Planet in Peril

by John Christopher

  He said curtly: “Never mind. I don’t need time. The answer is no. I don’t care for being forced into a membership.”

  Ellecott shook his head and shifted his glance. “Dinkuhl,” he said “if I were you I should occupy the next few days in using your well-known arts of persuasion on your friend here. For both your sakes.”

  “If you were me,” Dinkuhl said pleasantly, “you would spit in your eye, given the opportunity.”

  Ellecott was undisturbed, and said: “I propose leaving you alone now. You will be under surveillance, either by me or one of my assistants. You will have food and drink sent along shortly. Anything else?”

  Charles patted the fuller cheeks which he now had. “There seems little point in my continuing to look like someone else. Can you send the fixings for Hiram to get these off me, and wash my hair back to normal?”

  Ellecott laughed briefly, his voice rising approximately an octave when he did so.

  “We’ll have it done for you; we have a good cosmetics staff. I’ll send an escort to pick you up." He smiled. “This arrangement is permanent.”

  When Charles got back from having his make-up removed, Dinkuhl was watching TV. He switched the sound off, but left the pictures flickering on the wall.

  Charles looked at his finger-watch. “Were due to blast in an hour and a half. I suppose Ellecott will come through and give us some final instructions before then. I don’t even know how to fix those damned hammocks up.”

  “Blasting,” Dinkuhl said thoughtfully. “I wonder how they will manage that? Tricky.”

  Charles echoed: “Tricky? What’s tricky in it? It’s a job they’re used to.”

  Dinkuhl said: “Forget it. Sometimes my mind wanders. Yes, I think Ellecott will get through to us in the next ninety minutes. Meanwhile, let’s make the most of things by seeing what Red League has to offer as a valedictory message from the planet Earth.”

  He switched the sound up. Then, oddly, the screen clicked off, and Ellecott’s face appeared a few seconds later. He looked distraught.

  “It’s necessary to make some changes. Blasting will take place sooner than we expected; almost immediately, in fact. Get into your hammocks.”

  Charles shook his head. “We don’t know how to rig them.”

  “I’ll send someone down to—”

  Charles and Dinkuhl saw Ellecott’s face transfixed, the open mouth, the eyes staring, for some moments before his head slid forward to his desk. The screen showed the top of his head, with an incongruous bald spot in the center.

  “Here we go again,” Dinkuhl said.

  “What the—”

  “Don’t talk. Take deep breaths. Keep on taking them. With astarate, the quicker you go out the less hangover you have later. I wonder who’s got us now?”

  PART TWO

  V

  From being aware of the coolness of sheets and a background of muffled speech, Charles awoke more fully to the sound of a familiar voice.

  Ledbetter was saying: “Yes, I think he’s coming round now. Have you the neurasp ready, Nurse? Help me lift him up.”

  Raised into sitting position, he blinked in the bright glare of sunlight through plaspex walls. The nurse gave him the neurasp pills and he swallowed them with water. The pain began to ebb. He said to Ledbetter: “Dinkuhl?”

  Ledbetter smiled. “Right beside you. He’s not come out of it yet. I think there are signs of activity now, though. Neurasp again, Nurse.”

  Dinkuhl looked about him. “I’m still wondering... Ledbetter! Well, I’m damned!”

  Ledbetter said: “I must apologize to both of you for putting you under with astarate, especially since I understand it was the second time in twenty-four hours. There wasn’t any alternative, though. We had to act quickly.”

  “They were getting ready to blast ahead of time,” Charles said. “I take it that means they were aware a rescue party was on the way.”

  “But not how far on the way it was,” Ledbetter said. “Even the notorious Interplanetary efficiency doesn’t always deliver the goods. We managed to get through and break a few astarate capsules into the air intake. Not before time. If they were getting ready to blast they would have been going on to internal air control at any moment.”

  Dinkuhl was staring at Ledbetter with a puzzled expression on his face. Ledbetter caught sight of it.

  “Something bothering you?”

