CHAPTER 14
The door was visible as a dull black rectangle down at the end of the semicircular tiled corridor. Mike had limped along that curve at a fair clip, conscious of the ringing echoes from his own studded boots. But as he approached the door his pace gradually slowed. A few feet from it he stopped completely.
The portal was tall and broad, a slab of thick ebony. Mike knew very well what lay behind it: Maxwell Robert Dalzell, Master Trader.
Mike had seen the name of Dalzell on his first day as a trainee, when with forty-three other hopefuls he had wandered around the perimeter of the classroom looking at the names, pictures, and dates embossed on the paneled walls. His attention had been taken by the devil's grin and bright blue eyes on one of the pictures. He stopped to read the name and look at the full description.
Maxwell Robert Dalzell: graduate of the Traders' training course thirty years ago, at the age of seventeen. Master Trader seven years later, an unheard-of accomplishment for one as young as twenty-four. One more year, and Dalzell had engineered the signing of the first power treaty between the Great Republic and the Chills. He had made the first Trader trip to space, for discussions and negotiation with the Chipponese; and he was the absolute expert on the Unified Empire, with more than fifty successful trips to his credit to every major center from Mexity to F'waygo.
Since that first day, Dalzell and his exploits had never been far from Mike's thoughts. They had been flags to wave him on to greater personal efforts. That knowledge ran through his head now, when he at last touched the monitor at the side of the entrance.
The door slid open with a purr of motors at the base. He stepped forward and found himself looking into an empty room. "Be with you in a few minutes, Asparian," said a voice from inside the door itself. "I'm recording in the inner room. Come in and make yourself comfortable."
The room Mike entered was sparsely furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a long row of file cabinets. There was one other door: a plain sheet of solid steel at the far end, with heavy cipher locks on its edges. The walls were seamless, white-painted, and decorated everywhere with plaques and photographs. The desk top was covered with mementos, statues, and images.
Mike stood for a few seconds gazing expectantly at the inner door, then went to sit in the visitor's chair. He stared at the desktop array. It was a display of Trader memorabilia, beyond anything he ever seen or heard of outside the Trader Museum. There was a signed copy—or was it the original?—of the first Unified Empire/Cap Federation joint venture. Maxwell Dalzell had arranged that one himself. It was standing on part of a holmium Chipponese trading token, the sort they had used before the Traders brought them in line with the currencies of the other major regions. Dalzell again! Next to the platelike token was a facsimile of an early Yankee-Trader treaty, and behind it stood a picture of a smiling Strine bigmomma, displaying one of the first biolab products allowed to emerge from the Strine Interior.
There was no doubt where Dalzell's heart lay. None of the pictures showed the man himself, but every one was some personal triumph of Trader negotiation. Mike was still admiring them when the inner door opened and a tall, strongly-built man breezed through.
"Hello." He gave Mike a casual nod. "Don't need to bother with formal introductions, do we? I'm Max Dalzell, and you're Mikal Asparian. No, don't stand up," he went on, as Mike started to struggle to his feet. "I'm not the Trader Anthem." He flashed Mike the famous wide grin that went well with the abrupt manner. "Daddy-O says you're all charged up and raring for a new mission. Right?"
"I'm certainly ready to give it a try. I hope I'm not rusty."
"Don't worry about it. A good Trader never loses the knack. And from everything I've heard, you really needed a break. But the vacation's over. Now it's time for work." Dalzell flopped into the chair behind the desk and gave Mike a quick, appraising glance. That gave Mike a chance for his own inspection—he had seen pictures of Dalzell, dozens of them, but this was his first face-to-face encounter with a senior idol.
He saw a man almost a head taller than his own medium height, with a loose, athletic swing to the shoulders. The arms were well muscled in the short-sleeved shirt, and his wrists were thick and powerful, supporting massive, blunt-fingered hands. The surprise came lower on the body. Dalzell had a substantial paunch at his midriff—something never shown on his pictures. And his face was fuller and saggier than Mike expected, with jowls, a broader nose, and signs of a double chin.
