John Rackhan

by Ipomoea

  "I bet I know a lot more about it than you do, Hutten, but even I do not know nearly enough. Let's hear you, though."

  "Well." Sam reflected, gathered his data accurately by long habit, and delivered it. "Happy Sugar is the common name given to the latest in a long line of psychedelic chemicals. That's fact; the rest is informed conjecture. The discernible effects are to produce in the subject a state of relaxed bliss and satisfaction that does not, so far as can be seen, impair in any way the affective or motor capabilities. So far as is known there are no deleterious physical effects. The many casualties attributable to the drug have been found to be due to its encouragement of innate tendencies. By that I mean, suppose somebody was suicide-bent but lacking the confidence to go ahead and do it. The drug would give him the confidence to do what he had wanted to do all along. The state of mind is describable as not giving a damn. So far as I know, no one knows where the stuff comes from, what it is chemically, or who, if anybody, is producing it. Those who get hooked on it won't talk. It is only guesswork that it is passed in the form of adulterated sugar, hence the name. That's about it, I think."

  "Sounds to me like you halfway approve of the stuffl"

  "I didn't say that."

  "No." Venner chewed his cigar aside and grimaced. "But the tone of voice didn't register offense. It should have."

  "Why?" Sam demanded. "I don't take drugs myself, at all, but that is my good fortune, nothing else. I can well understand anyone who wants to get away from reality. Even you, Mr. Venner. And that stuff." Sam pointed to the glass. "Alcohol, no matter how you dress it up, is the basic stuff in all drinks-for-pleasure, and its effect is to depress the critical faculties, is a blurring of reality. I don't have that need. It's not something for me to be proud of, just a fact of circumstance. But it doesn't give me the right to condemn anyone else. If you want to stun your faculties with alcohol it's up to you. If somebody wants to be happy— or should I say happier?—with some drug or other, who am I to point a finger?"

  "Hmm!" Venner gnawed his cigar savagely. "You ivory-tower boys can always made a good case. Trouble is, you don't know enough. You can feel easy in your mind 'about paper data, but you wouldn't, if you could see the human wreckage at first hand."

  "You seem to know who I am," Sam retorted stiffly. "You should know, therefore, that I am a social scientist. I am acquainted with the raw material that you speak of. I think I can claim to know as much about people as ever you do, sir!"

  "Scientist?" Venner growled it irritably. "You sociologi-cians like to think you have a science, but what have you really got, apart from a few ineffective and opinionated guesses?"

  "Don't argue science with me, Mr. Venner," Sam warned. "You'll come out knotted. I've met your kind before."

  "Hah!" The old man's grin was now definitely gnomish. Science is neutral—has to be, by definition. And how can it be neutral when the experimental matter is human beings, huh? Science! You don't know what you're talking aboutl"

  "Indeed!" Sam felt suddenly easy and calm. He sat back. "Do me the favor of keeping quiet for just a few minutes, sir, and I will have the decided pleasure of showing you that you are a stupid old fool. A pleasure, because yoi have asked for it—and because it is seldom that I get th< chance to put a thick-skulled diehard through the mill. No that it will achieve anything, because a man your age i far too old to change his mental habits, but it might jus give you something to think about. Well?"

  Venner's apple-cheeks flushed with color, his sharp eye glittered, and the cigar twitched as he bit on it. "Put m< through the mill? I'm a thick-skulled diehard, am I? Why you—"

  Sam reached out and raised his palm, close to the tabl< surface, his gaze intent over the old man's shoulder. "That': served its purpose, sir," he said. "Your man is just approaching the lady now. She'll do no more snooping for a while."

  "Huh?" Venner froze, then whipped a hand into his pocke and brought out a flat slim box, touched it, laid it on the table. They both heard the big man's voice, still serenely calm

  "—along with me, please. My master wishes to speal with you."

  "Your master?" The astonished reply was in a clear, slight!) strident tone. "What is this, some kind of gag?"

  "Quite a routine, that." The old man chuckled. "Always gets them. She will be along, you'll see. Meanwhile"—and he touched the eavesdropper into silence—"we will take up that other matter. You were going to show me, Hutten, that I am a stupid old fool, I think?"

