“You are wrong, sir,” Garlock put in, quietly. “The Galactic Service has not had, does not and will not have, anything to do with intra-planetary affairs. We have no connection with, and no responsibility to, any world or any group of worlds. We are an arm of the United Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy. Our function is to control space. To forbid, to prevent, to rectify any interplanetary or interstellar aggression. Above all, to prevent, by means of procedures up to and including total destruction of planets if necessary, any attempt whatever to form any multi-world empire.”
The three Nargodians gasped as one, as much at the scope of the thing as at the calmly cold certainty of ability carried by the thought.
“You are transmitting this precisely, Miss Flurnoy?” Entlore asked.
“Precisely, sir; including background, fringes, connotations, and implications; just as he is giving it to us.”
“Let us assume that your Nargodian government decides to conquer all the other nations of your planet Margonia. Assume farther that it succeeds. We will not object; in fact, we will, as a usual thing, not even be informed of it. If then, however, your government decides that one world is not enough for it to rule and prepares to conquer, or take aggressive action against, any other world, we will be informed and we will step in. First, warning will be given. Second, any and all vessels dispatched on such a mission will be annihilated. Third, if the offense is continued or repeated, trial will be held before the Galactic Council and any sentence imposed will be carried out.”
In spite of Garlock’s manner and message, both marshals were highly relieved. “You’re in plenty of time, with us, sir,” Entlore said. “We have just sent our first rocket to our nearer moon…that is, unless that group of—of espers gets their ship off the ground.”
“How far along are they?”
“The ship itself is built, but they are having trouble with their drive. The hull is spherical, and much smaller than this one. It has atomic engines, but no blasts or ion-plates…but neither has this one!”
“Exactly; they may be pretty well along. I’d like to get in touch with them as soon as possible. May I borrow a ‘talker’ like Miss Flurnoy for a few days? You have others, I suppose?”
“Yes, but I’ll let you have her; it is of the essence that you have the best one available. Miss Flurnoy?”
“Yes, sir?” Besides reporting, she had been conversing busily with James and Belle.
“Would you like to be assigned to Mr. Garlock for the duration of his stay on Margonia?”
“Oh, yes, sir!” she replied, excitedly.
“You are so assigned. Take orders from him or from any designate as though I myself were issuing them.”
“Thank you, sir…but what limits? And do I transmit to and/or record for you, sir?”
“No limit. These four Galaxians are hereby granted nation-wide top clearance. Transmit as usual whatever is permitted.”
“Full reporting is not only permitted, but urged,” Garlock said. “There is nothing secret about our mission.”
As the Pleiades landed: “If you will give us your focus spot, Mr. Entlore, we can all ’port to your office and save calling staff cars.”
“And cause a revolution?” Entlore laughed. “Apparently you haven’t been checking outside.”
“Afraid I haven’t. I’ve been thinking.”
“Take a look. I got orders from the Cabinet to put guards wherever people absolutely must not go, and open everything else to the public. Ihope there are enough guards to keep a lane open for us, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” Garlock was very glad that the military men’s stiff formality had disappeared. “You Galaxians took this whole planet by storm while you were still above the stratosphere.”
There is no need to go into detail concerning the reception and celebration. On Earth, one inauguration of a president and one coronation of a monarch were each almost as well covered by broadcasters, if not as turbulently and enthusiastically prolonged. From the Pleiades they went to the Administration Building, where an informal reception was held. Thence to the Capitol, where the reception was very formal indeed. Thence to the Grand Ballroom of the city’s largest hotel, where a tremendous—and long-winded—banquet was served.
At Garlock’s request, all sixteen members of the “crackpot” group—the most active members of the Deep Space Club—had been invited to the banquet. And, even though Garlock was a very busy man, his talker tuned in to each one of the sixteen, tuned them all to the Galactic Admiral, and in odd moments a great deal of business was done.
