Quarantine: The Complete Stories, page 20
The signalmen were welcome to broil the planet—for all that it mattered to him—unless Flintledge would pay to save it. Too cautious to make the first overture, Scarlet killed time with his bath and depilation. He deliberately spun a new official robe. Still waiting, he hesitated over his own meager stock of psionic scents and powders, and decided again that he needed the more powerful lure of wealth.
Disappointed when Flintledge did not call, he went dully up to eat alone. Mark Whitherly waylaid him outside the dining lounge. While he ate, the shriveled little anthropologist tried to brief him on the native culture, and tried to find out how soon he meant to lift the quarantine.
“That depends.” He paused, even though he could see that the aged man was too high-minded to think of bribery. “I may be compelled to approve the signal project.”
“You can’t!” Whitherly’s yelp held a satisfying anguish. “You can’t let these rash young fools burn the mother world and all its people—just to generate one flash of light.”
“I’m aware of my duty in this situation.” Scarlet drew himself up stiffly, concealing an inward grin. “I’ll yield to no improper pressures.”
“I’m not trying to bribe you.” Whitherly flushed and trembled with an agitation that alarmed Scarlet for his tired heart. “But I must remind you that your own superiors have approved my plan to observe this contact crisis—”
“What sort of monster are you?” Certain now that the old scholar would never offer him money, Scarlet let indignation into his voice. “Would you risk destroying these people with a premature contact, simply for the opportunity to observe it?”
“Certainly.” Whitherly gasped for his breath. “But I’m no monster. I’m simply a scientist, trained to exclude all emotional considerations from the field of research. I refuse to price truth in terms of anything material. Even if you can’t understand that kind of idealism, perhaps you can understand in practical terms that what we learn from the sacrifice of this world can help us save ten thousand others.”
“I understand you,” Scarlet said. “But the Covenants apply.”
Breathing unevenly, the old man contained whatever reckless words he had almost uttered. Scarlet crouched apprehensively, but Whitherly had been conditioned beyond any crude display of physical violence. Muttering something about the mother world, he shuffled unsteadily away.
Left alone, Scarlet sat fingering the blank disk of his wrist transceiver, anxious to call Flintledge, but yet afraid. He gasped when the crystal lit with the trader’s image under his fingers, a bald and hideous doll.
“I suppose I shouldn’t interrupt your deliberations.” The black beads of eyes glittered sardonically. “What with Penwright so anxious to light his blinker, and Coral Fell so eager to enlighten the aborigines, and old Whitherly dying to observe his contact crisis, your decision is already difficult enough.”
“I am pleased that you called,” Scarlet answered carefully. “I have been considering your own interest in the outcome of the crisis.”
“If you care to come aboard for a drink,” Flintledge suggested smoothly, “we might consider it together—unless you fear that contact with me might tarnish your Equity.”
“Uh, thanks.” Scarlet could not help stiffening against the trader’s familiarity, but he tried to control his righteous resentment. “I should like very much to come.
“My call must be brief,” he added. “I’m resuming the hearing in just two hours.”
He put on a space belt in the lock tower, and hurried out to the flyer. He found Flintledge beneath the air lock, waving his arms and blustering at the men who had come with camouflage screens to turn the ship into a lunar peak.
“That fool Newbolt thinks we can hide here,” he growled. “I know better. I don’t intend for those attacking savages to catch me sitting—unless your Equity can reassure me.” Scarlet followed him through the lock. The rich immensity of the interstellar vessel had taken his breath at first, but now it began whetting a resolution to ask for more than he had dared.
In the wanton luxury of the trader’s stateroom, a dancing figurine caught his dazzled eye. Poised upon the gem-stone inlay that topped a dark block of polished wood, the tiny nude was featureless at first, an anonymous symbol of all feminine enchantment, cut with an exquisite economy from some limpid crystal. But it came to life as he looked, reflecting all his own images of woman’s loveliness, refined and transfigured through the perceptions of the artist who had fashioned its psionic matrix. Suddenly it was Coral Fell, but younger and more tender than the actual Coral, not quite so firm about the mouth, smiling adoringly. Its stark beauty stabbed through him, leaving a haunting ache of unquenchable desire.
