Planet in Peril (17 page)

“She made one big error,” Charles commented. “And one easy enough to avoid. Sara is essentially chaste. Didn't her
psychoplan
show that?”

Raven nodded. “So,” he said, “is Miss Levine.”

“Then the orders she was given were at fault” “There was no orders. I think I take your meaning, Mr.
Grayner
. Whatever may have happened between you was not a part of the attempt to deceive you. You will give me credit, I hope, for not committing so egregious a blunder.”

“Then?”

“
Miss
Levine was surprised—and not pleased, Mr.
Grayner
—to find her duty in some respects more attractive than she had anticipated. She quickly became fond of you.”

“She told you that?”

Raven ran a neatly manicured hand through his white and well-groomed hair.

“She had to, Mr.
Grayner
. It was necessary, to explain her request to be relieved of her duty.”

“She asked that?”

“Three times. The latest occasion was yesterday evening. I was forced to refuse her requests. I told her I hoped that within a week or two you would have settled well enough in this managerial to have the truth explained to you. I did not reckon with Mr.
Dinkuhl
, who appears to have a talent for unveiling indiscreet secrets.”

Incredulously, Charles asked: “You think, under those circumstances, I would have stayed?”

Raven said: “Mr.
Dinkuhl
, that is a flask I see in your pocket? Might we not all have a drink—unadulterated this time?”

Dinkuhl
grinned. He poured into the two
plastobeakers
and the glass. He retained the beaker the girl had had for himself, and handed the others around.

“I'll take the residual Mickey. Your health, Director.” Raven took the drink, sniffed it, drank, and smacked his lips lightly. “A good liquor, Mr.
Dinkuhl
.”

“I always find the best is good enough.”

“A good motto. Now, Mr.
Grayner
—would you have stayed? I hope you would. I hope you still will.”

It was clearly the beginning of a long disquisition. Charles broke in.

“Before you go any further, Director, I should like to express my views on something—on the ties that can exist, that should exist between the man and the managerial. I can see two, and only two: natural loyalty, and trust. I still retained some loyalty to UC after I had seen it as inefficient and corrupt, because the loyalty went back a long way. It isn’t possible for me to have that kind of loyalty to Atomics. That’s where the necessity for trust comes in. And it’s a vulnerable growth. It won’t stand up to the kind of treatment you have given it—with whatever good intentions. I can assure you that it is dead. Dead and stinking.”

There was a short silence, as though Raven were waiting to be certain that Charlie had finished what he was going to say. Then he said:

“Loyalty to a managerial—trust in a managerial—those are sentiments apt for the lower levels of society. You have left that stage, Mr.
Grayner
, as Mr.
Dinkuhl
had done before you. Nor can you get back to it. Could you go back to UC from this managerial? Could you even contemplate such a return? You have joined the emancipated, and perhaps that is your misfortune. But one thing is certain: it doesn’t make life easier, and it most certainly does not make the course of your future acts obvious or assured.

“Your disillusion is nothing new to me, Mr.
Grayner
. I became acquainted with it many years ago. The Chief Director of a managerial is the last person who could possibly be a starry-eyed
managerialist
. He sees a number of distasteful things, and he is forced to take part in some of them. But he must continue to work through his managerial on behalf of the higher loyalty he holds.”

‘Which is?”
Dinkuhl
asked.

“Loyalty to the human race. It is a far-reaching loyalty and not always easy to grasp—it is not
possible
to grasp it until the earlier loyalties have been superseded. But it is, of course, the fundamental loyalty of man.”

“And the fundamental loyalty,”
Dinkuhl
suggested,
“demands that Charlie goes on working for Atomics— though you don’t need to call it Atomics? What shall we call it? United Preservers of Mankind—how’s that?”

Raven was not ruffled. He smiled dismissingly at
Dinkuhl
.

“Not one of the things I said at our first meeting is invalidated by your discovery that I have been deceiving you in the matter of Sara
Koupal
. As I have said, it was certain that the deception could not be maintained for very long in any case. I risked the disappointment and resentment that you were bound to feel then because of my confidence in your fundamental level-headedness. And in your ability to rise above your own needs and desires.

“I am asking you to do that now, Mr.
Grayner
—to forget your personal problems for a moment and to study things in a more general and detached light. The human race is facing one of its moments of decision, and you personally can be of great importance in the way that decision goes. Even without
Humayun’s
discovery, the situation would have been critical, but it now becomes urgently so. I put it to you with all seriousness that the world may be facing devastation.”

Dinkuhl
said: “Not for the first time. They sacked Cnossos five thousand years ago. And shall Atomics live?”

Raven walked across to
Dinkuhl
. He stood before him, his hands folded together.

“Have you thought of what the sack of Cnossos must have been like, Mr.
Dinkuhl
? Is it not possible that the lethargy, the flabbiness of spirit, that you so rightly chide in the world about us may have blinded you to the sleeping furies? For they are no more than sleeping—the
Cometeers
show us that. It is this social fabric you despise that prevents them from waking. Destroy it, and you will see them rub their eyes.”

Dinkuhl
looked at him and smiled. “They are rubbing their eyes already, Director. What is more, their bellies are rumbling.”

“Do you think, then, that man was made for murder— for torture and rape and brutality?”