A legend growing old; inevitable, but it couldn't have happened inside Mike's imagination. Dalzell was enshrined there as the golden-haired Master Trader, the youngest in history. Now the hair was receding from the temples, and it was streaked with gray.
The grin was still the same, though, and the gleam in the blue eyes was unchanged. It was clear that Maxwell Dalzell enjoyed big natural advantages as a Trader. There was something in that look and smile that reached out and demanded instant respect and sympathy. It made Mike suddenly dissatisfied with his own appearance.
There was another smile from across the desk, and a little nod of the graying head. "Fine. Inspections complete? Then let's talk. We've got a lot of ground to cover. We're going to be worrying today about the Cap Federation territories. How much do you know about the Chills?"
Mike thought for a moment and decided on the most honest answer. "If I weren't talking to Max Dalzell, I'd say I know a lot. But everyone says you're the expert. They say you've forgotten more about the Cap Federation than most people have ever learned."
"They do, do they?" Dalzell frowned, but did not look either surprised or displeased. "I ought to be used to what 'they' say about me, but I never am. But I can tell you this, I know the Greasers a whole lot better than I'll ever know the Chills—and I've got lots to learn about both of 'em. Now, how good is the grapevine these days? Did anyone leak why you're here?"
"No, sir." Mike hesitated, but Dalzell simply sat and waited. When he wanted to he gave an impression of infinite patience and unlimited time. "I received a message from Daddy-O, telling me I'm well enough for a new mission."
"Do you agree?"
There was the heart of the matter. "I'm not sure, sir."
"Well, we'll see. And while you're at it, you can stop calling me, sir." Dalzell leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his belly. "Daddy-O tells me you're pretty damned good. How do you feel about that?"
"I hope I'm good, sir." Mike winced, but the last word had popped out involuntarily. He shrugged. "You know, Rule Ten." If you don't have confidence in your ability, no one else will.
"Damn right." Dalzell's gruff voice sounded delighted with the reply. "And that's the answer I was hoping for. So let's get down to it. I can tell you now: you'll need to be good for this one. We're talking of an official mission down onto the ice cap, to the middle of Cap Federation territory. You'll need to be one hotshot negotiator. The Unified Empire wants us to act on its behalf for a ten-year deal on gaming-table robot controllers. They're finally admitting what I've been telling 'em for fifteen years—the Chills are so far ahead of everybody else in microelectronics that nobody else has a hope of competing. Apparently it's finally sunk into their thick skulls, and they called me ten days ago. I set out terms they can live with, and I'm fairly sure Cap City will go along with them."
There was a lot hidden behind those words. Dalzell was doing his best to build Mike's enthusiasm and confidence, but more than that he was pointing out the difference between a Trader and a Master Trader: One didn't just negotiate a deal if one wanted to go to the top—one sold the idea of the deal in the first place. And terms of agreement that both sides would be able to live with were set up before anyone ever got near the negotiation table.
Dalzell was staring at him. "Well? Ready to try it? You don't look too keen."
Mike nodded reluctant agreement. "I'm ready to take the assignment, naturally. But it sounds as though you've already done the hard work."
"Dead right." The grin again. "By design. We want
you to have lots of time to spare when you're down on the ice cap. You see, your second agenda item is a dilly. Ready for the old hook?"
Mike sat up straighter.
"Ever hear of Seth Paramine?"
"No, sir."
"Good. You shouldn't have. Ever hear of an idiot savant?"
"A . . . knowing idiot, isn't that what the words mean?"
"They do. But I think you'll admit that doesn't make much sense. Don't feel too bad, I was in the same position a week ago. 'Idiot savant' is a phrase used to describe a special sort of person, normal or often very subnormal in most areas, but with special talents in a particular field. We're all like that in some ways—you could train me forever, and I'd never be able to carry a tune—but the idiot savants take it to extremes. Take a look at something."
