Fletcher had passed some of them on the road. Very excited and talkative, very naive. He felt old in guile, a corrupter of youth.
His driver presented the I.G.O. pass. A guard walked the length of the shuttle, looking in through the plexiglass dome and waving them on with another snappy salute.
Inside, they crossed an open courtyard and sidled in under a canopy for Fletcher to make a status building entrance to the reception area. He let anyone who was interested, hear him say, “I’ll be thirty minutes. Be here at fifteen-forty-five.”
The car pulled away to wait in a parking lot behind the main building and he went on into the lobby.
Gilded cage notwithstanding, Petrel’s skeleton crew, when he found them, were ripe for mayhem. Even Cotgrave, a phlegmatic, square-built man, with a round, open face, co-pilot and acting Commander of the unit, was at the far edge of tolerance.
He said, “Look, Commander, you can tell Varley we’ve had enough. What in hell is he playing at? Why can’t Petrel rejoin the fleet? She was on an official visit with the squadron. There was no call for internment. I reckon if somebody got their finger out, she could be operational tomorrow. We’ve had enough of these goons and that’s a fact.”
Six others crowded round to get the news from home and there was no disguising the fact that they resented the I.G.O. rep.
Fletcher found it an unusual experience and one he could have done without. Here were seven highly trained space men rotting on the beach and he had been angled into the slot of a visiting staff type handing out the establishment line.
Cotgrave remembered protocol with an obvious effort and introduced him round. There were two from each section. Enough to make Petrel a viable proposition for a short haul. Bennett and Sluman from Navigation; Johnson and Ledsham from Communications; Engles and Hocker from Power.
On free choice, he wouldn’t have taken any one in a crew. They were sour and argumentative. Morale had taken a knock or rather had been slowly drained off. If there had been any real hardship it would have been better for discipline.
Fletcher told himself to suspend judgement and tried to make contact. After ten minutes, he recognized that he was making out, except with Dave Hocker, youngest of the group, a large-boned, dark-haired type who carried a mammoth chip about chair-borne administrators who, on his analysis, wouldn’t know a rocket ship from their own ass.
If there had been no background complication, Dag Fletcher would have been nettled by it. As it was, there was an exercise in managerial techniques to keep his mind off sin. He handed out a batch of mail and some of the tension went out. He took Cotgrave aside.
“What’s with this Hocker?”
“Don’t take too much notice of the boys just now. They’ve had a bellyful. It was a bad mission, before ever we got here. Hocker’s a good man at his job. I’ll agree he knows it. He was disappointed when Engles was made executive. We lost Power One with the captain.”
Fletcher looked at the time disk. Bang on the nose. God, it was asking a lot from a mob of amateurs to hit a precise time on a big operation. Duvorac was the optimist of the century.
Bennett a small wiry figure with a narrow, intelligent face and a shock of very black hair, called over from the window that filled one side of the common room, “Skipper. Look out here. Something’s worrying the goons. They’re all over the place.”
Garamasian guards were appearing at the double to form up on the square. Late comers were still buttoning tunics. The keening wail of a siren started up as Cotgrave moved.
Lining the window, the Earthmen watched an officer, using a powered megaphone, walk down the line.
Garamasian gobbledegook filtered through the double-glazing.
Cotgrave said, “Maybe it’s a break out. What do you say, Commander?”
The crackle of a tannoy from a roof grille answered for him. A Garamasian voice using stilted English said, “All detainees are instructed to return to their quarters. Do not leave your sleeping space. Anyone moving in the open will be shot on sight. All visitors must leave now.”
Sticks of soldiery were peeling off. Files of eight—the Garamasian basic number. Running jerkily to emergency stations on the perimeter. Except that they were not waving riot sticks and nobody fell flat in a mud patch, it was like watching a historic, silent movie.
Cotgrave said, “You’d better get clear, Commander. Do no good to get you interned for ignoring that order. They’re dead touchy about regs. Half the residents hardly know why they’re inside. We’ll see you again?”
