first coalesced under the inspired leadership of Robert Tileson Landon, an almost unbelievably perceptive scholar who had been given total control of Cartography in 301 G.E., and proceeded to shape and mold the budding science into something far more vital than even Caliban's original planners could have anticipated. During the fifty-six years that Landon headed the Department, phenomenal gains were made in...

—Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement

...The Department of Cartography, established on Caliban in 197 G.E., was an almost perfect example of the transformation of a pure science into a vehicle for continued territorial aggrandizement. The chief motivational force behind this perversion was a Dr. Robert T. Landon. Spending as much time on his public image as on his appetite for Empire, Landon managed to die a beloved hero in the eyes of his people, which in no way alters the fact that he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for...

—Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 7.

Vast, thought Nelson, was an understatement.

Even before the ship entered the atmosphere, the building stood out. Though he had never been to Earth, he didn't see how it could possibly house any structure larger than the Big C. It stretched some sixty miles by forty miles, its solid shining steel reflecting the reddish-yellow rays of the sun, a silver iceberg with well over nine-tenths of its bulk beneath the ground, even though it rose some six thousand feet above the surface.

Yes, vast was an understatement, but then, the word hadn't yet been created that would do the Big C justice. The Big C wasn't its real name, of course; but somehow, the Department of Cartography just didn't conjure up enough grandeur, and so the Pioneers had come up with their own term for it.

Nelson had never seen the Big C before, though he had heard a great deal about it. Any structure that cost more than ten trillion dollars and housed half a million full-time staffers was bound to receive more than casual attention from the media. Parts of it were open to anyone with minimal security clearance, but not too many people bothered taking the tour. For one thing, the planet Caliban was well off the beaten track in a galaxy that was quite underpopulated in terms of humanity; for another, it would require a minimum of two days just to walk from one end of one level of the Big C to the other. As for learning exactly what went on there, it would take considerably more than a lifetime.

Not that each of the Big C's levels were open for walking all that easily. Nelson had complete clearance and was there by invitation from Landon himself, and it still took him the better part of three hours to be admitted to the Director's outer office, and another hour before Landon was able to greet him.

He'd never seen the Director in the flesh, but the man's visage was as familiar to the public as was the complex that he ran with an iron hand. Landon was middle-aged—Nelson guessed he was in his late forties—and had a somewhat unkempt curly brown beard. If the men of his family had ever possessed a humorous or kindly twinkle in their eye, it had been bred out of the line before Landon was born. Nor did Landon look haggard or worn, as one might expect of a man with his responsibilities. If there was one intangible quality about the man, the hard-set line of his jaw, the precise measured movement of his hands, it was total self-confidence.

“Nelson?'’ The Director extended his hand in greeting. “I'm Landon.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Nelson. “Shall I call you Doctor, or Mister, or ... ?”

“Just Landon will do,” said the Director. “Come on into my office and have a seat.”

Nelson followed him into a room that was almost Spartan in its austerity. He hadn't known quite what to expect, but this certainly wasn't it: a plain wood desk, three chairs, two intercom devices, a small bookcase, a couple of rather common pastoral paintings which he suspected were prints, and a tray containing a pitcher of water and four glasses. The floor was badly scuffed, and made of a type of wood with which he was unfamiliar.

Landon activated a holo screen and began reading it, glancing at Nelson from time to time.

“Bartholomew Nelson,” he said, half reading, half musing. “Seventeen years of service with the Pioneer Corps, degrees in geology, chemistry and sociology. Given twenty-four contracts, fulfilled sixteen, forfeited seven, one being processed in the courts.” He looked up. “Not a bad record, given some of those planets. You any relation to the Nelson who helped open up Bowman 29?”

“He was my grandfather, sir,” said Nelson.

“Good man. Never met him, but I've heard him spoken of very highly. Did a beautiful job on Delphini VII and VIII after Bowman died. However, I didn't bring you here to talk about your progenitors.”

“I assumed as much, sir,” said Nelson.

