The transmitter’s visualization tank cleared suddenly from a smokily glowing green into a three-dimensional view of the Viper’s control room; and the Co-ordinator gazed with approval on the silver-eyed, spacesuited, slender figure beyond the ship’s massive control desk. Human or not, Pagadan was nice to look at.
“And what do you want now?” he inquired.
“Agent-Trainee Hallerock,” the Lannai informed him, “6972.41, fourth year.”
“Hm-m-m. Yes, I know him!” The Co-ordinator tapped the side of his long jaw reflectively. “Rather striking chap, isn’t he?”
“He’s beautiful!” Pagadan agreed enthusiastically. “How soon can you get him out here?”
“Even by Ranger,” the Co-ordinator said doubtfully, “it would be ten days. There’s an Agent in the nearest cluster I could route out to you in just under four.”
She shook her head. “Hallerock’s the boy—gloomy Hallerock. I met him a few months ago, back on Jeltad,” she added, as if that made it clear. “What are his present estimated chances for graduation?”
The inquiry was strictly counter-regulation, but the Co-ordinator did not raise an eyebrow. He nudged a switch on his desk.
“I’ll let the psych-tester answer that.”
“If the Agent-Trainee were admitted for graduation,” a deep mechanical voice came immediately from the wall to his left, “the percentage of probability of his passing all formal tests would be ninety-eight point seven. But because of a background conditioned lack of emotional adjustment to Vegan civilization, graduation has been indefinitely postponed.”
“What I thought,” Pagadan nodded. “Well, just shoot him out to me then—by Ranger, please!—and I’ll do him some good. That’s all, and thanks a lot for the interview!”
“It was a pleasure,” said the Co-ordinator. Then, seeing her hand move towards her transmitter switch, he added hastily, “I understand you’ve run into a secondary mission problem out there, and that Correlation foresees difficulties in finding a satisfactory solution.”
The Lannai paused, her hand on the switch. She looked a little surprised. “That Ulphian illusionist? Shouldn’t be too much trouble. If you’re in a hurry for results though, please get behind Lab Supply on the stuff I requisitioned just now—the Hospital ship, the Kynoleen and the special types of medics I need. Push out that, and Hallerock, to me and you’ll have my final mission report in three weeks, more or less.”
She waved a cheerful farewell and switched off, and the view of the Viper’s control room vanished from the transmitter.
* * *
The Co-ordinator chewed his upper lip thoughtfully.
“Psych-tester,” he said then, “just what is the little hellcat cooking up now?”
“I must remind you,” the psych-tester’s voice returned, “that Zone Agent 131.71 is one of the thirty-two individuals who have been able to discern my primary purpose here, and who have established temporary blocks against my investigations. She is, furthermore, the first to have established a block so nearly complete that I can offer no significant answer to your question. With that understood, do you wish an estimate?”
“No!” grunted the Co-ordinator. “I’d forgotten. I can make a few wild guesses myself.” He ran his hand gently through his graying hair. “Let’s see—this Hallerock’s trouble is a background conditioned lack of adjustment to our type of civilization, you say?”
“He comes,” the psych-tester reminded him, “of the highly clannish and emotionally planet-bound strain of Mark Wieri VI.”
The Co-ordinator nodded. “I remember now. Twenty-two thousand light-years out. They’ve been isolated there almost since the First Stellar Migrations—were rediscovered only a dozen years or so ago. Extra good people! But Hallerock was the only one of them we could talk into going to work for us.”
“He appears to be unique among them in being galactic-minded in the Vegan sense,” the psych-tester agreed. “Subconsciously, however, he remains so strongly drawn to his own kind that a satisfactory adjustment to permanent separation from them has not been achieved. Outwardly, the fact is expressed only in a lack of confidence in himself and in those with whom he happens to be engaged in any significant work; but the tendency is so pronounced that it has been considered unsafe to release him for Zonal duty.”
