[Jan Darzek 05] - The Whirligig of Time

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  "They'll use them for babushkas," Miss Schlupe said confidently. "Schluppy. You've been away too long. The Primorians have that peculiar head structure that protrudes from their chests. Remember? It would take a contortionist to get a piece of cloth wrapped around it."

  "It isn't for their heads. It's for that big hump on their shoulders where their brains are. They're fortunate to have such large brains, but all that bare skin sticking up is unaesthetic. I'm going to start a fad and beautify Primorian society." She got to her feet. "Where's my rocking chair? I can't imagine what kind of sitting apparatus your chairs are made for."

  "Every kind," Darzek said. "I'm sure you wore your rocking chair out the last time you were here. Even the best rocking chair has a limit to the amount of mileage -"

  "What are you doing these days?" Miss Schlupe demanded. "Making up natural laws. How does this sound? 'Simultaneous events can't be coincidental when the distance between them has to be measured in light-years.' "

  "Sounds great. Does it mean anything?"

  "I hope so. If you haven't anything better to do, why don't you take over my Trans-Star Trading Company and stir things up a bit? I'm supposed to be a trader, but Supreme keeps piling trivialities on me, and I haven't pulled off a trading coup for so long my competitors will be getting suspicious."

  "Gud Baxak?" Miss Schlupe asked, referring to Darzek's trading assistant.

  "Solidly competent and very pedestrian."

  "All right. As soon as I get my babushka fad going, I'll shake things up for you. In fact, I'll have Trans-Star handle the babushkas."

  "Good idea."

  She regarded him narrowly. "You have got something on your mind. What was that natural law again?"

  "The question is how far apart things can happen and still belong to the same coincidence."

  "And that's got you worried?" Darzek nodded.

  "There can't be much going on around here if you have time to make up laws about a thing like that. Never mind. I'll show you some action."

  Within days she had her babushka fad launched; within a term, no self-respecting Primorian would be seen in public without one of her gaudy remnants covering his or her hump, and Miss Schlupe was importing more remnants and promoting special colors for festive occasions. Darzek's fellow traders were consumed with envy, and his reputation was saved.

  Darzek continued his attempts to define coincidence and cursed Supreme, which began spewing out another accumulation of trivia just as Darzek got his desk cleared.

  Then FIVE returned. She had looked into the matter of the unfortunate radiation victim on Skarnaf and prolonged her trip by making a series of unannounced medical inspections along the way, as was her custom. This time she came to Darzek's official residence, and he placed a stand by her chair so she could position her vocal amplifier.

  "Did you solve the mystery?" he asked with a smile, 'seating himself beside her.

  She answered seriously, "If this mystery has a solution, it will require talents at least equal to yours to discover it."

  "Did the victim die?"

  "He hadn't at the time I left. That's a mystery in itself - how he could be exposed to such a measure of radiation and live." She waved a multifingered tentacle wearily. "He should be dead. He should have died within hours of his exposure if not immediately. I have no solution for that mystery, either."

  "And the other mystery?" .

  "Mysteries. Where and how he was exposed to such intense radiation and how he got to where he was found. The chief proctor of Skamaf is a superbly competent person, and he has investigated the matter thoroughly. The accident couldn't have happened on Skamaf, and if it had, he couldn't have traveled unnoticed to where he was found. It's doubtful that he could have moved without help."

  "A secret underground research lab," Darzek suggested. "Located close to where he was found."

  "Preposterous. It would have had to 'be built. It's lovely, rich agricultural land, divided into family holdings, and each farmer knows every finger length of his property. You can't excavate an underground lab, and equip it, and conduct experiments that make bangs and probably vent pollutants that would affect crops, under those circumstances. "

  "It happened elsewhere on Skarnaf - there must be some wasteland on the planet - and the victim was transported to where he was found."

