Planet in Peril

by John Christopher

  “To my great regret,” Raven said, “I felt obliged to give you that somewhat exaggerated impression of my personal integrity. It was made necessary by the experiences you had already undergone. I should like you to believe that I would have preferred to be frank with you or, since I could not be frank, dishonest in the normal human fashion.”

  “You can tell the truth?”

  “From this time on, Mr. Grayner, I shall use nothing else with you. There would be no point.”

  Charles said: “Where is Sara Koupal? Who has her?” “I do not know. We have looked very hard and we have not found her—neither her nor Humayun. You can imagine that we have spared no efforts to find both of them. They may be dead. It is a conclusion to which the absence of any information is tending to force us. You see that I am being frank now, Mr. Grayner.”

  “Are you?” Dinkuhl asked. “Or could you be trying to persuade Charlie that he might as well make do with a near-miss? Another dab of plastic, and Miss Levine's as good as new.”

  “No, Mr. Dinkuhl,” Raven said. “You misjudged me. I was being frank. You are putting things in their worst aspect though I will admit to hoping that Mr. Grayner may overcome his present resentment against Miss Levine. But that was not in my mind at that time.” He glanced at Charles. “Miss Levine took this duty on with great reluctance. She accepted the task only on my personal plea, and because she was the one person available who could be made to resemble Miss Koupal physically, and at the same time be capable of deceiving you for a time on points of personality and technical skill. Her failure—for I'm afraid it was failure—in this latter is a pointer to its difficulty. No one else could have done it anywhere near as well.”

  “She made one big error,” Charles commented. “And one easy enough to avoid. Sara is essentially chaste. Didn't her psychoplan show that?”

  Raven nodded. “So,” he said, “is Miss Levine.”

  “Then the orders she was given were at fault” “There was no orders. I think I take your meaning, Mr. Grayner. Whatever may have happened between you was not a part of the attempt to deceive you. You will give me credit, I hope, for not committing so egregious a blunder.”

  “Then?”

  “Miss Levine was surprised—and not pleased, Mr. Grayner—to find her duty in some respects more attractive than she had anticipated. She quickly became fond of you.”

  “She told you that?”

  Raven ran a neatly manicured hand through his white and well-groomed hair.

  “She had to, Mr. Grayner. It was necessary, to explain her request to be relieved of her duty.”

  “She asked that?”

  “Three times. The latest occasion was yesterday evening. I was forced to refuse her requests. I told her I hoped that within a week or two you would have settled well enough in this managerial to have the truth explained to you. I did not reckon with Mr. Dinkuhl, who appears to have a talent for unveiling indiscreet secrets.”

  Incredulously, Charles asked: “You think, under those circumstances, I would have stayed?”

  Raven said: “Mr. Dinkuhl, that is a flask I see in your pocket? Might we not all have a drink—unadulterated this time?”

  Dinkuhl grinned. He poured into the two plastobeakers and the glass. He retained the beaker the girl had had for himself, and handed the others around.

  “I'll take the residual Mickey. Your health, Director.” Raven took the drink, sniffed it, drank, and smacked his lips lightly. “A good liquor, Mr. Dinkuhl.”

  “I always find the best is good enough.”

  “A good motto. Now, Mr. Grayner—would you have stayed? I hope you would. I hope you still will.”

  It was clearly the beginning of a long disquisition. Charles broke in.

  “Before you go any further, Director, I should like to express my views on something—on the ties that can exist, that should exist between the man and the managerial. I can see two, and only two: natural loyalty, and trust. I still retained some loyalty to UC after I had seen it as inefficient and corrupt, because the loyalty went back a long way. It isn’t possible for me to have that kind of loyalty to Atomics. That’s where the necessity for trust comes in. And it’s a vulnerable growth. It won’t stand up to the kind of treatment you have given it—with whatever good intentions. I can assure you that it is dead. Dead and stinking.”

