[Jan Darzek 02] - Watchers of the Dark

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  “How would we go about getting ahold of Smith? There must be a Primorian headquarters for his certification groups.”

  “We wouldn’t know whom to ask for. He didn’t tell us his official name or status. We don’t even know how they refer to Earth.”

  “Drat him!”

  “If I could get ahold of him I’d use him for more critical things than vocabulary building,” Darzek said, watching the agitator. “Is it my imagination, or are these characters drawing more people?”

  “Their crowds get larger every day. If we don’t find out who’s behind this, and soon, Primores is going the way of Yorlq.”

  “Carry on. I’m going to see E-Wusk.”

  E-Wusk was out. Darzek went instead to call on Gul Halvr and found him grumbling about Meszk’s latest idea. “He’s called a meeting of five hundred traders,” he said. “He wants to organize them against the Dark.”

  “Will they come?”

  “Why not? Any trader would be interested in defeating the Dark. Gul Meszk wants each of the five hundred to organize more traders, and so on. If he brings all the traders in the galaxy to Primores, who will there be left to do business with? Do you think this idea has a chance?”

  “What’s the native population of Primores?”

  “Perhaps as many as a million million.”

  “If Gul Meszk raised a force of a million, which would be a staggering task, he’d still be outnumbered a million to one. Of course a large part of the million million is made up of nonfighters, and the rest would have very little organization. Gul Meszk might have a chance if he could get his force organized in time and deployed in the right place. Unfortunately, he has very little time and no one knows the right place.”

  “Now you sound like E-Wusk,” Gul Halvr said disgustedly.

  E-Wusk was waiting at Darzek’s apartment, his huge, wrinkled form tense with excitement. “I have consulted Supreme!” he blurted.

  “Splendid! With what result?”

  “I asked Supreme to suggest a world where I would be safe from the Dark. And Supreme answered—” E-Wusk paused for breath. “Supreme answered, ‘Primores’!”

  Chapter 15

  Officially it was Primores O, the only planet in the galaxy thus designated, called nothing to distinguish it from its sister planets Primores I through IV—and because it was everything.

  It was the innermost planet of its solar system, the first world of the central sun of the galaxy, and it was a beautiful world, as perfect in each of its parts as a masterfully fashioned miniature.

  The numbered cities were typical sprawling, streetless conglomerations of windowless buildings; yet startlingly untypical because their profiles revealed plan and symmetry, the spaces between buildings were lush, carefully kept gardens of grass and flowers, and the numerous parks were incongruously enclosed in tinted domes—incongruously because the climate of Primores O was everywhere a sublimity of balmy perfection.

  Darzek shook the ugliness of Yorlq from his memory and felt reassured. The transmitter-orientated city did not have to be a monstrous blight.

  Beyond the cities, white-crowned hills thatched with the orange plumage of a lofty forest loomed on every horizon, the cultivated fields of automated farms radiated in wedges from a central building like a meticulously carved pie, small rivers flowed endlessly and unbelievably in circles, geometrically shaped patches of vividly hued vegetation were splashed about the landscape like colors on an artist’s palette, and distant, ovular lakes shimmeringly mirrored a rainbow sky, where an enormous sun swam from horizon to horizon like an egg in a bowl of intermixed Easter egg tints.

  Darzek found the sun as much of a mystery as the varicolored sky: he could look at it steadily with naked eye.

  Obviously Primores O was an old, old world. The harshness of nature had long since been controlled and softened, and someone with an eye for beauty had rearranged and remolded the landscape, at the same time that those seeking comfort had rescheduled and revised the weather.

  Darzek’s one regret was that there was no air travel. The only broad glimpse of Primores that he could obtain came from the observatories, the white crowns on the hilltops where the Primorians went to eat a quiet meal and look out at their lovely world.

  But Darzek had little time for sight-seeing. He visited the observatories, not to enjoy the view, but to observe the natives.

  They were another of the disconcertingly humanlike species. Darzek had long since learned that he was much more at ease with the utterly inhuman than with those types that possessed superficial human resemblances. With the latter he experienced the normal reaction of one of his kind encountering the maimed or the deformed: a temptation to stare, and a feeling of acute embarrassment. For this reason he was more relaxed in the presence of a Rhinzl, for example, or an E-Wusk, than with such distortedly human types as a Kxon or a Meszk.

  He was extremely uncomfortable in the presence of the Primorians.

  Their heads protruded from their chests, and their bodies loomed above and behind in bulging humps. Their faces were small, the large eyes wide-set with an enfolded nostril slightly above and a mouth invisible under a blunt chin. They swathed themselves in thick wrappings that completely obscured the contours of their bodies, a custom of which Darzek heartily approved. He preferred not to know what their bodies looked like.