  "Equally preposterous. Even on wasteland I doubt that anyone could construct a secret underground laboratory on Skarnaf. It would have to have its own power source, for one thing, or it wouldn't be secret, and there are plenty of other objections. But even if there were one, there's no way the victim could have been transported. There is a primitive transmitter network, with a terminal in the nearest village, but anyone bringing a hideously burned person through it would have attracted attention. Once he reached the village, he could only travel by steam tractor or animal-drawn wagon, and either way a local resident would have had to cooperate. And there was no freight shipment that could have contained the victim. No, all that was thoroughly investigated. It couldn't have happened. And he couldn't have arrived by spaceship. Skamaf has a complete network of orbiting transfer stations, and the movements of every approaching ship are monitored. There was no ship in position to transmit the victim to the surface, and if the accident had happened in space or on another planet, no ship could have got him there that quickly. His burns were fresh. He must have arrived where he was found only moments before the farmer saw him.

  "In other words," Darzek mused, "he couldn't have been exposed to any kind of radiation, but he was. He couldn't have survived the exposure he received, but he's still alive. And he couldn't have got to the place where he was found, but he did. That's an impressive series of contradictions."

  She silently gestured her agreement.

  "The best approach would seem to be to identify the victim and trace his recent activities."

  "As I told you, the chief proctor is a highly competent person.

  He's prepared a dossier on the victim, and I brought you a copy." She opened a folder. "The victim's name is Qwasrolk. He's a native of Skarnaf. He was born and grew up virtually at the place where he was found. His parents were farmers. The identification was made through a scar on his back that surviving friends of his family remembered - his back wasn't burned. His hands were so badly burned that his solvency credential is illegible."

  "It may be significant that he was found where he once lived," Darzek observed. "He was fatally injured, and his instinct was to go home."

  "Except that his home is no longer there. The family sold the land a number of cycles ago, and the buildings were demolished."

  "Where has he been lately?" Darzek asked.

  "He attended the University of Skamaf. He was considered a brilliant student - withdrawn, but brilliant. On graduation he accepted a position on the world of Vezpro, which is a highly industrialized planet in a neighboring solar system. He worked there for a cycle and was regarded with high favor and thought to have a promising future. Suddenly he resigned. After that, he simply disappeared."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "In Vezpronian time, three cycles. In our time, closer to four." "Interesting," Darzek observed. "What was his specialization?" FIVE smiled. "That's the most intriguing fact of all. He was a nuclear engineer."

  Darzek said slowly, "Is it possible that he was conducting his own nuclear experiments on his old homestead?"

  "Absolutely impossible," FIVE said. "That kind of explosion would have left traces, even underground, and the equipment and materials would have required an enormous amount of solvency. Beginning engineers are paid well on Vezpro, but not munificently, and his family wasn't wealthy. It's out of the question. And the explosion couldn't have happened on Vezpro, which specializes in nuclear powered manufactured goods and therefore has every kind of safeguard and detection device. And if it had, no ship could have got him to Skarnaf that quickly." She got to her feet and handed Darzek the dossier. "Now it'
s your mystery, Gul Darr. I wish you the pleasure of it. "

  "Thank you," Darzek said dryly. "At least it'll be a contrast' to these piddling problems Supreme keeps dumping onto me."

  She took her leave of him, and he read through the dossier, pondered the implications of what had been learned, and decided to leave this particular mystery in the hands of the Skarnaf authorities. The world's chief proctor obviously was a highly competent individual and seemed to be handling the case at least as well as Darzek could. For the next few days he kept his attention on Supreme's trivialities, while Miss Schlupe regaled him each evening with her accounts of trading activities.

  Then FOUR returned from Nifron, along with UrsWannl and UrsNollf. They asked Darzek for a conference shortly after they arrived, and Darzek met the three of them in his private residence.

  UrsNollf, the astrophysicist, wasted no time on preliminaries. "We have no proof," he announced, "but we suspect that someone has discovered a method for turning a planet into a sun - and has done so."