  There was a short silence, as though Raven were waiting to be certain that Charlie had finished what he was going to say. Then he said:

  “Loyalty to a managerial—trust in a managerial—those are sentiments apt for the lower levels of society. You have left that stage, Mr. Grayner, as Mr. Dinkuhl had done before you. Nor can you get back to it. Could you go back to UC from this managerial? Could you even contemplate such a return? You have joined the emancipated, and perhaps that is your misfortune. But one thing is certain: it doesn’t make life easier, and it most certainly does not make the course of your future acts obvious or assured.

  “Your disillusion is nothing new to me, Mr. Grayner. I became acquainted with it many years ago. The Chief Director of a managerial is the last person who could possibly be a starry-eyed managerialist. He sees a number of distasteful things, and he is forced to take part in some of them. But he must continue to work through his managerial on behalf of the higher loyalty he holds.”

  ‘Which is?” Dinkuhl asked.

  “Loyalty to the human race. It is a far-reaching loyalty and not always easy to grasp—it is not possible to grasp it until the earlier loyalties have been superseded. But it is, of course, the fundamental loyalty of man.”

  “And the fundamental loyalty,” Dinkuhl suggested, “demands that Charlie goes on working for Atomics— though you don’t need to call it Atomics? What shall we call it? United Preservers of Mankind—how’s that?”

  Raven was not ruffled. He smiled dismissingly at Dinkuhl.

  “Not one of the things I said at our first meeting is invalidated by your discovery that I have been deceiving you in the matter of Sara Koupal. As I have said, it was certain that the deception could not be maintained for very long in any case. I risked the disappointment and resentment that you were bound to feel then because of my confidence in your fundamental level-headedness. And in your ability to rise above your own needs and desires.

  “I am asking you to do that now, Mr. Grayner—to forget your personal problems for a moment and to study things in a more general and detached light. The human race is facing one of its moments of decision, and you personally can be of great importance in the way that decision goes. Even without Humayun’s discovery, the situation would have been critical, but it now becomes urgently so. I put it to you with all seriousness that the world may be facing devastation.”

  Dinkuhl said: “Not for the first time. They sacked Cnossos five thousand years ago. And shall Atomics live?”

  Raven walked across to Dinkuhl. He stood before him, his hands folded together.

  “Have you thought of what the sack of Cnossos must have been like, Mr. Dinkuhl? Is it not possible that the lethargy, the flabbiness of spirit, that you so rightly chide in the world about us may have blinded you to the sleeping furies? For they are no more than sleeping—the Cometeers show us that. It is this social fabric you despise that prevents them from waking. Destroy it, and you will see them rub their eyes.”

  Dinkuhl looked at him and smiled. “They are rubbing their eyes already, Director. What is more, their bellies are rumbling.”

  “Do you think, then, that man was made for murder— for torture and rape and brutality?”

  For a moment Dinkuhl was silent. He said: “I don’t know what he was made for. Maybe he was made to sit in front of a TV screen. If he was, I’ll take the torture, rape and brutality; it has a healthy ring to it.”

  Raven swung around, an easy unhurried movement, to look at Charles.

  “This is the point, Mr. Grayner: do you share your friend’s view of cataclysms? Do you feel with him that Red League and Cosy Bright cry out for cannibalism as
a counterweight? I do not ask you to place any trust in me, nor in this managerial, but I ask you—forgetting your own needs, forgetting Sara Koupal—to answer a question truthfully. The question is this: do you know of any capacity in which you can serve your fellow-men better than—no, as well as!—you can here? Never mind whether they have deserved destruction and damnation. That is the sort of question we can leave to the Cometeers. But from the simple point of view of avoiding pain and suffering, where else can you do as much?”

  “One small item,” Dinkuhl cut in. “A necessary item on that premise. Charlie produces the power source and the weapon: then he has to trust you for the using of it.”

  Raven said, with absolute confidence: “I will leave that point to Mr. Grayner. He knows that I have deceived him, but he knows also that I did this with a larger end in view. I apologize for deceiving him, but I do not regret putting the world’s needs first. It is precisely because I have already done that, in fact, that I can appeal to him to rely on my integrity in the future.” Dinkuhl said: “Charlie, my view is we’ve heard enough from Chief Director Raven. We know just what land of a noble and altruistic lover of mankind he is. I think that at this point we can prepare to move on.” Raven said to Charles: “Well, Mr. Grayner? Destruction or salvage? A corrupt and decadent world—do you destroy it or do you try to mend it?”