“Right,” said Landon. “I've got a job for you, if you want it.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Nelson, “but isn't it highly irregular for the Director of Cartography to make assignments of this nature? I mean, I've always dealt with the Navy, or with some member of the Department of Geology.”

“Absolutely right,” agreed Landon. “It's highly irregular. Never been done before.”

“Might I ask why the change?”

“You might indeed. Don't let the answer throw you.”

“I won't.”

“All right, as long as we're being frank: I have a job for you that the Navy knows nothing about, and would doubtless never approve if they did know.”

“Doesn't that amount to treason sir?” asked Nelson, more puzzled than shocked.

“Depends on your point of view,” said Landon. “If it'll make you feel any more secure, you'll be working for the most powerful single organization in the galaxy.”

“But you're just a bunch of mapmakers!” Nelson blurted out.

Landon stared at him coldly for a moment, then continued as if there had been no interruption. “And, in all modesty, you'll be working for the most powerful man in all of human history: me.”

“I'm not sure I know quite what to say, sir,” said Nelson. “I have a feeling that I'm being made the butt of some practical joke.”

“Feel anything you like,” said Landon. “However, if you complete the job to my specifications, I'm prepared to offer you half a billion dollars, or one hundred million credits, if you prefer this new-fangled currency.” He dug into his desk and withdrew a check. He slid it over to Nelson, who studied it and let out a low whistle. “Still think I'm joking?”

“Let's say my reservations are weakening,” said Nelson. “There's nothing wrong with being a rich traitor; at least, not this rich a one.”

“There's no treason involved,” said Landon. “Once you've completed the job, you'll very likely be a bigger hero than me. It's just that things tend to get bogged down in red tape back on Earth, and it would take years to get this done through normal channels. If the damned fools would just listen to me, they'd move the whole government lock, stock, and barrel over to Deluros VIII: twenty times as big as Earth, same climate, and a hell of a lot closer to the center of things. It's inevitable, but they do love to drag their heels. Makes it damned hard for me to conquer their galaxy for them. I'll do it, of course, but they could make my job a lot easier.”

Nelson blinked his eyes several times. This was obviously no dream, and the Director wasn't like any madman he had ever seen before, but everything he said was terribly out of focus. Mapmakers just didn't offer Pioneers half a billion dollars to commit treason, and then complain that the government was hindering their conquest of the stars.

“You look dubious,” said Landon dryly.

“Stunned is more the word for it,” said Nelson. “If what you say is true, it's a pretty big revelation. If not, then they've got a totally unbalanced egomaniac in charge of a pretty important governmental department. Either way, it's not something I was prepared for.”

Landon laughed for the first time. “That's what I like about you Pioneers. Who else would tell the Director of Cartography that he's off his rocker? Tell you what. Why not come and take a little tour with me? It might help you make up your mind. And always remember: Mad or not, government checks don't bounce.”

“That's what's kept me here so far,” said Nelson frankly.

“Good for you. I don't trust a man who doesn't watch out for his own interests. Come along.” With that, he rose and walked out the door into his outer office, followed by Nelson. As he left the larger enclosure, a quartet of security officers joined him. He walked over to a small battery-powered cart, motioned Nelson to sit beside him, waited for the officers to grab handholds, and began driving rapidly down a long corridor. Nelson tried to follow the various changes of direction Landon took, but soon became confused and settled back with a sigh. At no time did the cart move farther than fifty yards from one of the huge outside walls, and it seemed to Nelson that they were continuously ascending, although at a very slight angle.

At last the cart screeched to a halt, and Landon and Nelson got out. The security officers dismounted, but made no effort to follow them. The Director led the Pioneer to a small doorway.

“Not prone to vertigo, are you?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Nelson.

“Good. When we walk through this door we'll be on a balcony. It's quite long and of more than ample width, but every now and then somebody starts getting dizzy on me; sometimes it's vertigo, sometimes it's just the map.”