For a moment
Dinkuhl
was silent. He said: “I don’t know what he was made for. Maybe he was made to sit in front of a TV screen. If he was,
I’ll
take the torture, rape and brutality; it has a healthy ring to it.”

Raven swung around, an easy unhurried movement, to look at Charles.

“This is the point, Mr.
Grayner
: do you share your friend’s view of cataclysms? Do you feel with him that Red League and
Cosy
Bright cry out for cannibalism as a counterweight? I do not ask you to place any trust in me, nor in this managerial, but I ask you—forgetting your own needs, forgetting Sara
Koupal
—to answer a question truthfully. The question is this: do you know of any capacity in which you can serve your fellow-men better than—no, as well as!—you can here? Never mind whether they have deserved destruction and damnation. That is the sort of question we can leave to the
Cometeers
. But from the simple point of view of avoiding pain and suffering, where else can you do as much?”

“One small item,”
Dinkuhl
cut in. “A necessary item on that premise. Charlie produces the power source and the weapon: then he has to trust you for the using of it.”

Raven said, with absolute confidence: “I will leave that point to Mr.
Grayner
. He knows that I have deceived him, but he knows also that I did this with a larger end in view. I apologize for deceiving him, but I do not regret putting the world’s needs first. It is precisely because I have already done that, in fact, that I can appeal to him to rely on my integrity in the future.”
Dinkuhl
said: “Charlie, my view is we’ve heard enough from Chief Director Raven. We know just what land of a noble and altruistic lover of mankind he is. I think that at this point we can prepare to move on.” Raven said to Charles: “Well, Mr.
Grayner
? Destruction or salvage? A corrupt and decadent world—do you destroy it or do you try to mend it?”

Charles stood in silence; he felt that his irresolution must be written all over him. Raven and
Dinkuhl
were both looking at him—Raven with calm confidence,
Dinkuhl
with the trace of a mocking grin.

He said: “I don’t know—”

Dinkuhl
said: “I suppose a key point is whether even now you have all the facts in the situation. All the relevant facts. Has he had all the relevant facts presented, do you think, Director?”

Raven nodded. “As far as I am concerned—yes.”

Charles glanced quickly at
Dinkuhl
; he knew him well enough by now to know that something was due to follow.

“You wouldn’t consider it a relevant fact,”
Dinkuhl
asked, “that you have been personally losing ground both on the Atomics Board of Directors and the World Council of
Managerials
for some years past—that your touching desire to save the world from itself is bound up with an anxiety to restore your own prestige?”

“It would be relevant if it were true. But it is not true.”

“The advantage I have over you, Director, is that Charlie has not yet caught me out lying to him. There is a motion down for the next Board meeting of this managerial, expressing no confidence in you as Chief Director and calling for your resignation. It is subscribed by
Ramaseshan
of New Delhi and
Burlitz
of Munich.” He paused. “You can now remove my advantage by calling your secretary from this room and asking her to put on the screen the draft of agenda for the meeting in question. In case your memory needs refreshing, the meeting will be held on February twenty-third, at New Delhi.”

There was a brief silence. On Raven’s face there still remained the faint smile he had called up at
Dinkuhl’s
first charge of his personal interest in having Charles in Atomics. He made the gesture Charles had expected him to make on their first meeting; he lifted his hands and examined his nails. The control was admirable.

“I could defend myself, Mr.
Dinkuhl
,” Raven said at last, “but for the second time I have been caught in deception—and this time it was most certainly an error of judgment. Twice is too many.”

He shrugged delicately.
Dinkuhl
was observing him closely.

“So now,”
Dinkuhl
commented, “for our own good, for the good of suffering mankind, and last and least for the good of the prestige of Chief Director Raven, you must— regrettably, regretfully—adopt the methods of such inferiors as Ledbetter. You must use force.”

The shrug was repeated, more delicately still. “With very great regret, I assure you, Mr.
Dinkuhl
. I am not under any illusion that the work will progress as swiftly in such conditions. But there is no alternative.”

“Should your colleagues,
Ramaseshan
and
Burlitz
, become aware of your having had such a prize and of your having jeopardized it through what they might think of as a desire for personal aggrandizement, I feel your position would become less secure rather
than
more, Director.”

Raven smiled. “I am inclined to agree, Mr.
Dinkuhl
. Fortunately they are not likely to become aware of it. I have better security control here at Philadelphia than possibly you might imagine.”

“I’ve got a good imagination. I hope you have, too, Director. Just about now,
Ramaseshan
is receiving a radio report It explains to him how, for the good of Atomics— we omit mankind for the moment—you took steps to obtain the services of Official
Grayner
, late of United Chemicals, who is—to your knowledge—the sole person capable of carrying through a project that will bring final power to that managerial which obtains it exclusively. Unfortunately
Grayner
has been got at by some outside group and either abducted or persuaded to desert. You have reason to think the destination is Asia, and probably India.
Ramaseshans
aid in recovering the fugitive will be appreciated. The report is signed Raven.”

Raven looked at
Dinkuhl
. He said slowly: "Your destructive potential is very high, Mr.
Dinkuhl

“Don’t bother to make any formal good-
bys
. At my guess,
Ramaseshan
will be on the screen to you without much delay. Oh.”
Dinkuhl
fished in a pocket. “A copy of your report
.
You’ll need it.”