15 - The Utopia Affair

by David McDaniel

  Meanwhile, he had to pick some kind of directed activity to occupy the next four weeks. It wasn't required, but he dreaded the idea of having nothing at all to do. Much as his inner being rebelled at the thought of joining the other overgrown children in their play therapy, it was preferable to wandering through the woods and dabbling in the artificially maintained brooks. Of all the choices he had been offered, the least distasteful was a sort of war game; he had seen a brochure on it shortly after his arrival. Apparently two total strangers acted as Generals in a series of maneuvers, rather strictly regulated, using live troops in a simulated battle situation.

  He would sign up for this game and hope for the luck of the draw to bring him an interesting and challenging opponent. He had enough faith in the abilities of the omnipresent staff to pair him with a near equal so that he was not seriously concerned with the danger of boredom in the next month.

  He proved correct. As Mr. Dodgson he entered his name, and in due process he received a note informing him that he had drawn a Mr. Silverthorne. Silverthorne was listed in the guest directory with the terse identification Executive. His residence was #12, diagonally across the residential area, a little over a mile away.

  An exchange of polite notes by the pneumatic postal service, and they arranged a meeting at the Lodge. It was mid-afternoon when Alexander Waverly entered the cool dimness of the log-walled building and saw the man against whom he would soon be waging war. As he approached the table, a long dark man unfolded himself from a chair and extended a hand.

  "Mr. Dodgson? My name is Silverthorne."

  Waverly studied the man's face for a moment as he answered. His opponent was perhaps fifty-five or sixty, and well maintained. His black hair was touched up slightly, though it took a perceptive eye to catch it. Only his eyes seemed out of place, bright and alert, darting here and there in an otherwise impassive face. He stood almost three inches taller than Waverly.

  "How do you do, Mr. Silverthorne. I'm told we are to go to war over something or other."

  Silverthorne smiled. "Participation seemed preferable to inaction. This pretend-war appeared to be the most potentially challenging diversion the Park offered."

  "My situation precisely. Is this your first participation in their games?"

  "The war game has been added since my last visit. My company insisted I needed a vacation."

  Waverly admitted the similarities in their positions, and by the time dinner was laid in the main dining hall they were fairly well acquainted. The subject of their respective backgrounds had not come up—one of the first things Waverly had observed was that they generally didn't. It was considered bad form to inquire into another guest's outside life. Some were there who could not hide—celebrities from entertainment, politics, science and industry, whose faces were known around the world. But the Prime Minister of India was listed in the directory as Politician, the star of the most popular British comedy series was listed as Artist, and the top Russian nuclear researcher was a Technician. A guest could mention his own background if he wanted to, but it wouldn't impress anyone, and the occasion to do so rarely came up.

  Silverthorne spoke English with no particular accent and displayed little curiosity about his opponent, who returned the favor. The conflict began the following day.

  Monday was a slow day. They put their token troops through simple maneuvers and learned the limitations of their positions and the rules of the game. They were also introduced to the gamesmaster, a genially rotund man with a very serious face and an apologetic air. His job was to interpret rules, verify the decisions of the Battle Results Computer, and hold final responsibility for the proper functioning of all the aspects of the war.

  Each man was given a staff of five to act as his chiefs of Supply, Operations, Intelligence, Planning and Computer Ops. They were carefully trained as to the extent of the advice they could give while maintaining communication between the commander and the forces, five hundred strong, who executed his orders.

  Utopia had outdone itself in this operation. The soldiers in this mock war were not paid by the resort, but were all trainees for several of the better-known mercenary forces. Their pay was met by their prospective leaders while the Park covered their lodging and food expenses in return for their services as part of the entertainment.

  Weapons were dulled, punches were pulled, cartridges were blank, but judges circulated in the battle area noting hypothetical casualties and occasionally directing the action. Their reports were processed by a small computer which calculated the exact results of the en counter in terms of casualties, material expended and ground gained or lost.

  Understandably, Waverly and Silverthorne saw little of each other for some days after their brief meeting in the Lodge. The war was fought several hours a day, and studying the results of each move in the complex game took care and precision. The game had been so designed that neither side had the least advantage, and the slightest mistake in an order could cost valuable credits in hypothetical men and supplies.

  Waverly made other acquaintances, and found himself sharing a few dimly remembered anecdotes from the First World War. He was not the only veteran of the Great War, he found—an aged Prussian had fought against the English in France. The Baron Ludwig von Schtroumpf was in excellent health, he insisted, and saw no reason why his board should have ordered him sent to this place. Yes, he remembered the Somme; he had been wounded slightly there...

  Silverthorne maintained his interest in Waverly, though the pseudonymous Mr. Dodgson seemed unaware of the fact. The gentleman had kept up a careful study of his opponent through a week of intense, if imaginary, warfare, and had been impressed by what he saw. His organization was always interested in ability; even though Dodgson must be about seventy, he was almost preternaturally wily and clever. He had an aura of confidence and capability about him that spoke of years of leadership, and could instill a firm loyalty in any man under his command. This was a rare and valuable talent, and was certainly worth a try to land for his own people.