Landon walked through the door, and Nelson fell into step behind him.

And stopped.

And stared.

And almost fell off the balcony.

Below him stretched the galaxy. Not a map, not a bunch of dots on a wall chart, but thegalaxy .

As far as the eye could see and farther, as deep as the eye could see and deeper, it spread out before him in all its gargantuan vastness, all its delicate beauty. Millions upon millions of stars, worlds without end, natural and artificial, satellites spinning crazily in their orbits, here an interstellar comet, there a meteor storm, way over there huge clouds of opaque gaseous matter.

“What do you think of it?” asked Landon with the air of a proud father.

“I never imagined...” muttered Nelson, unable to tear his eyes away. “I never guessed...”

Landon chuckled. “Quite a piece of work, isn't it? It's 57.8 miles long, 6.2 miles deep, 38.1 miles wide. It contains every star in the galaxy, bar none, as well as every other body we've charted. For example, there are well over two million asteroids between Sirius XI and XII, though we'd have to magnify the field to show even the bigger ones.”

“It's awesome,” said Nelson fervently.

“And accurate,” said Landon. “It's moving far too slowly for you to perceive, but the entire galaxy is rotating at its natural speed. So are the planets, and all the other bodies. All solar storms, ionic and otherwise, are charted. We've even got a fix on every ship the Republic owns, plus a number of alien vessels as well.”

Nelson only half-heard the Director. He was lost in the majesty and grandeur of the map ... thoughmap was such an inadequate word for it. As he looked more closely, he saw that the colors of the various stars had been maintained: There were red stars, yellow ones, white dwarfs, blue giants, binaries, even long-dead black stars. Though he couldn't see any of them clearly, he'd have bet his last dollar that the topography of the myriads of planets was painstakingly accurate.

“This, of course, is just a beginning,” Landon's voice came through to him. The Director pressed a small button on the railing of the balcony and spoke into a microphone.

“Control Booth, this is Landon here. Let's see Earth, and put it on high magnification.”

Immediately a light flashed far out on one of the spiral arms of the simulated galaxy. It was a good five miles from where Nelson stood, but so bright that it immediately drew his attention.

“Earth,” explained Landon, “And now, if you'll be so good as to look above you...”

Nelson's eyes followed Landon's extended finger. Somewhere above his head, though he couldn't say how close it really was, floated Earth, spinning serenely beneath its swirling cloud layers.

“Bad weather today,” apologized Landon, “or you'd be able to see something more than Australia and Antarctica. I could have them remove the clouds, but I'm sure you know what the rest of it looks like. And here,” he added, pulling a number of cards out of a slot next to the button he had previously pressed, “is a complete hard copy readout on Earth: land area, sea area, gravity, average temperature of all major land masses, dominant forms of life, population, political systems now in power, major religions, economy, military potential, stellar alliances, technology, languages, varieties of the major races, aquatic life, age of planet, life expectancy of planet, rare elements, atmospheric breakdown, and just about anything else you need to know.”

“And you can do this with every planet in the galaxy?” asked Nelson.

“To greater or lesser extents, yes,” said the Director. “It all depends on how much information we have about the stellar body in question. If paper's not to your liking, you can get the information on tapes, microfilm or voiceprints.”

“It's fantastic!” said Nelson.

“It has its uses,” agreed Landon, placing the paper back into the same slot. “I'm about to show you its major purpose.” He pressed the button once more. “Landon again,” he announced. “Put the whole map on dim.”

The galaxy dimmed until the nearer and larger stars were barely visible, and the planets and more distant stars were not to be seen at all. It looked, thought Nelson, like the death throes of the universe.

“Okay,” said Landon. “Give me Earth again, on bright.” Five miles away a tiny light flashed on, brighter than the brightest sun. “Fine. Now, starting with Sirius V, flash every planet we control, put them on bright yellow, and leave them on. Give me a rate of five a second.”

