Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  Other approaches had brought equally negative results.

  The rule barring members of Lodis Associates from selling shares to outsiders before their fellows were given an opportunity to purchase them at a prohibitively low price was found to be backed in full by Tayun law. While Gonwil was still a child, the rule could have been set aside with relative ease, but there appeared to be no way around it now that she would be a legally responsible adult within a few months. The minor shareholders in the concern had declined offers of her stock at something approximating its present value, and indicated they would have no interest in it at any price. They clearly didn’t intend to get into Malrue Parlin’s game.

  The Parlins were still on Orado, equipped with a formidable bodyguard and an equally formidable corps of lawyers, both imports from Tayun who evidently had preceded Malrue and her husband here, to be brought into action if needed. But Malrue had made no immediate moves. She might be satisfied to let Gonwil’s supporters find out for themselves that her legal position was unassailable.

  Telzey had remained a detached observer of these developments, realizing they were running uncomfortably close to Dasinger’s predictions. She was giving most of her time to Gonwil. Her previous investigations of human minds had been brief and directed as a rule to specific details, but she felt there was reason to be very careful here.

  What was going on inside Gonwil’s blond head nowadays wasn’t good. Harm had been done, and Telzey was afraid to tamper with the results, to attempt the role of healer. It wasn’t a simple matter of patching up a few memories as with Chomir; there was too much she didn’t understand. Gonwil would have to do her own healing, at least at the start, and to an extent she was doing it. During the first day or two, her thoughts had a numbed quality to them. Outwardly she acquiesced in everything, was polite, smiled occasionally. But something had been shattered; and she was waiting to see what the people about her would do, how they intended to put all the pieces together again. When she thought of Cousin Malrule’s treachery, it was in a puzzled, childish manner.

  Then, gradually, she began to understand that the pieces weren’t simply going to be put together again now. This ugliness could go on indefinitely, excluding her meanwhile from normal human life.

  The realization woke Gonwil up. Until then, most of the details of the situation about her had been blurred and without much meaning. Now she started to look them over carefully, and they became obvious enough.

  The efforts of Rienne’s lawyers to find a satisfactory solution had begun to bog down because this was a matter which the Federation’s laws did not adequately cover. She had been one of the Hub’s favored and pampered children but in part that was now the reason she was being forced towards the edge of a no man’s land where survival depended on oneself and one’s friends. Unless something quite unexpected happened, she, Gonwil, would soon have to decide exactly what the future would be like.

  The thought startled her, but she accepted it. There was a boy in the Federation Navy, a cadet, she’d met the previous summer, who played a part in her considerations. So did Telzey, and Dasinger and his agency, and Malrue and her husband and Junior, and the group of professional gunmen they’d brought in from Tayun to be their bodyguards. All of them would be affected in one way or another by what she agreed to. She must be very careful to make no mistake.

  Gonwil, seen directly in her reflections and shifts of feeling now that she’d snapped out of the numbed shock, seemed more likable than ever to Telzey. But she didn’t like at all what was almost surely coming.

  It came. Mainly perhaps for the purpose of having it on record, Rienne’s legal department had notified the Parlin’s lawyers in Orado City that Miss Lodis desired to dispose of her stock in Lodis Associates. A reply two days later stated that Malrue Parlin, though painfully affected by Miss Lodis’ estrangement from herself and her family, was willing to take over the stock. She was not unmindful of her right to purchase at the original value, but would pay twice that, solely to accommodate Miss Lodis.

  In Telzey’s opinion, the legal department flipped when it read the reply. It had, of course, been putting up with a good deal during the week. It called promptly for a planet-to-ship general conference, and pointed out that the sum Malrue offered was approximately a tenth of the real value of Gonwil’s share in the concern. In view of the fact that an attempt to murder Miss Lodis already had been made, Mrs. Parlin’s reply must be considered not a bonafide offer but a form of extortion. A threat was implied.

  However, Mrs. Parlin might be showing more confidence than she felt. If violence again entered the picture, she was now not invulnerable. To some extent, at least, she was bluffing. To counter the bluff, she should be shown unmistakably that Miss Lodis was determined to defend herself and her interests by whatever means were necessary.

  The legal department’s advice at this point must be to have Miss Lodis register the fact that against her wishes she had become involved in a private war with the Parlin family, and that she was appointing the Kyth Agency to act as her agent in this affair. The events and investigations of the past week provided more than sufficient grounds for the registration, and its purpose would go beyond making it clear to the Parlins that from now on they would be in jeopardy no less than Miss Lodis. It had been discovered that while the rule which prevented the sale of Lodis Associates stock outside the concern could not be broken in court, it could be rescinded by a two-thirds majority vote of the shareholders, and Miss Lodis and the Parlin family between them controlled more than two thirds of the stock. No doubt, forcible means would be required to persuade the Parlins to agree to the action; but the agreement would be valid if obtained in that manner under the necessities of a registered private war. Miss Lodis could then sell her shares at full value to the Bank of Rienne or a similar institution, which would end the Parlins’ efforts to obtain them, and take her out of danger.

