Fletcher stopped breathing. The man waited, leaned forward, watchful, then diminished smoothly in size until he was gone. Still holding his breath, Fletcher put finger tips to the door panel and eased it away.
Outside, there were dim courtesy lights on the corridor and he checked his time disk. Three hundred hours on the nose. Nobody was likely to be around except the all-night clerk in the lobby. He padded along to the landing at the stairhead where there was a small lounge area with a balcony on the same side as his own.
Lights were still on here and there in a random pattern along the cliff face of the hotel. Counting forward, he identified his own room and checked immediately below. The only balcony in direct line was two floors down. As he watched, there was a pale glow that snapped on and off again as an inner door opened and closed.
He gave it half an hour sitting in shadow in a deep club chair. Then he went back to his room. It was pointless to try to find the pick up. But then, they would be satisfied. Nobody would go on listening to a silence.
He cleared the bed and found a small circular splash of bright yellow serum on the unbreakable lampshade. Most of his gear was in the I.G.O. consulate and he travelled light. A handgrip took the rest.
Except his remaining gift parcel which he shoved under his arm. It was like clearing up after a death.
Twenty minutes later, he was checking in at a cosmopolitan rooming house in a quiet square in Kristinobyl.
Duvorac said, “You are sure, Commander, that you were not seen leaving the Space Centre and that you stayed out of sight until you came here?”
“Quite sure.”
“In spite of your reservations, it could be that you have missed your vocation. You have the makings of an agent.”
“I wouldn’t bank on that.”
“Nevertheless you must be giving the opposition a great deal to think about. Now as to the equipment.
What would be its use?”
“Only an electronics expert could establish that.”
“But Xenia tells me that you formed an opinion.”
“More of a hunch.”
Xenia following the exchange like a tennis umpire, put in helpfully, “He got eet by looking at me.”
Duvorac with heavy gallantry, but some justice, said, “I am sure you give food for vision to a great variety of ethnic types, but go on, Commander.”
“The apparatus is not self-powered and would have a limited range. But a large number of units, well-sited could cover a population centre. They would use power from the ring. I believe it is a device for subliminal projection, so that public opinion could be manipulated. That would explain O.G.A.
interest. We destroyed some, but many may be already in position. It would be the ideal set-up to prepare for a coup.”
Duvorac’s console chattered into independent life and he consulted a message tape. He took a spell to read it off and Xenia filled the interval with, “I was sure you were in some dangaire last night. I felt eet here.”
A slim hand pointed delicately to her chest, only notionally covered by lime-green net. “Eet was about three o’clock and I woke up. But I knew you were veree clevaire and would be all right. At four o’clock I knew you were safe and went to sleep again.”
So he had not been totally out on a limb in his corner of space. He tried to fathom what was behind her eyes. Except that they were green in depth and very subtle developments of the genre, there was no progress to be made.
He was still working at it, when Duvorac broke silence and the commissar had to start again, “If I could have your attention for a moment, Commander. The occupant of the room below yours checked out early. He was a Laodamian, Melas by name. First officer of a freighter which is due out at noon. There is no doubt, the O.G.A. nationals here have a close organization. Headquarters will be at one of the consulates. They will have the same diplomatic immunity as ourselves. Without unshakable evidence, we can take no action.”
“Next time you should arrange to catch one actually shoving a knife in my back.”
“I hope that will not be necessary,”—Duvorac said it as though he did not rule it out, but would only use the idea if pushed and Fletcher reckoned that there was some force in the old gag that a man might regret speech, but seldom regretted silence.
There was a digestive pause and Duvorac, having considered the angles, went on, “I judge that you should return to your new quarters and wait until the girl Yola makes contact. I will see that she knows where you are. Her friends are well placed to find out where power is taken from the ring. If you could bring one of the devices here, it could be analysed by our technicians and a counter move would be possible.”
“If you have jamming in mind, it’s not on. These are small high-power jobs, widely spread, building an intense local field.”
“Then we must have them located and give proof to the government of what is intended. They can then deal with the problem.”
“Is that a serious proposal?”
“Of course, Commander. I am always serious.”
“But the government is riddled with sympathizers. Action would be delayed, maybe blocked altogether.
By the time they moved, the broadcasts could be in full spate and then action would be influenced by the very agent it was trying to suppress. We wouldn’t get to first base relying on Garamasian action.”
“What do you suggest?”
It dawned on Fletcher that he had been nicely angled round into the position of a fellow planner. Once a scheme had been agreed, he would be morally obliged to go along with it.
Xenia, who had been on a seemingly-random roaming kick round the office, gravitated to a spot at the back of his chair and he could feel the heat exchange going on, as her metabolism maintained her at a body heat five degrees over the Earth figure.
But he had been asked a legitimate question and it demanded an answer. When it came, he wondered whether her mental fingers had been shifting a few keys in the computer.
He listened to himself saying, “There is only one sure way, and it would be effective at several levels. We should send a cutting out party into one of the remote areas, where the power ring is accessible, and sabotage it. Make a break that would take weeks to fix. That would prevent broadcasts for a period, give them time to pinpoint the transmitters, and take off some of the attraction of Garamas for O.G.A.
purposes. It’s the power source that pulls them.”