After being told most of the story—in tight-beamed thoughts that ComOff Flurnoy could not receive—the whole group was wildly enthusiastic. They would change the name of their club forthwith to The Galaxian Society Of Margonia. They laid plans for a world-wide organization which would have tremendous prestige and tremendous income. They already had a field—Garlock knew about their ship—they wanted the Pleiades to move over to it as soon as possible—Yes, Garlock thought he could do it the following day—if not, as soon as he could.…
The Pleiades had landed at ten o’clock in the forenoon, local time; the banquet did not come to an end until long after midnight. Throughout all this time the four Galaxians carried on, without a slip, the act that all this was, to them, old stuff.
It was just a little before daylight when they returned, exhausted, to the ship. ComOff Flurnoy went with them. She was still agog at the wonder of it all as Belle and Brownie showed her to her quarters.
CHAPTER 7
Since everyone, including the ebullient ComOff, slept late the following morning, they all had brunch instead of breakfast and lunch. All during the meal Garlock was preoccupied and stern.
“Hold everything for a while, Jim,” he said, when everyone had eaten. “Before we move, Belle and I have got to have a conference.”
“Not a Fatso Ferber nine-o’clock type, I hope.” James frowned in mock reproach and ComOff Flurnoy cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Monkey-business on company time is only for Big Shots like him; not for small fry such as you.”
“Well, it won’t be exclusively monkey-business, anyway. While we’re gone you might clear with the control tower and take us up into take-off position. Come on, Belle.” He took her by one elbow and led her away.
“Why, Doctor Garlock.” Mincing along beside him, pretending high reluctance, she looked up at him wide-eyed. “I’m surprised, I really am. I’m shocked, too. I’m not that kind of a girl, and if I wasn’tafraid of losing my job I would scream. I never even suspectedthat you would use your position as my boss to force yourunwelcome attentions on a poor and young and innocent andsuffering.…”
Inside his room Garlock, who had been grinning, sobered down and checked every Gunther block—a most unusual proceeding.
Belle stopped joking in the middle of the sentence.
“Yeah, how you suffer,” he said. “I was just checking to be sure we’re prime-proof. I’m not ready for Deggi Delcamp yet. That guy, Belle, as you probably noticed, has got one God-awful load of stuff.”
“Not as much as you have, Clee. Nor as much push behind what he has got. And his shield wouldn’t make patches for yours.”
“Huh? How sure are you of that?”
“I’m positive. I’m the one who is going to get bumped, I’m afraid. That Fao Talaho is a hard-hitting, hard-boiled hellcat on wheels.”
“I’ll be damned. You’re wrong. I checked her from stem to gudgeon and you lay over her like a circus tent. What’s the answer?”
“Oh? Do I? I’m mighty glad…funny, both of us being wrong…it must be, Clee, that it’s sex-based differences. We’re used to each other, but neither of us has ever felt a Prime of the same sex before, and there must be more difference between Ops and Primes than we realized. Suppose?”
“Could be—I hope. But that doesn’t change the fact that we aren’t ready. We haven’t got enough data. If we start out with this grandiose Galactic Service thing and find only two or three planets Gunt
hered, we make jackasses of ourselves. On the other hand, if we start out with a small organization or none, and find a lot of planets, it’ll be one continuous cat-fight. On the third hand.…”
“Three hands, Clee? What are you, an octopussy or an Arpalone?”
“Keep your beautiful trap shut a minute. On the third hand, we’ve got to start somewhere. Any ideas?”
“I never thought of it that way.… Hm-m-m-m… I see.” She thought for a minute, then went on, “We’ll have to start without starting, then…quite a trick.… But how about this? Suppose we take a fast tour, with you and I taking quick peeks, without the peekees ever knowing we’ve been peeking?”
“That’s using the brain, Belle. Let’s go.” Then, out in the Main, “Jim, we want to hit a few high spots, as far out as you can reach without losing orientation. Beta Centauri here is pretty bright, Rigel and Canopus are real lanterns. With those three as a grid, you could reach fifteen hundred or two thousand light-years, couldn’t you?”
“More than that. That many parsecs, at least.”
