Man Who Used the Universe

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Truly, yeah. Well, since nobody wants to buy my abilities—and I'm good at what I do—I thought I'd sell a little knowledge. I heard stories about you being interested in this Loo-Macklin . . . I'll bet he approved firing me personally. I know what I know is valuable to the Nuel. Valuable, hell." He took a long swallow of the liquid he'd ordered, then suddenly turned reticent.

  "You can pay, of course?"

  "If I think your information is worth knowing." Chaheel went to great pains to affect a casual air. "I have a line of credit with various government and educational agencies."

  "Okay." The man put his glass down. "I want a million UTW credits."

  Chaheel was glad the human was not well versed in Nuel expressions. "That . . . is a great sum of money."

  "How much is the survival of your race worth to you?"

  The psychologist was beginning to think the human he was dealing with was loaded with intoxicants as well as delusions of persecution. He was wrong.

  The human took his silence for indifference and hastened to follow up.

  "Tell you what I'll do. This information's no good to anyone else. I hear the Nuel, even though they are the ugliest things in the universe, are honest business folk."

  "As honest as any human," said Chaheel.

  "Yeah, well, of course that ain't good enough." The man let out a nervous little chuckle. He knew enough about Nuel society to have Chaheel swear on his family line all the way back to his first father. "If you think the information is worth it, you pay me."

  "You have a great deal of confidence in what you learned by accident," observed the psychologist.

  "I ought to. You know, Loo-Macklin's done a lot of business with you Nuel. Stuff about it on the newscasts all the time."

  "That is so." He repeated the official line. "It binds him closely to us."

  "Particularly a lot of business with those outfits that deal in Birthing ceremonies."

  Chaheel wondered how the man had learned that, but kept silent. Talk, human. Let it spill out of you.

  "What would you say," whispered Thomas Lindsay the human, "if I told you that Loo-Macklin had been doing all that, insinuating himself into your commerce all these years, with the intention of betraying the entire race of the Nuel to the UTW government?"

  "We are naturally concerned with protecting ourselves," said Chaheel calmly. "Precautions truly have been taken with regard to Loo-Macklin especial."

  Would this unimpressive specimen understand the function of a lehl implant? Probably not, the psychologist decided. He contented himself with a simpler explanation.

  "If Lewmacklin does anything contrary to the best interests of the Nuel he will die instantly. There is no way he can prevent it."

  "I've heard the stories about the thing you guys put in his brain. But suppose he doesn't give a damn about dying?"

  "Every sentient is interested in self-preservation."

  "I understand that you actually met the guy."

  "A long time ago, though I have followed his activities with interest these past years."

  "Then you know he ain't your average human being. He ain't your average anything."

  "So I've been led to believe," admitted Chaheel, trying to prod the man.

  "Everybody knows his story. How he rose out of the underworld in Cluria, made himself legal, all that garbage. Privately I think it's all mystmit put out by his PR people. But he's got about everything a guy could want out of life. Suppose he wants more? Suppose he'd like to go out one of the greatest heroes in human history? A martyr to mankind's expansion in the galaxy? D'you think he'd sacrifice his life for that?"

  Chaheel considered thoughtfully. "I don't know, but it's an interesting idea. We the Nuel consider life sacrosanct. An individual's life belongs not only to him but to his family. Survival is important to others besides oneself."

  "Yeah, well, we the Humans think different. Some of us do, anyway. Some of us are downright eager to give away our lives for something we believe in."

  "It does not matter." He tried to explain to the man. "Lewmacklin would perish as soon as he thought any inimical thoughts toward the Nuel. He would not have time to actually do anything."

  "Yeah, you think not? Well, tell me what you think of this.

  "Among other things Loo-Macklin has control of the firms that supply the special food your newborn—Nueleens, I think you call 'em—is fed in the nurseries." He grinned nastily. "See, I did my homework pretty good."