  Dinkuhl hesitated, and then grinned and shook his head. “I guess my brains taken a beating from those two helpings of astarate. What did you do with Ellecott and the rest of the boys?”

  “We left them. There are good reasons why we don't want to make an open issue of all this. I don't think they will want to, either.”

  “No,” Dinkuhl said. “I suppose not”

  “Where are we now, anyway?” Charles asked.

  “Vermont. Place called Pasquin.”

  “Long way from Detroit,” Dinkuhl observed.

  “You slept the journey.”

  Charles had been looking out of the plaspex walls of the room they were in. The view gave onto an ornamental garden, with a lake and what looked like a waterfall away up on the left. Beyond the garden's edge the ground fell away to a wide valley, bearing the marks of Agriculture's careful husbandry. In the distance there were gently rolling hills.

  “What kind of an establishment is this?” Charles asked. “It doesn't have much of the UC stamp about it.”

  “It was a Director's mansion. You will like the layout, I fancy. I do. Marble saucepans in the kitchen and gold spittoons in the lounge. All the hooey and whatzis. I hope you like it, anyway. You'll have to put up with it for some time.”

  Charles' relief at seeing Ledbetter and finding himself in the hands of his own managerial again had blinded him to the circumstances which had led up to his capture by Interplanetary. He remembered now.

  He said mildly: “There was a matter of six months’ sick leave that is due to me. I feel I need it more than ever.”

  “Canceled.” Ledbetter smiled. “You'll find this a real rest home. It’s called The Cottage, by the way.”

  Charles said: “I was under the impression sick leave was not subject to cancellation. Regulation—I’ve forgotten the number.”

  “I haven't. But there's always a regulation which cancels the regulation. It’s an academic point. If you were tested by P and M again I have an idea they might find you fit for duty. But I don't think we need bother with that. You broke one or two regulations yourself in this business of taking tickets for the South Pacific, and getting yourself fixed up with a new face and a GD card.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Ledbetter shook his head in mock despair. “For heaven's sake—we're not Interplanetary! You're home again, in UC. There's no need for threats, or anything else. You're amongst your own people.”

  Dinkuhl said: “Excuse me if I turn my back on this touching family scene.”

  Dinkuhl got up from his bed, and went across to the plaspex wall to get a clearer view of the grounds. He was wearing a night-smock, and Charles realized that he had been fitted into one, too, while he was unconscious.

  Charles said: “I haven’t noticed all that much of trust and honesty from my own people in the recent past. You weren’t doing badly at persuading me the work Humayun and Sara had been doing—the work I was supposed to take over—was unimportant. And then-wham! I find myself important enough to be astarated twice in one day.”

  “All right, we tried to fool you,” Ledbetter said. “But it was for your own good. Our judgment was that your peace of mind would best be secured if you could be made to believe that Sara was dead, and that you were simply to carry on a routine job which your superiors were too dumb to evaluate. We figured that you had already shown more than enough initiative in going after her, and we didn’t see how we could keep you on the job —a vital job—if you thought there was anything to be gained in continuing the search. Meanwhile, of course, we had put Contact Section onto looking for her, h
er father and Humayun.”

  “Have you any clues yet?”

  Ledbetter shook his head. ‘It’s only been a couple of days, remember. You were never meant to have sick leave in the first place. I had to let you go to P and M to stall you, but we had already arranged for it to be canceled. That was a neat business with the tickets!” Ledbetter’s face broke into a lean smile.

  Charles said: “I was wondering, a while back, how Interplanetary managed to get on to my tracks as easily as they did. The same applies to UC. How did you manage to pick up the trail?”

  “Contact Sections,” said Ledbetter, “are not always as inefficient as they generally seem. As for their methods, I’m afraid that’s one regulation I have to take seriously myself—Regulation Seventy-three: Detailed information on Contact Section activities is most expressly secret and not to be divulged even within the managerial—even to a superior at the superior’s request. You can just take it that anything Interplanetary can do, we can do better.” “Now you surprise me,” Dinkuhl called from the other side of the room.

