"Certainly. This world's computer, or that of any other world - or Supreme itself."
"In that case, I'll do it. I can't guarantee success, but I can guarantee that this road is the only one."
Darzek thanked him, and Lolln waved the thanks aside with his puckish grin. "The thanks are mine. I've been saying for years that the galaxy's leading astrophysicists are nitwits. I never thought I'd have the opportunity to prove it."
"If you'll work in Klinoz, I can furnish you with a computer tee and also a young assistant."
Lolln reflected for a moment. "I'd have to make some arrangements here. I could come in three days."
Darzek gave him the transmitter code of the Trans-Star office and promised to find living quarters for him and have any equipment he wanted waiting for him if he would send a list.
Then he returned to Klinoz. Miss Schlupe was exercising her rocking chair. She said, "Well?"
"He may be a find," Darzek said. "He's the first astrophysicist I've met who didn't say the thing was impossible and proceed to prove it. He said that things that happen are possible, and if the proof contradicts reality, then the proof is wrong. He's going to try to find out where it's wrong."
"Then I can cross him off the list?"
"Unfortunately, no. He jokes about his being dismissed from the university, but obviously that hurt. Also, he's independently wealthy. He's a natural suspect."
Miss Schlupe arched her eyebrows. "Is there anyone in this case who isn't a suspect?"
Darzek said meditatively, "I'll tell Wolndur and Melris to cooperate fully with Lolln but also to keep an eye on him. I want to know whether his research is aimed at solving the problem or confusing the issue. Wolndur should know enough science to recognize an obvious fraud. And then I'll tell Lolln - confidentially - that I suspect Wolndur and Melris of being in collusion with the blackmailer and ask him to keep an eye on them."
Miss Schlupe scowled at him. "Nonsense! Those youngsters aren't expert enough or experienced enough to be involved in a crime as scientifically complicated as this one. I also think they're too loyal."
"Loyalty is no commendation until we find out what - or whom they're loyal to. Telling Lolln to watch them will make him think I trust him. You were right. At this point, we have to suspect everyone."
6
Gud Baxak climaxed a ceaseless whirlwind of day and night .activity by tottering off to the Mas of Science and Technology with contracts to supply Vezpro's annual needs for several rare metals at a price 5 per cent lower than the minimum bids offered by other traders. Forlan was delighted - he was saving his world money and at the same time obtaining a guaranteed source of essential, hard-to-obtain Items. Gud Baxak was delighted at having consummated the largest transaction of his career.
Jan Darzek saw no need to inform either of them that Trans-Star would lose solvency on half the orders and barely break even on the rest. He had a reputation to make. By the time the contracts were reviewed, approved, and executed, everyone of importance in the Vezpronian government would have heard of Gul Darr and his Trans-Star Trading Company; and Darzek, invested with the glow of his expensive new status, could get on with his real work just as soon as he figured out what that might be.
Raf LolIn arrived on schedule, and Darzek got him settled in his living quarters - which like Darzek's adjoined the Trans-Star office - and then introduced him to Wolndur and Melris, who were expecting him. He told Wolndur to have Lolln's solvency credential registered, so he could enter their office whenever he wished. When Darzek left them, Lolln had commenced his lecture on dogma, and Wolndur was listening politely.
Darzek looked in on them again two days later and found the lecture still in progress. Lolln seemed to have made a convert. The two scientists, old and young, were staring in aesthetic fascination at an endless formula on the largest screen, and fragments - bits swept away and piled up for reconsideration later-cluttered the other screens. At the far end of the room, Melris sat surrounded by her keyboards, doodling absently on some project of her own while she waited for their next request.
The scientists were too engrossed to notice Darzek. Melris motioned to him, and he circled the tables and crossed the room to her. She looked cautiously in the direction of Raf Lolln, and then she whispered, "I want to talk to you."
"Trans-Star office," Darzek whispered back. "This evening?"