  Chaheel could not keep his tentacles from retracting this time. They curled up flat, tight against his gross body. "I know now all you say is truth, Thomas Lindsay. Or you would be dead by now."

  "Yeah, I know." The cause of the human's nervousness was now explained, the psychologist thought.

  "This information could be false, designed to be discovered so that leaks in human security might be detected, contacts between Nuel and human friends discovered."

  The man shook his head violently. "I did my checking. This is for real, slimeskin. I saw the people's names. It's all been done real careful, real clever.

  "They've developed a chemical that's going to be inserted into the Nueleen food. It's slow acting, no side effects. Every young Nuel will get some while it's maturing. It'll make them . . . mentally pliable, I guess is the best way to describe it. It won't have any results until the individual matures. By then," he shrugged, "the Nuel will do whatever mankind asks them to do. Racially, the Nuel will lose their competitive edge. All of you will be, well, anesthetized. Only you won't be aware of it happening to you because your young will grow up acting that way. You'll all become very content, very happy, and easily handled, which is what the UTW government wants."

  "Monstrous," said Chaheel Riens huskily. "Why are you telling me this? Apart from your dislike of Lewmaklin, are you not betraying your own people in return for money?"

  "Hell, no. I'm not going to cause anyone to be hurt. At worst, I'm just helping to maintain the status quo. I don't give a damn about you slimeskins," he added frankly, "and I'd never betray my own race. I'm not giving you information that's going to help you overthrow mankind. I'm just keeping a bunch of alien brats from growing up lobotomized.

  "You'll want more proof." He reached into a pocket and handed the Nuel a small plastic box.

  Chaheel extended a shaky tentacle for it. "That's full of chips, information storage chips," the man told him. "I did some copying that day. You have access to human data processing machinery?"

  The psychologist performed a gesture that the human could recognize.

  "Okay, then. Run 'em yourself. Have your own experts check 'em out. They're not fakes."

  "I will do so," said Chaheel, "and if they are not, I shall arrange for the transfer of funds requested."

  "Here." The man slipped him a code plate. "That's my account. My special new one. It's on Restavon, not Evenwaith, and don't transfer everything at once. Do it a hundred thousand a year."

  "You trust me to do this?"

  The man rose from the table. "You've sworn to me on the line of your first father. That's good enough."

  "Lost I am," whispered the stunned Chaheel. "Lost and disbelieving. If Lewmaklin has done truly what you claim, has participated in this monstrous evil aimed at the innocent unborn, then he should have perished long ago. Yet he lives."

  "Don't take it so hard," Lindsay advised him. "Look, I'm a programmer and researcher. I probably wouldn't understand how or what you guys stuck in his brain even if you explained it to me slowly. But even you Nuel can't make new laws of biology. All you can do is use the existing ones.

  "You know what I know: that Loo-Macklin, the sorry ghit, ain't dead. Maybe he found some way to circumvent or short-circuit whatever kind of check you put inside his head. I wish I was wrong. Wish he was dead. You guys better check up on whatever it was you did to him, 'cause it sure as hell ain't working."

  Those were the last words the psychologist heard from Thomas Lindsay. The man vanished into the crowd, leaving a s
tunned Chaheel slumped alone in the booth. Hastily he concealed the packet of information chips. Then his great eyes scanned the room.

  If Lindsay was wrong, if he hadn't covered his actions with sufficient thoroughness, then there would be work here for assassins soon enough. Chaheel doubted they would hesitate to kill an alien visitor. Not one carrying the information just passed to him. He vacated the table and the establishment as fast as his cilia could carry him.

  The information chips were transported to a Nuel vessel, run through human-designed computers, then reprocessed and scanned by Nuel instrumentation. Chaheel carried them aboard himself, not trusting them to anyone else to deliver safely and certainly not to ground-based transmission. There was too much at stake.

  It was all there, everything Lindsay had claimed and more. Loo-Macklin himself making arrangements with high government officials, records of dates and delivery schemes, the design for the distribution of the soporific chemical to Nueleen food suppliers and when it was to commence: all in stomach-turning detail.