“Ninety-eight point seven!” the Co-ordinator said. He swore mildly. “That means he’s way the best of the current batch—and I could use a couple like that so beautifully right now! Psychoing won’t do it?”
“Nothing short of complete mind-control for a period of several weeks.”
The Co-ordinator shook his head. “It would settle his personal difficulties, but he’d be spoiled for us.” He considered again, briefly, sighed and decided: “Pagadan’s claimed him, anyway. She may wreck him completely; but she knows her therapy at that. Better let her give it a try.”
He added, as if in apology:
“I’m sure that if we could consult Trainee Hallerock on the question, he’d agree with us—”
He was reaching out to punch down a desk stud with the last words and continued without a noticeable break:
“Central Communicator clear for Lab report on the rate of spread of the Olleeka plagues—”
His mind clearing also with that of any other matter, he settled back quietly and waited for Lab to come in.
* * *
System Chief Jasse, D.C. Cultural Field Investigator, listened attentively till her study recorder had clicked out “Report Dispatched.” Then she sat frowning at the gadget for a moment.
The home office would like that report! A brisk, competent review of a hitherto obscure section of Ulphi’s long-past rough and ready colonial period, pointing out and explaining the contrast between those days and the present quaintly perfect Ulphian civilization. It was strictly in line with the Department of Cultures’ view of what any group of A-Class human beings, left to themselves, could achieve and it had sounded plausible enough when she played it back. But somehow it left her dissatisfied. Somehow Ulphi itself left her dissatisfied.
Perhaps she just needed a vacation! As usual, when a new case was keeping her busy, she had been dosing herself with insomniates for the past two weeks. But in her six years of work with Cultures she had never felt the need for a vacation before.
Patting back a yawn in the process of formation, Jasse shook her head, shut off the recorder and stepped out before the study mirror. Almost time for another appointment—some more historical research.
Turning once slowly before the tall mirror, she checked the details of her uniform and its accessories—the Traditionalist Greens which had been taken over with all their symbolic implications by the Department of Cultures. Everything in order, including the concealed gravmoc batteries in belt and boots and the electronic mind-shield switch in her wrist bracelet. No weapons to check; as a matter of policy they weren’t carried by D.C. officials.
She pulled a bejeweled cap down on her shoulder-length wave of glossy black hair, grimaced at the face that, at twenty-five or thereabouts, still wore an habitual expression of intent, childish seriousness, and left the study.
By the lake shore, fifty feet from the D.C. mobile-unit’s door, the little-people were waiting. Six of them today—middle-aged historians in the long silver-gray garments of their guild, standing beside a beautifully shaped vehicle with a suggestion of breath-taking speed about its lines. The suggestion didn’t fool Jasse, who knew by experience that its looks were the only breath-taking thing about an Ulphian flow-car. The best it would produce in action was an air-borne amble, at so leisurely a pace that throughout her first trip in one of the things she had felt like getting out and pushing.
One mustn’t, of course, she reminded herself conscientiously, settling back in the flow-car, judge any human culture by the achievements of another! Granted that Ulphi had long since lost the driving power of Vega’s humming technologies, who was to say that it hadn’t found a better thing in its place?
/> A fair enough question, but Jasse doubtfully continued to weigh the answer while the lengthy little Ulphian ritual of greetings and expressions of mutual esteem ran its course and came to an end in the flow-car. Then her escort of historical specialists settled down to shop talk in their flowery derivative of one of the twelve basic human dialects, and she began automatically to contribute her visiting dignitary’s share to the conversation—just enough to show she was deeply interested but no more. Her attention, however, remained on the city below.
They were gliding only five hundred feet above the lake’s shoreline, but all roofs were low enough to permit a wide view—and everything, everywhere, was in superbly perfect symmetry and balance. The car’s motion did not change that impression. As it drove on, the gleaming white and softly tinted buildings about and below it flowed steadily into new and always immaculate patterns of sweeping line and blended color, merging in and out of the lake front with a rightness that trembled and stopped at the exact point of becoming too much so.