  "That also was a routine, sir. To give her some intriguing conversation to listen to, just in case. Of course, if you really want me to take you apart, philosophically speaking, I'd be happy to oblige. But surely you have something more important to discuss, else why the ethergram."

  Venner was puzzled now, his jutting white brows coming hard down over his eyes. "Playing games with me, eh?"

  "Matching you, sir, nothing more. You are playing some game that involves masquerading as an agent of the Interplanetary Security Bureau. Fun for you, I dare say. For me it isn't quite so amusing. Someone made a hard try at killing me just a few hours ago. I'm in no mood for humor."

  "We'll talk about that in a while, soon as we have disposed of the long-eared female. Right now you'd better get this. I am an agent of ISB, no game about that, but genuine. Think a bit. Who better to wander freely all over creation, with nobody to ask why, or interfere, than a man in my position?"

  "Head of a busy and thriving electronics industry?"

  "HahI I pick my staff from people who can be relied on to > get along by themselves. I show my face every once in a while, just to ginger them up a bit, and I keep in touch. But most of the time I travel. The story is that I have to keep track of developments all over. And I do, too. But I do a lot of other things on the side, and Security stuff is one of them. Happy Sugar, and those seeds, and you and your father-are all tied up and part of my business. Probably involved in the attempt to kill you, too, but that's to be seen. So I am not playing games, Hutten. Bear it in mind. As they used to say in the old dramas, this is a matter of life and death. Meanwhile, however, and just to entertain our lady snoop, and me, would you kindly go ahead with your promise to take me apart and see what makes me tick!"

  "If you insist." Sam shrugged and then rose politely to his feet as the massive manservant came, escorting the lady from the distant balcony. At close hand she was just as vivid as when seen at a distance, but now the fine detail lent additional interest. Her hair, so black as to yield blue highlights in its gloss, was piled high on her head yet arranged to show the shape of her forehead and ears. A broad brow, smooth over snapping dark eyes, a chiseled nose, a mouth that could have been sensuous but was now set in hard determination that matched her chin's, all went well with her movements, lithe and aggressive. Her elbow-length cape, bright scarlet, was caught at her throat with a bronze buckle to match the pseudo-bronze belt that held her brief frill of skirt. That scanty swirl about her hips, and the skin-close tights she wore, were all in bronze-sparkle red stuff, against which her glow-tan skin gleamed like oiled silk.

  "My name," she declared strongly, "is Louise Martinez, and I don't know what kind of game you think you're playing, but it had better be good. I am not exactly a naive innocent, I warn you."

  "Sit down, Miss Martinez. I'm Orbert Venner. This is Dr. Hutten, and that's Joe. Naive or not, I'm going to want to hear why you were spying on me and Dr. Hutten, here. Your explanation had better be good. Don't try to deny it, or I'll have Joe search you and destroy any recordings you may have made. Remember, in case it had slipped your mind, that this area is outside the law. But we'll get to you later. Right now Dr. Hutten is going to show me that I am a fool. A stupid old fool and a thick-skulled diehard. I am looking forward to it."

  Sam flicked a glance at the impassive manservant, looking for possible opposition, but the giant was just as indifferent as ever. He sat back, took a moment to gather his thoughts, to decide whether or not to let the old man have it hot and strong. If he was an agent
of ISB, and a possible source of help . . . ? But no, he had asked for it.

  "Very well," he said, as he would have addressed a troublesome pupil. "You stated, categorically, two stupid opinions. Several others arising from them we can ignore. The two will suffice. In one you claimed to have more authority than I to speak of and about science, implying that you are a scientist and I am not. In the other you claimed that science is neutral. Do you wish to modify either of those positions now?"

  "I'll stand on those. Science is neutral, has got to be. And if you are a scientist, how come none of your stuff works?"

