The Randall Garrett Omnibus

by Randall Garrett

  Now—at this point in time—they could be beaten. They could be forced to allow supervision of the production potential, forced to disarm, rendered impotent. But if the armistice went to their own advantage ...

  Already, they had taken the offensive in the matter of the peace talks. They had sent a full delegation to Saarkkad V, the next planet out from the Saarkkad sun, a chilly world inhabited only by low-intelligence animals. The Karna considered this to be fully neutral territory, and Earth couldn't argue the point very well. In addition, they demanded that the conference begin in three days, Terrestrial time.

  The trouble was that interstellar communication beams travel a devil of a lot faster than ships. It would take more than a week for the Earth government to get a vessel to Saarkkad V. Earth had been caught unprepared for an armistice. They objected.

  The Karna pointed out that the Saarkkad sun was just as far from Karn as it was from Earth, that it was only a few million miles from a planet which was allied with Earth, and that it was unfair for Earth to take so much time in preparing for an armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared? Did they intend to fight to the utter destruction of Karn?

  It wouldn't have been a problem at all if Earth and Karn had fostered the only two intelligent races in the galaxy. The sort of grandstanding the Karna were putting on had to be played to an audience. But there were other intelligent races throughout the galaxy, most of whom had remained as neutral as possible during the Earth-Karn war. They had no intention of sticking their figurative noses into a battle between the two most powerful races in the galaxy.

  But whoever won the armistice would find that some of the now-neutral races would come in on their side if war broke out again. If the Karna played their cards right, their side would be strong enough next time to win.

  So Earth had to get a delegation to meet with the Karna representatives within the three-day limit or lose what might be a vital point in the negotiations.

  And that was where Bertrand Malloy came in.

  He had been appointed Minister and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to the Earth-Karn peace conference.

  He looked up at the ceiling again. "What can I do?" he said softly.

  * * *

  On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his intercom and said: "Miss Drayson, get hold of James Nordon and Kylen Braynek. I want to see them both immediately. Send Nordon in first, and tell Braynek to wait."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And keep the recorder on. You can file the tape later."

  "Yes, sir."

  Malloy knew the woman would listen in on the intercom anyway, and it was better to give her permission to do so.

  James Nordon was tall, broad-shouldered, and thirty-eight. His hair was graying at the temples, and his handsome face looked cool and efficient.

  Malloy waved him to a seat.

  "Nordon, I have a job for you. It's probably one of the most important jobs you'll ever have in your life. It can mean big things for you—promotion and prestige if you do it well."

  Nordon nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."

  Malloy explained the problem of the Karna peace talks.

  "We need a man who can outthink them," Malloy finished, "and judging from your record, I think you're that man. It involves risk, of course. If you make the wrong decisions, your name will be mud back on Earth. But I don't think there's much chance of that, really. Do you want to handle small-time operations all your life? Of course not.

  "You'll be leaving within an hour for Saarkkad V."

  Nordon nodded again. "Yes, sir; certainly. Am I to go alone?"

  "No," said Malloy, "I'm sending an assistant with you—a man named Kylen Braynek. Ever heard of him?"

  Nordon shook his head. "Not that I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?"

  "Not necessarily. He's a pretty shrewd operator, though. He knows a lot about interstellar law, and he's capable of spotting a trap a mile away. You'll be in charge, of course, but I want you to pay special attention to his advice."

  "I will, sir," Nordon said gratefully. "A man like that can be useful."

  "Right. Now, you go into the anteroom over there. I've prepared a summary of the situation, and you'll have to study it and get it into your head before the ship leaves. That isn't much time, but it's the Karna who are doing the pushing, not us."

  As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy said softly: "Send in Braynek, Miss Drayson."

  Kylen Braynek was a smallish man with mouse-brown hair that lay flat against his skull, and hard, penetrating, dark eyes that were shadowed by heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked him to sit down.

  Again Malloy went through the explanation of the peace conference.