“Like it?”
Flintledge’s question startled him. He tore his attention from the figurine, flushing self-consciously, before he could remind himself that its response to his mind had been a private thing. Even though he might suspect that Coral’s charms had begun to color its reaction to the trader, too, they had not met to quarrel over her.
“Look around.” Flintledge squinted at him frightfully. “Anything you want, just let me know.”
He certainly wanted a great deal more than a psionic figurine. Looking appraisingly around the magnificent stateroom, he found two pictures that arrested him. Stereos, in twin crystal plaques, they were also psionic. His reflected thoughts brushed them with life and meaning, instantly.
Two men . . .
They made him shiver. One was winning, one hideous. One was lean and young, a dashing smile lighting his hard brown face. The other was older, puffy, with, sly cunning peering evilly through a pallor of fear. Yet somehow they were twins.
Both of them were he.
Shrinking in confusion, he turned to find the trader watching with an insolent amusement which angered him.
“Uh—what are they?”
“Perhaps I should apologize.” The trader’s chuckle was not apologetic. “Psionic mirrors, you might call them. They are matrixed to reflect the self you wish to show the world, and the one you don’t. I like to watch my friends react.”
Scarlet managed, with some effort, not to inquire how Flintledge saw himself.
“I like—like your reaction.” The trader bellowed with coarse laughter. “But sit down.” He struggled to contain his amusement. “I see that you need that drink.”
They sat, while a psionic robot came with a strange bottle and two glasses of ice on a tray. Silently responsive to the trader’s wishes, it poured a fuming distillation over the ice. Scarlet sat back to taste it cautiously. Recovering now from his first surge of unconditioned resentment, he began to observe that Flintledge was no better conditioned than he was.
The bottle had come from Sol III. The savages called it whiskey, and there was nothing like it anywhere. As the trader declaimed about its rare aroma, Scarlet saw the glass shaking in his scarred, enormous fist. Gulping it too fast, he strangled.
“Won—wonderful stuff!” Wheezing, he wiped at his eyes. “From a wonderful planet. I had discovered that, before our friends from the signal service got here with their incinerator. Wonderful wealth, that has never been touched.”
Scarlet sipped the burning liquid, waiting impatiently for their game to reach the monetary moves. Flintledge coughed and recovered his voice, but his loud enthusiasm had a hollow ring.
“Whole continents rich enough to mill!” His restless eyes stabbed at Scarlet, blades thrust through his jovial mask. “Oceans to export! We can scrape the planet a hundred miles deep.”
“I have studied some of the old surveys.” Scarlet nodded cautiously. “I’m sure the natural resources are still untouched—because we’ve been on guard. But don’t they belong to the natives?”
“A miserable lot,” Flintledge said. “Too backward to make any trouble. We can soon dispose of their nuclear weapons. The survivors may even be useful around our new installations, after Coral has tamed them with a pinch of psionics.”
“They are—uh—my responsibility.” Scarlet scowled sternly. “You must convince me that this contact is the culmination of their unaided progress toward civilization.”
“I was waiting for that one.” Flintledge laughed too heartily again. “You knew that I’d infiltrated that tribal group, and you’re acute enough to infer that I’d guide them toward this contact.”
“So you admit that you have forced a premature contact?”
“On the contrary.” The trader’s unnatural merriment subsided; he sat blinking at Scarlet with bold black eyes. “But even if I should, my own testimony would be irrelevant. As your Equity is certainly aware, this contact is what you say it is.”
Scarlet merely nodded, watching him.
Dull beads of sweat had come out on his unperfected face, betraying his incomplete integration. His battered fists clenched and trembled. He reached suddenly for another whiskey.
“Here, your Equity!” Hastily draining the drink, he opened a file of bright psionic films. “I want to show you my plans to develop the planet.”
