The Long Result (14 page)

Micky gave a sour chuckle. ‘You should see the bad extrapolations! Now here’s the set which defines our advantage – I’ve assigned it a minimum value, one year flat. We know for sure, and the Starhomers are only guessing, that the balance point is past. We’ve got to exploit that for all it’s worth. The budget will run to about six and a half billion for propaganda alone, and half will have to go at governmental level.’

‘As much as half?’ Tinescu snapped.

‘Easily. The first thing – see the line which develops at the bottom? – the first thing the Starhomers will do when they realise their strength is demand the abrogation of their colonial contracts with us, and they won’t like it if we put up too fierce a resistance.’

‘I’d better start working on the Minister right away,’ Tinescu muttered.

‘Don’t forget we have to deal with the popular audience too. Newscasts, mass education – that sort of thing. We’ve got to convince the people that we’ll still be on the same planet.’

‘How about Starhome?’ I interjected. ‘We’ve got to persuade them that just because they get their own way in this doesn’t mean everything will be roses from now on.’

‘I was coming to that,’ Micky nodded. ‘The longest part of the job is to make up Starhome’s deficiencies in the human sciences. It may take fifty years. Fortunately they already realize the need for it. Did Roald tell you they’re going to set up their own counterpart of BuCult?’

Tinescu’s eyes blazed at me. ‘No, he did not!’

‘I’m sorry, chief,’ I excused myself. ‘I only heard about this on Friday afternoon when the Starhomer courier called on me. You’d gone – it was after sixteen by then.’

‘What’s she got to do with it? Oh, never mind – it was to be expected, I guess. Go on,’ he rapped at Micky.

After that I thought it better to keep my mouth shut. My comments would have been superfluous anyway. At the end of an hour I was marvelling all over again at the range and scope of Micky’s mind. Subject to a computer check in Integration, one might almost have said the plan was polished and ready to roll.

But it only seemed that easy. Public opinion possesses appalling inertia, and we were barred from using the crude mass-appeal phenomena like sabotaging rockets which the Starhomers didn’t hesitate to employ.

Still … if anyone could swing the deal, Micky Torres could. I gave him a crooked grin.

‘How does it feel to be the most important man on Earth?’ I asked.

He pulled a face at me and didn’t answer.

Finally the moment came when Tinescu reached for the phone and called Tomas in Integration to tell him that a crash priority job was coming down and that he should clear current programmes but not feed in any more until Micky arrived. There was a yelp of complaint, but Tinescu swore at him in Rumanian and that persuaded him.

‘Now, what about you, Roald?’ the old man demanded.

I stumbletongued for a second. ‘Well – I’m going to see
Klabund, I guess. He’s in by far the best position to tackle the League – he has three inquiries in hand with which they may be connected, and all of them are
sub judice
so there’s no risk of the information being made public knowledge for some time yet.’

‘You want to tip him off about the link between Star-home and the League – yes?’

I nodded.

‘Think he should, Torres?’

Micky considered it for a moment, and finally said, ‘Yes, I think it’s a sensible move. Provided that at all costs we don’t let the Starhomers know we were the people who spotted the connection. Let them believe they were clumsy enough to allow a dumb policeman to catch on. Then they’ll have to pick another line of attack, and we’ll gain some room to manoeuvre.’

He shook all his documents together in a neat pile and headed for Integration to launch the biggest mass education campaign ever undertaken by mankind.

Exactly why a narrow escape from death and the prospect of becoming a citizen of a second-class planet should have made me feel I was enjoying myself, I couldn’t figure out. But I was. Something was taking hold of me – a sense of purpose, one might have called it, which promised challenges deeper and more rewarding than any work I’d tackled in BuCult since I joined it. One of the first effects was that I felt I was getting my priorities straight. The sight of the mound of work that had accumulated in the conveyor box over the weekend would normally have made me sigh and sit down to sift painstakingly through every item before
initiating fresh tasks. Now I ignored it and reached for the phone.

My secretary started to recite a list of work on hand. I shut it off.

‘How can I contact Inspector Klabund, Pacific Coast Police District?’ I demanded of the exchange.

‘An attempt will be made to locate him for you,’ said the horrible sweet mechanical voice at the other end.

