The Currents of Space

by Isaac Asimov

  "I guess you did. There's Sark." Genro nodded toward the large white crescent in the visiplate.

  "When do we land?"

  "About an hour."

  Terens was awake enough now to sense a subtle change in the other's attitude. It was an icy shock to him that the steel-grey object in Genro's hand turned out to be the graceful barrel of a needle-gun.

  "What in Space-" began Terens, rising to his feet.

  "Sit down," said Genro carefully. There was a skullcap in his other hand.

  Terens raised a hand to his head and his fingers found themselves clutching sandy hair.

  "Yes," said Genro, "It's quite obvious. You're a native."

  Terens stared and said nothing.

  Genro said, "I knew you were a native before I ever got on poor Deamone's ship."

  Terens' mouth was cotton-dry and his eyes burned. He watched the tiny, deadly muzzle of the gun and waited for a sudden, noiseless flash. He had carried it so far, so far, and had lost the gamble after all.

  Genro seemed in no hurry. He held the needle-gun steady and his words were even and slow.

  "Your basic mistake, Townman, was the thought that you could really outwit an organized police force indefinitely. Even so, you would have done better if you hadn't made the unfortunate choice of Deamone as your victim."

  "I didn't choose him," croaked Terens.

  "Then call it luck. Alstare Deamone, some twelve hours ago, was standing in City Park, waiting for his wife. There was no reason, other than sentiment, for him to meet her there of all places. They had met in that very spot originally, and they met there again on every anniversary of that meeting. There's nothing particularly original about that sort of ceremony between young husbands and wives, but it seems important to them. Of course Deamone did not realize that the comparative isolation of the spot made him an appropriate victim for a murderer. Who would have thought that in Upper City?

  "In the ordinary course of events the murder might not have been discovered for days. Deamone's wife, however, was on the scene within half an hour of the crime. The fact that her husband was not there astonished her. He was not the type, she explained, to leave in a fury because she herself was a trifle late. She was often late. He would more or less have expected that. It occurred to her that her husband might be waiting for her inside 'their' cave.

  "Deamone had been waiting outside 'their' cave, naturally. It was the nearest one to the scene of the assault, consequently, and the one into which he was dragged. His wife entered that cave and found - well, you know what she found. She managed to relay the news to the Patrol Corps through our own Depsec offices, although she was almost incoherent with shock and hysteria.

  "How does it feel, Townman, to kill a man in cold blood, leaving him to be found by his wife at the one spot most steeped with happy memories for them both?"

  Terens was choking. He gasped out, through a red mist of anger and frustration, "You Sarkites have killed millions of Florinians. Women. Children. You've grown rich out of us. This yacht-" It was all he could manage.

  "Deamone wasn't responsible for the state of affairs he found at birth," said Genro. "If you had been born a Sarkite, what would you have done? Resigned your estates, if any, and gone to work in the kyrt fields?"

  "Well then, shoot," cried Terens, writhing. "What are you waiting for?"

  "There's no hurry. There is plenty of time to finish my story. We weren't certain as to the identity of either the corpse or the murderer, but it was a very good guess that they were Deamone and yourself, respectively. It seemed obvious to us from the fact that the ashes next to the body were of a patroller uniform that you were masquerading as a Sarkite. It seemed further probable that you would make for Deamone's yacht. Don't overestimate our stupidity, Town-man.

  "Matters were still rather complex. You were a desperate man. It was insufficient to track you down. You were armed and would undoubtedly commit suicide if trapped. Suicide was something we did not wish. They wanted you on Sark and they wanted you in working order.

  "It was a particularly delicate affair for myself and it was quite necessary to convince Depsec that I could handle it alone, that I could get you to Sark without noise or difficulty. You'll have to admit that is just what I'm doing.

  "To tell you the truth, I wondered at first if you were really our man. You were dressed in ordinary business costume on the yacht-port grounds. It was in incredibly bad taste. No one, it seemed to me, would dream of impersonating a yachtsman without the proper costume. I thought you were being deliberately sent in as a decoy, that you were trying to be arrested while the man we wanted escaped in another direction.

