A Sense of Infinity

by Howard L. Myers

  "So Holbein and Icy made it to the Roost," he remarked.

  "Yep, they managed to slip past us," replied Coralon. Olivine grimaced. Slip past, hell! The Patrol had wanted the Glumers Jo to reach Dusty Roost all along. That was the finishing touch on the Dothlit Three superpot play.

  As for whether the Patrol had meant for Olivine to reach the Roost as well was another question. He guessed not. Having served the Patrol's purpose, and not being a harmless small-timer like Holbein or Icy, the starfuzz had probably intended to get him safely back into prison.

  Which meant that his move, in putting Icy in command of the Glumers Jo, had been anticipated like everything else he had done! But no more of that. Not if he could hang onto his polywater doodle.

  Savagely he snarled, "that damned CIT knew I'd wind up here all along! It could have sent one of you slaveboys to pick me up long before this!"

  "Sorry to have kept you waiting, Ollie," Coralon chortled. "Maybe you're right. And maybe the CIT held off until Icy Lingrad's call was monitored, just so you couldn'tbe sure you're right. Who can plumb the subtleties of a heavy compucortex, hah?"

  Olivine snorted a curse. "Just watch your step, old pal. Don't get out of line, and don't ever consider yourself a free man. Just toe the Patrol's mark like the pliant little saint you're supposed to be, and maybe you'll never learn what a total slave you are to that computer."

  Coralon laughed. "Thanks for the warning. Now hurry it up a bit will you, old chum? I have other duties to get on with. Isn't everything packed?"

  "Yeah. I'm ready to go," said Olivine.

  "What's that tube sashed over your shoulder?"

  "Two meters of syphon tube full of polywater I've saved."

  "Got a stuffy tummy, hah?"

  Olivine glowered. "No, but I probably will have in the Patrol's oh-so-humane dungeons. It was my emergency water supply."

  "O.K., bring it along. The tube's stolen property, and we can dump the poly into my ship's auxlube tank. Get aboard the bug."

  Olivine picked up the pack and approached the bug with a sarcastic grin. "Ten cents worth of tube and maybe fifty cents worth of polywater to confiscate in the name of the Patrol. I'd forgotten what big-time operators proxads were!" he sneered.

  "As I said, the tube's stolen property, old pal," Coralon replied coldly. "If you want to keep the poly for bellyflush, I'll give you a tube to keep it in."

  "Such magnanimity!" snorted Olivine. He stowed the pack in the bug, then climbed in himself. "I'm aboard."

  "O.K.," came Coralon's voice. "Port closing."

  The door swung into place and locked firmly against its seals. Olivine settled back in his seat, readying himself for lift-off.

  What he felt instead was a needle penetrating his rump. He remained conscious just long enough to realize he had been slipped a knockout.

  Coralon was talking to somebody . . . somebody with a younger man's voice, perhaps a Patrol cadet in training.

  " . . . Before we deliver him," the proxad was saying as the words became meaningful through the lifting fog of unconsciousness. "So keep an extremely tight lip, Greg. Leave the questioning to the experts who'll debrief him under high-sensitivity microdar monitors. He's a clever chunk of slime, and don't forget it. He might learn more from our questions than we would from his answers. Besides, he has no information we need." Olivine was lying not quite flat on his belly, with his mouth hanging open and drooling slightly. He resented the disgusting appearance this was giving him, but he resisted the impulse to stop the drool. If Coralon thought he was still out like a light . . .

  "O.K., sir," the younger man said "I assumed we would do a routine interrogation, but if HQ says no . . . "

  "That's the order," said Coralon firmly. "And after all, this guy's not going to be going anywhere for a long, long time. The experts can pump him as dry as they like." Olivine remained motionless, listening for more talk, but the two men of the Patrol were silent. Well, that had been a forlorn hope, anyway. Coralon was no idiot to say something revealing in the presence of a presumably unconscious prisoner.

  More informative than words to Olivine's ears were the sounds of the ship around him. To his sharp, experienced hearing, those sounds told a great deal.

  He was not in a regulation twenty-meter proxad's cruiser, but in one of the giant utility tank ships the Patrol used often as heavy freighters and occasionally as paddy wagons. And why was a top-gun proxad like Coralon jockeying a freighter-paddy wagon?