“I’ll work on it. Petrel may be cleared for service any time. Be ready for that.”
He tried to pack a significant look into it, remembering that rooms in this complex would be monitored and Cotgrave nodded.
“We’ll be ready. As of now, we’ll do like the man said and go back to the cells.”
In reception, there were others waiting for transport out. Three Garamasians, who looked like legal consultants and a Scotian with the sleeve braid of a lieutenant, who stood apart and tracked Fletcher through with a cold glare.
He walked straight to the desk and asked for his car to be called. Without looking up, the Garamasian orderly spoke rapidly into an intercom. A small thing, but a kind of insolence and Fletcher realized that the rank and file had no time for I.G.O.
Using speech tones, he said, “What is the emergency about?” The man went on checking a list.
Fletcher leaned over took the slack of his tunic at the neck, and gave a shake, “What is the emergency about?”
This time he got attention. The man used English and fairly spat out, “Some young fools are assembled at the gate. Your ideas of civil disturbance have caught on. You will see how we deal with it.”
That was a point. Yola and her friends could be in more danger than they knew. Too many for mass arrest, but some punitive action would follow for sure.
The I.G.O. car edged in to the bay. He marched across to it and got in. There was nothing to see and he thought that Duvorac had been too optimistic. In some ways it was a relief. The demonstration was not being cynically used for another purpose. They would have to try again, with a military-type, cutting out operation.
At the checkpoint, the same guard saw them through. Duvorac had guessed right on that count. There was no detailed search. Even as he walked the length of the car, the man kept looking over his shoulder at the uncharacteristic action going on outside.
A fifty-metre clear area surrounded the complex. Drawn up midway in the space, on a hundred-metre front, was a solid eight-deep phalanx of silent, white figures holding a wake.
The organizers had done well. It was an impressive sight. The silence of so many was a tangible thing.
Fletcher’s car turned out of the barrier and moved slowly between the camp wall and the leading file. He tried to pick out Yola, but she could have been any one of a dozen, anonymous shrouded figures.
As they cleared the end marker, and rose ten metres to their flight lane, a tannoy spoke from a watchtower set on high stilts over the flat roof of the gatehouse.
Fletcher said, “Slow,” and slewed round in his seat.
There was no movement from the silent ranks. A file of guards lined the parapet.
The car was nearing an intersection, where they would pick the ring road for Kristinobyl. Suddenly Fletcher knew how it would be. Following honourable precedent, the Commandant would try a whiff of grapeshot.
His order to “Turn around. Run between the crowd and the gate,” was still echoing round the shuttle, when pinpoints of red flame blossomed briefly all along the firestep.
A long swathe of the front rank were down, some to stay, some crawling random fashion to get clear.
Both ends of the column broke and ran for it. From above, the white line seemed to have been stretched suddenly like elastic and snapped at its centre.
The guards fired again methodically picking off the stragglers.
Fletcher said again, gritty with anger that swamped out every o
ther factor, “Back. Turn around and go back.”
There was no answer. When he whipped round, ready to pluck the man from his console and take it himself, he had to concede that the man had his problems.
A silvery Fingalnan girl had wriggled from under the squab like an adder, looking infinitely delicate and fragile in a taut, lime-green leotard, which could have been sprayed on by a make-up artist.
Feminine charm could only go so far. Currently, she was sticking a slender stiletto a millimetre or so into the side of the engineer’s neck and her voice was full of conviction. Bell-like in timbre, it had a bizarre way with English.
“Not so Commandaire. I am sorree to seem obstetrical, but we’ave to be real queek. Som omelette ees not made without breaking som egg. Do not worree. Much good will com. Make people theenk, I guesss. We drive on. I am Xenia.”
Behind them, the one-way battle was over. All who could had gone. The guards had stopped firing. Only a medical tender would be welcome.