  Darzek got the three of them seated. He remained standing - he'd found it easier to gauge the confidence of these natives of Primores in what they were discussing if he looked down on their queer anatomy and forced them to look up at him. He noted with amusement that the two civil servants, though they were calling on him almost immediately after their arrival, already had succumbed to Miss Schlupe's babushka fad. Their humps sported gaudy coverings.

  "Someone has discovered a method for turning a planet into a sun - and has done so," Darzek repeated. "To what purpose?"

  FOUR spoke up. "To a scientist, an experiment may need no higher purpose. If it advances knowledge -"

  "What knowledge does it advance if it's done in secret?" Darzek demanded.

  "The scientist's own knowledge," FOUR replied.

  "Why are you so positive that this was not a natural event?"

  "There is no natural way that the planet Nifron D could have turned into a sun," UrsNollf said. "None whatsoever. And on the third planet of the system, Nifron C, we discovered - indications."

  "Indications of what?"

  "A small scientific encampment of some sort. Marks where portable domes and scientific equipment had been emplaced. The planet is sufficiently distant so that the – ignition - could have taken place without harm to those performing the experiment, since the planets weren't in conjunction. Of course they could have left when their preparations were completed and touched off the experiment from space."

  Darzek asked bluntly, "Have you found anyone who knows how to turn an ordinary world into a sun?"

  "No," UrsNollf answered. "And I have consulted Supreme. I asked for the names of scientists who might have that competence. Supreme knows of none."

  "And yet you consider it scientifically possible." "Since it has been done, yes."

  "But you don't know that it has been done," Darzek said patiently "You merely speculate that it has been done because you can't think of any other explanation for what happened."

  The three of them were silent.

  "Have you thought of submitting the problem to the leading astrophysicists of the galaxy and asking for their opinions?"

  "I did that before we left," UrsNollf said stiffly. "I now have their replies. They're as baffled as I am."

  "Did this supposed scientific expedition leave any clues other than the fact of its presence?"

  UrsWannl spoke. "It left some debris behind. All of it originated on one world. That may mean that the expedition came from there, or it may mean only that the supplies were acquired there - or on a world that imported them."

  "What is the world?" Darzek asked.

  "It's a quarter of the way across the galaxy, and as far as we know, it has no connection with this event other than the debris. It isn't noted for astrophysical research. It's called Vezpro."

  "Vezpro," Darzek murmured. "That's interesting. I thank you for your efforts. I'll give your findings my most careful consideration."

  "Have you any suggestions for us?" FOUR demanded.

  "I recommend that you summon the best scientists available and try to figure out how it was done. Whatever ramifications this problem may have, that part of the investigation will have to be conducted by scientists."

  "Very well," FOUR said, his echoing voice conveying relief that he could do something. "I'll call a conference."

  The three of them left. A moment later Miss Schlupe entered. By special arrangement she observed meetings secretly, eavesdropped whenever she felt like it, and read reports on any subject that interested her.

  Now she remarked cheerfully, "I think we can scratch Darzek's Law. A coincidence can have a much longer measurement than you thought."

  "Do three impossibilities add up to a coincidence?" Darzek asked. "Three?"

  "A planet turning into a sun, which all the scientists say is impossible. A radiation victim where there's no radiation, which obviously is impossible. And a connection between the two events when they're a quarter of a galaxy apart, which is both impossible and inconceivable."

  "It's the fulcrum that provides a connection." "The world of Vezpro?"

  "Yes."

  "It sounds feasible," Darzek conceded. "The radiation victim worked there. The debris found on Nifron C came from there. But the radiation victim must have been one of thousands of nuclear engineers employed on Vezpro, and he disappeared from there more than three cycles ago. As for the debris -"

  He turned to his communications console and punched out a question for Supreme. And as was Supreme's custom, he was immediately told far more about Vezpro than he wanted to know. He cut the strip into sheets and read them, passing each one to Miss Schlupe as he finished.