Dalzell leaned across to the control settings on the desk. A portion of the wall in front of Mike turned to reveal a holographic projection field. As the room lights dimmed, he found himself looking into a large bare room. The only furnishings were a thick carpet, with small spheres and oblongs of bright plastic scattered randomly across it, and a pile of white cardboard sheets next to them. Seated in the middle of the mess, head hunched forward on his shoulders, was an overweight youth in his late teens. His lower legs were bare, and he wore only a plain white smock that covered him from neck to knees. He was holding half a dozen of the colored plastic spheres and idly sliding them over each other.
"Seth Paramine," Dalzell said. "Nineteen years old. Born in the northern part of the Great Republic, in the wheat belt. Parents both normal, but he didn't learn to stand until he was five, or walk until he was six and a half. He said his first word at ten. He cannot read or write, or speak a complete sentence. He is sexually mature, but has no interest in sex. Until two years ago, the institute where he stayed thought he had no interest in anything, except food and toys. But they were wrong. Watch closely now. This is a top-secret recording that no other Traders have seen."
The fat youth had stopped playing with the plastic balls and was staring around him. The face was dull and doughy, with deep-set eyes under a beetling brow. After a few more seconds he reached out his left hand and took one of the big cardboard sheets off the pile. He peered at it for a long time, rubbing the side of his nose with his fingers.
"Patience," Max Dalzell said softly. "We're nearly there now."
The youth bent his head down to an inch or two from the sheet. Then he grunted and took a fat pencil from the pocket of his white smock. He began to mark the surface of the cardboard. The field of view zoomed in to show that the original white board was covered with a complicated network of crossing and intersecting lines. The pencil was being used to mark in changes to the pattern. Mike could hear the grunts and mutters of satisfaction as the work went on. Finally, the field of view moved back, and after another few seconds the image blinked out of existence.
"Mysterious enough, I imagine," Dalzell said as the lights of the room came back to full strength. "It was to me, until I was given the explanation. Seth Paramine is one of that rare group of people, the idiot savants. And he is a spectacular example. Those cardboard sheets are electronic schematics—circuit diagrams, blown up thousands of times over their original dimensions. They came from Chill microcircuits, and they're the most advanced gadgets on the market. What you saw there was Seth Paramine studying the designs—and improving them. He can't write his name. He wears diapers. In every area of the world except one, he's a complete idiot. But he has an intuitive grasp of microcircuit functional design that no one else can understand or equal. In the area of electronic analysis, he's a genius."
Mike remembered the squat figure and the inert, lifeless face. "That's ridiculous!"
"It is—but it's true." Max Dalzell slid a thin wafer across the top of the desk. "Take a look at some of the data on that. People like Paramine are rare, but they crop up now and again in a lot of different fields. Daddy-O pulled together a whole batch of information about other cases scattered over the past few centuries, just to give us background. Some of them are damned near unbelievable, but they're all authentic. The most common cases seem to be in mathematics and music. Play through the data and I guarantee you'll be surprised. So far as Daddy-O knows, Paramine is the first in his particular field. But the field didn't exist a century ago, so that's not too surprising."
Mike picked up the wafer and slipped it into his pocket. "I'll listen to it. But I'm confused. Paramine lives up in the northern part of the Great Republic, and I'm going to the South Pole. What's it have to do with my mission? What's the connection?"
"A strong one." Dalzell was enjoying himself. "You see, Mike, Seth Paramine isn't up in Yankeeland any more. He's down on the ice cap. The Chills are the world experts on microcircuit design, and so when they somehow heard about him, they wanted him. They took him. Four days ago, Seth Paramine disappeared from the institution in the Great Republic. He hasn't been heard from since—but all the evidence suggests a Chill smash operation. They're damn near as good at a rapid, quiet pickup as we are."
"What do they want him for? They have genius designers of their own."
"But none with such strange design logic. According to the Yankees, the Chills don't want Paramine to design for them—they just want to poke around inside his head, to know how he does it."
"Do we have proof that the Chills are holding Paramine?"
