Brain World, page 9
Fredric had been looking at the two Section G men unhappily. He said now, "I see that you don't approve of our methods. I might point out that the need has long been expressed. Plato proposed an eugenic program, saying, 'In the same way, if we want to prevent the human race from degeneration, we shall take care to encourage union between the better elements of both sexes, and to eliminate that of the worst.'" Darlene put in, "We minimize gene surgery, gene copying, gene insertion and gene deletion. Algeny and genetic engineering we handle with kid gloves. We utilize nature, largely, rather than science and technology to upgrade our people." Dorn said, "What surprises me is that we have so little trouble communicating with you. I would never know that we weren't on Earth or Archimedes or one of the other advanced planets. But surely there is a great intellectual gap between us." Marvin said, "We selected not only citizens who spoke Basic and Amer-English but also those who had the widest experience with people from overspace. We six have already had considerable contact, through attending scientific conventions and through the small amount of trade we conduct with other worlds."
"I see," Ronny said, self-deprecation in his voice. "You're especially selected to meet us. Rosemary is stupid, as she put it, and hence better able to communicate with us. You've been through the ordeal before, and so are able." Fredric was distressed. "You must not think in that manner. See here, Ronny, how would you like to submit to one of our present-day equivalents of an I.Q. test, just to see where you stand as compared to the average Einstein citizen?"
"Hell no," Ronny said. "It'd probably give me an inferiority complex that'd last the rest of my life."
"But surely such an organization as your own required a high I.Q. before you were admitted."
"Possibly, but I still don't want to compare mine with yours, any more than I'd want to compare my last dog with Boy. It would have given Gimmick the willies even to come in contact with Boy."
And so it went. Ronny Bronston and Dorn Horsten fired every question they could think of at the six-member committee, pertaining to the workings of Einstein. They pried further into the socioeconomic system. They delved into its governmental system, or its lack of it. They asked about religion and found that there was none. They had gotten into quite a discussion on the difference between accumulated knowledge and intelligence.
It was pointed out by Max that Einstein was as desperately at work accumulating knowledge as it was increasing intelligence. One was meaningless without the other. They took out time for lunch and Rosemary suggested that the guests from overspace might like to sample dishes which had originated on Einstein and wines that had been developed on this world.
It was delicious beyond belief.
After lunch, they returned to the living room with coffee and a local dessert wine and had at it again. It wasn't necessary for Ronny and Dorn to consult with each other to realize that both were coming to the same conclusion. Ross Metaxa's fears were meaningless. There was no reason at all why Einstein should not be admitted into United Planets. Indeed, it was fast becoming increasingly obvious that she was the most advanced world ever settled by humanity. Einstein was exactly the kind of member planet that they needed most. Undoubtedly, she had made thousands of scientific and technological discoveries that could be assimilated by other worlds. Arrangements were made for Dorn Horsten to meet some of the scientists in his particular field the following day, and arrangements for Ronny to visit the Einstein version of a university. It would seem schools on this world were unlike any elsewhere. They had revolutionized education as much as they had any other field. During one break, Dorn had drifted over to Rosemary's bar to refresh his glass. Barbara, the gorgeous redhead, came over, her own glass in hand and smiled into his eyes. She said. "I was wondering if you would like a bed companion tonight. I don't believe I've ever seen a man as large as you before. It rather excites me." Dorn Horsten kept himself from gaping at her, and then swallowed. He adjusted his pince-nez glasses on his nose. It was one of the reasons he wore the antiquated things. It gave you a chance to do something for a moment, while your mind raced to accommodate the unexpected.
He said gallantly, "I was just in the process of screwing up my courage to the point of asking you." He made a slight bow.
"Good," she smiled. "I'll spend the night here with you, then. The others have been invited to stay at Fredric's place. He lives quite near." The day sped by under the impetus of fascinating discoveries and, before they knew it, they were at table again.
It was a yawning Ronny Bronston by the time they split up, and all of the committee save Barbara took off for Fredric's home. Nobody seemed to think twice about Barbara remaining. As Dorn had thought the night before, they had no sexual taboos whatsoever. He suspected that had he asked one or more of the other women to stay as well, they most likely would have taken him up.
Boy followed Ronny to his suite and looked about it while his new master began wearily shedding his clothes.
The dog said, "Not bad, as human tastes go. What bed do you sleep in?"
"This one," Ronny said, sitting down on it to remove his shoes.
"Then I'll take this one," Boy told him and jumped up on it and stretched out. Ronny looked over at the dog and shook his head in continued amazement. He said,
"Boy, how old are you?"
"I'll be five in a few weeks. That's Einstein calendar, of course. I don't know what it'd be Earth-calendar."
"A human child of five wouldn't have your vocabulary. Not on Earth, at least."
"Not on Einstein, either," Boy said, then let his tongue hang out long enough for three quick pants. "We mature more quickly. A human isn't even sexually mature until he reaches up to fifteen. Hell, I had my first bitch when I was only one. A cute poodle." Ronny shook his head again and returned to his shoes.