“Good. Belle and I want to make a fast, random-sampling check of Primes and Ops around here. We’ll need five minutes at each planet—quite a ways out. So set up as big a globe as you can and still be dead sure of your locations; then sample it.”
“Not enough data. How many samples do you want?”
“As many as we can get in the rest of today. Six or seven hours, say—eight hours max.”
“Call it seven.… Brownie on the guns, me on Compy.… Five minutes for you.… I should be able to lock down the next shot in five…one minute extra, say, for safety factor…that’d be ten an hour. Seventy planets enough?”
“That’ll be fine.”
“Okay. We’re practically at Number One now,” and James and Lola donned their scanners, ready for the job.
“Miss Flurnoy,” Garlock said, “you might tell Mr. Entlore that we’re.…”
“Oh, I already have, sir.”
“You don’t have to come along, of course, if you’d rather stay here.”
“Stay here, sir? Why, he’d kill me! I’m off the air for a minute,” this last thought was a conspiratorial whisper. “Besides, do you think I’d miss a chance to be the first person—and just a girl, too—of a whole world to see other planets of other suns? Unless, of course, you invite Mr. Entlore and Mr. Holson along. They’re both simply dying to go, I know, but of course won’t admit it.”
“You’d be just as well pleased if I didn’t?”
“What do you think, sir?”
“We’ll be working at top speed and they’d be very much in the way, so they’ll get theirs later—after you’ve licked the cream off the top of the.…”
“Ready to roll, Clee,” James announced.
“Roll.”
“Why, I lost contact!” Miss Flurnoy exclaimed.
“Naturally,” Garlock said. “Did you expect to cover a distance it takes light thousands of years to cross? You can record anything you see in the plates. You can talk to Jim or Lola any time they’ll let you. Don’t bother Miss Bellamy or me from now on.”
Garlock and Belle went to work. All four Galaxians worked all day, with half an hour off for lunch. They visited seventy planets and got back to Margonia in time for a very late dinner. ComOff Flurnoy had less than a quarter of one roll of recorder-tape left unused, and the Primes had enough information to start the project they had in mind.
And shortly after dinner, all five retired.
“In one way, Clee, I’m relieved,” Belle pondered, “but I can’t figure out why all the Primes—the grown-up ones, I mean—on all the worlds are just about the same cantankerous, you-be-damned, out-and-out stinkers as you and I are. How does that fit into your theory?”
“It doesn’t. Too fine a detail. My guess is—at least it seems to me to make sense—it’s because we haven’t had any competition strong enough to smack us down and make Christians out of us. I don’t know what a psychologist would say.…”
“And I know exactly what you’d think of whatever he did say, so you don’t need to tell me.” Belle laughed and presented her lips to be kissed. “Good night, Clee.”
“Good night, ace.”
And the next morning, early, Garlock and Belle teleported themselves—by arrangement and appointment, of course—across almost the full width of a nation and into the private office in which Deggi Delcamp and Fao Talaho awaited them.
For a time which would not have been considered polite in Tellurian social circles the four Primes stood still, each couple facing the other with blocks set tight, studying each other with their eyes. Delcamp was, as Garlock had said, a big bruiser. He was shorter and heavier than the Tellurian. Heavily muscled, splendidly proportioned, he was a man of tremendous physical as well as mental strength. His hair, clipped close all over his head, was blonde; his eyes were a clear, keen, cold dark blue.
Fao Talaho was a couple of inches shorter than Belle; and a good fifteen pounds heavier. She was in no sense fat, however, or even plump—actually, she was almost lean. She was wider and thicker than was the Earthwoman; with heavier bones forming a wider and deeper frame. She, too, was beautifully—yes, spectacularly—built. Her hair, fully as thick as Belle’s own and worn in a freefalling bob three or four inches longer than Belle’s, was bleached almost white. Her eyes were not really speckled, nor really mottled, but were regularly patterned in lighter and darker shades of hazel. She was, Garlock decided, a really remarkable hunk of woman.