Nelson watched for almost seven minutes as a cascade of brilliant yellow dots rippled forth from Earth to Deluros VIII, then spread radially throughout the main body of the galaxy. And all had originated from Earth. A thrill of pride ran through him as he watched a two-millennium history of human endeavor take place before his eyes.

“Very good,” said Landon. “Now pinpoint every Republic ship that bears arms, put them in green, and keep them flashing at half-second intervals.”

Suddenly the pseudo-galaxy was alive with green. More than twenty million lights blinked on and off hypnotically, most of them within the periphery of yellow lights, but some—a million or so—well in advance of Man's frontiers.

“Fine,” announced Landon. “Now, in blue, give me every planet capable of supporting human life, but not yet colonized by Man.” He paused a second, then added: “Flash all those that are currently inhabited by intelligent alien races on a quarter-second blink.”

In total silence, another forty thousand lights flashed on brightly, and now the hue of the galactic scheme took on a bluish tint. Nelson was overwhelmed by the scope of the blue worlds, and hazarded a guess that about a tenth of them were blinking on and off, while the rest remained constant.

“One last request,” said Landon. “In very bright red, let me see every world possessed of sentient nonhumans that might have the potential to resist us militarily.”

Another plethora of lights went on, well over three thousand of them, red and blinding.

Individually, except for the initial steps of Man's expansion into the galaxy, there was no pattern. But now, as Nelson stood back and let his eyes pour over the brilliant-hued panorama before him, he began to see channels of force and expansion, paths of greater and lesser resistance through which Man could thread his way.

“Do you begin to understand the significance of the Department of Cartography?” asked Landon.

“I think so,” replied Nelson.

“We are, in a very real sense, the expansionist movement of the Republic. With our facilities here at Caliban, we and we alone are in possession of enough data to know which planets are of value, which are not, which may cause problems of an environmental or military nature, which aliens may behave in which ways. We carry the analysis of history one step further; we also see and study the ebb and flow of the future. We can, in much the same way I showed you our current position, literally fight wars on the map, safely predicting almost every logical outcome of every conceivable confrontation. We are not an arm of the Navy; the Navy is a physical extension of Cartography.”

“If you can accurately predict every military outcome, why don't we embark on a full-scale war of conquest?” asked Nelson. “We don't know what a totally alien intelligence will do, or even what it's capable of. Don't forget: Of the thousand or so species we've already made physical contact with, we've been completely unable to communicate with ninety percent of them. They'rethat different. And since the big map was the product of human intelligence and endeavor, it projects outcomes based on strictly human logic and experience. We simply have no other type of philosophical system to program into it.”

“I see,” nodded Nelson. “For a while there, I was beginning to think the map had absolutely no limitations. It's still the most impressive piece of equipment I've ever seen or heard of ... and I am now willing to admit that you probably aren't talking through your hat when you claim to be the most powerful man in history. I imagine no planet is explored or taken without your approval?”

“Right,” said Landon.

“Very impressive,” said Nelson. “I see where there have been half a dozen assassination attempts on the Secretary in the last year or two. Too bad they didn't know where the real power lay.” “Wouldn't do ‘em any good,” grunted Landon. “Most of our defenses aren't too obvious, but no place in the universe is better able to protect itself. Don't forget: No ship can get within a half a hundred light-years without our having it on the map and knowing every single thing there is to know about it. I won't say we're impregnable, but no one is ever going to sneak in here and assassinate anyone.”

“Howdo you get all your information?” asked Nelson.

“The map building itself is just a tiny part of the Cartographic complex,” said Landon. “We employ more than four hundred thousand people whose sole duty is to collect and correlate information that pours in from all across the galaxy every day. Beneath the surface, we have a computer complex that positively dwarfs the map building. Someone once told me that there are more than eight hundred million miles of circuitry involved, though I don't know who'd bother to count it all. Results are the only things that matter, and we get them.

“The data is relayed to the map control room, also beneath the surface and adjacent to this building, which measures some two cubic miles. The information goes directly into the memory banks, and can be instantaneously translated into cartographic terms.