There came a knock at the door and, without waiting for his response, Rosemary entered, her smile bright as always. She carried a bottle and two champagne glasses.
"Nightcap," she announced.
"Wizard," Ronny said. Inwardly, he was hoping that she wouldn't be quite so much of a barracuda tonight. He had done nothing but talk all day, but he was tired. Come to think of it, he was still sexually tired from the night before. She put the two glasses down on the room's center table and began expertly to draw the cork. She popped it and, just as expertly, poured before the effervescent wine could overflow the bottle.
Boy said, accusingly, "You didn't bring a bowl for me. I've got a taste for bubbly wine."
She looked over at him, as though seeing him for the first time. She said, apologetically, "Oh, Ronny, I couldn't possibly…well, I couldn't do anything with a dog watching us."
"Who wants to watch?" Boy growled. "What do you think I am, some sort of voyeur?"
She said, "I'm sorry, Boy."
"All right, all right," he said, getting up and jumping off the bed. "I'll go sleep in the living room." He looked at Ronny and it was absolutely possible to see disgust in his expression. "This is a hell of a way to start our relationship, Boss." And with that, he trotted out.
"Sorry, Boy," Ronny said apologetically after him. After the dog was gone, Rosemary said, "It's just a thing I have. I can't bear to have intelligent animals watching me when I make love." She handed Ronny one of the two glasses and began to undress.
He sipped appreciatively, then finished the sparkling wine in two gulps and rolled over into the bed. The whole group of them had been drinking, off and on, since lunch and he didn't need any more—especially if he was going to perform with the beauteous Rosemary. Alcohol had a tendency to slow him down in bed.
She said, "I was fascinated by what you said about those Dawnman planets. Are they very far away?"
He said, his mind as weary as his body, "Yes. And in a direction that's such that I doubt if man, at his current rate of expansion, would ordinarily touch into the area for another millenium."
"Why would that be?" she said, slipping out of her kilt.
"Different spiral," he yawned. "You know, Earth is rather far out, you might say on the outskirts of the galaxy, in an area rather sparsely occupied by sun systems, compared to closer in to the center. With billions of sun systems involved, even with the underspace drive, our race could take an almost unbelievable time to expand to the point where we ran into the Dawnworld culture, or other intelligent life, for that matter." He thought about it. "But it's only a matter of time, of course. Sooner or later we will—unless we lose our drive to expand."
She kicked off her Etruscan revival slippers. "So the Dawnworlds are closer in toward the center?"
"That's right," he told her, "but I shouldn't even be talking about it." She said, "What's all this about their being so advanced but that they're not really intelligent? That doesn't sound very reasonable."
"It's that same discussion we had earlier. About intelligence and accumulated knowledge. If you had an intelligence half, or even a quarter, of the average on Earth, not to speak of Einstein, in a few megayears you'd have one hell of a lot of accumulated knowledge. You wouldn't have to be smart. In a few million years you would have figured out one hell of a lot of things, assuming, obviously, that you had enough wit to develop a written language as well as a spoken one, so you could pass your accumulated material on to the next generation."
She climbed into bed next to him but didn't immediately act as frankly as she had the night before. She simply stretched out, there, and put her hands behind her head. "In what direction, toward the center of the galaxy, are they?" she said idly. And alarm bells rang in his head.
But it was then that the knockout drops hit Ronny Bronston.
Chapter Thirteen
Dorn Horsten was awakened in the morning by Boy licking his face. He sat up abruptly, sputtering.
"What…what…"
Boy said, "The Boss is gone."
"What do you mean, gone?" Dorn blurted, still half asleep.
"He's not in his suite."
Dorn Horsten reached over to the night table and got his glasses and put them on and then stared at the dog. "Well, where did he go?"
"I don't know. I wasn't there. Rosemary doesn't like dogs watching when she's making love. I slept in the living room on the couch." Dorn shook his head in an effort to drive the remains of sleep away. "Is she gone, too? Maybe they took a walk, or something." He was speaking in whispers, so as not to awaken the redhead on the pillow beside him.
"She's still there, sleeping like a log. She didn't even wake up when I licked her." The Section G agent swung his feet over the side of the bed. Barbara, his bedmate, continued to sleep on, in spite of the talk. No wonder. They'd had quite a siege of it the night before. The woman had seemed insatiable. He reached over for his trousers and struggled into them, then, without even shoes, headed for the door. "Come along," he said to the dog.
They entered Ronny's suite without knocking. Rosemary was still stretched out, nude, on the bed.
Among other degrees, Dorn Horsten held an M.D. He stared down at her for a moment, then reached out and with his fingers opened one of her eyes.
"Drugged," he muttered. He slapped her face back and forth for a moment. Finally, she awakened, looking groggy. "Whaz amatter?" Dorn said urgently, "Where's Ronny?"
She vaguely looked over at the pillow next to hers. It was, of course, empty.
"Why…why, I don't know."
"He's not here," Dorn said urgently, "and you've been drugged."
"Drugged!" Suddenly, she was more alert. Her eyes went about the room searchingly. "But…that's impossible."
