“Of course. Now, with one notable exception, all elements in this series were discovered during the Overgovernment’s investigation of Riemann space properties in the two intragalactic creation areas we have mapped to date. As you may recall, that program was initiated forty-five years ago. The elements we’re talking about are radioactive: half-life of up to an hour. It was suspected they had a connection with the very curious, apparently random distortions of space-time factors found in the creation areas, but their essential properties made it impossible to produce them in sufficient quantity for a sufficient length of time to conduct a meaningful examination.
“Ymir, the last element of this series, was not discovered in the same areas, or at the same time. It was located ten years later, in stable trace-quantities in the asteroid belt you’ve mentioned, and to date it has not been found anywhere else. Ymir is a freak. It is chemically very similar to the rest of the series and has an unstable structure. Theoretically, its presence as and where it was found was an impossibility. But it was recognized eventually that Ymir produces a force field which inhibits radioactivity. Until the field is interfered with the element is stable . . .”
“What interferes with it?”
Camhorn grinned. “People. Until it’s deliberately tampered with, Ymir is changeless—as far as we know. Furthermore it will, in compound, extend its inhibiting field effect instantaneously to three other elements of the same series. A very fortunate circumstance, because Ymir has been found only in minute amounts, and unknown factors still prevent its artificial production. The other three elements are produced readily, and since a very small proportion of Ymir retains them in stable—or pseudostable—form, they can be conserved indefinitely.”
“That’s the Ym-400 compound?” Fry asked.
“That’s it.”
Fry said thoughtfully, “Perhaps I should remind you, Howard, that this conversation is being recorded.”
Camhorn nodded. “That’s all right. Now that we know someone else is in possession of sixty-eight kilograms of Ym-400, we’re confronted with radically altered circumstances. The loss incurred by the theft isn’t important in itself. The Ymir component in such a quantity is detectable almost only by its effects, and the other components can be produced at will.
THE question is how much the people who have the stolen compound in their hands actually know about it. We would prefer them to know several things. For example, up to a point Ym-400 is easily handled. It’s a comparatively simple operation to reduce or restore the force field effect. The result is a controlled flow of radioactivity from the compound, or its cessation. Now, you’ve mentioned having heard that Ym-400 transmutes space-time stresses—”
Fry nodded.
“Well,” Camhorn said, “as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what it appears to do—as was surmised originally of the unstable elements in the series. The active compound transmutes space-time stresses into a new energy with theoretically predictable properties. Theoretically, for example, this new energy should again be completely controllable. Have you picked up any rumors of what our experiments with the substance were supposed to achieve?”
Fry said, “Yes. I forgot that. I’ve heard two alternate theories. One is that the end result will be an explosive of almost unimaginable violence. The other is that you’re working to obtain a matter transmitter—possibly one with an interstellar range.”
Camhorn nodded. “Potentially,” he said, “Ym-400 is an extremely violent explosive. No question about it. The other speculation—it isn’t actually too far-fetched—well, that would be the equivalent of instantaneous space-travel, wouldn’t it?”
Fry shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“However,” Camhorn said, “we haven’t transmitted even a speck of matter as yet. Not deliberately, at any rate. Do you know why, Gus?”
“No. How would I?”
“No rumors on that, eh? I’ll tell you. Ym-400, when activated even in microquantities, immediately initiates the most perverse, incalculable effects ever to confront an experimenter. There has been, flatly, no explanation for them. I’ve had ordinarily unimpressionable physicists tell me with tears in their eyes that space-time is malevolently conscious of us, and of our attempts to manipulate it—that it delights in frustrating those attempts.”
Gus Fry grinned sourly. “Perhaps they’re right.”
“As it happens,” Camhorn observed, “the situation is very unfunny, Gus. Experiments with Ym-400 have, to date, produced no useful results—and have produced over eleven hundred casualties. Most of the latter were highly trained men and women, not easily replaced.”
Fry studied him incredulously. “You say these accidents have not been explained?”
Camhorn shook his head. “If they were explicable after the event,” he said, “very few of them would have happened in the first place. I assure you there’s been nothing sloppy about the manner in which the project has been conducted, Gus. But as it stands today, it’s a flop. If the stakes were less high, it would have been washed out ten years ago. And, as I said before, if there were reason to believe that the stable compound was involved in the disappearance of a space transport, we probably would postpone further operations indefinitely. One such occurrence would raise the risks to the intolerable level.”
Fry grunted. “Is that what those accidents were like? Things—people—disappear?”
“Well . . . some of them were of that general nature.”
Fry cleared his throat. “Just tell me one more thing, Howard.”
“What’s that?”
“Has any part of what you’ve said so far been the truth?” Camhorn hesitated an instant. “Gus,” he said then, “can you erase your question and my reply from the recording?”
“Of course.”
“Erase them, please. Then blank out our further conversation.”
A FEW seconds later, Fry said, “All right. You’re off the record.”
“Most of what I told you was the truth,” Camhorn said, leaning back in his chair. “Perhaps not all of it. And perhaps I haven’t told you the whole truth. But we’re out to spread some plausible rumors, Gus. We could not afford to get caught in obvious lies.”