  Surely not merely to pick up a stranded escapee.

  No, Coralon's presence aboard a utility tanker had to mean some very important freight was aboard. And the bypassing of the interrogation routine, for fear of disclosing some secret to Olivine in the process . . . maybe a careless word that would enable him to guess what that cargo was—

  But what good would knowledge of the cargo do a man in his position? Surely the Patrol didn't think he could grab something as bulky as the load carried by a utility tanker! Nor could he override this ship's compucortex—not with Coralon around, certainly—and make off with freighter as well as freight.

  Unless . . .

  He couldn't avoid a telltale twitch when the answer hit him. He instantly added a soft snort and gulp to it, then became tensely motionless. Coralon would know he was awake now and playing possum. If the proxad was supposed to bait him with some data, now was the time he would do it. He waited.

  All the proxad said was, "Quit kidding. I know you're awake."

  Olivine sat up and gazed around dully. He was sitting naked on a cot inside the barred cubicle against the inboard bulkhead of the auxiliary control lounge . . . just where he had judged himself to be. On the foot of the cot was an outfit of regulation prison garb, and a plastic tube full of polywater.

  With inward relief and outward indifference he tossed the tube out of the way and began dressing. "It wasn't reg to make me sit on a mickey needle," he complained.

  "It was in this case," replied Coralon, who was seated out in the lounge with his younger partner drinking coffee. "That knockout was specifically ordered. We want you back in your proper box without further ado, old pal, and you know our prisoner-handling routines too well for us to take chances. Quit griping, chum. The extra nap didn't hurt you."

  "I said I would come quietly," Olivine groused. Coralon chuckled, "And you kept your word, too. You were as quiet as a mouse."

  Olivine snorted. For a moment he stared around, giving a long look at the viewscreen, which was unobligingly blank. "We're on course for Sarfyne Four, I take it," he said.

  "That's your destination, old buddy," Coralon responded evasively.

  Olivine stared at him, then shrugged. "To hell with you," he said tiredly. "Do I get breakfast before the inquisition?"

  "Ship, give the prisoner breakfast," Coralon directed.

  "Yes, sir," replied the utility tanker. A deck panel opened by the cot and a serving pedestal rose, carrying a steaming plate of amegg along with fruit juice, coffee and toast. The prisoner fell to it with a good appetite.

  "I've instructed the ship, which is the Barnaby, by the way, to give you food, water, and toilet facilities as you request, without the O.K. of myself or Mr. Brantee," said Coralon. "Anything else you need will require my approval."

  "So the young sucker's name is Brantee, huh?" said Olivine around a mouthful of food. He gazed at the young man. "Another victim of the Patrol's snow job, all eager and dedicated to upholding the Confederal standards of piety, privilege, and status quo." He sneered.

  "There, without the grace of God, went I when I was equally young and gullible. I wised up fast, but not fast enough."

  Brantee smiled easily. "You wouldn't try to subvert me, would you, Mr. Olivine?"

  "Not much point in that," the prisoner replied.

  "You're already in, and there's no turning back, boy. You've had it." Brantee laughed.

  "You see, Greg," Coralon said to his partner, "my old pal Ollie has more than a touch of megalomania. That's why he e
ntered the Patrol in the first place. The thought of being a proxad—a proxy admiral—appealed to his delusions of grandeur. He didn't get the message that, in the Patrol, responsibility has to accompany power. Probably because he doesn't know the meaning of the word 'responsibility.' His idea of being a proxad was to land on whatever Confederal world to which he was sent, make free with his choice of the colonists' wine and women, line his pockets with a bit of bribery or plain thievery, and then—at his leisure—deal with the local crime problem he had been assigned. Hell, by that time, old Ollie would be a bigger crime problem than the one he was supposed to handle!" The proxad chuckled reminiscently.

  "I can't see how he would get away with that for five minutes," said Grantee, sounding appalled.

  "Because he was clever," shrugged Coralon, "and because of the glamour of the Patrol and that prettyboy pan of his. Women have always tended to spoil him rotten, anyway."

