Z-Sting (2475 CE)

by Ian Wallace

HEROD THE GREAT

  2 June 2475

  The reasoning behind the Neptunian location of the Z-sting may be reconstructed as follows. First, that location was practically unfindable and thoroughly unsuspectable: prior to the Marta Evans Nereid adventure, Neptune was regarded as an economically useless gravity hazard to be avoided by interstellar travelers. Second, the eight-hour round trip for triggering impulses and Z-waves, coupled with the strategic locations of the failsafe satellites Velos, Miros, and Heros, gave a targeted constellation last-ditch time to realize the reality of its peril and avoid it by making significant grievance reparations along with enforceable guarantees for the future. The problem of the four billion kilometer distance, with associated wave-spread and reduced target intensity, was sufficiently overcome by laser refinements; and should a meteor or a planet or even the Sol star eclipse Erth from Neptune, the Z-waves would merely detour the obstacle and return to their programmed course.

  As a sort of footnote, it is added that Dr. Thoth Evans, in developing COMCORD, had not envisioned associated use of a Z-sting, but only occupation and economic sanctions. The Z-refinement was added by others . . .

  —Encyclopedia Galactica, 2476

  There is no evident reason why the good offices of the Interplanetary Union may not end by wiping out war as a primitively sporting but technologically hideous method of exploiting the territorial imperative and other sorts of ambitions and jealousies. For example, as a result of COMCORD and other aspects of good and insistent planning, the last full-scale war on the planet Erth ended in 2321; although we must qualify that Erth’s excellent antiwar measures do not necessarily exclude some other sort of man-made disaster . . .

  —Editorial, Interplanetary Times, 13 June 2496

  Erthworld President Aneed and Secretary-General Tannen sat at a table four meters from the screen; sat there with an unknown named Lieutenant Midge Carlton and a couple of secretaries. Behind them, crowded against the flexible hut wall, stood Commander and Mme. Marana and a couple of generals and a couple of admirals. No official or board member of Mare Stellarum had been invited.

  It was 1300 hours on 2 June 2475. Location: the Rab ivisiradio experimental station on Moon. For the occasion, they had rigged a hundred-centimeter visiscreen to replace the visigoggles that Croyd had used to lock himself in.

  Florid fortyish Tannen, a not-yet-portly genial Sinite out of the Gaza Strip, was never overbearing, never prematurely certain, never evidently impatient. Beneath his shambling surface his mind and his glands worked like a dynamo and its powering waters, and he had never been known to surrender ahead of the last chance.

  President Aneed—President of the Erthworld Union of International Constellations—was not a Sinite; he resembled Tannen in no way at all except in energy, political competency, and courage. He was fiftyish, he was only on selected occasions genial, he was physically big, he never considered himself confused, and even when he was humble he was overbearing. These were not racial or cultural traits; Aneed was merely this sort of human.

  Activated, the screen was filled with snow: it was instrument-to-instrument transmission, but the distance was interstellar and the new gadgetry was primitive. The screen semi-revealed, seated behind a similar table at Rab’s Galactic headquarters, three males and three females, fuzzily unclear; if others stood nearby they were indistinguishable from static.

  Aneed queried sharply (his voice was big baritone except when he felt frustrated): “Can our people clear it any?”

  A technician said, “Sir, I can throw in a filter and brighten the image. It won’t really clarify anything, but it may help psychologically.”

  Aneed got his mouth open to blow. Laying a hand on the President’s arm, Tannen told the technician: “Pray do that.”

  Within seconds the image had significantly clarified. The Rab people, in color image, were seen individually as a tall, lean auburn-haired man, a short, lean dark-haired man, a tall white-haired man, a tall brunette woman, and two other women who might be secretaries.

  Aneed reverberated: “That’s a hell of a lot better! You can’t tell me it’s all in my—”

  Tannen squeezed his arm and nodded to Carlton.

  She spoke clearly: “Mr. Croyd is the tallish man with auburn hair. Croyd, it’s Midge Carlton here; you are viewing President Aneed at my extreme right and Secretary-General Tannen at my immediate right. Please present your companions.”