"Not proof—and the Chills aren't going to admit a thing—but there's some pretty good indirect evidence. The Yankees suspected the Chills as soon as Paramine was kidnapped and disappeared. Old-Billy Waters acted fast, and signed with the Chipponese to buy high-resolution surveillance from polar orbit. A couple of the frames that came back showed somebody a lot like Paramine in transit from Cap City to an isolated station. He's seen climbing into an aircar, and then getting out at Mundsen Labs. That would be the logical place for him, along with the rest of their hotshot hardware architects."
"Is Old-Billy likely to try a rescue?"
"No way. He knows he'd fail for sure. You know the Chill defense system. So Old-Billy is angry as hell, but he's not ready to break off dealing with the Chills. He needs 'em too much. And Paramine really isn't much use to the Republic—they don't have the right technology base. I think they'd have sold him to the Chills for any decent offer. But Old-Billy would like to have absolute proof that Paramine was kidnapped, then he'll really stick that in the Chills' ear on the next big negotiation. Which is where we—or rather you—come in. Still interested in the assignment?"
Mike started to give an upward wriggling shrug of his shoulders. He stopped when he realized that it was a gesture he had picked up as a trainee, from pictures of Maxwell Dalzell. "It means I have to find a way to get myself inside Mundsen Labs and make recordings of Paramine."
"That's the bottom line. We'll help. But there are lots of details to worry about. I'm going to bring Daddy-O into the loop—that's the sort of thing a computer does better than we'd ever do it. But let me mention one other thing before we open the circuit. You'll be absolutely on your own once you reach the ice cap. No Mentor, no partner."
"Good." Mike spoke almost under his breath. "I've had all I can take with team missions."
"I understand. We'll put in the new fingertip recorder. It's a mile ahead of the old recording disk, but it won't help anyone unless you get back here. When we throw in those factors, Daddy-O doesn't put your chances very high—in fact, all the outputs set the probability level of your success between one and two percent. I'm willing to back you, even with those odds—if you are game."
Mike took a deep breath. Now or never. I have to prove to myself that I'm out of the slump, even if it kills me. "I want it. I want the job."
"Great." Dalzell leaned forward to grasp Mike's hand in his. Mike felt as though an electric discharge had crackled across between them. "I was sure you would. It's going to be a mission in a million. Damn it, I just wish I could go with you."
"So do I." There was real feeling
in Mike's voice.
"But it's impossible. They tell me I've got too many Trader secrets inside my head."
Mike nodded. He would have given a lot to have Big Max there to prompt him. He licked his lips nervously, something he could not imagine Max Dalzell doing, ever, and felt a first tremble of nervous anticipation.
"I'm ready." He stood up. "And thanks for the chance. When do I leave?"
CHAPTER 15
Idiot savant. Daddy-O had given Mike all he could handle about that subject on the Trader flight down to F'waygo. Waiting for the Chill connection that would take him to Cap City, Mike thought again about Seth Paramine. The Yankee youth was merely the most recent in a long and curious line.
Two hundred years before, there had been Blind Tom Bethune, a sightless, half-witted Negro slave. Born in 1849, he was scarcely able to speak, and he had to be coaxed into playing the piano by gifts of cakes and candy from his owner. But he had absolute pitch and a phenomenal memory. He could imitate any sound he heard, and he rattled off any piece of piano music, no matter how complicated, after one hearing.
Tom Fuller was another Negro slave, from a century earlier. He was illiterate, but he had tremendous calculating powers. He shared those characteristics with Jed Buxton, an Englishman. They could multiply ten digit numbers, extract square and cube roots, and factorize large numbers in their heads, rapidly, without error—and without being able to tell in any way how they did it.
The twentieth-century mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan was in some ways the most remarkable of all. He was a quiet, superstitious, Indian clerk, with no obvious abilities—until an uninvited letter to Hardy at Cambridge University revealed that Ramanujan had made important mathematical discoveries without help from colleagues, training, or books. He had an amazing memory and an uncanny familiarity with the properties of numbers, but he was unable to explain the mental processes that led to his results.
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