  Charles stood in silence; he felt that his irresolution must be written all over him. Raven and Dinkuhl were both looking at him—Raven with calm confidence, Dinkuhl with the trace of a mocking grin.

  He said: “I don’t know—”

  Dinkuhl said: “I suppose a key point is whether even now you have all the facts in the situation. All the relevant facts. Has he had all the relevant facts presented, do you think, Director?”

  Raven nodded. “As far as I am concerned—yes.”

  Charles glanced quickly at Dinkuhl; he knew him well enough by now to know that something was due to follow.

  “You wouldn’t consider it a relevant fact,” Dinkuhl asked, “that you have been personally losing ground both on the Atomics Board of Directors and the World Council of Managerials for some years past—that your touching desire to save the world from itself is bound up with an anxiety to restore your own prestige?”

  “It would be relevant if it were true. But it is not true.”

  “The advantage I have over you, Director, is that Charlie has not yet caught me out lying to him. There is a motion down for the next Board meeting of this managerial, expressing no confidence in you as Chief Director and calling for your resignation. It is subscribed by Ramaseshan of New Delhi and Burlitz of Munich.” He paused. “You can now remove my advantage by calling your secretary from this room and asking her to put on the screen the draft of agenda for the meeting in question. In case your memory needs refreshing, the meeting will be held on February twenty-third, at New Delhi.”

  There was a brief silence. On Raven’s face there still remained the faint smile he had called up at Dinkuhl’s first charge of his personal interest in having Charles in Atomics. He made the gesture Charles had expected him to make on their first meeting; he lifted his hands and examined his nails. The control was admirable.

  “I could defend myself, Mr. Dinkuhl,” Raven said at last, “but for the second time I have been caught in deception—and this time it was most certainly an error of judgment. Twice is too many.”

  He shrugged delicately. Dinkuhl was observing him closely.

  “So now,” Dinkuhl commented, “for our own good, for the good of suffering mankind, and last and least for the good of the prestige of Chief Director Raven, you must— regrettably, regretfully—adopt the methods of such inferiors as Ledbetter. You must use force.”

  The shrug was repeated, more delicately still. “With very great regret, I assure you, Mr. Dinkuhl. I am not under any illusion that the work will progress as swiftly in such conditions. But there is no alternative.”

  “Should your colleagues, Ramaseshan and Burlitz, become aware of your having had such a prize and of your having jeopardized it through what they might think of as a desire for personal aggrandizement, I feel your position would become less secure rather than more, Director.”

  Raven smiled. “I am inclined to agree, Mr. Dinkuhl. Fortunately they are not likely to become aware of it. I have better security control here at Philadelphia than possibly you might imagine.”

  “I’ve got a good imagination. I hope you have, too, Director. Just about now, Ramaseshan is receiving a radio report It explains to him how, for the good of Atomics— we omit mankind for the moment—you took steps to obtain the services of Official Grayner, late of United Chemicals, who is—to your knowledge—the sole person capable of carrying through a project that will bring final power to that managerial which obtains it exclusively. Unfortunately Grayner has been got at by some outside group and either abducted or persuaded to desert. You have reason to think the destination is Asia, and probably India. Ramaseshans aid in recovering the fugitive will be appreciated. The report is signed Raven.”

  Raven looked at Dinkuhl. He said slowly: "Your destructive potential is very high, Mr. Dinkuhl

  “Don’t bother to make any formal good-bys. At my guess, Ramaseshan will be on the screen to you without much delay. Oh.” Dinkuhl fished in a pocket. “A copy of your report. You’ll need it.”

  Raven said: “Sometimes I see your point of view, Mr. Dinkuhl, and am even minded to share it. You two have now ceased to be an asset and become instead a nuisance. Have you any good reason why I should not eliminate a nuisance?”

  “The best. Were persuasive talkers. I doubt if you have an executioner you could be sure of, since we should naturally claim access to Ramaseshan. Besides, you really are very busy, Director. I should get back to your desk, if I were you.”