  Croyd spoke: “A pleasure, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Miss Carlton. I am grateful to you, Mr. President, for allowing Miss Carlton to make these arrangements. My expression is pleasant for the occasion, although you probably can’t make it out since I can’t make out yours.”

  Tannen peered at Croyd but could not definitely imprint his features. They would meet in the future; Tannen would not recognize his face.

  “We too are pleasant, sir,” mushed Aneed, going courtly.

  Croyd stated: “I have the honor to present three people in protocol order. At my extreme right, wearing white hair, President Bomar of the Alpha Centauri Union, governing the planets Rab and Vash. At my immediate right, with dark hair, Chairman Herod of Galactic, Ltd. At my immediate left, a dark-haired lady, Dr. Fortescue, confidential physician to Chairman Herod.

  Aneed’s mouth cotton-blossomed. “How kind of you, Dr. Fortescue, to grace our meeting! Of course I know President Bomar and Chairman Herod, and so does Secretary Tannen—”

  He stopped. Frowning heavily, he turned to Tannen and stage-whispered: “Allah be blest, this communication is instant!”

  Chuckles were audible from Alpha Centauri III; and Tannen replied: “By whatever name, blessed be He: it certainly is!”

  The heart of the talking was delayed while both sides entered into affable socializing. Keri and Dana were congratulated on their new marriage; Herod praised Dana for intelligent and heroic conduct of his mission; and the embarrassing topic of Keri’s father was avoided . . .

  Abruptly Aneed tore it. Peering at the Rab images, he bellowed; “I want to be told who this Croyd really is!”

  The import of his discourtesy produced at both ends a pained hush. On Rab, the four principals looked at each other. Croyd scribbled a note and passed it to the others; each of them read it and nodded affirmation, Fortescue with an enthusiastic smile. Bomar then asserted with dignity: “Mr. President, I am asking Mr. Croyd to lead the discussion for Centauri.”

  Aneed gazed quivering at the fuzzy Croyd image—which coughed lightly and asserted: “You realize, President Aneed, that you have just precipitated conversation in heavily classified terms; and while we’ve all enjoyed meeting and talking with your secretaries and with your general and flag officers, may we agree that with one exception, the time has come for civilian leaders only?”

  The Erthworld President stared, then nodded. Tannen whispered to Carlton, who quietly arose and whispered with the secretaries and the generals and admirals and with Dana and Keri. While, uncued, the two secretaries on Rab were departing the picture, on Moon Commander and Mme. Marana and the generals and admirals and secretaries were departing, with Carlton following . . .

  Tannen interjected: “Miss Carlton, wait.” He turned to Croyd: “Is she perhaps your one exception?”

  “She is. She saved your Erthworld—she bought Senevendia.”

  Aneed frowned viciously. Tannen raised an eyebrow at him; Aneed shrugged. Carlton reseated herself. Suddenly Croyd grinned: it was visible through the snow. Carlton just perceptibly jerked her head at Tannen—who caught it and jerked his head at Carlton. Croyd nodded soberly.

  Aneed uncertainly announced: “We’re now top-secret at this end—I guess. How is your end?”

  Croyd signaled Bomar, who responded: “In my judgment, Mr. President, both sides are now as top-secret as I would wish them to be for any matter that may be injected into this discussion. And again, I want Mr. Croyd to lead for us.”

  “God damn!” boomed Aneed. “Croyd, who in hell are you?”

  Croyd said: “Apart fr
om what Mare Stellarum BuPers says about me—my name of legal register is Thoth Evans.”

  The corroborating nods of Bomar, Herod, and Fortescue were snow-visible.

  While Aneed in puzzlement glowered, Tannen murmured to him, “If Carlton owns Senevendia, Evans owns most of the rest of Erthworld. I cannot suggest urgently enough that we proceed on that assumption.”

  Tannen here made a public point. “Mr. President, let’s take account of realities, Mare Stellarum damn near blew Erthworld. Dr. Evans, after most of a century in the tank, somehow pulled himself together, won Herod’s confidence, and saved Erthworld. President Bomar and Chairman Herod have given him the con here. In my opinion, we are temporarily the listeners.”