Darzek gave her the Vezpronian shrug of assent, turned, and made his way out again. Lolln had commenced a lecture on one of the jumble of symbols, and the scientists remained oblivious of his presence. Darzek closed the door quietly.
Melris arrived late, bringing Wolndur with her, and he was carrying a large box of computer printouts and trod ding on her three heels as though he were quite as mystified as Darzek was. The box reminded Darzek of the mountain of trivia that Supreme periodically dumped on him. He greeted them resignedly, showed Wolndur where he could set the box, and said, without enthusiasm, "Yes? You've discovered something?"
"She hasn't told me," Wolndur said, glancing resentfully at her.
"Lolln has been there all the time, and you asked us - but I think you're wrong about him."
"I'm frequently wrong," Darzek said cheerfully. "In some instances, it's much better to be wrong until proven right than right until proven wrong."
Wolndur pondered this with obvious skepticism. Darzek had the impression that the young scientist would have preferred to convert it to a scientific formula and spread it over a screen where he could test it properly.
Melris interrupted. "I've run a computer check on any nuclear irregularities that have occurred in this sector of the galaxy," she said. "The world of Skarnaf has a radiation victim for whom there is no possible accounting."
Darzek frowned. He would have preferred to keep information about the unfortunate Qwasrolk to himself, but he could hardly reprimand his computer technician for effectively exercising her imagination.
Before he could comment, Wolndur had refocused his thinking from Darzek's unscientific postulate to Melris's discovery. "How does that affect our problem?" he demanded.
"It suggests illegal nuclear experimentation," Melris said.
"So it does," Wolndur agreed. "But why Skarnaf? The slightest radiation leakage there would bring the authorities down on one immediately. Skarnaf has no nuclear facilities. No one would attempt illegal research there."
"The victim once worked on Vezpro," Melris said. "His name is Qwasrolk. "
"I don't recognize it," Wolndur said. "Should I?" "I don't know."
"Tell us what you've learned," Darzek suggested.
"Very little is known about him," she said. "He was found in a rural area of Skarnaf, badly burned and obviously the victim of a massive dose of radiation. He should have died immediately, but he was still alive at the date of this report. The chief proctor of Skarnaf managed to identify him - he's a native of that world - and traced him to Vezpro. Our own proctors cooperated in an investigation here. He worked for a Vezpronian firm as a nuclear engineer for a time, and then he disappeared."
Wolndur turned to Darzek. "Vezpro hires tens of thousands of nuclear engineers from all over this sector. Many of them serve apprenticeships here and acquire experience that enables them to obtain superior employment elsewhere. The fact that he once worked here wouldn't necessarily connect him with Vezpro - or with our problem."
"But his accident might," Melris objected. "I've never heard of anyone being injured in a nuclear accident. It suggests illegal if not amateurish experimentation."
"It does," Wolndur agreed. "But turning a world into a sun isn't an amateurish experiment, and his accident would have had to occur on Skarnaf, wouldn't it, since that's where he was found?"
"I asked for a check on his solvency credential," Melris said. "He continued to use it here on Vezpro for almost two cycles after he disappeared. "
Darzek was regarding her with increasing respect. He hadn't thought of checking Qwasrolk's use of
his solvency credential. He wondered if Miss Schlupe had. It opened up to them a detailed history of Qwasrolk's existence on Vezpro. His every purchase, his every movement through the world's transmitter network had been recorded in the central computer.
"He may have found employment under another name - which would be illegal and suggests illegal activity," Melris went on. She turned to Darzek. "I suggest, sire, that we inform the mas and ask him to take some nuclear personnel experts to Skarnaf and see if any of them recognize this Qwasrolk."
Prom the descriptions of Qwasrolk Darzek had been supplied with, no one was likely to recognize him; but there seemed no harm in trying, and Melris already had discovered useful and intriguing information that the previous investigation had overlooked. She deserved to have her suggestions respected. "Where is the mas likely to be?" Darzek asked.