  Raven smiled. “The points are not overwhelming, but you have me. I lack the essential vindictiveness of a Chief Director; it accounts for my present awkwardness. Ramaseshan, for instance ... Ah well. I take it you will not reconsider simply for the sake of helping me save my skin, Mr. Grayner? I thought not. What do you plan to do now, by the way?”

  “Leave us to our worries,” Dinkuhl said. “You have your own.”

  “Very true. Good-by, Mr. Grayner. I wish I could say I believed you to be in good hands. Good-by, Mr. Dinkuhl.”

  Walking jauntily but without haste, Raven went out

  There was no hurry this time. They went along to Oak Ridge for drinks and a meal.

  “An enviable position, Charlie,” Dinkuhl said. "You can even use that wrist transmitter to call up the Atomics bravos if anyone else shows awkward. For a few days you can describe yourself as in Atomics but not of it No longer than that, I think. The Chief Director is versatile if not vindictive. He may still make a deal with Ramaseshan. Or even, for that matter, eliminate him. I told you the stakes were high.”

  Charles contemplated his gin and vermouth.

  “Hiram,” he said, “the last few weeks I have spent chasing my tail. I don’t entirely blame you for this, though I do have the impression that you’ve provided a twist once or twice when I showed signs of slowing down, but I would have you know I’m tiring rapidly.”

  “Telecom came and took you. You put yourself into Atomics. I only got you out of those two havens.” “Right. For what purpose?”

  “Purpose?” Dinkuhl grinned. “I’m not Raven. What do you want yourself?”

  “To find Sara. If she’s alive.”

  “O.K. Any clues?”

  “None. As you know.”

  “As I know. Well, we’ve tried the overworld. I never thought we’d get anything there. Now we try the underworld.”

  “The underworld?”

  Dinkuhl’s face changed, hardened. His voice dropped an octave. “Brother,” he demanded, “are you damned?” He resumed his normal expression. “After a lifetime preaching culture, I guess I can preach damnation.” “What do you expect to get from the Cometeers?”

  “I don’
t know. Nothing. Anything. At least, it’s where Contact Sections are least likely to look for us. With a couple of natural beards, we’ll be impenetrable. Put not your trust in plastics when nature can lend a hand. I’ll do the preaching, Charlie. You can go around with the hat.”

  Charles said doubtfully: “You think you can get by?” “I’ve made a study of it. I’ll have the rest of the preachers tearing their beards out by the roots.”

  “It seems crazy.”

  “When sanity calcifies, madness is the only solution. Any better ideas?”

  Charles shook his head.

  VII

  they moved in leaps of a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, and at random. There was no control of the movements of the Preachers—it was their duty to travel as the spirit moved them, and they were welcome everywhere. Charles and Dinkuhl moved in a vast circular swath: east to Ohio, south to Kentucky and North Carolina, north again along the Atlantic seaboard.

  Apart from one evening on Mining property, Dinkuhl had preached previously in sheds, outside the towns, belonging to Agriculture. Tonight, their gyro touched down on a waterfront section, a stretch that was apparently unused now though still nominally under the control of Telecom. It was a very decayed sector altogether, crammed with broken-down warehouses that seemed ready to slip off the waterfront into the unhealthy-looking water. The gyros already parked showed a good attendance.

  They met a Preacher Robinson inside, and made their salutations. Preacher Robinson was a gaunt man and there was something odd about his speech.

  "I’ve heard you’re a fine teller of the Wrath, Preacher,” he said. "Would you like to lead off?”

  Dinkuhl replied: "Better if you lead off, Preacher. You’ve been preaching longer than I have.”

  Preacher Robinson inclined his head. “As you like.”

  He preached well, with a cold bitter fervor. But Dinkuhl, following him, was in tremendous form. The audience that had listened in silence, betraying only by an occasional shuffling of feet that some charge of iniquity had sunk deeply home, was roused to a pitch of sobbing and shouting by Dinkuhl's playing on their emotions. Dinkuhl passed them back to Robinson for the liturgy that took place in the open, but, under his influence still, it was the crowd rather than the Preacher that dominated the responses.