[Jan Darzek 05] - The Whirligig of Time

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  "It's a feeble ploy, but it was the only thing I could think of," Darzek admitted.

  Nothing came of it. Qwasrolk probably had found enough blank records to know that such a search would lead nowhere.

  Darzek was still mulling over this failure when Miss Schlupe asked suddenly, "What ever happened to Kernopplix?"

  "He went home," Darzek said. "Rich and about to become much richer - he thought."

  "Since he's completely out of it, perhaps the full authority of the Galactic Synthesis could prevail upon him to supply some information. It might even be suggested that traders around the galaxy will refuse to do business with him if he doesn't cooperate."

  "I'm slowing down in my old age," Darzek said disgustedly. "We never should have let him leave."

  "Do you know for a fact that he went home?" "No."

  "We'll have to send someone to Bbran," Miss Schlupe said.

  "It should be a trader. We'd better let E-Wusk handle it - he'll know the right person to send."

  "What if it turns out that Kernopplix didn't go home?" Miss Schlupe asked.

  "What's one more complication in a case like this?"

  The evacuations were continuing at a diminishing trickle. Finally Darzek received a message from E- Wusk. He read it and told Miss Schlupe, "If we haven't passed the point of no return, we're about to. From now on, there's no possibility of evacuating the entire population - just getting off as many people as we can."

  "Tell the government that," she suggested.

  Darzek had E-Wusk send a message, purportedly from Primores and the Council of Supreme, informing Min Kallof that if mass evacuations did not start immediately, it would be too late to complete them by the new year, and the Council would order E-Wusk to close down his rescue operation and return to Primores. This brought an instant response; the evacuation rate picked up considerably, with the government actively encouraging people to leave.

  But the politicians refused to make evacuation mandatory. Darzek muttered, "The fools!" Then he added, "I hope they're right."

  Miss Schlupe's employees continued to work meticulously, checking out every line of investigation that either of them could think of and piling the results on their desks each morning before starting another day's search. Inevitably it amounted to a mountain of drivel, but Darzek and Miss Schlupe had to sift it carefully on the chance that it concealed a gem. Darzek obtained sets of photos of Vezpro from space, covering more than a year, and put a special team to work with the best space photo reading equipment available to meticulously search for an excavation in a barren place that had been quickly covered over and relandscaped. They found nothing that looked remotely suspicious. It was more time and effort wasted, and time was relentlessly slipping away.

  One day Miss Schlupe asked Darzek, "Are you going to stay?" Darzek reflected. "No. I have no obligation to die here. What about your investigators and commandos? They're probably better informed about the risk than anyone on Vezpro. We can easily evacuate all of them in your ship."

  "Good thought," she said. "I'll find out how many want to leave."

  She hesitated. "They may want to know whether we're going. I agree with you. I don't mind dying in a cause, but my death on Vezpro wouldn't accomplish a thing. Our first duty was to save the population, but the population wouldn't let us. Our second duty is to keep this bastard from doing the same thing somewhere else."

  She polled all of her employees and came back to report, "They're staying. One hundred per cent."

  "No wonder we couldn't evacuate the population," Darzek said.

  "What's the refugee total going to be?"

  "The rate is still picking up. E-Wusk hopes for a rush as the new cycle approaches. If he gets it, the total may reach half a billion."

  "That's still a lot of lives," Darzek said. "So we didn't exactly labor in vain."

  "No. But E-Wusk feels crushed anyway. He wanted to save everyone."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To buy mushrooms. I get them directly from one of the farms, now. They'll sell retail if you buy large quantities, so I keep what you and I need and distribute the rest among my employees. Want to come along? Those long tunnels with acres of fungus are quite a sight."

  Darzek shook his head wearily. "My mind is on matters rather remote to mushrooms. What I'd really like is some tobacco."

  Miss Schlupe sniffed disdainfully. "Do you want to poison yourself?"

  "Maybe that's the kind of stimulus I need," Darzek said.

  21

  Darzek decided to visit the rural grove and makeshift shelter where he had seen Qwasrolk and found his scribbled nuclear speculations. He wondered whether Qwasrolk had ever returned to the place. Emerging from the nearest village, he discovered to his amazement that winter had arrived. In the sprawling, transmitterized cities with their domed parks, one could forget that such a thing as weather existed. Here the fields were lightly snow-covered; the strange treelike plants in the grove were bare stems. The cold felt bitter and penetrating. Winds had blown the shelter apart.

  Darzek strolled down to the farm and found it deserted. The farmer and his wife probably had sold out and gone off with the other Hlaswannian refugees. As for Qwasrolk, no one had seen him for so long that Darzek doubted that he was still alive. Certainly he should have died long ago - all the doctors agreed on that. His remains might be lying at this moment in some similar grove, beneath another improvised shelter that the winds were tearing apart, lightly snow-covered and awaiting chance and the spring for discovery.

  If spring came again to this hemisphere of Vezpro.

  Darzek, with the feeling that he was doing nothing, learning nothing, trudged back to the village and the nearest transmitter that would return him to Klinoz. He could see, in the gathering dusk, the eleventh planet blazing vividly above the horizon. Soon the night side of Vezpro would be bathed with a light brighter than moonlight. Perhaps at opposition Vezpro's climate would be affected - if Vezpro was not having its own distinctive effect on the climates of other planets by then.