They told him, and Darzek sent Gud Baxak with a message.
The Mas of Science and Technology showed no displeasure or even surprise at being summoned away from his evening meal or whatever recreation he might have been engaged in, but the moment he entered the room Darzek realized that he had been guilty of an act of gross discourtesy. They should have met the mas in his own office. Here there were no chairs that compensated for his ridiculously small stature, and the luminescent wall panels accentuated the mas's vividly green complexion.
But he seemed completely at ease. He listened attentively to Melris's discovery and when she had finished he echoed Wolndur's skepticism. "Skarnaf? What could that have to do with our problem?"
Melris did not answer. Darzek was her chief. If the mas had to be convinced, clearly that was Darzek's task.
"Do you have any recollection of a Qwasrolk?" the mas asked Wolndur. Wolndur gestured negatively. "I don't," Forlan said. "Of course my contacts with nuclear personnel have been limited." He turned to Darzek. "What do you think, Gul Darr?"
"I think that any information at all about this Qwasrolk is likely to be useful," Darzek said. "Certainly let's have some personnel experts try to identify him. Even if he has nothing to do with our problem, we have an obligation to help Skarnaf. Illegal nuclear research is a serious matter."
Forlan shrugged his agreement. "We'll go in the morning. I'll arrange for a ship and invite the nuclear personnel experts most likely to recognize him."
When they reached Skarnaf, a high government official was waiting for them at the transfer station where their ship docked. The visit of a mas from a neighboring world required an elaborate and unfortunately prolonged ceremony. While it proceeded, Darzek slipped aside, made a few quiet inquiries of station personnel, and succeeded in identifying the planet's chief proctor, a pleasant-looking individual of Darzek's own stature - for the natives of Skarnaf were approximately human in appearance except for a rather disconcerting rearrangement of their organs of sight, smell, and hearing. He introduced himself as an emissary of Supreme and asked for a private conference.
The chief proctor immediately led him to the transfer station manager's office, evicted the manager, and made the two of them comfortable. Darzek began by offering congratulations on the Qwasrolk investigation, and then - emphasizing the need for secrecy - he related the entire story, from the discovery of the planet turned into a sun to the delivery of a blackmail letter on Vezpro.
"Do you think this Qwasrolk had something to do with the Nifron D matter?" the chief asked bluntly.
"Because of his connection with Vezpro, and the nature of his accident, I think it possible that he did."
"But the Nifron D matter could have had nothing to do with his accident. We've established positively that no ship could have placed him where he was found, and he could not have got from Nifron D to Skarnaf by any means according to the timing you've established. The accident had to occur here."
"Probably a staff of scientists and engineers would be required to perfect the method of turning a world into a sun," Darzek said. "Some would remain at work in a secret laboratory while others went to Nifron."
"Then you think the secret laboratory is on Skarnaf?"
"If the accident couldn't have happened anywhere else, then the secret laboratory is here."
"I agree," the chief proctor said. "That's why we're still looking for it."
"Have you got any information from Qwasrolk?"
"Unfortunately, no. You'll understand that when you see him. The doctors can't believe the evidence of their own science. They say he should be dead. He certainly looks dead, but occasionally he mutters something almost intelligible. Of course we're recording every sound, but thus far no one has been able to comprehend anything, in any language." He paused. "To be frank, I don't like this mass intrusion. I tried to prevent it, but high diplomacy is involved. From what you've told me, I suppose it's justified. If my world were threatened, I'd want every clue investigated."
"I don't like it, either," Darzek said. "You've handled the investigation with a rare competence, and I'm confident that you'll continue to do so. But I don't want to assume the role of an obstructionist, and I suppose there is a remote chance of a useful identification."