Fletcher was coldly angry. He saw that Duvorac had only told half a tale. He must have known what was likely to happen. He had also known that the agent was a girl. It was time he took a personal line or they would walk all over him.
He leaned forward casually as though accepting the situation. Then his hands shot over the squab and plucked her out of her bucket seat.
For a count of five, it was as if he had hauled a small hot shark aboard a dinghy. He was reminded that Fingalnian metabolism kept its daughters’ blood a good five degrees higher than his own. He was grappling with a tricky, polystyrene model. Then he damped down all action by sheer body weight.
He called over to his driver who was still bemused and rubbing his neck, “Call Kristinobyl General Hospital. Say it’s a multiple accident. Make it urgent. Then get back to I.G.O.”
To his pneumatic bedfellow, now trying to sink a neat set of white teeth into his shoulder, he said, “Relax.
Tell me all about yourself.”
Chapter Three
Duvorac had Xenia at his right hand, an incongruous running mate. She was perched lightly on a high stool, only lacking a chromium bar rail to fill out the set. A faint sandalwood perfume drifted out as from a smouldering joss stick. Wide-open, green eyes, dramatized by clever shading and an oblique flare of eyebrow, never left Fletcher’s face.
He got the feeling that, in a general way, she was reading his mind, before he had actually sorted his ideas into a form of words. That figured. As he recalled, E.S.P. was a finely developed art on her home planet.
He made a note that on any important issue, he would have to keep information from the transfer areas of his brain and consciously use masking techniques.
As of now it was robbing what he had to say of some impact. He could have signed off and let the two of them get on with it. But he could still see the quiet patient ranks of young Garamasians being chopped down. Somebody had to be ombudsman.
He wound up with, “I know all the argument about ends and means. I’ll concede that vis-à-vis O.G.A.
we can’t afford to lose. But I don’t go along with massacres of the innocent. Count me right out.”
Xenia’s green eyes remained unblinking and unfathomable. He could tell that she was trying to probe behind the manifest for fissures of insincerity. Taking advantage of her concentration, he cleared his mind and tried to use its still centre as a crystal, ready to vibrate to any signal she might be sending on her own account.
There was nothing precise to register. Only a conviction that she was completely amoral. Right and wrong were interesting abstractions that made other people tick, but carried no imperatives. She would judge every situation on its merits for its balance of advantage.
Even at that, she must be loyal or a wily operator like Duvorac would have no use for her. Also, selection for the I.G.O. service was thorough and tough.
Xenia gave open proof that she was digging around in his head. “You worree about me, Commandaire.
That eees naice, I guess. We weell get on veray well togethaire.”
“You haven’t been listening. I’ve done my stint as a fifth column.”
Duvorac judged that the junior ranks had talked enough. He fished about on his console and found a printed signal. Speaking as he handed it out, he said, “I must remind you, Commander, that in war, there are things to be done which no one likes. None of us has any choice. Neither me nor you.
The directive was brief enough and was signed by Varley. Key sentence read, “Until the findings of the enquiry into the loss of Terrapin are published Commander D. Fletcher is seconded for service with the I.G.O. Consulate on Garamas. He will accept instructions given personally by the I.G.O. Commissar for Garamas under the terms of military service requirements.”
So there it was in print alive, so he could be sure it was true. Unless Duvorac had cooked it up to strengthen his arm.
The thought had barely formed when Xenia said, “I was here when eet came through, Commandaire.
There ees no deception.”
Fletcher said, “An oath is an oath. I accept that. Also a man is a man. You will have to accept that. If you go beyond what I believe is right, I shall say so.”
“You are able to judge that better than I can? I have noticed before that Earthmen have a built-in arrogance, which is often unsupported by real understanding. However, Commander, I think you will begin to appreciate the problems we face, when I tell you what Xenia here has been doing.”