  "Very well. You, sir, are not a scientist, and never were. Science is the organized attempt of mankind to discover how things work. The operative term is 'discover how', in that phrase. You, and the firm you manage, make things work. There is a difference. You may call yourself a technician, an engineer, a gadgeteer even, but not a scientist. You may, from time to time, wonder how or why a thing works, but that is only part of the time. Your main interest is in making something work—not in explaining it.

  "On the other hand I am a scientist, in that my only preoccupation is to find out how things work, to explain them in some coherent and consistent manner. In my case the subject matter happens to be people and societies, and my task to understand and explain. Not to manipulate. That is for technicians to do. The technicians in this instance are statesmen, politicians, economists, advertisers, salesmen, propagandists of all kinds. Their rate of success is about on a level with the old-time alchemists' in chemistry, but that is up to them, not me. You could never have driven a theory into the old school of alchemy because the practitioners themselves believed that what they were doing was mysterious, magical and non-logical. Modern people-controllers still think this way. They talk about personal magnetism, and inspirational power and so on. Which disposes of your first statement.

  "Science is not neutral. All decisions affecting any proposed course of action are valueless unless based on a precise awareness of the forces involved, and that requires science. Science is just as emotional, as passionate as any other human activity. It differs only in what it seeks to do. It is not concerned with making money, creating power, achieving fame, rescuing the underdog, nor in producing beauty or harmony in sound, image or form. It is concerned simply with finding out how things work. And that can be the hardest thing in th< world. But positive. Not neutral 1"

  "My stuff works. Yours doesn't!" Venner retorted. "Yoi explain that, if you can, Hutten."

  "That is very simple, sir, When you put together a solid-state circuit, for example, it either works the way you want it to, or you scrap it. It does not argue with you. It does no! claim to know more about how it should work than you do, The layman may fear, and even actively oppose, the laboratory scientist, but he has to give in to the fact that he does not know, most of the time, what the lab scientist is doing, 01 talking about. In social science, on the other hand, he believes he knows as much about it, if not more about it, than any so-called scientist. The subject matter is himself, you see. And he knows himself, he thinks. He is quite mistaken, just as mistaken as you are, but is just as unable to see it, because, to him 'believe' and Tcnow' are the same thing."

  "I'll oppose you there," Miss Martinez put in. "You are not going to tell me you know more about me than I do myself."

  "You see?" Sam sighed. "Miss Martinez, you know-believe quite a lot of things that are just not so. But, to step away from possible offense, look at society-at-large, and the thing called moral and social codes of action. Defined, this is: 'Those things which that society believes and declares to be right and proper.' Now inspect that same society and you discover it doing, saying and thinking quite otherwise, in fact. But if you try to tell that society in plain words that it is not good, honest, ethical and decent, as it defines those terms, you'll be in bad trouble. And so, social science does not work in practice, simply because society wants to be told that all its ills are the fault of someone else, or something else. If you're too fat, the only cure is to eat less, but how many people will thank you for that?"

  "He is perfecdy right, sir," said Joe, quietly and with authority.

  V

  Sam looked up in surprise at the impassive servant, then in astonishment at Venner, who grunted, "All right, Joe, you told me, and I am not about to argue with you. Fair enough,

  Hutten, you win. But remind me to take it up again with you some other time. Now, young woman, it's your turn. And just in case you still have some idea of denying anything let me remind you that my business is manufacturing the kind of gadget you were using. Right? Now talk. Start by telling us who you're working for."

  Hutten shelved other interesting questions for the moment and devoted his attention to studying her. She was, he thought, a truly attractive woman, not just merely pretty like so many others, but with a dynamic quality, a restless intensity of purpose. He saw a dozen conflicting impulses pass over her mobile features in as many seconds. Apprehension? Calculation? It was impossible to tell.

  "I don't like him," she said abruptly, jerking her head up and back to indicate Joe. "The strong silent man type has never gone with me. And I don't know that I like you too much either, Mr. Hutten. Nothing personal, just an indication of how we stand. But you"—she leveled her vivid brown eyes on Venner—"I know you. Know about you, anyway. You're rich, and you're eccentric, and that adds up to news in any language. So who do I work for? Stellar Press, that's who."