He looked around too. "How could it have been administered? I ate everything and drank everything that you two did, and I haven't been drugged." She shook her head. "I simply don't know."
"Did you two eat or drink anything, after you left the rest of us?"
"No. No, of course not."
The dog looked at her strangely, but didn't say anything. He also looked about the room. There was no sign of the bottle of champagne and the two glasses.
"Come on," Dorn said to him. "Let's search the rest of the house." They went through every room of the underground building, finding exactly nothing and finally winding up in the patio's center.
"Maybe he went for a walk," the big man said, knowing full well that was nonsense.
"And maybe he didn't," the dog growled. "She's lying. Either that, or she's so dopey she's forgotten."
Dorn glowered at him. "What in the name of the Holy Ultimate are you talking about?"
Boy said, "Last night, she came into the room with a bottle of wine and two glasses in way of a nightcap. Then she objected to my sticking around, so I left. The bottle and the glasses aren't there now."
Dorn muttered something and returned to his own suite. Barbara was still in the bed, out like a light. He wondered if she, too, was drugged, but doubted it; her breathing sounded perfectly normal. He got into the rest of his clothes and his shoes and headed for the living room, Boy trailing after.
He sat at the center table and brought forth his communicator and propped it up before him and activated it. Irene Kasansky's face faded in, looking harassed, as usual. Dorn said, "Is the Old Man available?"
"No. He's gone over to London for some sort of confab. What's up?"
"How about Sid Jakes?"
"He's in conference. What's wrong?"
"Get him out of conference. Ronny's been nabbed." Her eyes widened. "What the Holy Ultimate are you talking about? The assignment you're on is a milk run. What could possibly go wrong?"
"I don't know," Dorn said emptily.
She flicked a switch, and shortly Sid Jake's face beamed out at him from the small phone screen of the communicator.
"Dorn!" he said happily. "How's it going? Having a good time? I envy you field men. I haven't had a vacation since…"
Dorn Horsten interrupted him. "Something's developed here that doesn't make sense. We've only been here two days but the night before last, I caught two men searching my luggage. They got away. Last night, Ronny disappeared. His bedmate was drugged and he's simply gone."
"Bedmate?" Sid Jakes chortled. "You've been there only two days and already he's sleeping with some mopsy? Ronny's a fast operator."
"I've got one too," Dorn growled. "But the thing is this. Remember that Count Felix Fitzjames, the top scientist from Phrygia? Well, when he disappeared before we could brainwash him, he didn't exactly disappear. He came here to Einstein and they took him in. He told them all he knew about the Dawnworlds, and he probably knew as much about them as anybody did, including Ronny. There was only one thing he couldn't tell them. Where they're located. Nobody living knows that…except Ronny." For once, Sid Jakes' face was less than happy. He said, "Oh, wizard. I can see it coming."
"Yes. Somebody on this brainworld has got hold of Ronny and it's only a matter of time before they put him under Scop or some other truth serum, and he tells them where the Dawnmen are."
"Why should they care?"
"How would I know?"
Sid Jakes closed his eyes in pain. "Otherwise, how are they, there on Einstein?"
"Very advanced, very reasonable, in an off-beat sort of way. I can't see any reason for keeping them out of the United Planets, or any way of doing it when it's put to a vote among the member worlds."
Sid Jakes opened his eyes and said, "Find him. Find Ronny, Horsten. Find him before they get the secret from him."
"How?" Dorn Horsten said plaintively.
"How would I know? You're there, I'm not. But whoever has nabbed Ronny, as you put it, can't be allowed to have the information about the location of the Dawnmen. Take whatever steps necessary. You're a trouble shooter. Start shooting."
"And if I have to take rugged ones, tough steps? Section G backs me to the hilt?"
"Don't be silly," Sid Jakes snorted. "If your methods get too rugged, we won't even admit knowing you exist." His face faded, glowing a sardonic grin. Dorn Horsten closed his own eyes in mute agony.
He opened them and looked at Boy. He said, "I haven't been out of this house since we came to Einstein. How in the name of the Holy Ultimate am I supposed to find Ronny Bronston?"
The dog hung his tongue out of his mouth and for three quick pants, wagged his bobbed tail twice and said, "What do you think I've got this nose for?"
"Nose?"
"Nose."
"How do you mean?"
The dog had been stretched out on the floor. Now he arose. "Come along," he said.
"We'll trail the Boss."
Dorn Horsten hesitantly followed him. All his inclinations were to get into immediate touch with Fredric and the other members of the committee. On the face of it, they couldn't be part of the conspiracy. Had they wanted to question Ronny about the location of the Dawnworlds they wouldn't have had to abduct him. They could have taken him, there at the spaceport, and injected him with the truth serum, Scop, then and there. Besides, after the day-long conversations they'd had, he couldn't believe the six committee members could be Machiavellian. However, how had Ronny put it? High intelligence was no guarantee of integrity.
He followed the Vizsla back to the door of Ronny's suite and the dog scurried around the room sniffing. Then he hung his tongue out several inches, turned and trotted toward the patio, then the entry to the underground house, his nose near the ground.