Xenia was close up behind him and put her head against his right ear, a warm, silk fragrance, rather than a physical touch. “You are clevaire, Harree. That is a splendeed idea. The commissar ees nonplussed.”
True or false, Duvorac rallied gamely. A lifetime of indirect action made an open gambit hard for him to judge. He shifted about on his plinth and said, “That is the military way, of course. You would naturally think along those lines. The scheme has a lot to recommend it. I will think about it and discuss it with Admiral Varley. It would require precise and accurate timing and would have to be arranged so that no hint of suspicion fell on I.G.O. Many people would suffer hardship. It could harden opinion against us.
Indeed to coin a phrase, we could be hoist with our own petard.”
He stopped transmitting and went into a contemplative phase. Xenia still up close whispered, “What ees thees petard, Harree? I theenk I nevaire saw one.”
“You didn’t miss a thing, and for godsake stop calling me Harree, it’s confusing.”
“But I like Harree. You suit Harree. Thees Dag ees too short and sharp. Harree ees more leengereeng and loveeng. That perfume jar was a Harree-geeft, eef evaire I saw one.”
Duvorac who had ignored the pillow talk like any blind fiddler, stirred into speech.
“This needs time to consider. I will meet you again at this time tomorrow. Make a detailed plan of where you consider the ring could be broken. Xenia will bring any further instructions, if I have them.”
In Fletcher’s experience, ordinary citizens in Kristinobyl were either positi
vely friendly or indifferent.
Filling time in the market place, a packed rabbit-warren of temporary stalls, which had appeared overnight in the square outside his window, he slowly became conscious that attitudes could go sour. He had sensed a lack of rapport in one or two Omphalian stall keepers, when he went under their awnings to take a closer look at the tourist gew-gaws on offer.
Omphalians were the natural-born traders of the galaxy. They would and did sell anything that could be picked up and moved to anyone with negotiable assets. Barter was a way of life. When they backed away without making a pitch as from a leper bell, there had to be a reason.
Confirmation came when a small Garamasian child, finding him near, sent up a high-pitched wail and ran to its mother.
Every eye on the set, and they were a mixed lot, tracked round to stare at him as though he had been foiled in a bid to snatch its Jolly.
The over-riding impression was that it only went to prove a point, Earth nationals were beyond the human pale.
He went on down the alley between open booths and felt the weight of disfavour like a psychokinetic force beating on the back of his head.
Weaving left and right he cleared the child-protecting group, but the new crowd was no better.
He found himself rationalizing the experience. After all, why should an Earthman be welcome? For the most part they were only seen following an I.G.O. mandate. They brought not peace, but a sword.
Comfortable ways had to be given up. And who was to judge the justice of that? If a custom, however barbarous was okay to the people concerned, who had any right to knock it?
He was in the area of absolute standards. When you got in that thicket, you could only say—it is right, because it seems right to me.
Earthman go home—about summed it up. In fact, the slogan came before his mind’s eye in banner headlines and triggered off an alarm. If he was thinking that way, there was no surprise that others should go one farther on.
Somewhere in the area, they must be giving a Laodamian opinion manipulator its trial run. Pedasun’s fine Italian hand could have set the text so as to waste no drop of bile. Xenophobia would be a strong prop in any fascist programme.
Intellectually, there was some satisfaction in having sorted the angles; but it was likely to be the only clear gain to be had. From being passive critics, the more suggestible elements of the hoi polloi began to pack together and form a lynch mob.
He had gotten himself towards the centre of the square and there was no escape route except through the cordon.
Now he knew what it was like to be Ishmael.
All the women and children had disappeared. Solid wedges of young Garamasian men were coming in from either end of the alley he was in. Some of them had picked up lengths of scantling and were swinging them clubwise. From being a hive of demented chat, the whole square had gone silent.
Running would trigger off a chase, he walked slowly under the nearest awning and then vaulted over the counter. A small, fat Omphalian, greasy spheroid, topped with lank, black hair, let out a yell thinking it was a heist.
It was a signal for pandemonium to break out. Fletcher cut across another stall, but he might have been carrying a homing signal, groups formed ahead of him at every turn. He grabbed a basketwork lid from a linen coffer, a knob-ended chair leg from a do-it-yourself furniture kit and began to run down an alley that led direct for the hotel.
A stone thudded home between his shoulder-blades. Men appeared blocking his path. From a simple exercise of getting clear, he was fighting to survive.
In some ways, numbers were against them. He was the only one who knew who was on his side. A dozen blows that could have killed him were blocked in the press.
He was two-thirds through and reckoned he would make it, getting the balance of his chair leg and swinging it like a mace, when the open end of the gully filled with another party which had made a flanking move. He knew he had to stay on his feet. But there was a fifth column working in his head trying to sell the idea that he was in the wrong.
Backed up against a post, he cleared a swathe in front and missed the Laodamian who crawled under the counter to grab his ankles. As he pitched forward the crowd surged in from every side.