Coolly, Scarlet scanned his designs for enormous installations to harvest the guarded wealth of Earth. Dams to divert the excess oceans into export tanks. Mills to devour continents. A heat-exchanging neutrionic net, to cool the deeper crust for the open-pit machines. Compressing stations, for the surplus atmosphere. Ports for the trading fleets that would drain the plunder into space.
“Competent engineering.” Scarlet nodded casually. “You ought to make some money.”
“I expect to.” His hoarse voice quivered with a tension that he could not completely contain. “In fact, I must. I have a large investment, in my flyer and my trade cargo and my terraforming machinery, which I must protect.”
“I see.” Scarlet turned cheerfully to a new survey of that wealthy room. “I suppose that any long delay would be expensive to you.”
“It would kill me!” His harsh and sudden violence was startling, but then he grinned bleakly at the way Scarlet cringed. “I was talking to Coral,” he added. “She tells me that you spoke of leaving the service.”
“A foolish dream of my youth.” Wistfully grave, Scarlet shook his head. “An old dream of a new life, out among the new stars of the galactic frontier. If I had the means for a new start there, I’d quit the service today.”
“Good.” The trader’s flinty grin began to soften. “I see that we can do business. With your service background, you’re just the man I need to handle my affairs with these anthropoids. If you’ll sign with me for just a hundred years—”
“I won’t,” Scarlet said. “I’ve already thrown too many centuries away, pampering savages.”
“What else do you want?”
“I—uh—” Scarlet checked himself, to peer uneasily at the strange luxury around him. His throat felt dry. His temples throbbed. For a moment he wished that he had been more securely integrated, but then of course his psionic maladjustment was his secret strength.
“We have privacy.” Flintledge winked appallingly. “Neither of us is likely to violate it.” He gestured for the robot. “Have another drink, and tell me what you want.”
Weakly, Scarlet waved the robot away. “I want the flyer.” He gasped for his breath, blinking at his own audacity. “The flyer—and half your cargo.”
“If that is meant to be a joke—”
“That’s my price.”
The trader’s dark face turned yellow. Wheezing alarmingly, he gulped another whiskey. His great, dark hands spread into grasping talons, reached out violently, and then slowly sank.
“You’re an unconditioned fool,” he breathed at last. “Why should I pay you such a price?”
“If I had been better conditioned, I’d have nothing for sale,” Scarlet reminded him. “As things stand, I have nine planets on the block, one of them half-terraformed and inhabited. I am offering you a bargain.”
“If I refuse—”
“I’ll approve the blinker project.” Scarlet laughed as unpleasantly as possible. “Penwright will proceed to give us all a peculiar immortality. You can look for another world to loot—if your Vegan bankers care to give you time.”
“Your Equity is a hard trader!” Flintledge grinned, briefly revealing a pained admiration. “As two misfits, striving to heal our psionic scars with money, we ought to strike a reasonable bargain. But you know I can’t give up this flyer—”
“With planets to sell, you can buy a better one.”
“You’re unintegrated!” The trader’s voice lifted vehemently. “You don’t realize all the scheming, the waiting, the daring, the borrowing, the begging pretty men—”
“I do realize.” Scarlet rose. “That’s how I know that you can’t afford to let me approve the blinker.”
“Sit down!” Flintledge yelped. “Let’s have another drink, over a reasonable arrangement—”
“We have just concluded a reasonable arrangement,” Scarlet said. “I am going back to reconvene the inquiry now. For the sake of appearances, I shall have to skim through the evidence, but I shall be forced to rule on the crisis before that savage skip arrives.”
“Listen, your Equity!” Flintledge was weeping. “Listen to reason—”
“If you want a favorable ruling,” Scarlet interrupted him, “send your banker to the hearing. Let him bring formal legal conveyances to the ship, half the trade goods, and half the terraforming gear. He can pass the documents up to me as a final packet of evidence.”
“You have thought of everything!”
“I hope!” A pale smile showed Scarlet’s rodent teeth. “I believe we understand each other. My ruling in your favor will not become final until I have actual possession of the flyer and my share of the cargo, with time for a start toward my secret destination.”