  Back at the apartment he shared with Miss Schlupe, he found her placidly rocking while a pot of mushrooms bubbled in the corner of the room that served as a kitchen when the occupants wanted to do their own cooking.

  "My ship just arrived," she said. "It's parked at Transfer Station 411. Have you decided when you want to leave?"

  "We don't need to hurry," Darzek said. "From what I've seen, there'll be no last-minute rush for ships. Most of the Vezpronians act as though they couldn't care less."

  "Never mind. We've moved quite a few millions to safety, and the traffic is increasing a little. You didn't answer my question. Do we leave now, and pick up E-Wusk, and go back to Primores where we can pretend we wield a little influence, or do we hang around here until the last minute?"

  "The evacuation should be continued until the last minute," Darzek said. "Anyone who wants to leave should be able to. Is E-Wusk prepared just in case there is a rush?"

  "I don't know. I can tell him to be prepared."

  "And I can send Min Kallof a message, supposedly from Primores, ordering him to announce to the entire population that it has one final chance to leave. As for us - we don't have to wait until quite the last minute. How about noon of the day before the new cycle?"

  "I'll tell UrsNollf," she said. "And I'll have my crew aboard and waiting."

  Darzek studied his calendar absently. He had replaced the elaborate gadget left behind at their former address with a simpler model, but it told the date just as vividly. Ten days until the new cycle.

  "Tell your crew to go aboard five days from now and obtain clearance so there won't be any last-minute delay. And let E-Wusk know that we'll be prepared to haul a load of refugees, just in case there is a rush."

  "Will do," Miss Schlupe agreed, with a nod of satisfaction.

  Min Kallof reacted to Darzek's message with alacrity. He himself spoke to the people of Vezpro, conveying the fina
l warning of the Galactic Synthesis. Listening to him, Darzek regretted that he hadn't handled the promotion himself. They were offering an all-expenses paid vacation on some remote, scenic planet, with round-trip passage if there was any world to return to, and any minion of Madison Avenue could have started a stampede with an opportunity like that. Min Kallof delivered his presentation with neither urgency nor appeal, but he conveyed the facts as ordered, and a mild run on E-Wusk's ships resulted.

  Even that effect was somewhat spoiled by the activities of Naz Forlan's scientists. They chose that day to launch the artificial satellites that were to save Vezpro. Forlan did not publicize his project in fact, he managed it as discreetly as possible. The satellites were launched on the night side of the planet by a small spaceship that towed them, one at a time, into the proper orbit, got them moving at the prescribed speed, and turned them loose.

  But some of his scientists talked, or perhaps it was the spaceship crew. The news spread, and by evening the parks of Klinoz were filled with citizens watching the new, fast-moving stars.

  UrsNollf came to see Darzek. There was nothing more for him to do, and he was eager to go home. "Will the things work?" Darzek asked him. .

  "I think they might. It isn't my field, you know, but Forlan's scientists seem very confident."

  Darzek told him he wouldn't have long to wait and sent him aboard Miss Schlupe's ship.

  "You don't believe it, huh?" Miss Schlupe remarked, when he had left.

  "I do not. But then - science left me with Galileo. I've never been able to understand why a heavy object doesn't fall faster than a light one. It certainly falls harder - enough things have landed on my feet to convince me of that, even though they didn't drop from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I can't understand how any kind of ray or wave, be it radio, or magnetic, or X ray, or ultraviolet, or whatever, would have much effect on a mechanical device that probably is buried ten or twenty meters deep. The scientists at Zarst can't understand, either."

  "What have they accomplished at Zarst?" Miss Schlupe asked. "Nothing. At least they admit it. Raf Lolln is heartbroken."

  "Then we can write off the scientists. We can't criticize them, because we didn't do well, either. It's certain now that we're not going to catch the guy - we still haven't got a clue as to who or what or where he may be. That leaves the psychological angle. Will he or won't he? Shall we start packing?"

  "What have you got to pack?"

  "I'm taking a cargo compartment of dried mushrooms," Miss Schlupe said. "And my rocking chair. Otherwise, a couple of suitcases will get me back to Primores. What about you?"

  "I have no rocking chair, and I can eat your mushrooms. One suitcase. But we aren't going directly to Primores. We'll park in a remote orbit and observe. If Vezpro turns into a sun, I want to see it happen. Then we'll go to Skarnaf and pick up E-Wusk."

  "I think I'll make it two cargo compartments of dried mushrooms," Miss Schlupe said thoughtfully, "just in case they're no longer available after the new cycle."

  On the third day before cycle's end, the leader of Miss Schlupe's commandos came to see her. She listened briefly and then summoned Darzek. "Eld Wolndur recognized one of my commandos and asked if there was any way to get a message to you. He says it's urgent."

  "Since we're about to leave anyway, there's no harm in letting him know that we're still here," Darzek said. "He and Melris might want to leave with us." He turned to the commando leader. "Find out where he'll be, and when, and I'll meet him."