  "Naturally, they'll be trying to trick you every step of the way," Malloy went on. "They're shrewd and underhanded; we'll simply have to be more shrewd and more underhanded. Nordon's job is to sit quietly and evaluate the data; yours will be to find the loopholes they're laying out for themselves and plug them. Don't antagonize them, but don't baby them, either. If you see anything underhanded going on, let Nordon know immediately."

  "They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy."

  * * *

  By the time the ship from Earth got there, the peace conference had been going on for four days. Bertrand Malloy had full reports on the whole parley, as relayed to him through the ship that had taken Nordon and Braynek to Saarkkad V.

  Secretary of State Blendwell stopped off at Saarkkad IV before going on to V to take charge of the conference. He was a tallish, lean man with a few strands of gray hair on the top of his otherwise bald scalp, and he wore a hearty, professional smile that didn't quite make it to his calculating eyes.

  He took Malloy's hand and shook it warmly. "How are you, Mr. Ambassador?"

  "Fine, Mr. Secretary. How's everything on Earth?"

  "Tense. They're waiting to see what is going to happen on Five. So am I, for that matter." His eyes were curious. "You decided not to go yourself, eh?"

  "I thought it better not to. I sent a good team, instead. Would you like to see the reports?"

  "I certainly would."

  Malloy handed them to the secretary, and as he read, Malloy watched him. Blendwell was a political appointee—a good man, Malloy had to admit, but he didn't know all the ins and outs of the Diplomatic Corps.

  When Blendwell looked up from the reports at last, he said: "Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of negotiators the Karna could send."

  "I thought they would," said Malloy, trying to appear modest.

  The secretary's eyes narrowed. "I've heard of the work you've been doing here with ... ah ... sick men. Is this one of your ... ah ... successes?"

  Malloy nodded. "I think so. The Karna put us in a dilemma, so I threw a dilemma right back at them."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Nordon had a mental block against making decisions. If he took a girl out on a date, he'd have trouble making up his mind whether to kiss her or not until she made up his mind for him, one way or the other. He's that kind of guy. Until he's presented with one, single, clear decision which admits of no alternatives, he can't move at all.

  "As you can see, the Karna tried to give us several choices on each point, and they were all rigged. Until they backed down to a single point and proved that it wasn't rigged, Nordon couldn't possibly make up his mind. I drummed into him how important this was, and the more importance there is attached to his decisions, the more incapable he becomes of making them."

  The Secretary nodded slowly. "What about Braynek?"

  "Paranoid," said Malloy. "He thinks everyone is plotting against him. In this case, that's all to the good because the Karna are plotting against him. No matter what they put forth, Braynek is convinced that there's a trap in it somewhere, and he digs to find out what the trap is. Even if there isn't a trap, th
e Karna can't satisfy Braynek, because he's convinced that there has to be—somewhere. As a result, all his advice to Nordon, and all his questioning on the wildest possibilities, just serves to keep Nordon from getting unconfused.

  "These two men are honestly doing their best to win at the peace conference, and they've got the Karna reeling. The Karna can see that we're not trying to stall; our men are actually working at trying to reach a decision. But what the Karna don't see is that those men, as a team, are unbeatable because, in this situation, they're psychologically incapable of losing."

  Again the Secretary of State nodded his approval, but there was still a question in his mind. "Since you know all that, couldn't you have handled it yourself?"

  "Maybe, but I doubt it. They might have gotten around me someway by sneaking up on a blind spot. Nordon and Braynek have blind spots, but they're covered with armor. No, I'm glad I couldn't go; it's better this way."

  The Secretary of State raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't go, Mr. Ambassador?"

  Malloy looked at him. "Didn't you know? I wondered why you appointed me, in the first place. No, I couldn't go. The reason why I'm here, cooped up in this office, hiding from the Saarkkada the way a good Saarkkadic bigshot should, is because I like it that way. I suffer from agoraphobia and xenophobia.