  Aneed considered. He looked up at the Rab images: “Dr. Evans, prey give us the benefit of your thoughts.”

  The response was: “Now that you know I am Thoth Evans, I’ll appreciate it if you’ll simply call me Croyd. From this point on, it is going to be my name. It is true that I was an agent for Galactic, and that I was investigating Galactic’s competitor Mare Stellarum. There is no concord about this level of activity in the Articles of the Sol/Centauri League; and therefore, when Mare Stellarum was discredited, there was no fugitive reason for me to flee Erthworld; instead, I departed Erth because I have current business here on Rab. And I do urge that now we go on to questions of higher priority for both our star systems.”

  Aneed considered this reply: he was inclined to find it irritating, but the legalism of its construction gave him pause. He raised his long chin and flung a totally different challenge: “State the precise role—the precise role—of Commander Marana in the final Mazurka flight. And then tell me how Marta Evans really met her death, for the love of Ibrahim!”

  Tannen shrugged—at the non sequitur, and at the Ibrahim.

  Gravely Croyd told him: “I was assigned by Chairman Herod to command Commander Marana. I gave the commander certain generalized orders which he understood to be probably fatal for himself. He responded with alacrity, and he elaborated his orders at a high level of creativity and expertise, and he never hesitated to risk his own life. His account of the last-second events aboard the Mazurka is correct. There is no way that he could have prevented Chairman Evans from flaring with the ship. Sir, Chairman Evans was my great-granddaughter. And may we now perhaps move on to priority questions?”

  Frowning, Tannen, painfully accustomed to Aneed red herrings, was beginning to intuit a possibility that Croyd might be chivalrously covering a Marta suicide . . .

  But not all the herring had run past. Aneed now demanded: “Who gave you permission to run away with the traitor Saguni?”

  “Sir, that was an irresponsible decision of my own. If you wish him returned to Erth for trial, both Dr. Saguni and President Bomar have agreed to waive extradition proceedings. Meanwhile, Dr. Saguni is the only other man in the galaxy capable of directing a modification or inactivation of COMCORD and its Z-sting—just as soon as Mare Stellarum gets back on its feet. And I do think that we should now start paying attention to this priority.”

  Tannen said, just audibly: "Oof.” Aneed, both ham-hands fisted on the table, studied his knuckles: it had finally come through to him what was centrally imperative.

  Acidly Bomar interjected: “Mr. President Aneed, it has been five centuries since the launching of the first communications satellite was epochally tested by broadcasting prize fights. I am sure that you have more on your mind than the criminal interrogation of the man who has just saved your world and had previously saved it several times before you were born.”

  Aneed’s big shoulders rose slowly and fell slowly: beneath his thick belligerent skin he was intelligent and self-honest, it was merely a matter of initial penetration. Up came his head; and he looked squarely at Croyd and entered upon the topic of their central-mutual concern.

  “Mare Stellarum, then,” Aneed acknowledged. “Dr. Evans—or Croyd, since you prefer that now—do you see any future for this governmental corporation that you founded?”

  “Yes, sir. But only with a complete change of top officials and directorate.”

  Aneed pondered this. Tannen was pondering this.

  Aneed looked up. “It is not easy, sir, to change the directorate. The directors of Mare Stellarum collectively control about ninety percent of its stock.”

  Croyd riposted: “Meanwhile, though, the Thoth Evans estate owns about sixty-three percent of their stock. It is an advantage of longevity that was first pointed out by a post-medieval novelist, a Mr. Wells.”

  “Sir, are you proposing a power play?”

  “Sir, if such a power play were not possible, what would happen to the republican democracy of Erthworld?”

  Aneed frowned. “Corporations that administrate republican democratic governments ought not to have this type of Achilles heel.”

  “But they do. And the alternative always is, that a government may choose to make do without an administrative corporation.”

  “Which is impossible in our complex political economy.”

  “Which is hitherto impossible. I keep hoping that human ingenuity may eventually find a way that will be better than this interim technique.”

  Aneed was silent for a long time. Tannen, who mightily respected Aneed when the President was off the exhibitionist muscle, let him think, Bomar murmured: “Now the conversation is worthy.”