  "I hesitated and tested you in other ways. I fumbled with the ship's key in the wrong place. No ship ever invented opened at the right side of the air lock. It opens always and invariably at the left side. You never showed any surprise at my mistake. None at all. Then I asked you if your ship had ever made the Sark-Florina run in less than six hours. You said you had - occasionally. That is quite remarkable. The record time for the run is over 9 hours.

  "I decided you couldn't be a decoy. The ignorance was too supreme. You had to be naturally ignorant and probably the right man. It was only a question of your falling asleep (and it was obvious from your face that you needed sleep desperately), disarming you and covering you quietly with an adequate weapon. I removed your hat more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see what a Sarkite costume looked like with a red-haired head sticking out of it."

  Terens kept his eyes on the whip. Perhaps Genro saw his jaw muscles bunch. Perhaps he simply guessed at what Terens was thinking.

  He said, "Of course I must not kill you, even if you jump me. I can't kill you even in self-defense. Don't think that gives you an advantage. Begin to move and I'll shoot your leg off."

  The fight went out of Terens. He put the heels of his palms to his forehead and sat rigid.

  Genro said softly. "Do you know why I tell you all this?" Terens did not answer.

  "First," said Genro, "I rather enjoy seeing you suffer. I don't like murderers and I particularly don't like natives who kill Sarkites. I've been ordered to deliver you alive but nothing in my orders says I have to make the trip pleasant for you. Secondly, it is necessary for you to be fully aware of the situation since, after we land on Sark, the next steps will be up to you."

  Terens looked up. "What!"

  "Depsec knows you're coming in. The Florinian regional office sent the word as soon as this craft cleared Fiorina's atmosphere. You can be sure of that. But I said it was quite necessary for me to convince Depsec that I could handle this alone and the fact that I have makes all the difference."

  "I don't understand you," said Terens desperately.

  With composure, Genro answered, "I said 'they' wanted you on Sark, 'they' wanted you in working order. By 'they' I don't mean Depsec, I mean Trantor!"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE RENEGADE

  Selim Junz had never been the phlegmatic type. A year of frustration had done nothing to improve that. He could not sip wine carefully while his mental orientation sat upon suddenly trembling foundations. In short, he was not Ludigan Abel.

  And when Junz had done with his angry shouting that on no account was Sark to be allowed freedom to kidnap and imprison a member of the I.S.B. regardless of the condition of Trantor's espionage network, Abel merely said, "I think you had better spend the night here, Doctor."

  Junz said freezingly, "I have better things to do."

  Abel said, "No doubt, man, no doubt. Just the same, if my men are being blasted to death, Sark must be bold indeed. There is a great possibility that some accident may happen to you before the night is over. Let us wait a night then and see what comes of a new day."

  Junz's protests against inaction came to nothing. Abel, without ever losing his cool, almost negligent air of indifference, was suddenly hard of hearing. Junz was escorted with firm courtesy to a chamber.

  In bed, he stared at the
faintly luminous, frescoed ceiling (on which glowed a moderately skillful copy of Lenhaden's "Battle of the Arcturian Moons") and knew he would not sleep. Then he caught one whiff, a faint one, of the gas, somnin, and was asleep before he could catch another. Five minutes later, when a forced draft swept the room clean of the anesthetic, enough had been administered to assure a healthful eight hours.

  He was awakened in the cold half-light of dawn. He blinked up at Abel.

  "What time is it?" he asked.

  "Six."

  "Great Space." He looked about and thrust his bony legs out from under the sheet. "You're up early."

  "I haven't slept."

  "What?"

  "I feel the lack, believe me. I don't respond to anti-somnin as I did when I was younger."

  Junz murmured, "If you will allow me a moment."

  This once his morning preparations for the day took scarcely more than that He re-entered the room, drawing the belt about his tunic and adjusting the magneto-seam.