  "I have to be drugged to be put on a spaceship because I can't take all that empty space, even if I'm protected from it by a steel shell." A look of revulsion came over his face. "And I can't stand aliens!"

  THE END

  THE BRAMBLE BUSH

  There was a man in our town,And he was wond'rous wise;He jumped into a bramble bush,And scratch'd out both his eyes!

  —Old Nursery Rhyme

  Peter de Hooch was dreaming that the moon had blown up when he awakened. The room was dark except for the glowing night-light near the door, and he sat up trying to separate the dream from reality. He focused his eyes on the glow-plate. What had wakened him? Something had, he was sure, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary now.

  The explosion in his dream had seemed extraordinarily realistic. He could still remember vividly the vibration and the cr-r-r-ump! of the noise. But there was no sign of what might have caused the dream sequence.

  Maybe something fell, he thought. He swung his legs off his bed and padded barefoot over to the light switch. He was so used to walking under the light lunar gravity that he was no longer conscious of it. He pressed the switch, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. He looked around.

  Everything was in place, apparently. There was nothing on the floor that shouldn't be there. The books were all in their places in the bookshelf. The stuff on his desk seemed undisturbed.

  The only thing that wasn't as it should be was the picture on the wall. It was a reproduction of a painting by Pieter de Hooch, which he had always liked, aside from the fact that he had been named after the seventeenth-century Dutch artist. The picture was slightly askew on the wall.

  He was sleepily trying to figure out the significance of that when the phone sounded. He walked over and picked it up. "Yeah?"

  "Guz? Guz? Get over here quick!" Sam Willows' voice came excitedly from the instrument.

  "Whatsamatter, Puss?" he asked blearily.

  "Number Two just blew! We need help, Guz! Fast!"

  "I'm on my way!" de Hooch said.

  "Take C corridor," Willows warned. "A and B caved in, and the bulkheads have dropped. Make it snappy!"

  "I'm gone already," de Hooch said, dropping the phone back into place.

  He grabbed his vacuum suit from its hanger and got into it as though his own room had already sprung an air leak.

  Number Two has blown! he thought. That would be the one that Ferguson and Metty were working on. What had they been cooking? He couldn't remember right off the bat. Something touchy, he thought; something pretty hot.

  But that wouldn't cause an atomic reactor to blow. It obviously hadn't been a nuclear blow-up of any proportions, or he wouldn't be here now, zipping up the front of his vac suit. Still, it had been powerful enough to shake the lunar crust a little or he wouldn't have been wakened by the blast.

  These new reactors could get out a lot more power, and they could do a lot more than the old ones could, but they weren't as safe as the old heavy-metal reactors, by a long shot. None had blown up yet—quite—but there was still the chance. That's why they were built on Luna instead of on Earth. Considering what they could do, de Hooch often felt that it would be safer if they were built out on some nice, safe asteroid—preferably one in the Jovian Trojan sector.

  He clamped his fishbowl on tight, opened the door, and sprinted toward Corridor C.

  The trouble with the Ditmars-Horst reactor was that it lacked any automatic negative-feedback system. If a D-H decided to go wild, it went wild. Fortunately, that rarely happened. The safe limits for reactions were quite wide—wider, usually, than the reaction limits themselves, so that there was always a margin of safety. And within the limits, a nicety of control existed that made nucleonics almost an esoteric branch of chemistry. Cookbook chemistry, practically.

  Want deuterium? Recipe: To 1.00813 gms. purest Hydrogen-1 add, slowly and with care, 1.00896 gms. fine-grade neutrons. Cook until well done in a Ditmars-Horst reactor. Yield: 2.01471 gms. rare old deuterium plus some two million million million ergs of raw energy. Now you are cooking with gas!

  All you had to do was keep the reaction going at a slow enough rate so that the energy could be bled off, and there was nothing to worry about. Usually. But control of the feebleizer fields still wasn't perfect, because the fields that enfeebled the reactions and made them easy to control weren't yet too well understood.