I waited. At length: ‘Inspector Klabund is unavailable at police headquarters. The inquiry into the recent rocket-crash is in progress and he is believed to be conducting an investigation at the port. If you wish to record a message —’

Begin speaking after the third tone.
I scowled at the blank screen over the phone. ‘Find out when he’ll be available. I want a personal appointment with him.’

Another pause. Fortunately Klabund had remembered to key that information into his own secretary. He would be back, I was told, at fourteen hours.

‘Record, please … Inspector Klabund, Roald Vincent of BuCult will call on you at fourteen today with important new information concerning your current inquiries.’

I switched off and sat back. Now: Patricia. The small matter of my nearly being murdered had made me forget to call her from the rocketport when I got back. I was forgetting to call her so easily that I was becoming worried.

I told the phone to connect me with Area Met, not really expecting her to accept the call. While waiting, I wondered how I could track her down – go round to her place this evening, maybe…

‘Why, Roald! Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t angry with me!’

And there she was: sleek golden hair, ripe luscious mouth, dancing eyes, framed like an artist’s miniature in the tiny screen of the phone. For long seconds I just gazed at her, feeling all over again the twisting sensation her beauty had first aroused in me. Then I said, ‘Angry?’

‘I thought you must be, and that was why I hadn’t heard from you.’

‘There was a little matter of an answerer which had instructions to refuse my calls,’ I hinted.

Crestfallen, she nodded. ‘That was a dreadful thing to do, wasn’t it? But you see … well, I’d begun to think that we were going to stay together for a long time, and when you made that joke at the Dembas’ party, about going off for goodness knows how long to Regulus, I was – well – sort of shaken.’

It was my turn to be shaken. I’d never imagined that she was thinking, like me, that our relationship would last indefinitely. I felt a warm glow inside.

‘Will you forgive and forget?’ she pleaded.

‘You know damned well I could forgive you practically anything,’ I said.

‘And you’re not angry?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m so glad!’ Her smile lit up her face like a nova. ‘I cancelled that silly order to the phone long ago, and still you didn’t try to get in touch – What happened?’

‘A good many things. Mainly, I was in Cambridge seeing Micky Torres. Also someone nearly killed me on the way home.’

‘What? Darling, you aren’t serious!’

‘No?’ I touched my face gingerly. ‘It doesn’t show on the phone, but I’m covered in plastoskin.’ I summed up the eventful journey home.

‘Oh, how awful!’ Eyes wide, she leaned close to the camera at her end. ‘Look, you must come around tonight – I’ll make dinner for you and you can have a nice quiet evening. Shall we say nineteen-thirty?’

I would say nineteen-thirty. I did. And rang off with the impression I was on top of the world.

I basked for a good ten minutes before realizing that whatever
else might have happened I still had a job to do here, and turned with resignation to the pile of work in the conveyor box.

Most of it had to be flagged for holding, since by now Micky’s team would be monopolizing the facilities of Integration; I returned seven files of social assay data from Viridis without a pang to the central registry. But there was some processed material to be farmed out to places as close to home as Montreal or as far away as Auckland, New Zealand.

I’d just checked the time and found to my surprise that it lacked only ten minutes to the noon recess, when the annunciator on the door spoke up.

‘Vincent? Martin van’t Hoff here. Can you spare a minute?’

Madeleine’s spacecrew cousin. Yes, why not? I tripped the door release and the familiar red-clad figure came in.

‘Hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I was just saying good-bye to Jacky, and he mentioned your office was next door, so I thought I’d have a word while I was here.’

‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘You’ve been promoted.’

He glanced down self-consciously at the newly brilliant badge of a master navigator which had replaced the former, smaller one of a navigator-in-ordinary. ‘Yes – thanks. Actually that’s why I’m leaving. The news came through on Saturday, and with it a posting to a new ship. I’m due to lift tonight on the Viridis run. What’s more I hear we’ll be carrying some of your people.’

‘That’s right – staff from the survey missions who’ve been home on furlough. Oh! You must be with the
Mizar,
then. I seem to recall she was due out today.’

‘Correct,’ he said, pleased. ‘Jacky said you have some friends on Viridis – any messages?’

‘You might say hullo to Wlaclaw Soong. He’s the portliaison
officer at Viridis Main. We were in school together.’

