[Jan Darzek 05] - The Whirligig of Time

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  The Whirligig of Time

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Biggle, Lloyd, 1923-

  The whirligig of time.

  L Title. _

  PZ4.B593Wh [PS3552.143] 813'.5'4

  ISBN: 0-385-13211-5

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-1179

  First Edition

  Copyright @ 1979 by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  All Rights Reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. - Shakespeare, Twelfth-Night

  1

  Captain Bn Ffallo, of the fifth-grade cargo ship Esarq, possessed in abundance a short temper, the vast experience that only a lifetime in space could endow, and all of the superstitions of his profession. When Volp, his third officer, who served as navigator and cargo supervisor, abruptly developed water bloat in all six of his legs - a condition to which his kind was unusually susceptible when subjected to long periods of low gravity - Captain Ffallo stoically accepted this as an evil omen.

  He put the unfortunate Volp aground on the world of Wanazk and signed on the only substitute available, a rank apprentice and native of Wanazk named Mkim. Since a change of crew in mid-voyage was viewed universally as certain invitation to disaster, Captain Ffallo resumed his journey and waited with resignation for the catastrophe to strike.

  He did not have to wait long. A mere three periods out of Wanazk, the new junior officer presented himself at the captain's quarters, his purple-tinged features fraught with dramatic perplexity. Ffallo immediately suspected the worst: a leaking liquid compartment, a malfunctioning heater on a compartment of perishable goods, or a disastrous cargo shift.

  Mkim groped sputteringly for words and finally managed to say, "Sire, there's a double star."

  Captain Ffallo relaxed. His new officer was not reporting to him in his role of cargo supervisor, but as the ship's navigator - and the position of navigator on a lightly crewed cargo vessel was a perfunctory assignment, passed out as an afterthought to the most junior officer. The fact was that the ship's drive mechanism contained its own navigational computer; and if, for some unlikely reason, that computer failed, there was a supplementary computer in the control room whose operation was so simple that any ship's officer and most of its crew could quickly plot a position, lay on a course, or calculate an arrival time. Such safeguards multiplied with a ship's size and importance, and even the largest passenger carriers possessed an official navigator only as insurance against an unthinkable emergency.

  Since there was nothing wrong with the cargo, and the captain couldn't conceive of any navigational problem that wasn't easily and quickly correctable, he invited Mkim into his quarters, got him seated comfortably, and even offered him a bowl of vrampf, bits of pastry containing a fiery liquor much favored by spacers, to munch on.

  Mkim, his purple complexion deepening with pleasure, inhaled a large mouthful of vrampf and began to ruminate with three sets of gums. Watching him, it occurred to Ffallo that Mkim had been spending an inordinate amount of time in taking navigational sightings; but it had been Mkim's free time, and the captain had thought that the youngster was merely practicing. If an apprentice wanted to perfect his navigational skills, or any other skills, on his free time, no captain in the galaxy would object. There always was the one-in-a-billion chance that the additional experience might prove useful.

  But now it was evident that this particular apprentice and nonfunctional navigator needed basic education rather than practice. The captain decided to be kindly about it. "A double star," he repeated. "Are you positive about that?"

  "Yes, sire."

  "Discovering it must have been quite a thrill for you."

  Mkim missed the captain's sarcastic tone. Speaking around another mouthful of vrampf, he mumbled, "Sire?"

  "More than half the stars of the galaxy are multiple systems," the captain went on, still speaking sarcastically. "Is it possible to study navigation without noticing this?"

  "Sire, on the chart it's a single star."

  The captain paused. A statement, even by an apprentice navigator, that their observed position did not match the position their charts indicated was one no captain could take lightly. He demanded incredulously, "Are you trying to tell me we're lost?"

  "No, sire. Everything else checks. But there's this one star that has a companion. And according to the chart, it shouldn’t."

  "Then you're saying there's an error on the chart." "Yes, sire."

  "This," Captain Ffallo announced firmly, "I've got to see for myself."

  He strode away, and Mkim meekly followed him.

  On the control room chart, Mkim pointed out the star. Unquestionably it was a single, with seven planets. Then Mkim focused the viewing screen to reveal a double star. Captain Ffallo grunted skeptically and took over the screen's controls himself. If there was an error on the chart - and he'd never heard of such a thing - it would have to be reported, and he wasn't about to sign a declaration based on an inexperienced navigator's pointing a screen in the wrong direction.

  He oriented himself with care, refocused the screen, looked again.

  He saw the double star.

  But still he hesitated. Was it a true binary? The smaller of the two stars might be a distant one, freakishly placed at this particular moment so as to produce a binary illusion.

  On the other hand, the survey ship that charted this sector - space knew how long ago - could have been the victim of the same kind of freakish coincidence in reverse: the smaller star could have been in line with one more distant and mistaken for it. Or it could have been in eclipse at the moment the survey ship made its sighting.

  The captain turned to the supplemental navigational computer and satisfied himself that they were properly on course. He examined the chart again, and then he reset the viewing screen. The star system was still binary. Their screen wasn't powerful enough to pick up any of the planets.