"No one," the chief proctor said firmly, "is going to identify Qwasrolk by looking at him. You'll understand that the moment you see him. I'm grateful for this information. I'll double the teams looking for the secret laboratory, since that situation obviously is much more serious than we'd thought. Now we'd better join the others the ceremonies should be over." He led Darzek to the nearest transmitter.
They caught up with Forlan's party in the lobby of a building Darzek identified as a governmental administration unit. It was only when they had passed through an office complex that he recognized it as a hospital.
They moved along a wide corridor, and on either side were tiers of healing capsules, three high, set in the walls. In each lay a patient, sealed against the outside world, visible through a transparent, bulging, sliding door. The natives of Skarnaf were sufficiently human in appearance to make Darzek feel homesick, but those in the hospital affected him differently. The sick, of any life form, were pathetic.
A doctor had joined them, distinctive in his blue one-piece suit.
Like the chief proctor, he resented this mass intrusion; unlike the proctor, he felt no diplomatic compulsion to be polite about it. He spoke petulantly to the official in the native language, and then he turned to the visiting party and spoke in Galactic.
"I have advised against this," he said. "The patient remains in a state of crisis. He is so horribly disfigured that any kind of identification is out of the question. He suffered exposure to a radiation so intense we have no way of measuring it or even guessing what it was. He should have died. Nevertheless, he survived and is surviving, and if he is left undisturbed, he may eventually be able to tell us what happened. "
"Is there any chance at all that he'll recover?" Darzek asked. "Since he has lived this long when he should have died at once, anything is possible. He may recover. He is much more likely to die before you see him."
"Have you been able to question him?" Naz Forlan asked.
"He has not yet been conscious - not rationally so. Sometimes in his delirium he seems to be trying to talk, and we record what he says, but no one has been able to understand it."
Forlan thought for a moment. "And you say he is disfigured beyond recognition?"
"I would say so. Of course no one in this hospital knew him previously, but I very much doubt that anyone who did would recognize him."
"How was he identified as Qwasrolk?"
"I don't know," the doctor said shortly. "The proctors identified him before he arrived here."
"We have no intention of disturbing your patient," Farlan said.
"No effort will be made to talk with him. All we request is that our party be permitted to look at him. It's extremely important. We may be able to help your chief proctor learn something about his accident."
The doctor gestured resignedly. "Before you do so, do any of the rest of y
ou have questions?"
"Have you been able to make any kind of a medical deduction concerning what happened to him?" Darzek asked.
"He was exposed to radiation of an unbelievable intensity," the doctor said, "but only for an instant, I think. A fraction of an instant. More than that fraction would have incinerated him. It's as though some safety device momentarily failed to function. Say a shield dropped into place a mere fraction of a fraction too late. An instant sooner, and he would have been safe; an instant later, and there would have been no' remains to survive."
"Then you deduce that some kind of nuclear experiment was involved?"
"I do, since no other explanation accounts for such an accident on Skarnaf. You'll have to ask the nuclear scientists what kind of experiment would produce radiation of that intensity. I can only say that it was beyond my ability to calculate it, and the exposure time was immeasurably brief."
"Thank you."
They moved further along the corridor. Then, at the doctor's request, they stepped onto the black walkway adjacent to the healing capsules. It rose slowly, lifting them to the level of the upper tier. The doctor opened one of the capsules, and the nuclear personnel experts began filing past, each taking one brief look at the patient.
Darzek knew long before he reached the capsule that there would be no identification. Each expert glanced quickly and jerked his head away, sickened. When finally Darzek came close enough to see for himself, he understood why. He had seen war photos of atomic or firebomb victims. This was their epitome. What once had been a human-type head was a seared skull covered with a burned parchment of flesh. Ears were gone. Hair, nose, even the lips and eyelids were missing, leaving the grinning, toothy face of a death mask. Clothing had slightly protected the body, which was merely burned and looked like one monstrous scab. The scent of dead and decaying flesh was nauseous.
[Jan Darzek 05] - The Whirligig of Time Page 6