A shrewd knock over his left ear, clouded vision in a red haze. In a last spasm of effort, he kicked his legs free and rolled convulsively under the counter of the stall, before his mind rolled away from him in a free-wheeling trip into black space.
Chapter Five
In the Command cabin of Europa, Garamas was plate-size on the main scanner; a cinnamon-tinged sphere banded by white vapour.
Admiral P. J. Varley, thick-set, greying, with an underslung piranha jaw, currently clamped shut to give support to a black briar pipe, focussed boiled blue eyes on it. Even through the aromatic smoke screen he was sending up, the planet had no charisma.
He was sick of Garamas and the problems it posed. In many respects an out-and-out hostile would be easier to handle.
Shifting irritably out of his executive console on the command island, he stumped over to a raised observation platform that followed the quadrant curve of a panoramic, direct vision port.
The view was no great improvement. When you had said it was different you had said all.
Outside the gravisphere of Garamas, he had brought the squadron down on the black cinder heap of a burned out asteroid. Light from the ships threw up a nightmare landscape of tumbled basalt and pumice dust. Crisscross of slender shadows of five towering ships. Silver obelisks in a bizarre grove. Backdrop for a demoniac rite of passage.
Fresh crews would be under stress to maintain station, day after day in this limbo. Coming at the tail end of a gruelling mission, it was the last twist of the screw.
Captains’ daily logs featured mounting infringements of service regs. Varley, staring through a ghost image of himself on the glass reckoned that the only crime he was not going to hear of was desertion.
Whatever jigs a latter-day Bligh got up to, the pressure would never force a man outside into that mind-numbing desolation.
Not that any of his commanders was likely to go cafard and have crewmen holy-stoning the deck. He reviewed them in his mind’s eye. Simpson of Falcon, dark, with a predatory, hook-nose, a natural born sailor for any age; Driscoll of Heron, ox-solid, nothing would get under his skin; Cameron, the huge, raw-boned Scot, commanding Hawk, a nerveless, tireless machine; Drake’s commander, Cooper, round-faced, cherubic, resilient as latex. No. They would hold the pass for a time yet. Though it was up to himself to see that it was not too long.
The hatch at his back slid aside. Europa’s captain, Group Commander Frazer, ducked in under the lintel, a tall fair man with hair clipped so short that he seemed prematurely bald and, by contrast, his face looked over youthful and immature—an error which had trapped many a new crewman into thinking he would be easy. A short-lived miscalculation at that.
Varley said, “I’ll give it three more days, Bob. Then we pull out. I’ve seen this before. A revolution that’s expected any day can hang off for years. I do believe there’s a revolutionary type that likes the intrigue bit. Doesn’t want to take responsibility. Never grows up.”
“What about Petrel, Admiral? Do we leave her for the relieving squadron?”
“For godsake why should we do that? There’ll be an official visit for Blue Squadron to present credentials. They can make their own arrangements for putting a toad in the hole.”
“What about Fletcher?”
“Publish the enquiry. Let him bring Petrel out with the skeleton crew.”
“Will you tell him why the enquiry was held up?”
“Not immediately. He’s a good man, but it’ll do him no harm to sweat a little. He thinks he knows it all.”
“It paid off. He was useful to Duvorac.”
“Working for the civilian arm will be good experience. If he stays with the service, he should know how their minds run. Get a signal off telling Duvorac I want him back.”
A calling bleep drew both men to look at the signals desk. Communications had done a good job centring a Venusian face, twice life-size on the middle panel. Overhead a tannoy said, “Call from I.G.O.
Commissar, Garamas, sir. Urgent. Using scrambled link. Will you take it, sir?”
Varley said, “Holy cow. Did you ever hear of Venusians being long-distance mind-readers? What does the old fox want do you think?”
From the vantage point of some years close partnership, Frazer made a bid for progress, “I suggest you ask him, Admiral. Shall I stay?”
“Yes, you’d better know.”
Varley sat down at his desk and flipped a succession of keys to put himself in circuit with speech, vision, scrambler, decode and interpreter services. Then he said, flatly, “Varley. What can I do for you Commissar?”
The voice that made out through the intricate metallic gut, matched oddly with the Venusian’s massive grey face. It was a lightweight female job, on the high-pitched side; but it delivered a plain tale in plain terms.
When Duvorac paused to rest his larynx, Varley was up to date on the scene. He said, “So you believe, Commissar, that the crisis is imminent and we should act to sabotage the ring. You understand that any ship, sidestepping Garamas control, for a planetfall anywhere outside Kristinobyl, would be a justifiable target for defence action. Unless I neutralized ground installations first, it would not get within a thousand kilometres. That would mean devastation for every major city in Garamas. You and I know, both, Commissar that is not on.”
Duvorac’s face registered something like shock; but the voice went on at an even tone. “Of course, Admiral, such action was very far from my mind. There is an alternative, which would require the utmost skill and exact timing. Garamas has a number of peculiar features. There is a brief period in each day cycle when natural forces cause severe electrical disturbance. Since the power ring was established, this has been intensified. For a period of six or seven minutes between dusk and dark, tracking gear is virtually screened. By careful planning a small ship could be so placed that it could move in to one of the desert areas at that time.”
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