  "Well?" he asked. "Surely you don't wake through the night and rouse me at six unless you have something to tell me."

  "You're right. You're right." Abel sat down on the bed vacated by Junz and threw his head back in a laugh. It was high-pitched and rather subdued. His teeth showed, their strong, faintly yellow plastic incongruous against his shrunken gums.

  "I beg your pardon, Junz," he said. "I am not quite myself. This drugged wakefulness has me a little lightheaded. I almost think I will advise Trantor to replace me with a younger man."

  Junz said, with a flavor of sarcasm not entirely unmixed with sudden hope, "You find they haven't got the Spatio-analyst after all?"

  "No, they do. I'm sorry but they do. I'm afraid that my amusement is due entirely to the fact that our nets are intact."

  Junz would have liked to say, "Damn your nets," but refrained.

  Abel went on, "There is no doubt they knew Khorov was one of our agents. They may know of others on Fiorina. Those are small fry. The Sarkites knew that and never felt it worth while to do more than hold them under observation."

  "They killed one," Junz pointed out "They did not," retorted Abel. "It was one of the Spatio-analyst's own companions in a patroller disguise who used the blaster."

  Junz stared. "I don't understand."

  "It's a rather complicated story. Won't you join me at breakfast? I need food badly."

  Over the coffee, Abel told the story of the last thirty-six hours.

  Junz was stunned. He put down his own coffee cup, half full, and returned to it no more. "Even allowing them to have stowed away on that ship of all ships the fact still remains they might not have been detected. If you send men to meet that ship as it lands-"

  "Bah. You know better than that. No modern ship could fail to detect the presence of excess body heat"

  "It might have been overlooked. Instruments may be infallible but men are not."

  "Wishful thinking. Look here. At the very time that the ship with the Spatio-analyst aboard is approaching Sark, there are reports of excellent reliability that the Squire of Fife is in conference with the other Great Squires. These intercontinental conferences are spaced as widely as the stars of the Galaxy. Coincidence?"

  "An intercontinental conference over a Spatio-analyst?"

  "An unimportant subject in itself, yes. But we have made it important. The I.S.B. has been searching for him for nearly a year with remarkable pertinacity."

  "Not the I.S.B.," insisted Junz. "Myself. I've been working in almost an unofficial manner."

  "The Squires don't know that and wouldn't believe it if you told them. Then, too, Trantor has been interested."

  "At my request."

  "Again they don't know that and wouldn't believe it"

  Junz stood up and his chair moved automatically away from the table. Hands firmly interlocked behind his back, he strode the carpet. Up and back. Up and back. At intervals he glanced harshly at Abel.

  Abel turned unemotionally to a second cup of coffee.

  Junz said, "How do you know all this?"

  "All what?"

  "Everything. How and when the Spatio-analyst stowed away. How and in what manner the Townman has been eluding capture. Is it your purpose to deceive me?"

  "My dear Dr. Junz."

  "You admitted you had your men watching for the Spatio-analyst independently of myself. You saw to it that I was safely out of the way last night, leaving nothing to chance." Junz remembered, suddenly, that whiff of somnin.

  "I spent a night, Doctor, in constant communication with certain of my agents. What I did and what I learned comes under the heading of, shall we say, classified material. You had to be out of the way, and yet safe. What I have told you just now I learned from my agents last night."

  "To learn what you did you would need spies in the Sarkite government itself."

  "Well, naturally."

  Junz whirled on the ambassador. "Come, now."

  "You find that surprising? To be sure, Sark is proverbial for the stability of its government and the loyalty of its people. The reason is simple enough since even the poorest Sarkite is an aristocrat in comparison with Florinians and can consider himself, however fallaciously, to be a member of a ruling class.

  "Consider, though, that Sark is not the world of billionaires most of the Galaxy thinks it is. A year's residence must have well convinced you of that. Eighty percent of its population has its living standard at a par with that of other worlds and not much higher than the standard of Fiorina itself. There will always be a certain number of Sarkites who, in their hunger, will be sufficiently annoyed with the small fraction of the population obviously drenched in luxury to lend themselves to my uses.