Fry reddened slowly. “You feel the Interstellar Police Authority will spread those rumors?”
“Of course it will. Be realistic, Gus. Naturally, you’ll transmit the information I’ve given you only to qualified personnel. But there’ll be leaks, and . . . well, what better authentication can we have for a rumor than precisely such a source?”
“If you know of any potential leaks among the IPA’s ‘qualified personnel,’ ” Fry said, “I’d appreciate seeing the names.”
“Don’t be stuffy, Gus,” Camhorn said affably. “We’re not slandering the Authority. We’re banking on the law of averages. As you’ve indicated, the IPA can’t be expected to carry out this investigation unless it’s given some clues to work on. We’re giving it those clues. In the process, we expect to start the spread of certain rumors. That’s all to the good.”
“But what’s the purpose?”
“I’ve told you that. Our criminals may or may not be caught as quickly as we’d like. The group actually in the know may be—probably is—quite small. But they should have a widespread organization, and they’ll be alert for counteraction now. They certainly will get the information we want them to have, whether it comes to them through the IPA or through some other channel; and that should be enough to keep them from committing any obvious stupidities. Meanwhile, we’ll have avoided making the information public.
“We want to make sure they know—if they don’t already know it—that Ym-400 is unpredictably dangerous. That leaves them with several choices of action. They can abandon those two thirty-four kilogram cases, or simply keep them concealed until they obtain more complete information about the material. Considering the manner in which the theft was prepared and carried out, neither is a likely possibility. These people are not ignorant, and they aren’t
easily frightened—and they certainly have the resources to handle any expense factor.”
Fry nodded.
“The probability is,” Camhorn went on, “that they’ll evaluate the warning contained in these rumors realistically, but proceed with experimentation—perhaps more cautiously than they would have done otherwise.
“Which is as much as we hope to accomplish. I’ve told you of the losses among our personnel. We have no real objection to seeing someone else attempt to pull a few chestnuts out of the fire for us. That’s the secondary purpose of sacrificing some quite valid information. By the time we catch up with our friends, we expect the sacrifice will have been—in one way or another—to our advantage.”
“And suppose,” said Fry, “that their secret experiments with Ym-400 result in turning another planet into an asteroid cloud?”
“That’s an extreme possibility,” Camhorn said, “though it exists. The point is that it exists now whatever we choose to do about it. We can only attempt to minimize the risks.”
“You’d still sooner catch them before they start playing around with the stuff?”
“Of course we would. But we’re working against time there.”
“HOW much time do we have before the thing gets critical?”
“Well,” said Camhorn, “assume they’ve had at least four or five years to prepare for the day when they could bring a quantity of Ym-400 into their possession. They’ll have made every necessary arrangement for concealed full-scale experimentation. But, unless they are utterly reckless, they still have to conduct a thorough preliminary investigation of the compound and its possibilities. That phase of the matter shouldn’t be too dangerous, and it can’t be concluded in less than six months.”
Fry shook his head exasperatedly. “Six months!” he said. “We might get lucky and pick them up next week, Howard . . . but there are eighteen planets and planet-class satellites at peak population levels, seventy-three space cities with a total of eight times the planetary populations, five Freeholder planets on each of which you could keep an army concealed indefinitely if you wanted to go to the trouble. Add in close to a hundred thousand splinter populations on semihabitables, asteroids, space-borne in fixed stations and mobile craft—we can’t do it, Howard! Not in six months. We’ve already started putting anyone who might have the slightest connection with that space transport job through the strainer, and we’ll get on your lists of suspects as soon as they’re placed in our hands.
“But don’t expect results in anything less than a year . . .”
* * *
Fry, for once, had been too optimistic.
A year and a half went by.
Endless series of more or less promising leads were run into the ground. The missing Ym-400 didn’t turn up.
The IPA put out its nets again, and began to check over the possibilities that were left.
* * *
SEEN from the air, Lion Mesa, in the southwest section of the American continent on the Freehold Planet of Terra, was a tilted, roughly triangular tableland, furred green with thick clusters of cedar and pinyon, scarred by outcroppings of naked rock. It was eight miles across at its widest and highest point, directly behind an upthrust mass of stone jutting toward the north and somewhat suggestive of the short lifted neck and heavy skull of a listening beast. Presumably it was this unusual formation which gave the mesa its name. From there the ground dropped to the south, narrowing gradually to the third point of the triangle. Near the southern tip in cleared ground were the only evidences of human habitation—half a dozen buildings of small to moderate size, handsomely patterned in wood and native stone. Directly adjoining one of the buildings was a large, massively fenced double corral. This was an experimental animal ranch; it and the mesa plus half a hundred square miles of surrounding wasteland and mountain were the private property of one Miguel Trelawney, Terrestrial Freeholder.
For the past twenty minutes, Frank Dowland—Lieutenant Frank Dowland, of the Solar Police Authority—had kept his grid-car moving slowly along the edges of a cloud bank west of the mesa, at an unobtrusive height above it. During that time, he was inspecting the ranch area in the beam of a high-powered hunting-scope. He had detected no activity, and the ranch had the general appearance of being temporarily deserted, which might be the case. Miguel Trelawney’s present whereabouts were not known, and Lion Mesa was only one of the large number of places in which he was periodically to be found.