Xenia, moved by some unexpected residue of modesty, left her high seat and walked behind Fletcher’s chair leaving a pollen cloud that would set her up as a prime mover in Garamasian café society.
Duvorac went on, “She has penetrated a number of organizations in Kristinobyl and neighbouring cities.
There is no doubt at all that preparations are well under way to force a coup d’état and put in power an extreme right-wing government, which would take the planet into the O.G.A. sphere. Indeed O.G.A.
agents are active in these groups, Scotians, Sabazians, and Laodamians. They seem confident that there will be no opposition—though you know yourself that many of the young people have radical views.”
There was a pause. Xenia had wandered near the back of his chair and Fletcher could feel convection currents as if from a free standing heater. It needed a direct question to get his mind on the agenda and Duvorac supplied it. “What do you know of the Laodamians, Commander?”
“Not much. They’re well inside O.G.A. space. I.G.O. military ships never visit. I was there, for a brief stopover, in a European Space Corporation freighter. Never left the space port. Hominoid. Advanced.
Look like gorillas, but that’s deceptive. Technically very smart. Taken public persuasion techniques as far as they go. Beyond what is permitted under the I.G.O. Charter of Human Rights. I recall now, we had the ship under full screening all the time we were in the gravisphere.”
“Thank you, Commander. Very useful. That is so, of course. Why would there be Laodamians in these underground groups?”
“If a putsch is intended, they could be useful to soften up public opinion.”
“That is what I think. But you can see it is important that we know what methods are to be used. Then we can develop a counterstrike.”
“What about the government? They ought to do something about it.”
“The official government is undermined by traitors. It is unable to do anything against this strong minority, which has allies amongst all the old ruling families. No, we have to save them from themselves without being seen to do so.”
“I see that. What do you want me to do?”
“Work with Xenia. There is one investigation you can make right away. She has identified a regular meeting place outside Kristinobyl. There is a growing cache of technical equipment. You may be able to decide how it is to be used.”
“An engineer would be a better choice.”
“You are too modest, Commander. I have been studying your service profile. It is very
impressive.”
Xenia said, “I like eet, also.”
The people’s choice stood up. “When do we start?”
“Very soon. First the back room boys will fix you a new identity. Also a new face. Don’t be alarmed No surgery. Just a thin plastic skin that goes on and comes off like a mask. Good luck.”
Standing in Kristinobyl main square, waiting for Xenia to meet him under the clock, Fletcher felt integrated with the heavy-class intriguers of all time. The make-up syndicate had done a good job. His face had been given a squareish cast. Looking at himself after the event, he had believed it was a trick mirror. He couldn’t recognize himself which ought to be good enough.
Ethnic stock was more difficult to hide, so he was a civilian Earthman, one of the many who lived and worked in the cosmopolitan business sector of Kristinobyl. Papers identified him as Harry Fenton, a technical assistant in a firm of micro switchgear importers.
When she arrived with a quick, buoyant step, Xenia could have been any small, dark Eastern-European type keeping a date. Straight black hair swung silkily to her shoulders; skilful colouring masked normal skin pallor; a loving artist in foam plastic had given her ogee arch treatment under her tabard to rival an Apsaras.
Only the hand she put on his arm was out of character. Its warmth was electric. She said, ambiguously,
“How do you laike eet, Harree?”
It was a big question, so he played for time with “I can take it or leave it.” Her throaty giggle earned a blank stare from a traditional Garamasian matron in a black caftan, who was walking the statutory half pace behind her husband. They were in business as a vaudeville team.
After the initial strangeness, Fletcher recognized that he was enjoying the experience. He had always been aware of his own tendency to act out a part and stand aside as a spectator while it was going on, almost in self-mockery. But there had always been an undertone of unresolved guilt, as though he knew he should not be doing it. He had always envied men like Cameron of Hawk, who were totally outgoing and never had a doubt about their mission. This was a holiday for a schizo. Split personality in the line of duty. He began to elaborate on the role.
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