‘Will do.’ He reached in one of his capacious pockets and found a notepad already inscribed with a long list of names. ‘Frankly,’ he muttered as he added the new one, ‘I’m beginning to worry about my cousin’s morals. So far she’s told me to give her love to thirty-one people on Viridis. Still, so long as they stay at a distance I guess Jacky needn’t worry.’

He tucked the notepad back in its place. ‘Oh, by the way, wasn’t it you I was talking to about the
Algenib
when that Regulan arrived at the party?’

‘That’s right.’ I could tell he was fidgeting, even though he wanted to talk; I deduced he might be in a hurry and got up. ‘Look, I’m due for lunch in five minutes anyway – shall I come down to the lobby with you if you’re short of time?’

‘That’s very kind of you – I am in a bit of a rush.’

I told my secretary I was leaving, and ordered a car for thirteen-fifteen hours to take me to see Klabund; then we headed for the elevators. Waiting for the car to arrive, I reminded Martin of what he’d been saying.

‘Oh yes. I’d just thought of something when Anovel came in, and I’ve been back to the port to see if I’d guessed right. They’d humped the ship to her berth, and what with the lugger still in the way and the Starhomers being secretive all over the place I didn’t get a very good view. No one’s being allowed on board, apparently – they even have their own maintenance crew with them.’

The elevator arrived and we stepped inside.

‘But,’ Martin went on, ‘I did pick up some hints which seem to confirm my theory. What’s different about the
Algenib
is the design of the engine holds. I think I told you why it’s necessary to carry five or six engines – yes? Well, I can’t for the life of me see how you could fit more than two engines into the space available.’

‘You mean they’ve found out how to reduce the size of a
stardrive motor?’ I hazarded, for he was looking at me as though I ought to be immensely impressed. The elevator came to a halt, and we went into the lobby.

‘Well – no, not without inventing an entirely new form of propulsion. Tolerances are already down to mono-molecular levels, and there’s a fixed lower limit on the size of the field which will shift the
Algenib’s
mass. She must weigh every ounce of fourteen thousand tons.’

‘Fifteen,’ I said.

‘Really?’ He pursed his lips. ‘Well, that settles it. They’ve discovered how to cancel the orbital distortions induced by the field. In other words, they can re-use their stardrive engines.’

That meant very little to me, and my face must have shown the fact, for Martin went on fiercely, ‘Have you
no
idea what this means? Blazes, I’m not an engineer, but for the exams I took to get my master’s certificate, I had to dig pretty deep into stardrive theory. The field permanently collapses the orbits of electrons at the focus of the generator – or up till now it was “permanently”. But if they’ve found out how to cancel that, the Starhomers must be on to counter-gravity, to start with! Soon they’ll be building ships that don’t need jets for landing but float down, like balloons! Conversely, they ought to be able to produce condensed matter – nucleonium, the stuff you find in the heart of a dwarf star. Since it isn’t the mass you’re shifting that really counts in a starship, but the radius of the nullity field you have to generate, think how much cargo they’ll be able to carry. As far as I can see they’ve opened up a whole new domain of physics! ’

By this time we had paused on the steps of the entrance to the Bureau, with the huge motto overhead. I was silent for half a minute under Martin’s quizzical gaze.

‘It’s disturbing, isn’t it?’ he said at last. ‘When I think I may live to fly in a ship that lifts from a planet like a bit of
thistledown, and goes into hyperphotonic drive as soon as it leaves atmosphere, my guts turn over with excitement … Well, I really have to run. There’s my car waiting. Good-bye – hope to see you when I’m next on Earth.’

He ran to the car which stood, gleaming the same red as his uniform, at the foot of the steps. I watched him go, my mind churning with the impact of what he’d told me.

I was still there, numbed, when a hand fell on my shoulder and Jacky spoke from behind me.

‘Roald, you look as if you’ve been struck by lightning!’

I shook myself and came back to the present. ‘Oh, hullo. Are you lunching at the canteen?’

‘Naturally. The date I kept for you with Patricia exhausted my eating-out allowance for this month. I’m not like you wealthy bachelors – I have a wife and child to support.’ His handsome dark face was alive with amusement.