“When I spoke to the Control Booth a while back, the man at the other end merely punched some standard buttons that had been programmed into the Cartographic computer complex. What you saw seemed solid and three-dimensional, but was actually a hologram simulated by a few hundred thousand modified lasers. Anyway, the facets I showed you are static, or at least as static as the galaxy ever gets. Projecting our expansion takes a little more effort, and a hell of a lot of intuitive interpretation. As I said, you can't expect a five-hundred-year-old denizen of the Delphini system, a creature that is composed of silicon, breathes ammonia, excretes an oxygen compound, and has a metabolism that we can't even begin to analyze, to react to a situation quite the same way you or I would. And, that,” the Director concluded, “is what makes it interesting.”

“I could spend a lifetime here,” said Nelson.

“The hell you could,” said Landon. “I didn't bring you here to join my staff. You're here for an assignment, nothing more.”

“Then why did you show me all this?” asked Nelson.

“So what I ask you to do won't seem quite so unpalatable to you,” Landon replied. “At least you'll know that when Cartography makes an assignment, we've got a pretty dammed good reason.”

“Well, let's have it,” said Nelson. “How many deities do I have to slaughter?”

Landon responded by pressing the button on the railing, picking up the microphone, and saying: “Landon here. Spin the whole damned thing around so the Gamma Leporis system is right in front of me.”

The pseudo-galaxy tilted on its axis and began spinning so quickly that Nelson felt himself being drawn hypnotically into the vortex. Millions of stars swung by almost too fast for his eyes to follow them; and then, as suddenly as it began, the movement stopped.

“Very good,” said Landon. “Now put its planets on flashing blue.” A medium-sized binary just in front of the balcony was suddenly alight, surrounded by sixteen tiny flashing blue dots. “Fine,” said Landon. “Let me have every aquatic world within ten parsecs, and also the home world of the Lemm.” More tiny blue lights flashed on, blinking wildly, and Nelson saw a pattern developing. There was a ten-parsec line of worlds, a dozen in all—not counting the Gamma Leporis system—plus another that lay still five more parsecs distant. “Good,” said Landon. “Now change the home world of the Lemm to green, and let me see every aquatic world they possess.” The farthest planet became a tiny dot of unbelievably bright green, and the other twelve worlds, plus three more worlds in the Gamma Leporis system, turned red. “One last thing,” said Landon. “Show me the five closest worlds under our control.” Five white lights flashed on, all of them more than a dozen parsecs distant.

“Well, Pioneer,” said Landon. “That's our problem.”

“Yourproblem,” said Nelson. “It doesn't become mine until I know what you're talking about.”

“It's very simple,” said the Director. “The fourth, fifth, and sixth planets in the Gamma Leporis system are entirely aquatic. Which is to say that they consist of nothing but ocean. No continents, not even an island. Same with the other twelve worlds that are flashing red.”

“So?”

“The ninth and tenth planets of Gamma Leporis are quite rich in numerous natural elements that the Republic needs: iron, lead, gold, even a little uranium.”

“What has one got to do with the other?” asked Nelson.

“Not much, except for the Lemm,” answered Landon. “We don't know much about them, except that they're quite similar to us in one respect at least.”

“And what is that?”

“They seek after Empire,” said Landon. “They've established bases, artificial islands, on the fifteen aquatic worlds in question.”

“Why should that bother us, if we're after the material from the waterless worlds?”

“Good question,” said the Director. “Let me put it this way: How would you feel about an alien power's establishing itself on Deluros V?”

“I wouldn't like it much,” said Nelson.

“Why?”

“It's a big galaxy. Let them look elsewhere for what they want. The Deluros system belongs to us.”

“They might be peaceful,” said Landon.

“Then why are they expansionist?” said Nelson. “And why didn't they ask our permission?”

“Precisely,” said Landon. “Well, it just so happens that we asked permission of the inhabitants of Gamma Leporis system.”