  Nothing could be done about offering him a new job while they were here; an executive recruiter would have to find him when he came out and contact him to see if he was at all interested in changing jobs. Top men with true ability are worth all the effort it takes to get them.

  He had a reservation on the outside telephone for a weekly quarter-hour call to his Sydney office. He would utilize some of this time to give them the data on Dodgson with a recommendation that they find out where this man was presently employed and prepare a recruitment presentation for him as soon as he left Utopia. Like most of the best executives, Silverthorne had a portion of his mind permanently focused on his occupation and no medical orders could turn it off.

  Illya had taken his first opportunity to plant his third bug in Silverthorne's residence as soon as he found that he would be Waverly's opponent in the war game. He expected his fourth would be placed in Baron von Schtroumpf's bungalow; though the Baron was only a casual acquaintance, he was as close to a friend as Waverly had made during his first two weeks at the resort.

  His own schedule varied—one day he would be alternately clearing away the dishes from six sittings and laying out tableware; another day he would be assigned to Room Service, which job might include keys to some of the residence bungalows. Apparently harmless items in his luggage fitted together to make a small, inefficient but precise locksmith's kit, and he had been able to derive the warding of the master-key system from study of the samples he held.

  This particular day he had been wheeling coffee and sandwiches around the Security Area, supplying break time refreshment for the office and maintenance staffs. Vehicle Maintenance was in a flap because a fungus growth had gotten into the lubricating oil and was I thriving on the fungicides they applied. Illya had been fascinated by the biochemical problems involved and, as Klaus Rademeyer, returned voluntarily to the area when his shift was over. He worked with four other men on a jury-rigged filtration system, and almost displayed m
ore knowledge than his cover could justify when the discussion turned to irradiation to kill the fungus spores.

  It was approaching ten o'clock in the evening when the group declared itself conditionally satisfied and went together to the commissary for coffee and conversation. Illya found himself seated next to Curley Burke, the crew chief. Curley, of course, was bald, and his features seemed to huddle together around his mouth as though lost in the vast pink expanse of his head, with only two low-set and lonely ears far away to either side. His chin was small, his nose was small, and his eyes were sparkling blue beads; only his mouth was large and mobile. It could allow an insult and a pint of beer to pass in opposite directions simultaneously, and still have room in one corner for a hand-rolled cigarette which smoldered constantly.

  His hands were large and lumpy, with traces of ancient grease deep in the texture. Somehow he seemed to have twice as many knuckles as he should and his fingernails were cracked and ridged, but his large hands could move inside an engine with the skill and grace of a surgeon. He was as interested in Klaus as Klaus was in the petrophagic fungus.

  "Klaus," he said, "how'd a waiter learn so much about engines?"

  Illya's cover had not included this information; he took a fraction of a second to sort through it and improvised. "My first job at sea was as a stoker. I thought of working my way up to Chief Engineer, but I moved over to the White Gang after I learned what life was like a little more."

  "Well, you've come to the right place. I've been fixin' trucks for the Park six years now––since they opened—and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else. I've got the best quarters, the best food and pretty good pay; and it's easy to save with no place to spend it."

  Illya took a swallow of coffee and looked doubtful. "It's a long way from the rest of the world, all right. I was beginning to wonder if I could last until my vacation."

  "What's to miss? The girls here are cute and there's no regulation against interdepartmental fraternization—we'd probably all go stir crazy if there was." He laughed roundly and upended a brown bottle over his foam-flecked glass. "There's plenty of society, all the television shows a week late, and no news from the outside to worry you."

  He gestured around, indicating the unseen guests up in the Lodge or retiring to their cottages. "These rich guys have to pay through the nose for this place; I live here and they pay me! And they're always in such a hurry to leave. Never figure 'em out. Got the best of everything here." He shook his head.

  Privately, Illya could understand both points of view. Publicly, Klaus had to establish in advance a valid reason for leaving Utopia after having been at the Park only a month and a half; his cover identity was too valuable to be broken easily. This nonexistent waiter had gotten some of their best agents into some of the best hotels in the world at times when security was getting very tight indeed.

  It lacked twenty-five minutes of midnight when Illya returned to his room, tired and a little slowed down by a few sociable mugs of beer, but he had his other job to attend to. He plugged a complex unit about the size of a quart bottle into the wall socket above his writing table and keyed a set of frequencies. The small pilot light on top of the unit flickered yellow as the signal was sent, then shone red for two seconds as the high-speed squirt transmission was received, then green. Illya slipped the featherweight earphones behind his head, allowing the rubber tips to slide into his ears, and touched another button which allowed him to scan rapidly through the tape. Two seconds was short, even for the transmission speed the device used; Waverly didn't talk to himself and no guests had come to #35. Occasionally a clearing throat would activate the recording mechanism for a few seconds, or a door closing in the next room, but there was nothing worth listening to on the tape. Illya pushed a button for recycle, and then triggered the bug in Silverthorne's residence.

