Collected Short Fiction, page 599
“No.” He frowned severely at Coral. “Not yet.”
“Not for a thousand years, my dear.” Newbolt’s smile beamed through rosy sparks of virile confidence. “Never, in my own opinion. If the blinker project is not approved, we shall have long centuries here to while away—”
“Wrong, Newbolt!” That loud hail boomed from the back of the dome, and Scarlet swung to see a big stranger stalking in. “I’m just up from Earth, with news about the crisis.” He paused, staring boldly up at Scarlet. “Your Equity, I have come to inform you that the natives are about to make a contact that can’t be ignored. They’ll be here in exactly twenty hours!”
V
SCARLET stood smiling down at the stranger, captured by an unrepaired ugliness more violent than his own. Long-chinned and broken-nosed, the man was bald as a boulder, burned dark as weathered copper, splotched with livid scars where wounds must have been sewed up by savage surgeons. Sheer muscular bulk made him look grotesquely short. Almost nude, he required no psionic cosmetics to amplify his powerful animal vitality.
Beckoning Newbolt to the bench, Scarlet whispered, “Who is he?”
“Nobody with any right to waste our time.” The commander gave the stranger one contemptuous glance. “Another of these beasts of prey waiting for the quarantine to end—and alarmed now because the blinker project is about to vaporize the planet he came to devour.”
Scarlet nodded silently, fascinated by the barbaric blaze of priceless natural diamonds at the stranger’s dark throat and on his gigantic hands.
“An insterstellar pirate, who calls himself a trader.” Although the man was coming near, Newbolt refused to lower his scornful voice. “Dirk Flintledge. A loudmouthed nuisance, but I’ll soon dispose of him!”
“Wait! If he has news about the crisis—”
“He’s lying.” The commander glared at Flintledge, who had been intercepted by Coral Fell, her makeup all aglow with pink admiration. “My agents have infiltrated the native centers of space research. They report no new flight attempts since the loss of the rocket we salvaged.”
“But this man has been on Sol III?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Indignantly, he turned his back on Coral and the trader. “Though not through any fault of mine. He arrived here before I relieved Commander Rivers, and was permitted to begin an undercover commercial survey of the planet. A glaring indiscretion, I believe. I don’t trust such men to respect the Covenants.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Wain, this is wonderful news!” Haloed with glowing elation, Coral led the trader toward the bench. “Dirk says there is a native rocket coming to this very spot!”
“Commander Newbolt questions that information.”
“His own information is incomplete.” Flintledge turned a hideous grin upon the startled commander. ‘This new rocket was built at a secret military installation which his quarantine agents had failed to penetrate. It was launched before I left the planet. It is already halfway to the moon. Its arrival will present you with a full-blown contact crisis.”
FLINTLEDGE licked his naked lips.
“You see, some of the savage tribes are fighting what they call a cool war, which is forcing the development of space weapons. Native spies have been feeding each faction disturbing reports about the progress of the others. One tribe was told that it was in danger from an enemy space base on the moon. This rocket is the reply to that report.” His grin grew frightening. “Unfortunately for Newbolt’s policies, their planned impact point coincides with the location of this station.”
“He’s lying!” Newbolt turned pale before his vicious ugliness. “He’s attempting to influence Your Equity.”
“Wait and see.” The scarred man remained as cheerfully monstrous as a black stone god rotting in some jungle temple. “But I must inform you that the savages have armed their space ship with what they classify as fifty-megaton fusion missiles.”
Newbolt’s bright attire flickered.
“A moment, Your Equity.” He bent over his wrist communicator. “Let me check my monitors.” Scarlet waited, watching the trader, weighing his wealth, until Newbolt spoke stiffly through a haze of angry blue. “Our monitors have detected an object moving out from Sol III. Its emanations indicate both nuclear devices and living bodies. Its trajectory will bring it toward this side of the satellite.”
“Toward contact!” Eager sparks swirled around Coral. ‘This is the crisis!”
“A false contact!” Newbolt glared at the trader. ‘These natives had failed to find their own way through the radiation zones. They must have received illicit information—including our own location here.” The blue dust glittered frostily. “Your Equity, I accuse Dirk Flintledge of a criminal violation of the Covenants.”