“What does that have to do with the Lemm?”

“Lots,” said Landon. “You see, the ichthyoid population of Gamma Leporis IV is an ancient race, some four billion years old. Their intellects have reached a point to which Man can never aspire, even in the distant future. But nature played a dirty trick on them: She made them totally aquatic. No race advances without technology, and ninety-nine percent of all technology is based on fire. Can't have fire on a water world.”

“So the Lemm moved in and conquered them?” asked Nelson.

“Conquer isn't the word,” said Landon. “The Lemm simply set up floating islands, dropped a few depth bombs that the ichthyoids couldn't cope with or respond to, and demanded that they begin mining their world and turning the various materials over to the Lemm.”

“Sounds kind of like us,” said Nelson, not without a touch of approval.

“To continue,” said Landon. “It took us the better part of a year to communicate on even a basic level with the ichthyoids. They wanted nothing to do with us or the Lemm. The Lemm are a bit more technological; I imagine we could communicate withthem in a matter of a couple of days.”

“Why don't we?”

“No need to,” said the Director. “We've got a pretty good idea about their potentialities, their science, and their feeling toward outsiders.”

“For instance?” asked Nelson.

“There are no domes on the water worlds. That implies the Lemm are carbon-based oxygen-breathers. Their science is obviously based on somewhat different principles than ours, or else they'd be more interested in Gamma Leporis IX and X, instead of water worlds. And we know they're an aggressive race that has nothing against an occasional conquest.”

“Why not send the Navy against them?” asked Nelson.

“Two reasons. First, since their science is different from ours, we don't know what kind of fight they're capable of putting up. We're spread too thin throughout the galaxy to get involved in a major war just yet.”

“And the other reason?”

“Simple. We're outnumbered a million to one in this galaxy. We'll win it, in time, every last piece of it. But if we make too loud a noise too early in our career, our opposition—both real and potential—may coalesce before we're ready for them. So the Navy says hands off.”

“But you don't,” said Nelson.

“Absolutely correct,” said Landon. “We need those worlds.” He picked up the microphone again. “Show all the worlds under current consideration in flashing white,” he said, “and show me the fifty nearest human-controlled worlds as well.” He waited a moment, then turned to Nelson. “You see?” he said. “It's a new line of expansion that would add another dozen systems to our collection, and put about three dozen more under our sphere of influence.”

“And my job?” asked Nelson.

“Leave the Lemm home planet alone,” said Landon, “but get the Lemm off the water worlds. Can you do it?”

“I suppose so,” said Nelson, scratching his bead. “If they're oxygen-breathers, it shouldn't be too hard to poison the air. A couple of really dirty bombs on each world...”

“No bombs,” said Landon. “If I wanted a war, I'd send for the Navy.”

“But they won't come,” Nelson pointed out.

“Just the same, we don't want the Lemm figuring out what happened, or who is doing this.”

“Okay,” said Nelson. “Same principle: poisoning the air. It'll take a little more work, but it can be done.”

“Secretly?” Nelson nodded. “And I'll make it short-lived, something that will dissipate after a couple of years so we can move back in. Might as well put it on the solid worlds too,” he added. “It might confuse them, and it'll stop them from retreating there. About how many Lemm will I be killing?”

“You don't want to know,” said Landon.

“No, I suppose not,” agreed Nelson.

“Any other questions?” asked the Director as he escorted Nelson back to his motorcart.

“Just one,” said Nelson. “I'm doing this so we can move onto two worlds: Gamma Leporis IX and X. Yet your map projection showed seventeen new worlds.”

“Eleven of those aquatic worlds are devoid of sentient life. And once the Lemm are driven off, I would imagine the ichthyoids would be happy to form an alliance with their saviors.”

“And if they're not?”

“Well,” said Landon with the trace of a grim smile about his lips, “if it comes down to cases, I would imagine Man can make a depth charge every bit as powerful as the Lemm's, wouldn't you?”

Nelson nodded vigorously.