Both Nargodians wore sandals without either socks or stockings. Both were dressed—insofar as they were dressed at all—in yellow. Fao’s single garment was of a thin, closely-knitted fabric, elastic and sleek. Above the waist it was neckless, backless, and almost frontless; below, it was a very short, very tight and clinging skirt. Delcamp wore a sleeveless jersey and a pair of almost legless shorts.
Garlock lowered his shield enough to send and to receive a thin layer of superficial thought; Delcamp did the same.
“So far, I like what I see,” Garlock said then. “We are well ahead of you, hence I can help you a lot if you want me to and if you want to be friendly about it. If you don’t, on either count, we leave now. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough. I, too, like what I have seen so far. We need help, and I appreciate your offer. Thanks, immensely. I can promise full cooperation and friendship for myself and for most of our group; and I assure you that I can and will handle any non-cooperation that may come up.”
“Nicely put, Deggi.” Garlock smiled broadly and let his guard down to a comfortable lepping level. “I was going to bring that up—the faster it’s cleared the better. Belle and I are paired. Some day—unless we kill each other first—we may marry. However, I’m no bargain and she’s one-third wildcat, one-third vixen, and one-third cobra. How do you two stand?”
“You took the thought right out of my own mind. Your custom of pairing is not what you call ‘urbane’ on this world. Nevertheless, Fao and I are paired. We had to. No one else has ever interested either of us; no one else ever will. We should not fight, but we do, furiously. But no matter how vigorously we fly apart, we inevitably fly together again just as fast. No one understands it, but you two are pretty much the same.”
“Check. Just one more condition, then, and we can pull those women of ours apart.” Belle and Fao were still staring at each other, both still sealed tight. “The first time Fao Talaho starts throwing her weight at me, I’m not going to wait for you to take care of her—I’m going to give her the surprise of her life.”
“It’d tickle me silly if it could be done,” Delcamp smiled and was perfectly frank, “But the man doesn’t live that can do it. How would you go about trying it?”
“Set your block solid.”
Delcamp did so, and through that block—the supposedly impenetrable shield of a Prime Operator—Garlock insinuated a probe. He did not crack the screen or break it down by force; he neutralized and counter-phased, painlessly and almost imper
ceptibly, its every component and layer.
“Like this,” Garlock said, in the depths of the Margonian’s mind.
“My God! You can do that?”
“If I tell her, this deep, to play ball or else, do you think she’d need two treatments?”
“She certainly oughtn’t to. This makes you Galactic Admiral, no question. I’d thought, of course, of trying you out for Top Gunther, but this settles that. We will support you, sir, wholeheartedly—and my heartfelt thanks for coming here.”
“I have your permission, then, to give Fao a little discipline when she starts rocking the boat?”
“I wish you would, sir. I’m not too easy to get along with, I admit, but I’ve tried to meet her a lot more than halfway. She’s just too damned cocky for anybody’s good.”
“Check. I wish somebody would come along who could knock hell out of Belle.” Then, aloud, “Belle, Delcamp and I have the thing going. Do you want in on it?”
Delcamp spoke to Fao, and the two women slowly, reluctantly, lowered their shields to match those of the men.
“Your Galaxian shaking of the hands—handshake, I mean—is very good,” Delcamp said, and he and Garlock shook vigorously.
Then the crossed pairs, and lastly the two girls—although neither put much effort into the gesture.
“Snap out of it, Belle!” Garlock sent a tight-beamed thought. “She isn’t going to bite you!”
“She’s been trying to, damn her, and I’m going to bite her right back—see if I don’t.”
Garlock called the meeting to order and all four sat down. The Tellurians lighted cigarettes and the others—who, to the Earthlings’ surprise, also smoked—assembled and lit two peculiar-looking things halfway between pipe and cigarette. And both pairs of smokers, after a few tentative tests, agreed in not liking at all the other’s taste in tobacco.
“You know, of course, of the trip we took yesterday?” Garlock asked.
“Yes,” Delcamp admitted. “We read ComOff Flurnoy. We know of the seventy planets, but nothing of what you found.”
The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales Page 108