  "The chart seems to be wrong," the captain admitted grudgingly.

  "Suppose you draw up a report, and I'll enter it in the log and file a copy with the Galactic Survey. Record the complete data - distance of observation, time, positions of other stars observed." Mkim was assenting eagerly. Too eagerly. "But be sure to say 'apparent,''' the captain cautioned him grimly. "It apparently is a binary, and if so the chart is incorrect, and you recommend an investigation."

  "Yes, sire. If we could delay the next jump for a short time, then - "

  "Not worth it," the captain snapped. "Correcting charts isn't our business. We'll have done our duty, and more, by bringing it to the Survey's attention. Our business is delivering cargo, and delay costs solvency. Don't ever forget that!"

  Mkim looked so crestfallen that the captain felt a flash of sympathy for him. No doubt one of the star's planets had been a protostar, and they had happened onto the scene shortly after it exploded into stellar incandescence. Few apprentice navigators had the opportunity or luck to make such a discovery, and the captain couldn't blame him for wanting to produce a report that was a model of completeness and scientific accuracy.

  He grinned and clapped the youngster's shoulder with a friendly tentacle. "Write your report. I'll let you enter it in the log yourself, and I'll message it ahead of us just in case some faster ship makes the same sighting and tries to get its report in first. If you're right, the Survey might even name that second sun after you. Mkim. You'll be immortal. "

  Mki
m beamed a purpling smile at him. "Yes, sire!" He turned and hurried away.

  "But don't forget to say 'apparent!'" the captain bellowed after him.

  It was a brief, informal ceremony, and the audience that gathered to witness it was a small one. Naz Forlan was being pledged as Mas of Science and Technology of the world of Vezpro. Had Forlan been appointed mas of any other department, the ceremony would have taken place in the Palace of Government, with a vast audience and an appropriate blast of publicity. But few people except those of the department concerned cared who the Mas of Science and Technology was, and although the masfiln himself generously took time off from his multitudinous duties to attend in person and administer the pledge, he was the only high official present. The audience consisted of Forlan's own associates.

  The ceremony was quickly completed, with Masfiln Min Kallof smiling and fumbling words - for some obscure reason the Mas of Science and Technology took a different pledge from that imposed on other mases - and Forlan repeating them clearly, as though they meant something, and several times correcting the masfiln.

  Then the masfiln dashed off, Forlan spoke briefly to the assembled department about the honor of service, and they all adjourned to the dining hall for a wholly unexpected round of refreshments that the new mas had provided for them at his own expense.

  "And who is better qualified to talk about the honor of service than he?" Eld Wolndur remarked to his fiancée, Melris Angoz, as they munched contentedly on a frozen dessert of fruit and sazk juice.

  She answered absently, "He's spent virtually his entire career in the department, hasn't he?"

  "If he wasn't an alien, he would have been mas years ago."

  "That's not true," she protested. "He turned it down several times."

  "He did?" Wolndur's expression was incredulous. "Why would anyone refuse an appointment -"

  Melris flashed a superior smile. It was the one fault he'd ever been able to find in her. Computer tees became so accustomed to holding the knowledge of the universe at their finger tips that they tended to confuse knowledge with wisdom and their own mental capacities with those of their computers.

  "Politics," she said. "He told me so himself. Some masfilns even try to involve the Mas of Science and Technology in politics. He wouldn't have any of that, so he respectfully declined. I don't know how many times. He doesn't think the department should be involved in politics, and he refuses to pretend he's a politician. Masfiln Kallof promised to let him do the job in his own way."

  "He's certainly the best-qualified person," Wolndur said. "He has been for years."

  Wolndur glanced at the head table, where Forlan was carrying on a spirited discussion with a section supervisor of nuclear installations. The new mas was small and wiry-looking, with two short legs, an elongated body, and four stubby arms. His flesh had a slightly greenish tint, and - since that obviously disconcerted natives who had business with him - he'd devised an office lighting system that made him look normal. Here in the dining hall, the green tint was obvious.

  The only aspect of his appearance that was not completely ridiculous was his oversized head - large for his body, large even for a native of Vezpro - and its disproportion was further distorted because of his bristling head growth.

  His subordinates found him kindly, considerate, and brilliant. Wolndur watched the animated conversation for a moment: the new mas looking grotesque beside his native assistants, who were tall and slender, with handsomely gleaming heads and triple, multidigited legs and arms. Wolndur still thought Forlan had been the victim of a career-long prejudice merely because he was an alien. Even people who liked and admired him were given to poking fun at his appearance.

  He said to Melris, "Let's hope he has a peaceful administration." She shrugged her agreement. "If only they'll let him work without interference, if only there aren't any petty, irrelevant crises, he'll transform this world. He has the plans. He knows how to do it."

  "If only," Wolndur agreed bitterly. "It rarely happens, but if only -"

  "A year ago they were going to name the new Yengloz power plant after him," Melris said. "He wouldn't let them. He said the department was monument enough for him. He built it from nothing, you know. And with political opposition all the way."