  "Spoken like a jealous man," growled Olivine, who was not appreciating being psychoanalyzed. "You and that pitiful mud-pie face of yours. They tell me, Coralon, that even the streetwalkers of Novmadder charge you double."

  The proxad grinned. "My sex life is quite satisfactory for a normal man, chum."

  "But how did he make proxad in the first place?" young Brantee persisted. "Surely the CIT computer's analysis would show up his personality flaw!"

  "He made it because he's got ability," said Coralon.

  "The Patrol hated to pass up a guy with so much on the ball, and hoped appropriate mental therapy and training would get him out of that obsession of his. It didn't work out," he finished sadly.

  "Damned right it didn't work," snapped Olivine, "and I'll tell you why! Because I'm not a psychotic, with megalomania or anything else! What I've got is the perfectly natural human drive for supremacy. That's a drive our artificial society with its precious Patrol suppresses, because it rocks the boat. But being taboo doesn't make it any less natural. Look at the most peaceable animals! Look at cattle, for instance, meekly nibbling grass. Every herd has its boss bull, who fought for and won supremacy.

  "Most guys are like you two. They let their drives be suppressed. But not me. I'm a healthy-minded male human, doing the best I can to fulfill myself."

  "And fortunately for everyone else," said Coralon, "you're failing."

  "I'm playing against a thoroughly stacked deck," Olivine retorted. "That stinking computer. Any society has to be sick to make a computer its top dog."

  "More responsibility can be built into a computer than any man, or group of men, can possess," said Coralon.

  "Responsibility!" snorted Olivine. "That word's your all-purpose pat answer! Look, you jerks, let's get on with the inquisition, after which I'd appreciate some privacy."

  "No questioning this trip," replied Coralon, standing up. "That will be taken care of on Sarfyne Four. Let's go, Greg."

  "What do you mean, no questioning?" Olivine demanded. "Maybe you can pick my brain for something that'll help in recapturing old mealy-mouth Holbein and that Lingrad."

  Coralon grinned. "They're no friends of yours, now that they've dumped you, hah? Well, don't fret, pal. They'll get theirs if they ever set foot out of the Roost."

  "Ah, the mighty Patrol!" Olivine sneered angrily. "A guy like me you hound bravely across half the galaxy, but when it comes to dealing with two dozen entire planets full of pirates and smugglers, your bright blue uniforms take on a yellowish glow."

  Coralon's face hardened. "The Roost," he said coldly, "doesn't lend itself to quick, easy solutions. Our policy of containment may not be ideal, but it's better than the full-scale war it would take to clean out the Roost."

  "Yeah, anything to avoid a fight . . . with an enemy who might have teeth!" Olivine snapped back. "Coralon, you poor sap, those grandmotherly types back on Earth who dictate Patrol policy are making cowardly hypocrites out of the lot of you! How do you hold your head up in public?"

  "Come on, Greg, we have work to do," growled the proxad. He stalked out of the lounge, followed by the trainee.

  Olivine chuckled, realizing he had got under Coralon's skin. The Roost was a touchy subject with the tougherthinking proxads, such as Coralon. It galled them to be told to lay off the Roost, to leave that sanctuary for criminals strictly alone, and merely try to blockade traffic in and out. They realized all too well that a policy of containment couldn't work for a sector of the galaxy some forty cubic parsecs in volume.

  Left alone, Olivine sat on the edge of his cot and studied his prison cage, not deterred by the certainty that the ship Barnaby was observing and taping his every action. Why try to hide his interest in escaping, when that interest would be presumed, anyway?

  Not that he expected to spot any weakness—the control lounge cages of utility tankers were constructed to be secure, and this one was. The Patrol had screamed with agony when legal decisions had forced it to provide such cages as this, to be used when a single prisoner was being transported, to avoid what amounted to solitary confinement of a lone miscreant in some lower-deck dungeon. The fact that Coralon had placed Olivine in the cage indicated that the utility tanker's lockup deck was uninhabited. In all likelihood, Coralon, Brantee, and Olivine were the only people aboard.

  But even if the two Patrolmen were preoccupied elsewhere in the ship, and if Olivine could manage to get out of his cage, the ex-proxad realized something more—much more—would be necessary for a successful escape.