  * * *

  Peter de Hooch turned into Corridor C and kept on running. There was plenty of air still in this corridor, and there was apparently little likelihood of his needing his vac suit. But on the moon nobody responds to an emergency call without a vac suit.

  He was troubled about Corridors A and B. The explosion must have been pretty violent to have sealed off two of the four corridors leading from the living quarters to the reaction labs. Two corridors went directly to one of the reactors, two went directly to the second. Two more connected the reactor labs themselves, putting the labs and the living quarters at the corners of an equilateral triangle. (Peter had never been able to figure out why A and B corridors led to Reactor Two, while C and D led to Reactor One. Logically, he thought, it should have been the other way around. Oh, well.)

  Going down C meant that he'd have to get to Reactor Two the long way around.

  What had the damage been? he asked himself. Had anyone been hurt? Or killed? He pushed the questions out of his mind. There was no point in speculating. He'd have the information soon enough.

  He took the cutoff to the left, at a sixty-degree angle to Corridor C, which led him directly to Corridor E, by-passing Reactor One. He noticed as he went by that the operations lamp was out. Nobody was working with Reactor One.

  As he pounded on down the empty corridor, he suddenly realized that he hadn't seen anyone else running with him. There were five other men in the reactor station, and—so far—he had seen no one. He knew where Willows was, but where were Ferguson, Metty, Laynard, and Quillan? He pushed those questions out of his mind, too, for the time being.

  A head popped out of the door at the far end of the corridor.

  "Guz! Hurry, Guz!"

  De Hooch didn't bother to answer Willows. He was short of breath as it was. He knew, besides, that no answer was expected. He had known Willows for years, and knew how he thought. It was Willows who had first tagged de Hooch with that silly nickname, "Guzzle". Not because Peter was such a heavy drinker—although he could hold it like a gentleman—but because he had thought "Guzzle" de Hooch was so uproariously funny. "Nobody likes a guzzle as well as de Hooch," he'd say, with an idiot grin. As a result, everybody called Peter "Guz" now.

  The head had vanished b
ack into the control room of Reactor Two. De Hooch kept on running, his breath rasping loudly in the confines of the fishbowl helmet. Running four hundred yards isn't the easiest thing in the world, even if a man is in good physical condition. There was less weight to contend with, but the mass that had to be pushed along remained the same. The notion that running on Luna was an effortless breeze was one that only Earthhuggers clung to.

  He ran into the control room and stopped, panting heavily. "What ... happened?"

  Sam Willows' normally handsome face looked drawn. "Something went wrong. I don't know what. I was finishing up with Reactor One when I heard the explosion. They are both"—he gestured toward the reactor—"both in there."

  "Still alive?"

  "I think so. One of 'em, anyway. Take a look."

  De Hooch went over to the periscope and put his eyes to the binoculars. He could see two figures in heavy, dull-gray radiation-proof suits. They were lying flat on the floor, and neither was moving. De Hooch said as much.

  "The one on the left was moving his arm—just a little," Willows said. "I'll swear he was."

  Something in the man's voice made de Hooch turn his head away from the periscope's eyepieces. Willows' face was gray, and a thin film of greasy perspiration reflected the light from the overhead plates. The man was on the verge of panic.

  "Calm down, Puss," de Hooch said gently. "Where's Quillan and Laynard?"

  "They're in their rooms," Willows said in a tight voice. "Trapped. The bulkheads have closed 'em off in A. No air in the corridor. We'll have to dig 'em out. I called 'em both on the phone. They're all right, but they're trapped."

  "Did you call Base?"

  "Yes. They haven't got a ship. They sent three moon-cats, though. They ought to be here by morning."

  De Hooch looked up at the chronometer on the wall. Oh one twelve, Greenwich time. "Morning" meant any time between eight and noon; the position of the sun up on the surface had nothing to do with Lunar time. As a matter of fact, there was a full Earth shining at the moment, which meant that it wouldn't be dawn on the surface for a week yet.