Dowland put the scope down finally, glanced at the sun which was within an hour of setting. He was a stocky man in his early thirties, strongly built, dressed in hunting clothes. The packed equipment in the grid-car, except for a few special items, was that of a collector of live game, the role regularly assumed by Dowland when at work on the planet. The Freeholder Families traditionally resented any indication of Overgovernment authority on Terra, and would have been singularly uncordial to a Solar City police detective here, regardless of the nature of his mission. But the export of surplus native fauna was one of the forms of trade toward which they were tolerant. Moreover, they were hunting buffs themselves. Dowland ordinarily got along well enough with them.
He now opened a concealed compartment in the car’s instrument panel, and brought out a set of pictures of Trelawney’s ranch on the mesa, taken from an apparent distance of a few hundred yards above it. For some seconds, Dowland compared the depth photographs with the scene he had been observing. There appeared to have been no changes in any of the structures in the eight months since the pictures were taken. At least not above ground.
Dowland rubbed the side of his nose, scowling slightly. If the ranch really was deserted, it would be best to leave it alone for the time being and search elsewhere for Trelawney. To go down uninvited in the absence of the owner would be as much out of character for an experienced visitor on Terra as for a Freeholder. If observed at it—a remote possibility perhaps in this area, but the possibility was there—he could offer the excuse of a suspicion of engine trouble in the grid-car. The excuse would be good, once. He preferred to reserve it as a means of introducing himself to the Trelawne’s when he caught up with them—either Miguel, the current head of the dwindled family, or Miguel’s younger half-brother, Dr. Paul Trelawney. Neither rated as a serious suspect in the matter of the Overgovernment’s missing Ym-400, but it had been a little difficult to find out what they had been doing with themselves during the past year and a half. Dowland’s assignment was to find out, and to do it unobtrusively. Strictly routine.
TERRA, in terms of the YM search, hadn’t seemed like too bad a bet at first. The Freeholders entertained an open grudge against the Overgovernment, which had restricted their nominally unclouded title to the planet by somewhat underhanded legal means, when the principle of the Freehold Worlds was laid down. Essentially, the Families became the very highly paid caretakers of Terra. To Dowland, raised in the crowded tunnels of the system of artificial giant asteroids known as Solar City, the conservation of the natural resources of a living world looked like a good idea. The Terran Families were interested in conservation, but on their terms and under their control. The Overgovernment politely refused.
That was one part of it. The other was that numerous contentious factions in the space cities and on the so-called open worlds wanted to spill over on the Freeholder planets. Again the Overgovernment refused, and again it made sense to Dowland. But the Freeholders feared—perhaps with justification, so far as Dowland could tell—that political pressures would mount with each increase in excess population and eventually lead to such measures. Many of them, probably the majority, led by Anthony Brand Carter—Firebrand Carter, head of the largest and wealthiest of the Families—believed that the only safe solution was to arm the planet. They wanted heavy weapons, and enough of them: the right to build them, to man them and, if necessary, to use them to beat off encroaching groups. The Overgovernment pointed out that the possession and use of major implements of war was by law its own exclusive privilege. Litigation on
the matter had gone on for decades, was periodically renewed by Carter and his associates. Meanwhile, many of Terra’s sportsmen became members of an extremely able-bodied group called Carter’s Troopers, and assiduously practiced the skills of battle with the means allowed them. Dowland and the Solar Police Authority knew the Troopers were crack shots, excellent fliers and horsemen, but the Overgovernment was not worrying about it at present.
Mr. Paul Trelawney, the younger of the brothers, had been a Trooper for two years while in his twenties, then had quarreled violently with Firebrand Carter, had left Terra to major in physics at the Overgovernment’s universities, and presently received his degree. What he had done after that wasn’t known. He appeared occasionally on Terra, might be here at present. Miguel, Paul’s senior by almost twenty years, now in his early fifties, had also taken an interest in physics, attending an Overgovernment university a quarter of a century earlier. Miguel’s studies terminated before he obtained a degree, as a result of a difference of opinion with the president of the university, whom he challenged to a duel. The records of both brothers indicated, in Dowland’s opinion, more than a trace of the megalomania not too uncommon among men with excessive wealth and no real claim to distinction. But, in spite of their choice of studies, there was nothing to link either Trelawney to the missing YM. Mental brilliance might have made them suspect; but their I.Q. readings, while definitely better than average—a number of notches above Dowland’s own, for that matter—were not outstanding. Their scholastic performance had been of comparative quality. Miguel, on his return to Terra, had dropped physics in favor of experimental biology. The ranch on Lion Mesa was adapted to his hobby, which at the moment was directed to the production of a strain of gigantic wild hogs for hunting purposes. Presumably the breeding of bad-tempered tons of bacon on the hoof satisfied his urge to distinguish himself as a gentleman scientist. Aside from Paul’s brief connection with Carter’s Troopers neither brother had shown any interest in Terran politics.
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