  Ledbetter glanced in Dinkuhl’s direction—he had his back to them—and winked at Charles. It was a wink designed to convey a lot: amusement and tolerance and complicity against someone who after all was not UC. A regular guy, but not UC. It was difficult not to respond to it. It was part, after all, of the entire difference of atmosphere, of the heart-felt relief—not only at being rescued and being spared Luna City, but also, more subtly, of being back: a confirmation that the world was not quite as bad as all that.

  Charles grinned in return.

  Dinkuhl came over and sat on the edge of his bed, his knees spread under his night-smock.

  “Well,” he remarked. “Have we got it on the deck now? Charlie is still the guest who mustn’t leave? You wouldn’t have a little lab fitted up for him out back?” Ledbetter and Charles both laughed. Ledbetter said: “It so happens the stuff isn’t here yet, but there’s a good suite of rooms that can be used. The Director used to have a model layout of the old train systems in them. Very good light. We shall look after you, Charles.” It was the first time Ledbetter had used his given name. Charles was not disposed to think much about that because he was still too amazed by the fact that Ledbetter was treating what he had thought to be Dinkuhl’s joke seriously.

  Charles said: “You mean that? I’m not to go back to San Miguel?”

  Ledbetter made a gesture of negation.

  “But the idea was that I should go back there.”

  “Shall we put it this way?” Ledbetter said. “That this recent affair has given us something of a shock. Naturally we had woken up to the fact that some managerial or managerials had wanted the other two badly enough to take some trouble about getting hold of them. As a result we were prepared to have to look after you very very carefully indeed. But we now realize that we must be a lot more careful even than we had planned. San Miguel is out. It would be like putting the honey back in the hollow tree once the bears had found it.

  “So instead of San Miguel there’s Pasquin. We think we have covered our tracks this time. There’ll be ample guard on, just in case we haven’t.”

  Dinkuhl smiled. “All right then, no complaints. You’ll do one little thing for me?”

  “Within reason and ability.”

  “I’ve got an assistant. No cap on that ‘a.’ He’s not what I would pick for my successor, not by some distance, but he should be able to keep the flag flying for—for the duration I think you said? If I give you a message with some elementary instructions—mostly operating guff and so on—will you get it through to him for me?”

  “Don’t see why not. Provided it’s in English.”

  “You set my anxious mind at rest,” Dinkuhl said. “Now that I have done my duty, I guess I can take it easy. I don’t land any chores here, do I?”

  “No chores. I wouldn’t mind the life.”

  “One little thing. So small it embarrasses me to mention it. I suffer mildly from satyriasis.”

  Ledbetter smiled. “See what we can do.”

  Dinkuhl raised his hand. ‘I’m not asking you to prostitute the virgins of United Chemicals. This is a horse that works for its feed, and likes it that way. Just so it isn’t an exclusively male staff, I’ll manage O.K.”

  “Set your mind at rest,” Ledbetter said. “But right at rest. We shall do what we can to make this a happy and profitable stay for both of you. The only difference is that we shall expect Charles to do a little real work now and then.”

  “The ties of home,” Dinkuhl said. “A homeless wanderer like me must sometimes think of them with a pang. Charlie now, looking cheerful about the prospect of sorting out his bag of tricks, for the glory of UC and the use of a gold spittoon. And a little while back he was spuming a Directorship.”

  “We put first things first,” Ledbetter said. “The important thing is the job.” He looked at Charles. “There will be a Directorship afterwards. You can take that for granted. Just now we’ve got to keep you here and under supervision, for reasons you appreciate as well as we do. You have already been promoted Manager, but it would be pointless to create you a Director until you can be one in fact as well as name. You see that?”

  Charles nodded. It was odd, being told so casually of the Managership he had abandoned as out of reach more than ten years ago. Odd, and unimportant.

  Dinkuhl said: “Whatever goldfish bowl they put you in, Charlie, you just bob right up to the top. Mind you don’t pop right out of the water.”