  She returned a short time later and gave Darzek a transmitter address. He didn't recognize it, so he copied it for Miss Schlupe. "This is beginning to sound peculiar," he said. "If I vanish, follow me with your commandos."

  "Delighted to," Miss Schlupe said. "All that training and no one to use it on. They'd be ecstatic if I let them perform some three-armed judo on the villain."

  "Make certain they know I'm not the villain," Darzek said and stepped through the transmitter.

  To his amazement, he found himself in an underground tunnel that housed a marketplace. It was not one he had seen before. These shops were narrow stalls built of rough stone, and the customers were served at a counter-type opening; but the general arrangement was the same, with vendors on either side of the brightly lighted, arched tunnel, and here and there a vacant stall, sometimes enclosed with slats.

  He was looking about bewilderedly when Wolndur came hurrying toward him. "Gul Darr -"

  Darzek pressed a finger to his lips. He had dashed off without his disguise - not that it mattered, but he thought it just as well not to advertise his name. "What do you want?" he asked.

  Wolndur looked about nervously and then whispered. "We've found Qwasrolk."

  "Alive?" Darzek asked quickly.

  "Yes. Barely."

  "Where?"

  Wolndur turned and headed along the tunnel. Darzek followed at a discreet distance. They both wove their way through the slow-moving shoppers and occasionally became entangled with them where some shop was offering a bargain.

  Up ahead, the tunnel came to an end. The stall on the right was empty and enclosed with slats. Wolndur, without looking behind him, pulled the slats aside and slipped from sight. Darzek arrived a moment later and paused to look about. No one was paying the slightest attention. He supposed that empty stalls were routinely inspected now and then by prospective tenants, though this location at the end of the tunnel wouldn't be a choice one. To a citizen of Vezpro, any kind of illegal or even improper activity would be unthinkable. Darzek pulled at the slats and struggled past them, catching his clothing on the edges.

  Wolndur stood bending over a low cot of a type Vezpronians used to save space - it could be folded up like an accordion. Melris Angoz knelt beside it. On the cot was Qwasrolk. A dim light hung above them.

  Darzek spoke softly. "How'd you happen to find him?"

  "This was one of the addresses on that list Melris compiled," Wolndur said. "I decided to have a look at all of them. And he was lying on the floor here, unconscious. So I got Melris, and we brought a bed and blankets."

  Darzek regarded the two of them respectfully. The warehouses had been checked carefully - they had records to look at. But he himself hadn't thought to give the empty shops more than a glance. "Has a doctor seen him?" he asked.

  "Yes. A friend of mine. He promised not to file a report. There's nothing that can be done for him medically. We've been trying to build up his strength - he takes food tablets and water and liquid food capsules if they're placed in his mouth. We've been afraid to let anyone know he's here, because they'd try to take him to a hospital, and he'd disappear again." He paused. "I was sure you hadn't left Vezpro, but I didn't know how to find you."

  "You couldn't have done any better with my help," Darzek said.

  "You handled things exactly right. Have you tried to talk with him?"

  "Just to try to get him to eat, or to make him comfortable. We haven't tried to ask him anything. We were afraid he'd disappear."

  Qwasrolk was lying on his side, his face to the wall, with a light blanket pulled over his head. Darzek was not unhappy that the grotesque mask of his face was concealed.

  "He seems stronger, now," Melris said softly. "I don't think he'd eaten in a long time. He was obsessed with something. Nothing else mattered, not even food."

  "And yet he refused to tell anyone," Darzek mused.

  "We don't even know whether he can talk," Melris protested. Darzek reflected. "That's right. He's certainly never said anything the few times I've seen him. We'll have to find out. It would be a help if he could just tell us what happened to him. It may have no connection with Vezpro."

  "It's suggestive that he was found here and that he was seen at another location where the nuclear materials were shipped," Melris said.

  "'Suggestive' is the word for it," Darzek agreed. "But if he can't or won't talk, it'll never be anything more than that. We'll have to try to question him."

 
Darzek knelt beside Melris. He resisted an impulse to shake Qwasrolk awake and start firing questions. This mutilated being perhaps knew the answers to all the riddles that had plagued them, but Darzek remembered only too vividly what had happened the last time he clutched that dead flesh. A sudden move, loud speech, or a threatening manner could undo all that Melris and Wolndur had accomplished with kindness and gentle care.

  "Perhaps it would be better if you questioned him," he said to Melris.

  "What should I ask him?"

  "What happened to him, and where, and who did it." "All right. But I think we should wait until he wakes up."

  They had been talking in whispers. All that time the shrouded form on the cot lay motionless except for irregular, deep breathing.

  They waited.

  The blanket heaved suddenly as a bent knee straightened. The body turned; the grotesque mask stared up at them.

  Melris bent over it with a smile. "How are you feeling? Hungry?" She offered a food pill, but there was no response. The lipless mouth did not open; the teeth remained clenched. Melris, sounding very nervous, asked, "Qwasrolk, can you tell us what happened to you?"

  At least he was accustomed to them and to his surroundings. He showed no alarm, even when his gaze wandered and his eyes rested briefly on Darzek. Melris asked again, "What happened to you?"