“If your Equity is absolutely unconditioned—”
“That’s our bargain.” Scarlet let his voice grate painfully. “Send me your banker.” He nodded curtly at the dancing figurine. “By the way, I’m keeping her.”
“I’ll leave the others, too.” Flintledge glanced sardonically at the two crystal plaques where Scarlet had seen his public and his private selves. “You will be needing them.”
Silently, avoiding those disturbing mirrors, Scarlet turned.
“I’ll prepare the documents.” Flintledge followed him anxiously toward the air lock. “I trust your Equity to anticipate whatever difficulties may be created for us by Newbolt and old Whitherly and the signal crew—”
Clothed in the cold blue purity of his judicial tight, Scarlet spun a sound barrier to shut out the trader’s whining voice. He was drunk with elation, too drunk to fret with petty detail. The frontier stars were in his grasp.
II
On Earth, outside agents had penetrated a few native schools and a cluster of quaint pre-psionic signal systems called science-fiction magazines. Using terms new to the aborigines, they published sensational reports of what they called ESP or psionics, which they described as a magical power unconfined by space or time or law.
“This simple deception has frustrated all the serious psycho-physical research that was threatening to expose us,” they reported to the moon. “It has conditioned the natives to abandon their most valid intuitions, in favor of pure nonsense. Their ‘psionic’ wizards are shuffling cards and rolling dice and blundering through fogs of what they call statistical analysis, but none of them is likely to discover the actual laws of the mind.”
ON THE MOON, that domed room was crowded again when Wain Scarlet returned. The contending groups were as breathlessly tense as if they had never been conditioned. Newbolt rose ominously to report that his monitors were still tracking the savage attacker, which was now more than halfway to the moon. Concealing his elation, Scarlet resumed the inquiry, asking with an obnoxious bored voice if anyone present was prepared to offer additional relevant evidence.
“Your Equity, please!” Coral fluttered to the bench, bringing tape from the frail ivory hands of old Mark Whitherly. “Not all contacts are disastrous. Here is the record of a case which proves that the natives are as highly civilized as you are.”
Frowning at the doorway, Scarlet still saw nothing of Flintledge or the banker. He assumed his most severe indifference, while Coral adjusted the tape in the scanner. It recorded the accidental arrival on Earth of another outsider, a prince of the matriarchy on Altair II.
The cruise of the space yacht Royal Mother, out from his maternal planet and back again, had been arranged to kill some sixty years of time, until the matriarch was ready to round out her iron-willed reign by directing the coronation and the formal nuptials of her daughter. Aboard the neutrionic yacht, however, in the flux of time and space at interstellar speeds, the years had shrunk to days.
The prince had been twenty-four when the cruise began. A slim and unobtrusive man with a hesitant voice and dark curly hair, he was still boyishly engaging when he smiled, although the waiting burden of his royal duties had slightly stooped his narrow shoulders and sobered his blue eyes with a wistful resignation. His newly granted title was as yet unblooded; he had never killed a man.
He was expected to return unchanged by time, still a fit consort for his future ruler—who had been a red and wrinkled infant when he left, squalling alarmingly through the betrothal ceremony. And he fully intended to return on time. He had assented without protest when his mother and the matriarch announced the traditional arrangements. He was merely a man. He knew his place.
A faint discontent had begun to nip him now and then, however, even while the faint spark of Altair hung reddened and fading behind the ship. Moody silences began to blight the small talk expected of him at dinners and receptions, on the civilized planets he visited. For all his efforts at a princely submission, rebellion smoldered in him. When the psionic screens in his suite showed him Altair turning bright and blue ahead, beyond Alpha Centuari and Sol, desperation took hold of him.
Trapped in the cold luxury of the royal suite, he tried to learn the speech his aide had written for him to make on Proxima IV, but the hollow phrases mocked him. He tried to sleep and paced the decks, until a wild impulse drove him to arouse the aide—a grizzled, hard-bitten old duelist who had fought his way to a title which may be rendered as count.