And that was only a direct visual expression of the essence of Ulphi’s culture. Every social aspect of the planet showed the same easy order, the same minute perfectionist precision of graceful living—achieved without apparent effort in cycle on cycle of detail.
Jasse smiled pleasantly at her companions. The puzzling fact remained that this planetary batch of little-people just wasn’t particularly bright! And any population with the gumption of a flock of rabbits should have sent a marauding Mother Disk of Bjantas on its way in a panicky hurry, without having to ask for help to solve that sort of problem!
She really must need a vacation, Jasse sighed, disturbed by such unorthodox reflections. A-Class humans just didn’t go off on the wrong track, however gracefully, unless they were pushed there—so her doubts about Ulphi meant simply that she hadn’t found the key to it yet.
Possibly she could do with a few weeks of re-indoctrination in basic Traditionalism.
* * *
“The Tomb of Moyuscane the Immortal—the last of our Great Illusionists!”
Jasse regarded the tomb with an air of respectful appreciation. Tombs, on the whole, she could do without; but this one undoubtedly was something special. She and Requada-Attan, Historian and Hereditary Custodian of the Tomb, had come together out of one of the main halls of the enormous building complex which housed the Historical Institute of Ulphi’s Central City into a small, transparently over-roofed park. The remainder of her escort had shown her what they had to show and then withdrawn respectfully to their various duties; but Requada-Attan, probably not averse to having a wider audience benefit by the informative lecture he was giving the distinguished visitor, had left the gate to the park open behind them. A small crowd of sightseeing Ulphians had drifted in and was grouped about them by now.
“A fitting resting place for the Immortal One!” Jasse commented piously.
That brought a murmur of general appreciation from the local citizens. She suspected wryly that she, with her towering height and functional Vegan uniform, was the real center of interest in this colorfully robed group of little-people—few of them came up to a point much above the level of her elbows. But otherwise, the Tomb of Moyuscane must seem well worth a visit to a people as culturally self-centered as the Ulphians. Set against the rather conventional background of a green grove and whispering fountains, it was a translucently white monument, combining stateliness and exquisite grace with the early sweeping style which the last four centuries had preserved and expanded over the planet.
“The common people have many interesting superstitions about the Tomb,” Requada-Attan confided loudly. “They say that Moyuscane’s illusions are still to be seen within this park occasionally. Especially at night.”
His round, pink face smiled wisely up at her. It was obvious that he, a historical scientist, did not share such superstitions.
Illusion performances, Jasse thought, nodding. She’d seen a few of those of a minor sort herself, but the records indicated that some centuries ago on Ulphi they had been cultivated to an extent which no major civilization would tolerate nowadays. The Illusionists of Ulphi had been priest-entertainers and political leaders; their mental symphonies—final culmination and monstrous flowering of all the tribal dances and varied body-and-mind shaking communal frenzies of history—had swayed the thinking and the emotional life of the planetary race. And Moyuscane the Immortal had wound up that line of psychic near-rulers as the greatest of them all.
It was rather fascinating at that, she decided, to go adventuring mentally back over the centuries into the realm of a human power which, without word or gesture, could sweep up and blend the emotions of thousands of other human beings into a single mighty current that flowed and ebbed and thundered at the impulses of one will through the channels its imagination projected.
Fascinating—but a little disturbing, too!
“I think—” she began, and stopped.
* * *
Words and phrases which had been no previous part of her thoughts suddenly were floating up in her mind—and now, quite without her volition, she was beginning to utter them!
“But that explains it!” her voice was saying, with a note of pleased, friendly surprise. “I’ve been wondering about you, Requada-Attan, you and your mysterious, beautiful world! I should have known all along that it was simply the dream-creation of an artist—that one of your Great Illusionists was still alive—”
The last words seemed to drop one by one into a curiously leaden silence, and then they stopped. Jasse was still only completely, incredulously astonished. Then something began to stir in that heavy silence about her; and her head came sharply around.