  The words were as trivial-sounding as Dinkuhl’s generally were, but Charles wondered whether there was not a little more edge to his voice. He wasn’t going to worry over it, anyway.

  Ledbetter said: “It’s been quite a rush job, and I’ve got a few things to look after. You have a four-room suite here, with a sun-terrace leading from the next room. But that’s just for your privacy—you are at liberty to roam all over The Cottage and the grounds; incidentally there’s a very nice bar on the other side of the house. Well, that’s that. We’re getting the stuff through for the lab as quickly as possible, but it will take a few days. Take it easy till then.” He paused slightly. “I hope you will be able to take it easy. We know how concerned you are over Sara. But you do realize, don’t you, that by yourself you could never have hoped to rescue her? All you could do would be to put yourself in jeopardy of capture—as you did, of course.

  “At least you know now that UC Contact Section is on the job, and I think it’s as good a Contact Section as any you are likely to find. If anyone can get her, they will. And meanwhile you have the consolation of knowing that whoever has her will be looking after her. She is as valuable a piece of property to them as you were to Interplanetary.”

  Charles said: “I suppose so.”

  “An added incentive when we have the lab fitted up! The sooner this business is over, the sooner things get back to normal.”

  “Providing, of course,” Dinkuhl said, “that as good a Contact Section as any you are likely to find doesn’t turn the goods up even sooner.”

  “Exactly,” Ledbetter said. He glanced from his finger-watch to Charles, including him again in that managerial warmth from which Dinkuhl, with all his many qualities, had excluded himself. “I must streak. Have a good time.”

  Charles walked on his own in the grounds some days later. He was glad of the solitariness, and glad also to be away, for a time, from the centrally-heated Cottage and its sub-tropical roof-garden. The weather outside had turned sharply cold, and it was bracing to walk through the bare outdoor garden and into the scattered timber beyond. The deciduous trees were bare, of course, but there was a belt of evergreens to the north and east from which the house was completely hidden.

  The main track from the house led through these evergreens to a massive gate in the barrier fence which, heavily wired and with the ground cleared for five yards on either side, stretched around the perimeter of the grounds. Charles stood for a while gazing curiously at the gate. It was a ch
eck-point; a guard in UC uniform nursed his Klaberg rifle inside a small sentry-box with a plastic bubble top. The small nozzle in the plastic, just above the box’s waistline, would be the astarater: a touch from the guard’s finger could blanket the area around in a few seconds.

  Quite an adequate safeguard. Theoretically someone might shoot the guard through the plastic, but that would actuate an alarm system, touch off the astarate, and bring a gyro from the house almost as quickly. A situation that would be infuriating to someone anxious to escape; he was pleased that he was not in that frame of mind himself.

  He watched the guard changed. The gyro side-slipped through the air from the roof of The Cottage, and dropped on to the track just inside the gate. The new guard got out and, after a word or two, the old guard took his place. The gyro climbed back to its eyrie through the damp wintry air. Informal but effective. Charles walked on, his footsteps deadened by pine needles.

  As he reached the edge of a clearing among the pines, he heard a low whistle. He turned quickly. Dinkuhl was standing by the side of a tree, watching him. He beckoned Charles over.

  Dinkuhl said: “Charlie boy, time is short. Come over here and sit down.”

  There was a fallen tree. They made themselves comfortable and Dinkuhl brought out cigarettes. They lit up. The smoke rose in straight plumes; it was cold but there was no wind this morning.

  Dinkuhl said: “You happy here?”

  “Tolerably.” Charles glanced at him. “You seem to be.” “What's the difference between being held here and being held by Interplanetary—ruling out Lima City for the moment.”

  “That's a lot to rule out. Quite a difference.”

  The important difference—that here he was with his own managerial—was one it would have been embarrassing to put plainly to Dinkuhl.

  Dinkuhl glanced at him, smiling a little. “Such as being in the bosom of United Chemicals?”

  “I wouldn't rule that out. It's what I'm used to.” “And what makes you confident this is a UC set-up? That they wear the right badges?”