  "You'll have to prove it," Venner growled. "I won't claim to know all the S.P. boys, but I do know most of 'em, and you don't look the type. You have an ident-card?"

  She put thumbs to the edges of her scarlet cape, swirled it back and clear of her shoulders, then dipped into an interior cache to produce the card he was asking for. Sam watched as he studied it swiftly and passed it back. She returned it to its slot.

  "Satisfied? Or are you now wondering why a gossip-digger and social chit-chat expert should be intrigued by the doings of Dr. Orbert Venner?"

  "You said I am rich and eccentric. That's enough, isn't it? That's all you're going to get, anyway. You can go, Miss Martinez."

  "Now just a minute!" Her face set immediately into belligerence, and Hutten was fascinated. She was utterly unlike any woman he had so far met, neither overawed by male company, nor, seemingly, aware of her considerable attractiveness. Even her voice, which could have been pleasant had it been cared for, was aggressively hard. "You sent your slave here to drag me on to the carpet before you. I came. I am entitled to say my piece, and I'm going to. Gossip I can get any time, but this is something bigger, and I want in."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Who's trying to deny things now? Dr. Hutten—" She swung her stare abruptly, and Sam blinked. "I've just managed to place you. Sam Hutten, and your old man is Rex Hutten, right? And you two are nose to nose about something. Something big." She laid her palms flat on the table and seemed to go through another spasm of conflicting emotions. Sam watched her, the smilk-smooth gloss of her shoulders and bosom, the oily gleam intriguing him. Some new hormone-cream fad, his memory served up for him, that was supposed to preserve the compexion and banish the telltale saggings of age. Even in this day and age, when fasion as such had ceased to exercise authority over what anyone wore, there was still this desire to improve on nature. And it was always those who didn't need it who went for it. Or was it a case, as he had once read, that if you waited until you need it, you were too late by far? Anyway, Miss Martinez had no need of any artifice. Seemingly something akin to that crossed her mind now, for she relaxed, all at once.

  "Look, I'll give it you straight. In the presence of a trained sociologist, maybe it's the only way. Anyway, look at me, will you? Latin-American mostly, and it shows. There's a bit of Irish in there, too. And what does it add up to? I have a pretty face, a large bust, hips that wiggle and legs that catch the eye. But I also have a brain, only no one will let me use it! My editor, damn his hide always says, 'The brain doe
sn't show, darling; the rest does. With what you've got, who needs brains? Just keep the copy coming in, you know the kind of thing I want!' And I do. Who is interested in who and doing what, and when? What new combination of plastic and paint is the current rave? Sneaky bits about the latest tri-di stars. Stuff like that. I make this trip, Earth-to Mars, about once a month. The rest of the time I trail around the other flesh-pots. And I am sick of it, up to here!"

  She sat back now, hooked thumbs in her belt and snorted. Venner sat quite still, almost as impassive as his manservant.

  "I know," she resumed, "that I am on the edge of a big story. I know. Call it intuition, guesswork, whatever you like, but I know. And I'm wasting my time, even if you two break down and tell me everything you're up to." v "Why would it be a waste of time?" Sam asked.

  "Because," she told him, "I would cable it back to Earth, and my darling editor would say 'Thank you very much, Louise, I'll get somebody on it right away!' And that would put me outside in the cold again. But at least I would have lived with the real thing for just a moment. A story!"

  "You seem to have answered your own problem," Venner muttered, and Sam frowned. He could understand, dimly, what it must be like to be frustrated in something like this.

  "Wouldn't you follow it through on your own initiative?"

  "Using what for expenses?" she demanded instantly. "Look, I have a Stellar Press visa-card, but if I used it on my own hook to follow you two wherever you're going, Hymie would bounce the account so fast—and I'd be sunk, out of a job, and probably in debt for several years!"

  "But you are still going to cable the tip back to your head-office?" Venner suggested in a low rumble.

  "Rules of the game." She smiled, baring only her teeth and with no humor at all. "A story is a story, and this one is something."

  "Hmm!" Venner chewed on his cigar a moment, then, "Would you listen to a proposition?" "Depends."