  "But now he's mas himself, so at least he won't have a stupid superior harassing him," Wolndur pointed out. "The world of Vezpro will be his monument."

  "If only they'll let him work without interference."

  "Yes. Let's pray for no political crises, no economic collapses, no stupid social upheavals. Give him a couple of cycles to get started, and no one will be able to stop him. Even a new administration wouldn't dare appoint a replacement."

  Wolndur spoke hopefully, but he felt certain that there would be a concerted effort to get the new mas dismissed merely because he was an alien. And if anyone could find the slightest pretext, it would succeed.

  A farmer discovered the body. It was lying in a weed-cluttered ditch by a lonely country road, and he saw it only by accident - the setting sun's rays for a moment reflected off something dully red, and the farmer, a thrifty creature in the manner of good farmers anywhere in the galaxy, immediately suspected that an article had been lost or discarded. It might even be worth stopping for. He brought his chugging tractor to a steam-snorting halt and stepped down. Eagerly he leaped into the ditch. There was a saying on this world of Skarnaf that a salvageable discard could be worth a day of good weather - either was the gift of providence.

  One look, and the farmer scrambled back to the tractor and drove it at top speed toward the Village. There he panted out his story, which brought to his farm a young apprentice medic and the local provost deputy; and then, after the body had been removed, they were followed by a thickening stream of provost investigators, medic specialists, and distinguished scientists with titles the farmer could not pronounce. Finally the worthy farmer and his mate and family were whisked far away to the nearest metropolis that possessed the medical facilities essential for certain mysterious tests.

  At every step of the way there were perplexing questions to which no one had answers - especially the farmer. For the body had, in fact, been alive; and whether it continued to live or not, what was wrong with it so baffled medics and provosts and scientists and finally politicians, that experts continued to prowl the countryside with strange instruments, and they returned again and again with their plague of questions for the farmer and all of his neighbors.

  In a rural area of the world of Skarnaf, an individual had been found suffering the most severe nuclear radiation burns that medical history had recorded. How he managed to survive the experience, no one could guess.

  Neither could anyone guess how such a catastrophe could have occurred. Skarnaf was an agricultural world. Its factories, where they existed, were hydropowered, and the world had no nuclear installations, not even experimental ones. The victim certainly had not fallen from space. Neither could he have arrived from another world on a spaceship, for Skarnaf was an important space transfer station, and its approaches were carefully monitored. Further, the victim was a native of Skarnaf.

  The experts went away, finally, having concluded that there was no possible way the victim could have received such an overdose of radiation; no possible way he could have survived it; no conceivable method by which he could have arrived where he was found, with or without his injuries. The farmers were left in peace.

  The victim remained hospitalized, totally incoherent and likely to die at any moment. His condition shrieked of gross negligence or malfunctioning equipment, and his abandonment suggested an unimaginable callousness, but the authorities, after the most thorough investigation they were capable of, could not understand how either could have happened on Skarnaf. There simply was no place on the planet where the victim could have been exposed to any measure of radiation, let alone such a massive overdose, and there was no indication of where he had come from or how.

  But suc
h an untoward event had to be reported to the central government of the Galactic Synthesis, and that report had to make sense. Therefore the authorities decided that the victim of a nuclear disaster on another world had been surreptitiously abandoned in a rural area of Skarnaf, despite the fact that no spaceship could have left him there. They much preferred an unaccountable spaceship to an unaccountable nuclear explosion.

  2

  Periodically Jan Darzek longed for a crisis. As First Councilor of the Council of Supreme - chairman of the ruling body of the Galactic Synthesis and therefore of the galaxy - he was constantly beset with picayune details that any bright fifth assistant administrator should have been able to handle.

  Now he sat disgustedly contemplating an unending strip of computer printout that Supreme was piling onto his desk. Supreme was the world-sized computer that made the government of a galaxy possible, and Darzek had come to regard it as his foremost antagonist. The Council of Supreme met regularly, made decisions, and formulated plans, but it could act only on the basis of information furnished by Supreme. There was no way to determine whether that information was complete or selective; and if the information was not complete, no one knew whether or how Supreme decided what information was to be supplied or withheld.

  It seemed to Darzek that when he had a serious problem, Supreme told him as little about it as possible, couched in terms that made the pronouncements of a Delphic oracle a model of clarity. When the problem was trivial, the information came in a continuously unrolling flood.

  Darzek picked up a section of the printout, glanced at one item, and grimaced. The world of Cwafcwa was planning a new industrial complex that would, unquestionably, pollute its air. Was there already a pollution problem on Cwafcwa, or would this pollution constitute an unnoticeable blight on an otherwise pure atmosphere? Should the Galactic Synthesis take action to protect the world from its own stupidity or congratulate it on its economic foresight? Supreme's announcement was noncommittal. Darzek's staff would have to perform a reference search, which meant asking Supreme for information that Supreme probably wouldn't have. Remarkable as a world-size computer could be, it suffered the disadvantages of any jerry-built pocket model. It knew only what it was told.