  It was estimated it would take thirty years for the drug to reduce the maturing Nuel to a state of racial complacency through manipulation of the hormone balance in their brains. A plan as perfect as it was insidious, for while it was being carried out, the otherwise normal young adults would never suspect a thing.

  When the last information chip came to an end, several of the ship's prime officers turned in shock to Chaheel Riens. The psychologist was only slightly less stunned by the scope and sheer malignancy of the plan.

  "It is clear," one of the junior officers finally said into the devastated silence, "that the lehl has failed. The humans have either found a way of extracting it without harming the host or neutralizing its reactions."

  "Impossible, impossible truly," countered another. "They have not the medical skills necessary."

  "A renegade Nuel physician could do the operation," suggested a third.

  "That does not explain how our periodic checks on this creature continue to show positive," Chaheel pointed out, trying to restrain the rising air of panic in the meeting chamber.

  "In any case there is one advantage we retain." The officers listened closely. "This creature Lewmaklin may by now know of this Lindsay individual's actions, but he cannot be certain that said information was conveyed to me. He should still think that he holds our trust, that his position is unchanged. We still have time to destroy this intended assault upon the minds of our young." A few outraged murmurs rose from the assembled ship's officers.

  "We will alert all the food distribution firms as well as those companies who produce the food. In addition, there are Nuel who monitor incoming shipments from the UTW. They can be on the watch for this additive and stop it before it reaches any family world. Surely this creature has no Nuel in his pay. I am certain those who work for him are unaware of this plan.

  "And lastly, there is a simpler way to prevent this and any future such troubles." When no one said anything, he explained further.

  "Once, long ago, I actually met this Lewmaklin thing. He was friendly enough but his attitudes troubled me even then. Still he makes his residence on the world below us." He indicated the slowly rotating globe of Evenwaith, a mass of white clouds and sapphire seas filling the sweeping port off to his right.

  "Likely he is traveling now. He travels much, to attend to his vast interests. We will wait for him to return."

  "And when he returns?" prompted one of the officers.

  "When he returns I will see if I can call upon that long-ago meeting to secure an appointment with him," said Chaheel quietly. "I am sure he will suspect nothing. I will kill him. No physician, be he human or renegade Nuel, can prevent me from accomplishing that intention. The lehl has failed. I assure you that I shall not. . . ."

  Chapter 12

  He had no trouble gaining the appointment. Loo-Macklin, the secretary in charge assured the psychologist, would be pleased to greet an old acquaintance. Further proof, to Chaheel's mind, that the human knew nothing of the meeting with Thomas Lindsay.

  He traveled by marcar from Cluria. Soon the car slipped free of its tube and raced across a field of ripe, waving grain. The wheat concealed the magnetic repulsion rail, which kept the car aloft and moving forward.

  Chaheel studied the well-cultivated fields with interest. He knew that many years ago this world of Evenwaith was a cesspool of pollution, which was forced to import such products as grain because they couldn't grow in the poisoned atmosphere. He knew also that Loo-Macklin was the one principally responsible for cleaning the planet's surface. Looking at the endless fields of golden wheat, the clear blue skies, it was difficult to imagine what this land must once have been like, choking under a permanent pall of dioxides and particulates.

  It was no wonder Loo-Macklin was idealized by many humans and had been raised high within their society. His greatest accomplishment, of course, lay ahead: the silent subjugation of the Nuel.

  His status and intent would have given him access to secret government files and records, all of which he no doubt employed to enhance his business dealings. The government would find it repayment enough, and his competitors could only wonder at his seeming prescience. All little things, insignificant things, beside the vast evil the human intended.

  A spur off the main marcar rail dead-ended atop a rocky bluff overlooking Evenwaith's South Sea. Automatic switching devices made insect-noises beneath the tall cliff grass as Chaheel's car was shifted to a private rail. Then he made a breathtaking descent down the cliff face, leveled off, and found himself skimming over the waves booming on shore.