  Their slow movements, their quiet, meditative manner, their soft, hesitant speech gave no indication of blazing powers of intellect, and yet Darzek had the uncomfortable suspicion that their misshapen heads housed enormous brains. The crude, lying propaganda of the Dark should have received from them the derision it so richly deserved, but it did not. They were listening to it in ever-increasing numbers— listening phlegmatically, but for all Darzek knew they were capable of unimaginable heights of frenzy.

  These were the people to whom Supreme was entrusted. They filled the ranks of civil servants, custodians, even guardians, if such existed. The entire galaxy would be plunged into anarchy if they revolted.

  They must not revolt.

  The traders saw this as clearly as Darzek. Rhinzl invited Darzek to come and see him, and there he met Gul Meszk and Gul Isc. Meszk asked him bluntly, “What do you know about Supreme?”

  “Very little,” Darzek said. “I’ve requested a consultation, but half the galaxy seems to be waiting for consultations.”

  “Some of the traders I invited to Primores have already arrived,” Meszk said. “We must perfect our plans, and quickly.” He paused. “Gul Darr—where is Supreme?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea.”

  “Nor has anyone else. A world is too large a place on which to seek even such a large object as Supreme must be. The governmental departments and offices are connected with Supreme in some fashion, but they are staffed entirely by natives, who pretend to know nothing.”

  “Have you asked them?”

  “I’ve done nothing else since we arrived here.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “We are agreed on two points,” Meszk said. “For one, the absolutely essential task we must undertake is to protect Supreme. For another, if anyone knows where Supreme is located it will be certain natives responsible for its maintenance, which means that when the Dark comes all natives will know. The Dark will know.”

  “I agree.”

  “Gul Darr, how can we protect Supreme from the natives when they know where it is and we don’t?”

  “Has anyone thought of asking Supreme where it is?”

  Meszk blinked his eyes in rapid succession. “No. No one has thought of that.”

  “When I receive my consultation I’ll ask.”

  Meszk brightened. “Thank you, Gul Darr. You always seem to know what to do.”

  “Yes,” Darzek agreed. “It rarely works o
ut, but at least I know what to do.”

  He stopped off at one of the parks before returning home. There were two agitators at work there. Darzek was not yet fluent enough in Primorian to understand everything they said, but he grasped enough of it to leave him feeling both angry and depressed. He counted the natives: nineteen in one group, twenty-seven in the other, all listening impassively without looking at the speakers. Vainly he searched their faces for the clue that seemed to be there for the taking but somehow eluded him.

  At the park transmitting station he found another group gathered at one end of the small building. He edged his way to the front, and saw a word smeared onto the smooth wall. The natives were contemplating it silently.

  Darzek had made no attempt to master the written language. He had to return with ursDwad and ask him to translate. The puzzled native announced that the word had no meaning. Not until Darzek thought to suggest that ursDwad pronounce it was he able to understand.

  It said, in the Primorian alphabet, “Grilf.”

  They called it the Hall of Consultations.

  It was an enormous, circular room, its wall lined with doors leading into the small consultation chambers. The consultants trudged patiently around the circle waiting for a chamber to become vacant just ahead of them, or positioned themselves strategically between two doors. When a door rippled open there was a politely restrained scramble to be next.

  Darzek watched for a moment, and then took his place with those circling the room. He found, somewhat to his surprise, that he was in no hurry to consult Supreme. He felt very much like a bridegroom getting cold feet a moment before the wedding ceremony began. Belatedly he was realizing that the action he was about to take was irrevocable.

  Supreme might have embarrassing questions as to why he had been squandering solvency like a spendthrift who unexpectedly comes into possession of a sheaf of credit cards. There was also the possibility that Supreme, once it learned Darzek’s whereabouts, would address a stream of communications to him marked ORDERS. He was prepared to welcome Supreme’s assistance, but the decisions Jan Darzek carried out had to be his own. He was not about to become a lackey to a computer, even when the computer was called Supreme.

  He drifted with the others, making no attempt to enter a consultation chamber himself. They were as variegated a crowd as he had ever seen. “The dregs of the galaxy,” he found himself thinking, but of course they weren’t. They only looked like dregs. Traders, administrators, industrialists, scientists, scholars, perhaps even artists, all were exercising their traditional right to consult Supreme.

  It was, Darzek thought, a glowing picture of democracy in action, and one made possible only by the fact that the head of the galactic government was a computer. No mere intelligent being could possibly cope with the demands of such a democracy.

  A door rippled open just ahead of him. He took a deep breath and waited for another to snatch the opportunity, but so close was he that the others acknowledged his priority and moved around him.

  He stepped through the open door, and it clicked shut behind him. He took in the room at a glance: a desk, a native clerk, a transmitter, a chair.

  “State your problem, please,” the clerk said.

  “I request a private interview with Supreme.”

  “A . . . private . . . interview . . .”