  "It is the great weakness of the Sarkite government that for centuries they have associated rebellion only with Fiorina. They have forgotten to watch over themselves."

  Junz said, "These small Sarkites, assuming they exist, can't do you much good."

  "Individually, no. Collectively, they form useful tools for our more important men. There are members even of the real ruling class who have taken the lessons of the last two centuries to heart. They are convinced that in the end Trantor will have established its rule over all the Galaxy, and, I believe, rightly convinced. They even suspect that the final dominion may take place within their lifetimes, and they prefer to establish themselves, in advance, on the winning side."

  Junz grimaced. "You make interstellar politics sound a very dirty game."

  "It is, but disapproving of dirt doesn't remove it. Nor are all its facets unrelieved dirt. Consider the idealist. Consider the few men in Sark's government who serve Trantor neither for money nor for promises of power but only because they honestly believe that a unified Galactic government is best for humanity and that only Trantor can bring such a government about. I have one such man, my best one, in Sark's Department of Security, and at this moment he is bringing in the Townman."

  Junz said, "You said he had been captured."

  "By Depsec, yes. But my man is Depsec and my man." For a moment Abel frowned and turned pettish. "His usefulness will be sharply reduced after this. Once he lets the Townman get away, it will mean demotion at the best and imprisonment at the worst. Oh well!"

  "What are you planning now?"

  "I scarcely know. First, we must have our Townman. I am sure of him only to the point of arrival at the spaceport. What happens thereafter..." Abel shrugged, and his old, yellowish skin stretched parchmentlike over his cheekbones.

  Then he added, "The Squires will be waiting for the Townman as well. They are under the impression they have him, and until one or the other of us has him in our fists, nothing more can happen."

  But that statement was wrong.

  Strictly speaking, all foreign embassies throughout the Galaxy maintained extraterritorial rights over the immediate areas of their location. Generally this amounted to nothing more than a pious wish, except where the strength of the home planet enforced respect. In actual practice i
t meant that only Trantor could truly maintain the independence of its envoys.

  The grounds of the Trantorian Embassy covered nearly a square mile and within it armed men in Trantorian costume and insignia maintained patrol. No Sarkite might enter but on invitation, and no armed Sarkite on any account. To be sure, the sum of Trantorian men and arms could withstand the determined attack of a single Sarkite armored regiment for not more than two or three hours, but behind the small band was the power of reprisal from the organized might of a million worlds.

  It remained inviolate.

  It could even maintain direct material communication with Trantor, without the need of passing through Sarkite ports of entry or debarkation. From the hold of a Trantorian mothership, hovering just outside the hundred-mile limit that marked off the boundary between "planetary space" and "free space," small gyro-ships, vane-equipped for atmospheric travel with minimum power expenditure, might emerge and needle down (half coasting, half driven) to the small port maintained within the embassy grounds.

  The gyro-ship which now appeared over the embassy port, however, was neither scheduled nor Trantorian. The mosquito-might of the embassy was brought quickly and truculently into play. A needle-cannon lifted its puckered muzzle into the air. Force screens went up.

  Radioed messages whipped back and forth. Stubborn words rode the impulses upward, agitated ones slipped down.

  Lieutenant Camrum turned away from the instrument and said, "I don't know. He claims he'll be shot out of the sky in two minutes if we don't let him down. He claims sanctuary."

  Captain Elyut had just entered. He said, "Sure. Then Sark will claim we're interfering in politics and if Trantor decides to let things ride, you and I are broken as a gesture. Who is he?"

  "Won't say," said the lieutenant with more than a little exasperation. "Says he must speak to the Ambassador. Suppose you tell me what to do, Captain."

  The short-wave receiver sputtered and a voice, half hysterical, said, "Is anyone there? I'm just coming down, that's all. Really! I can't wait another moment, I tell you." It ended in a squeak.

  The captain said, "Great Space, I know that voice. Let him down! My responsibility!"