"You let them do your farming," Darzek said, "but when one of them tried to do something that took him into competition with natives, he was ridiculed and discriminated against. Forlan was particularly resented because he was so brilliant. He inspired jealousy and political maneuvering that kept him from recognition and promotions he deserved."
"But he received wealth and honors!" Min Kallof protested.
"He received wealth because on an industrial world the technological expert's skill is worth money, no matter what his species is. The honors came too late and seemed more like a mockery than a deserved reward."
The masfiln still refused to believe. "Was he really going to do it?" "I don't know," Darzek said. "I think his plans were upset because your people refused to be evacuated. He wanted them to lose this world - to become despised refugees the way his people had. But whether he actually would have destroyed Vezpro even then, I don't know. I'm sure he gloated over his power to do so. I hope that gave him satisfaction enough."
Darzek took his leave of them, expressing regret that he could not stay for the mating ceremony of Wolndur and Melris. "I have to go back and see what crises the galaxy has thought up in my absence," he said. They parted warmly.
But as he stepped into the transmitter, he still could hear Min Kallof muttering, "Why?"
Miss Schlupe was rocking comfortably and knitting. She looked up as Darzek entered and asked, "Finished?"
"I think so. Wolndur has pledged to go through all of Forlan's possessions and destroy anything that remotely looks like the plan for a device to turn a world into a sun."
Miss Schlupe accelerated her rocking. "It seems to me that it could be a useful thing to know if it were controlled properly. Converting a small satellite might make a remote world habitable."
"True enough. That's why I copped a complete set of Forlan's plans. I'll feed them to Supreme, with a lot of built-in precautions concerning who will have access to them."
Miss Schlupe nodded. She kept her eyes on her knitting; her rocking speed did not slacken. "We should have spotted him, you know. He gave himself away repeatedly."
"I know. He displayed his villainy right under our noses, but because you and I come from Earth, where villainy is commonplace, we didn't notice. And the Vezpronians, never having experienced any, didn't recognize it either."
"The first time you met, his insisting that you identify yourself -" "Exactly. No ordinary citizen of the Galactic Synthesis would have suspected that I might be lying about my identity. That would occur only to a person who was abnormally devious himself. And I should have been suspicious when Qwasrolk vanished from the hospital. In his delirium and pain he feared the person responsible. He looked at all of us without really seeing us, and then his eyes fixed on Forlan and he vanished. I saw it, it was obvious, and it didn't register."
"Then Qwasrolk didn't decide that he was the victim of an error until later," Miss Schlupe observed.
Darzek nodded. "Probably because he thought he'd found it. And there were other clues: Forlan's giving me two youngsters as assistants so I'd get as little help as possible. And his setting up a scientific committee of dotards with reputations based on the work they did when they were young. And his horror when I asked whether Kernopplix was present at the government's trade fair symposium - what could one more trader have mattered when so many were present? He must have known Kernopplix, even though Kernopplix didn't know him."
Miss Schlupe nodded. "Abnormal deviousness is right. He was the one who suggested that an alien might ask for Vezpronian females to make us think he was Vezpronian! And when you went to Skarnaf supposedly to identify Qwasrolk, he took along nuclear personnel experts Qwasrolk had never had contact with. I checked. Abnormal deviousness -"
"We should have noticed," Darzek agreed. "Well - everyone knew he was brilliant, but he was far more brilliant than anyone suspected. He ranged through every field of science, and he must have made that basic nuclear discovery himself. And he inspired loyalty in his subordinates. Loyalty and devotion. Young scientists disappeared, changed identities, and entered into obviously illegal nuclear research to perfect his plans and build his machines and conduct his experiments. Even Qwasrolk could rationalize the destruction of a world by calling it an error."
"It didn't even occur to Wolndur and Melris to include his name on the list of people with a grievance against Vezpro," Miss Schlupe said. "How many of his assistants did he murder?"
"Probably all of them. He wouldn't want any witnesses left alive.
It must have been a shock to him to learn that Qwasrolk somehow survived, but even in a state of shock he kept his poise and cleverly let someone else suggest the trip to Skarnaf. Once he saw Qwasrolk's condition, he probably decided that he had nothing to fear from him - though it must have unnerved him a bit when Qwasrolk turned up on Vezpro."
"Have we learned anything?" Miss Schlupe asked.
"Always suspect the person who possesses an unnatural excess of virtue," Darzek said. "Especially when he persists in displaying it. Forlan was an excellent actor, and his act was nauseous."
"I thought we already knew that. The thing that surprises me is the xenophobia. That's only supposed to happen on uncivilized planets like Earth, but here we have a healthy, prosperous, friendly people, and Forlan was mistreated by them, though no doubt he tried to pretend that he wasn't."
"He did," Darzek said. "He told Melris he'd been offered an appointment as mas several times when he was younger, but he hadn't wanted to get involved in politics. It wasn't true."
"Have the people of Vezpro learned anything?"
"They should have learned never to confine anyone in a ghetto - because of race or species or anything else."
"Ghetto? Those prosperous farms and farming communities?" "There are spiritual ghettos," Darzek said. "If you confine a person's spirit, letting him live in marble halls doesn't compensate. He's just as much a prisoner as he'd be in a hovel. If the spirit is great enough, and the confinement severe enough, all of the civilizing influences of the galaxy can't contain the result."
"Then the people of Vezpro did this to themselves. Would it do any good to tell them?"
"No. As you said, they're healthy, prosperous, and friendly.
They're also generous, kindly, and helpful. They'd never be able to accept the fact that their own petty hatred created a master criminal who came within an eyelash of destroying them. Hatred is the most dangerous emotion in the universe - to the person who hates. Hate anyone long enough and your hatred is certain to be returned. With interest. Got your mushrooms packed?"
"I decided to take four cargo compartments. I have an idea for a new kind of burger with chopped meat and mushrooms and -"
"Schluppy! "
"Bring my rocking chair," she said.
Darzek picked it up and followed her to the transmitter.
[Jan Darzek 05] - The Whirligig of Time Page 24