  Glancing out the side of the car he could just make out the rail running beneath the surface. Ahead lay a large, igneous plug whose vertical gray sides rose sharply from the sea.

  The core of the long-extinct volcano, which comprised the island, was wholly owned by Loo-Macklin. From twisted lava rose his private estate, a forest of thin, gleaming towers coated with precious reflective metal enamels. Sunlight turned the island into a forest of wild mirrors.

  As he neared the fortress home, Chaheel decided the towers were more than merely decorative. No doubt, many contained components of an elaborate defense system. That was only to be expected. It was hardly likely the most powerful human in the eighty-three worlds of the UTW would chose to live in a defenseless fairyland.

  That did not trouble Chaheel Riens. He never expected to get off the island alive.

  He was compelled to endure several checks of his person. Not all the polite guards who scanned him for weapons and made certain of his identity were human. There were two of the tall Orischians and one Orophite. No Nuel, however, much to Chaheel's relief.

  They found no weapons on the psychologist because he was carrying none. From the beginning he'd assumed anyone as important as Loo-Macklin would maintain an elaborate system of personal protection and had given up the idea at once of trying to smuggle anything lethal, even a sophisticated biological agent, into the great man's sanctuary.

  His plan called for something as simple as it was primitive. Though no athlete and half a foot shorter than the human, he was a good hundred pounds heavier. He would wait for the right instant, work his way as close as possible to the creature, and before any automatic device or living guard could react, he would throw himself on Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin and break the man's neck.

  What happened subsequent to that did not concern Chaheel Riens.

  The room they ushered him into as he flexed his powerful tentacles a last time was obscenely large. The soaring, vaulted ceiling was several stories high, forming a peak of transparent gemstone, which permitted the entrance of an altered sun. It curved down in a fine sweep to meet a broad, transparent wall supported by glass buttresses. It was far too large to be called a window.

  Beyond lay a panoramic view of setting sun, endless ocean, and the curving point of headland known as the Mare's Eyes. Evening approached and the lights of expensive bluffside homes began to wink on, sprinkling il
lumination on the edge of the continent.

  He flowed on relaxed cilia across a floor of richly polished wood composed of millions of hardwood chips gleaned from all of the eighty-three worlds. Probably some from the worlds of the families as well, he thought bitterly.

  At the far end of this cathedral-like office, a man sat on either a very small couch or very large cushion. He sat motionless until the psychologist had drawn quite near. Then he rose, smiled, and extended a hand.

  Patience, patience, the psychologist warned himself. It's too early, too soon. Now is when his protective devices will be most alert. Relax this monster, relax his shields, relax the conversation. Then slay him.

  "Chaheel Riens, it's been many years." The monster's hand touched a tentacle and exchanged liquid with the psychologist. Chaheel felt unclean but forced himself to handle the exchange calmly.

  Then he took a moment to study Loo-Macklin. The body appeared unchanged, unusual for a human of his age. It looked very much as he'd seen it years ago in the Birthing cavern. Some skull fur was missing, however, mostly in front of the head. It had not been artificially replaced, a crude bioengineering technique the humans clumsily practiced. The most noticeable change was in fur color, which had faded from gold to white.

  There were a few additional wrinkle lines in the face, comparable to the changes that took place in a Nuel's skirt as it aged. And that was all. He measured himself carefully against the human. It would have to be quick. He doubted Loo-Macklin's security personnel would permit two attacks. The human was very strong for his kind, but Chaheel had weight and two extra limbs on his side. There should be no difficulty.

  "Good to see you again," Loo-Macklin was saying cheerily. He turned his back on the Nuel and waved toward the sky. A large cylindrical metal cylinder rose from the floor. It was brightly lit in changing patterns. Tiny spigots encircled its upper section. "Can I offer you some liquid or near-liquid refreshment?"

  "No, thank you," Chaheel said. "I will take up but little of your time."