  Barnaby had to be neutralized, or at least thoroughly distracted. Otherwise, the ship would simply hit him with a glob of tangline and leave him trussed up, maybe in a bone-breaking position, until one of the Patrolmen got around to untying him and putting him back in the cage. And a compucortex of Barnaby's caliber was not easy to trick or disable. There was no chance of overriding Barnaby, already under Coralon's firm command, as he had overridden the Glumers Jo, which had a lowercapacity compucortex and which he had found in an unmanned condition. And it would take an awful lot of distraction to occupy Barnaby's attention circuits to a point where the ship would ignore the prisoner's actions. Olivine frowned. He was not ready to admit that he was stumped, but he could certainly see no easy solution. And his guess about the Barnaby's principal cargo—a guess he was sure was accurate—made him want out very badly.

  That cargo, nestled down in the main hold, had to be a ship. And no ordinary ship. While it was small compared to the utility tanker that was transporting it, or even compared to the Glumers Jo, it had to be very special to get the kind of handling it was receiving. It had to be a fighting ship of the Patrol, and more.

  What excuse was there for one spaceship to haul another in its hold?

  Answer: The ship being hauled was not ready to travel on its own. And when couldn't a ship travel on its own? Answer: When it hadn't been mastered!

  And why wouldn't the master-to-be come to the ship instead of the ship being brought to him?

  Answer. The master-to-be was too busy to make the trip, and officially considered such by the Patrol high brass.

  Was a proxad ever that busy? Answer: No, but a vizad might be!

  Conclusion: The Barnaby's cargo was a vizad's command cruiser, in an unmastered status.

  It was enough to make Olivine's mouth water.

  What other cargo than a ship—a cargo that was its own transportation—could he hope to grab, and thus make Coralon ultracautious in his words with the prisoner so that the prisoner would never learn of the cargo? Olivine grinned wolfishly. To an intelligent man, a conspiracy of silence could be as informative at times as words.

  But knowing the vizad's cruiser was waiting, just a few decks away, wasn't getting him to it. He stood up and prowled his cage in agitation.

  The answer, if there was an answer, had to lie in the polywater doodle. The doodle was the new factor in the equation, the thing unknown to the Patrol, to Coralon, and to Barnaby. Of that he was quite sure.

  Before being rescued from Flandna, Olivine had used his time well, running dozens of tests on
the little colloid creature. As a result, he had a pretty good understanding of its nature, its habits, and its potentials.

  It had been, without doubt, the "brains" of the tentacle plant that had tried to use him for fertilizer. Not a brilliant brain, by any means, but one capable of keeping its plant form well nourished and watered in a highly unfavorable environment.

  Nature had never intended it to survive—like a disembodied soul—the plant in which it had grown. In the ordinary course of events, when disaster hit that plant, its polywater content would have soaked into and been dispersed by the dry soil of Flandna. That would have been death, and highly undesired, as Olivine had learned from the gingerly way in which the doodle had jerked back from contact with the ground. After that, the man had offered the doodle a length of syphon tube as a substitute body, and the doodle had taken to it immediately.

  The habit pattern it had followed in plant form had modified, proving the doodle had sense enough to be adaptable. Not once had it attacked the man. But parts of the pattern remained stable, since they still served the doodle's needs.

  For instance, it was seldom active when in warm surroundings. Activity during the heat of the Flandnan day would have been useless, since fertilizer-on-the-hoof stirred about only at night. Only when the temperature began dropping did the doodle "wake up." That was why Olivine was confident the secret of the doodle had not been learned by the Patrolmen while he was unconscious from the mickey needle shot. The doodle had been as warm as it wanted to be itself and thus in no need of seeking heat, the inside of the pick-up bug had been warm, as was the inside of the Barnaby.

  So Coralon could squeeze the doodle out of its syphon tube, analyze it, and suck it into the tube which now lay on Olivine's cot without seeing an indication that it was other than ordinary polywater. Because that's what the doodle acted like in its "sleeping" stage.

  But when "awake" the doodle was something else! It could—to a degree—learn. It could be taught tricks. It could follow an order.