  Finally he leaned back. "It's a flourishing industrial world. It spreads its products across half the galaxy, at least. The members of that mysterious expedition could have picked them, up anywhere. They probably bought them somewhere close to Nifron."

  "Then you don't think Vezpro has any connection with either mystery?"

  "I don't see how it could have."

  "Has it occurred to you that the ability to turn a world into a sun has a tremendous potential for both good and evil?"

  "It has," Darzek said. "It's also occurred to me that the only evil we've ever encountered on member worlds of the Galactic Synthesis originated outside the Synthesis. Vezpro is a member world. If those who turned Nifron D into a sun wanted to keep their identity a secret, would they leave debris about that advertised the world they came from?"

  "You wouldn't," Miss Schlupe said. "I wouldn't. Who can say how an alien mind works?"

  "You think we should go to Vezpro?"

  "I think," Miss Schlupe said firmly, "that Vezpro is the only real clue you have."

  4

  The world of Vezpro lay below them - a beautiful swirl of colors and white, wispy clouds. Most worlds looked beautiful from space, and Jan Darzek had begun to wonder if this one were like a deceptively luscious-looking fruit - bursting with appetizing ripeness and rotten inside.

  "I haven't got a penny," Miss Schlupe said dryly.

  "It'd be an exorbitant price for any thought I've had since we arrived here," Darzek answered. Then he remarked, in a voice that was more reflective than accusing, "You said Vezpro was the only real clue I had."

  "It was. It is."

  Darzek nodded absently. He had found no hint of a clue to either of his mysteries on this world, and yet he could understand Miss Schlupe's stubborn suspicion that something was drastically wrong here. Perhaps it was only because everything seemed so irreproachably correct.

  They were eating in a transfer station restaurant. Each member world of the Galactic Synthesis was surrounded by such stations, the number varying with the amount of interstellar trade the world engaged in, and Vezpro's multitude of stations suggested the rings of Saturn. Ships docked at the stations; passengers and cargo reached the world's surface by transmitter.

  The rest
aurants that were operated on many of the stations were a profitable sideline. Arriving or embarking passengers often paused to eat there and enjoy their first or last look at Vezpro. Citizens often came up to partake of the uniquely spectacular view, either of the planet or of the sweep of richly starred sky, that each transfer station restaurant offered. The food, unfortunately, was much the same everywhere.

  But Darzek and Miss Schlupe had found several dishes that any gourmet from Earth would have appreciated, thanks to a crinkly, paper-thin fungus that Miss Schlupe called mushrooms. She was already experimenting with methods of preserving it so they could take a supply back to Primores, and Darzek had to firmly scuttle her notion of a new chain of fast-food franchises featuring mushroom burgers or pizza.

  Darzek took another bite of the sautéed fungus and sighed. "If it weren't for these mushrooms, I'd call this trip a total waste of time."

  "You were considering a vacation anyway," she pointed out.

  "As someone once remarked, it was a long way to come to eat.

  We've been here for more than a term, and we know almost exactly what we knew when we arrived."

  "Qwasrolk's radiation burns suggest an atomic bomb," Miss Schlupe said.

  "Atomic bombs have been banned in the Galactic Synthesis for so long that only Supreme would have memory of them. Anyway, this is a crimeless society."

  "All it takes to ruin the record of a crimeless society is one criminal," Miss Schlupe observed.

  "Schluppy, we're not talking about purse snatching. Making atomic bombs might be a hobby for some perverted scientist, but he couldn't set one off on Skarnaf without it being noticed. As for the Nifron D matter, there's still no proof that it wasn't a natural event, still no possible connection with Qwasrolk, and certainly no evidence that a crime was committed there."

  Miss Schlupe said dryly, "It may not be illegal, but turning worthless planets into suns certainly is a peculiar hobby. It also provides a basis for villainy on a scale I'd rather not contemplate."