It was their faces that warned her—once before, she’d seen the expression of a mob that was acting under mental compulsion; and so she knew at once and exactly what she’d have to do next. Not stop to figure out what had happened, or try to reason with them, argue, threaten, or waste time yelling for help. Just get out of the immediate neighborhood, fast!
There weren’t, of course, really enough Ulphians around to be called a mob—hardly more than twenty adults in all. That they had been directed against her was obvious enough, in the eyes that saw only her now, and in the synchronized motion with which they were converging quietly on the spot where she stood.
They stopped moving as if at a command Jasse could not hear, as she swung about, unconsciously with a very similar quietness, to face them.
Requada-Attan was under it, too! He still stood nearest her, about four steps to her left. Straight ahead, between Jasse and the gate, was the next closest group: two husky-looking young men with the shaved heads and yellow robes of professionals from the School of Athletes; and immediately behind them another silver-robed historian whom she had noticed previously—an elderly man, very thin and tall. No weapons in sight anywhere—
The three ahead were the ones to pass then! Jasse took two quick steps in their direction; and gravel scattered instantly under their sandaled feet, as they came to meet her in a rush. All about was the same sudden noise and swirl of motion.
But it was Requada-Attan who reached her first, with a quickness she hadn’t counted on in a man of his plump build. Abruptly his weight was dragging at her arm, both hands gripped about her wrist, and jerking sideways to throw her off balance. Jasse twisted free sharply—that wrist carried her mind-shield bracelet and had to be guarded!—hauled the Hereditary Custodian off his feet with her right hand, sent him rolling before the knees of the charging yellow-robes.
They went down in a satisfactorily sprawling confusion, the thin historian turning a complete clumsy somersault with flapping garments across them a moment later. But the others had arrived by then, and Jasse became temporarily the center of a clawing, grappling, hard-breathing but voiceless cluster of humanity. What sent the first shock of real fright through her was that most of them seemed to be trying to get at her shield-bracelet! Because that indicated a mental attack was impending—mental atta
cks and mass compulsions on present-day Ulphi!
* * *
The jolt of that realization—the implication that hidden powers had been roused into action against her on this innocuous-looking world—might have resulted in a rash of snapping necks and other fatal incidents all around Jasse. Though Cultures frowned on weapons for its officials, the ancient Terran Art of the Holds was highly regarded among Traditionalists everywhere and had been developed by them to a polished new perfection. But she hauled herself back promptly from the verge of slipping into that well-drilled routine, which she never yet had put to its devastating practical use. The situation, so far, certainly wasn’t as bad as all that—if she just kept her head! Slapping, shoving, shaking and turning, she twisted her way through this temporarily demented group of little-people, intent primarily on staying on her feet and keeping her left wrist out of reach.
Then the yellow-robed athletes were up again, and Jasse bumped the two shaven heads together with measured violence, stepped with great caution across an overturned but viciously kicking little boy—found herself suddenly free, and tripped up the last of the lot to come plunging in, a youngish, heavy-set woman.
The brief and practically bloodless melee had circled to within a dozen strides of the gateway of the park. She darted through it, slammed the high bronze gate behind her, saw Requada-Attan’s key still in the lock and had her assailants shut in an instant later.
She could spare a moment then to look back at them. Most of them were still on the ground or clambering awkwardly to their feet. With one exception, all stared after her with those chillingly focused and expressionless eyes. The exception was a white-robed, dark-skinned man of middle age with a neatly trimmed fringe of brown beard around his chin, who stood on a tiled walk a little apart from the others. He was watching them, and Jasse could not recall having noticed him before.
Then their eyes met for an instant as she was turning away, and there was conscious intelligence in his look, mingled with something that might have been fright or anger.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 75