  This transmission took ten seconds, and the tape took twenty minutes to scan for voices. Nearly to the end, but unspecified as to time, he heard one end of a conversation which brought him back to wakefulness.

  It started with the telephone chime and Silverthorne's voice saying, "Yes, thank you... Hello, Sydney. I've got fifteen minutes. Using scrambler pattern three." There followed a few seconds of silence and sounds of plastic things clicking together, then, "Hello test, hello test... hello test, hello test... Ah. There you are. Now, what's the situation in Upolu?"

  For a few minutes the tape contained only questions and commentary, most of it impossible to follow, with the long pauses clipped out by the voice-activating switch. Then Silverthorne went directly from a final comment into another subject.

  "By the way, I hope you have a tape on this because I'm nearly out of time and won't be able to repeat. There's another guest here named Dodgson. Leon Dodgson." He spelled it. "I don't know what his line is, but he's got a tremendous capability for leadership, is quite widely educated and experienced in a number of fields. I think we could use a man like that, and I want a team of recruiters to meet him when he comes out. Here's his description..."

  Illya's eyebrows rose slightly as he reached for the control that would allow him to replay that portion of the recording. He did so, and a wry smile crept across his face. Not likely that any other firm could woo Alexander Waverly from U.N.C.L.E., whatever they were willing to offer. But it would be interesting to see what happened when he was contacted, supposing that they could even find him.

  There was no real evidence as to what Silverthorne's firm did—apparently they were large and wide-spread, occupied with import and export, sensitive to political situations all over the South Pacific area, and involved to some extent with scientific research of some kind touching on oceanography. It might be rewarding to look up Silverthorne when he got back to New York and see just what he did. Whatever it might be, the thought of Waverly being approached by representatives of a top executive search outfit was more than moderately amusing.

  He filed that tape cartridge and plugged in another one, tapping his third bug in the Security Office. Nothing of interest there—he dozed off twice while routine matters flowed by, and as he disconnected the bug at last and fell into bed, he debated sleepily about removing the trick light bulb from Security. It might come in handy eventually, but there was conversation of some kind going on there every minute, and the time it took to audit the tape was worth more in sleep than anything he had learned from it. As he slipped down into slumber, his last thought was of Silverthorne.

  "I think we could use a man like that," Illya quoted mentally, and smiled in the darkness.

  Chapter 6

  "Q ASSASSINATION."

  THE MESSAGE was low priority and had been filed Saturday night, so it was Monday afternoon when the Sydney operator came to it in her stack of routine communications to Central. She signaled for access to Ident and tapped out the request.

  1311670233 Z DE: SYDNEY TO: ULCOMP IDEREQ LEON DODGSON RESIDENT UTOPIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA. DESCOD 702-BBG-08-33692.

  Five seconds later the message faded from her screen and she was preparing to code the next when the borders of the screen flashed red.

  1311670234 Z UCR Q: VERIFY DESCOD LASCOM SYDNEY.

  The red flicker meant top priority, and the UCR prefix meant the question was a direct readout from the Ultimate Computer itself, which rarely responded to routine messages with more than a curt acknowledgment. She searched for the tape of Silverthorne's last conversation, checked his description, re-coded it, and verified it. The red flicker cut off and the terse request was replaced by a line of neat block letters: THANK YOU.

  She'd probably never know what was special about Dodgson; she didn't care. She touched the Clear button and punched in the next report.

  In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a pretty colored girl in a neat gray uniform answered a flashing red light and saw a line of green type march across her viewscreen.

  1311670235 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 LOCATED PROBAB 74%. INFORM COUREP. Q: ACTION ADVISORY.

  The operator was there for one reason: to introduce
a flexible human element into what might otherwise become a mindless juggernaut of relentlessly irrational logic, basing everything on some piece of false or inaccurate data such as would inevitably pass into the vast memory banks. Her job was to fill gaps purposefully left in the chain of communication; in the present instance the Ultimate Computer had no way of knowing if the Council Representative was asleep, in conference, or didn't care, and her job was to decide whether he should be awakened at half past one in the morning.

  She was aware of the Waverly situation; she tightened her lips and reached for a red telephone handset.

  1311670241 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 AT UTOPIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA NAME OF LEON DODGSON PROBAB 78%. Q: ASSASSINATION.

  A short elderly man in flowered pajamas sat at a desk in a bare office. The walls were stained concrete, and looked as if they sweated. Acoustical panels stood on painted lines here and there about the room, cables snaked through covered troughs in the concrete floor, and the wide steel desk bore no telephone, no pen and pencil set, no blotter. A screen rose up from its center, a typewriter keyboard extended to the old man's elbow, and a single fat loose-leaf notebook, heavily tabbed, lay open just to his right. To his left stood a beaker of coffee and a half-filled cup.

  The message stood on his screen in block letters, awaiting an answer with the patience of the machine. He studied it for several seconds, then turned to the typewriter keyboard. The screen faded as he touched a switch, and as he typed other letters appeared.