  Aneed looked up. “What would you do, sir, with Mare Stellarum?”

  “If I were you, sir?” courteously Croyd queried.

  “Well—” Then Aneed straightened and told Croyd flatly: “Yes, If you were me. I.”

  “I would offer the directors of Mare Stellarum and the directors of Galactic a straight corporational swap. The Mare Stellarum directors take over Galactic with all its assets and liabilities, both small. The Galactic directors take over Mare Stellarum with all its assets and liabilities, both large.”

  The straightening of the Tannen frame was very slow and very thorough. Aneed was rigid; Bomar did not move; Herod slumped a little. Fortescue and Carlton were entranced.

  Aneed found a question: “What profit would the Mare Stellarum directors realize as reward for accepting such a loss?”

  “Both the Mare Stellarum directors and the Galactic directors would be freed from all debits to the Thoth Evans estate. For a consideration, that is, of some millions of credits—I have heirs to consider, and I need to stay economically viable.”

  “Both directorates,” Tannen ruminated, “would take it in a hurry.”

  Aneed squeezed out: “We are trading in worlds.”

  “We are,” Croyd soberly agreed.

  "What do we gain?”

  “Nothing—or everything. President Bomar has agreed to this deal, although he and his two Centauri planets will be inheriting the decrepit Mare Stellarum organization name and all—with no chairman. I said decrepit, didn’t I. Excuse me, sir, I can’t voice such a judgment without adding justification of sorts. Marta Evans was a potent chairman until a decade or more ago, she had her organization singing-right; you know this. What happened thereafter to her spirit, and consequently to her organization, needn’t be discussed. But had it not been for our unhappy failure to pull her off the ship, I assure you that she was again in shape to come in and vigorously youthen her organization—”

  Croyd stopped, realizing that he was at the sharp cliff edge of beginning to say too much. While they pondered, he drove it back to centricity:

  “Let me make the deal clear. The Mare Stellarum directorate would move to Rab, take over Galactic, and change its name to Mare Stellarum. Meanwhile the Galactic directorate would move to Erth, take over Mare Stellarum, and change its name to Galactic. And then your Erthworld would be endowed with the leanest, most efficient, most conscientiously progressive, most realistically idealistic governmental corporation in what we know of our galaxy.

  “The chairman of Erth’s Galactic would be—Mr. Herod, here. He would sweep clean.”

  Herod s
eemed to shrink. Although the proposal was not unexpected, Croyd having been on Rab during several days closeted with Herod and Fortescue and eventually with Bomar, incredulously eager Herod was demanding inside himself: I have a new chance to sweep clean again?

  Aneed squinted at Herod. “That little fellow can run Erthworld?”

  Bomar said quietly, “He can. Can you?”

  Astonishingly, it did not anger Aneed. Instead, he meditated.

  He inquired presently: “Mr. Herod, what would you do on Erth with your Galactic?”

  Herod glanced at Croyd—who waved an encouraging hand at him, not at all knowing what Herod would say, confident that he would say good things well.

  Herod answered slowly but with precision: “First there would be a problem of integrating my top people with the middle and lower echelons of old Mare Stellarum that we would inherit. While all this would be going on, two other things would be going on. I would be working with Mr. Tannen to reform the top ministries in order to restore control to the elected Erthworld government. Meanwhile you, Mr. President Aneed, would be driving through the Erthworld Senate a system of proposals about COMCORD and especially about the Z-sting—”

  “I would?”

  “You would, because I would be coming only on those terms.”

  Baffled, Aneed stared at small star-distant Herod. “You are proposing conditions?”

  “Those conditions. Yes, sir.”

  Tannen gently interposed: “Mr. Herod, what is the substance of your ideas about COMCORD and the Z-sting— which I think was long ago called The Kazant Device?”

  Herod, promptly: “The Z-sting will be immediately program-cleared pending the devising of new programs and the articulation of its systems with the i-rays of Dr. Croyd for practically instantaneous interplanetary and interstellar transmission. Also, and immediately, COMCORD will be permanently disassociated from the Z-sting.”