“Now, sir.” Flintledge remained undismayed. “Why should you suspect me?”
“Because you want to force a crisis,” Newbolt rapped. “Because you have been down on the planet, among the builders of this rocket. Because I have received reports of your illegal methods in previous collisions with the quarantine service.”
“Such circumstances are not proof—”
“I’ll find proof.” Newbolt blazed balefully. “Your Equity, I intend to convict and punish this criminal.”
“He hasn’t much time to assemble his evidence.” Flintledge smirked insolently at Scarlet. “The natives will be here in twenty hours, with missiles that he can’t ignore. If he decides to intercept them in space, that act itself will be contact.”
“I’ll rule on what is contact.” Scarlet tried to match the savage ugliness of Flintledge with the harshness of his own slurred and strident voice. “I’ll decide whether this man has violated the Covenants.”
“But, Your Equity—”
Stem on the bench, Scarlet silenced Newbolt. He sat scowling judicially, wondering how to negotiate with Flintledge without exciting dangerous suspicions. Tension was breathing under the dome. Glowing with a delicious violet alarm, Coral wanted to know how the station could be protected from the savage attack—unless he recognized the contact and lifted the quarantine.
ABRUPTLY he recessed the inquiry, announcing that he wanted time to consider his ruling on the incident. He ordered Newbolt to monitor the savage rocket, but not to interfere with its flight Ignoring the startled murmur in the chamber, he asked Newbolt about the trader’s background.
“He’s unconditioned.” Newbolt dropped his eyes from Scarlet’s own unconditioned ugliness, and hurried on. “Unconditioned and desperate. You see, he has made an unwise gamble on an early end of the quarantine. Now he is about to lose everything.”
Watching from their small cell of silence, Scarlet saw Coral talking to Whitherly, whose aged admiration seemed still warm enough to light her psionic lures. Flintledge and the signal officer were both waiting for her, as if her green-lipped smile mattered more than the intergalactic beacon, the lives of three billion persons or the fate of Earth.
“Is Flintledge wealthy?” Scarlet asked.
“I suppose he has been.” Newbolt shrugged disapprovingly. “Made a fortune cheating savages, I suppose, and lost most of it as they picked up enough psionics to match his tricks. When he learned that Sol III was getting ripe, he mortgaged his ship for the capital to pluck it. I learned that from the competent young man who has followed him from the Bank of Vega to collect the loan. The money is due in just ten years. He’d need that time to dig it out of the natives, even if you lifted the quarantine today. If you approve the blinker project, he’ll have no time to look for another plum. He’ll be erased.”
“I see.” Scarlet scowled to hide his elation. “Now please show me to my quarters.”
He stopped outside the barrier to ask Coral to join him for dinner. Responsive colors lit her psionic snares, but she already had a dinner date with Penwright. When he turned hopefully to look for Flintledge, the trader had already gone. Disappointed, he let Newbolt take him down to his quarters.
The bare little cell, two miles below the lock tower, was adequate enough. The service cherished a tradition of austere simplicity; he was used to nothing better. Yet the thought of lonely centuries here, waiting for this world to fumble its own way toward a real contact, was enough to make him shiver.
The signalmen were welcome to broil the planet—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 once more 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 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 a thousand others.”
“I understand you,” Scarlet said. “But the Covenants apply.”
“You—”
Breathing unevenly, the old man contained whatever reckless words he had almost uttered. Scarlet crouched apprehensively, but Whitherly had been conditioned above 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 native anthropoids, 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 managed to put down his righteous resentment. “I should like very much to come.”
Newbolt would disapprove, he knew, but then his whole object was to escape the disapproval of such people forever.
“My call must be brief,” he added. “I’m resuming the hearing in 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.
VI
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 on 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 surge of unconditioned resentment, he began to observe that Flintledge was no better conditioned than he himself 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. We’ve been on guard. But don’t they belong to the natives?”
“A miserable lot.” Flintledge shrugged. “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 guided 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 processing 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.”