  “Private,” Darzek said firmly. He was determined that no native would listen in on his conversation—not with the Dark’s agitators ranting in the parks. “Just Supreme and myself. Please arrange it as quickly as possible. It’s urgent.”

  The native’s chest heaved, tilting his head toward the ceiling. “I’ll inquire,” he announced finally. He stepped through the transmitter.

  Darzek perched tensely on the edge of a chair and waited. The native returned, said politely, “Come with me, please.”

  They emerged in another office, where a second native stood waiting for them. “You wish a—a private consultation?” he demanded.

  “Private,” Darzek agreed.

  “What did you wish to consult Supreme about?”

  “That, too, is confidential.”

  “I don’t know . . . I gravely fear . . .”

  “Ask Supreme,” Darzek suggested.

  “I could not, without some justification for your request.”

  Darzek extended his right hand. “My solvency credential. Show that to Supreme, and tell Supreme that its owner requests a private consultation.”

  “Come with me, please.”

  He turned Darzek over to a committee of three, one of whom silently placed his hand on a solvency scanner and indited a message. The inditer clicked off a reply.

  “Granted!” the native exclaimed awesomely.

  Darzek modestly remained silent.

  The native motioned Darzek into a transmitter, and he found himself at the end of a dimly red-lit corridor. He stepped forward confidently. This time he knew what to expect: the sensation of icy needles probing him, the dizziness, the tremendous weight, the growing feeling of numbness. He reached the opposite end of the corridor in a bath of blinding perspiration, and the weight lifted. A door stood open before him. He mopped his face and flexed his numb limbs before he moved into the room beyond.

  Triumphantly he approached its desk, and then he froze in consternation. The inditer was a strange model, and he had no idea how to work it.

  “So much for my private consultation,” he said bitterly.

  He seated himself and waited for someone to come for him.

  Abruptly the room spoke. It said, “Why have you not reported?” Its precise tones were utterly devoid of emphasis or expression. The question was a flat statement.

  Darzek controlled his amazement and said plaintively, “I didn’t know how. I still don’t know how.”

  “Why have you not reported—” A pause. “—through the Council?”

  “There is no Council,” Darzek answered.

  “Why have you not reported through the Council?”

  Darzek hesitated, apprehensive that he and Supreme might be embarking for a ride on a conversational merry-go-round. Obviously he would have to phrase his statements carefully. “You have had no report from any member of the Council for a long time,” he said.

  “Affirmative.”

  “You have had no report from any member of the Council since the day I was admitted to a meeting of the Council.”

  The pause, if there was one, was a mere flicker. “Affirmative.”

  “All members of the Council of Supreme are dead,” Darzek said.

  “This time the pause was noticeable. “More data requested,” Supreme said.

  “SIX was an agent of the Dark. When I exposed him, he tried to kill me. I escaped, but he killed the other members of the Council before I killed him. His Eye of Death burned down the meeting place. There is no Council. All of the members are dead.”

  “You killed the members of the Council,” Supreme said.

  Darzek hoped that it was a question. “Negative!” he snapped. “I killed SIX, who was an agent of the Dark. SIX killed the other members of the Council and set the building on fire.”

  It sounded unbelievable even to him. Suddenly he could envision himself telling that story in court with no witnesses to support him. How did it happen that you survived, Defendant Darzek, when everyone else died? How did it happen that this disaster overtook the Council at the precise moment of your one and only visit?

  But he would defend himself when the need arose. The immediate problem was to make Supreme understand what had happened. He said, “Check your circuits, if that’s the word for it, and you’ll find that nothing is operating in the building where the Council met.”

  The pause was a long one. “Affirmative,” Supreme said finally.

 
“Nothing is operating because the building no longer exists. You’ll also find, if it’s possible to check, that no member of the Council has used his official residence since that day.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I didn’t know how to report to you that the members of the Council were dead, and I didn’t know what other agents of the Dark might be active on Primores. I left as quickly as possible, and my assistant and I went to Yorlq to learn what we could about the Dark. Do you want a report on what I did there?”

  “Affirmative,” the flat voice said.

  In concise sentences Darzek described what had happened on Yorlq; and on Primores since his return. At the end he asked lamely, “Did you understand all of that?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Do you want me to go over any of it again?”

  “Negative.”

  “Have you any instructions?”

  “Negative.”

  “None at all?” Darzek exclaimed unbelievingly. “The Dark will soon move again. Primores is in danger. You are in danger!”

  “Negative.”

  Darzek took a deep breath. “Am I to continue supplying the Dark worlds?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I’d like to be placed in charge of this world’s proctors.”

  “More data requested.”

  “If we can squelch the agitators, it may not be too late to save Primores.”

  “Primores is not in danger,” the voice said laconically.

  “If you’re wrong, and I happen to think you are, I want to be able to protect you when the Dark comes. Where on Primores is your main location?”

  “Everywhere.”

  Darzek hesitated, and then asked again, “Where are you?”