  Registration, the legal department added, was a serious matter, of course, and Miss Lodis should give it sufficient thought before deciding to sign the application they had prepared. On the other hand, it might be best not to delay more than a day or two. The Parlins’ attitude showed she would be safe only so long as they did not know where she was.

  “Has she discussed it with you?” Dasinger asked.

  Telzey looked at him irritably. Her nerves had been on edge since the conference ended. Things had taken a very unsatisfactory turn. If Malrue Parlin would only drop dead—

  She shook her head. “She’s been in her room. We haven’t talked about it yet.”

  Dasinger studied her face. “Your father and I,” he remarked, “aren’t entirely happy about having her register for a private war.”

  “Why not? I thought you . . .”

  He nodded. “I know. But in view of what you said, I’ve been watching her, and I’m inclined to agree now that she might be too civilized for such methods. It’s a pleasant trait, though it’s been known to be a suicidal one.”

  He hesitated, went on. “Aside from that, a private war is simply the only practical answer now. And it would be best to act at once while the Parlin family is together and on Orado. If we wait till they scatter, it will be the devil’s own job roping them in again. I think I can guarantee that none of the three will be physically injured. As for Miss Lodis’ feelings about it, we—your father and I—assume that your ability to handle emotional disturbances isn’t limited to animals.”

  Telzey shifted uneasily in her chair. Her skull felt tight; she might be getting a headache. She wondered why she didn’t tell the detective to stop worrying. Gonwil had found her own solution before the conference was over. She wouldn’t authorize a private war for any purpose. No matter how expertly it was handled, somebody was going to get killed when two bands of armed men came into conflict, and she didn’t want the responsibiiltv for it.

  Neither did she want to run and hide for years to keep Malrue from having her killed. The money wasn’t worth it.

  So the
logical answer was to accept Malrue’s offer and let her have the stock and control of Lodis Associates. Gonwil could get along very well without it. And she wouldn’t have consented to someone’s death to keep it.

  Gonwil didn’t know why she hadn’t told them that at the conference, though Telzey did. Gonwil had intended to speak, then suddenly forgot her intention. Another few hours, Telzey had thought, to make sure there wasn’t some answer as logical as surrender but more satisfactory. A private war didn’t happen to be it.

  She realized she’d said something because Dasinger was continuing. Malrue Parlin appeared to have played into their hands through overconfidence . . .

  That, Telzey thought, was where they were wrong. The past few days had showed her things about Gonwil which had remained partly unrevealed in two years of friendship. But a shrewd and purposeful observer like Malrue Parlin, knowing Gonwil since her year of birth, would be aware of them.

  Gonwil didn’t simply have a prejudice against violence; she was incapable of it. Malrue knew it. It would have suited her best if Gonwil died in a manner which didn’t look like murder, or at least didn’t turn suspicion on the Parlins. But she needn’t feel any concern because she had failed in that. The shock of knowing that murder had been tried, of realizing that more of that kind of thing would be necessary if Malrue was to be stopped, would be enough. It wasn’t so much fear as revulsion—a need to draw away from the ugly business. Gonwil would give in.

  Cousin Malrue hadn’t been overconfident. She’d simply known exactly what would happen.

  Anger was an uncomfortable thing. Telzey’s skin crawled with it. Dasinger asked a question, and she said something which must have made sense because he smiled briefly and nodded, and went on talking. But she didn’t remember then w-hat the question had been or what she had replied. For a moment, her vision blurred and the room seemed to rock. It w-as almost as if she’d heard Malrue Parlin laughing nearby, already savoring her victory, sure she’d placed herself beyond reprisal.

  Malrue winning out over Gonwil like that w-as a thing that couldn’t be accepted, and she’d prevented Gonwil from admitting it. But she was unable to do what Gilas and Dasinger expected now: change Gonwil’s opinions around until she agreed cheerfully to whatever arrangements they made—and if people got killed during her private war, well, that would be too bad but it had been made inevitable by the Parlins’ criminal greed and the Federation’s sloppy laws, hadn’t it?

  It was quite possible to do, but not by changing a few of Gonwil’s civilized though unrealistic attitudes. It could be done only by twisting and distorting whatever was Gonwil. And that, of course, wouldn’t ever be undone again.

  Malrue laughed once more, mocking and triumphant, and it was like pulling a trigger. Dasinger still seemed to be talking somewhere, but the room had shifted and disappeared. She was in a darkness where laughter echoed and black electric gusts swirled heavily around her, looking out at a tall, handsome woman in a group of people. Behind Telzey, something rose swiftly, black and towering like a wave about to break, curving over towards the woman.

  Then there was a violent, wrenching effort of some sort.

  She was back in her chair, shaking, her face wet with sweat, with a sense of having stopped at the last possible instant. The room swam past her eyes and it seemed, as something she half recalled, that Dasinger had just left, closing the door behind him, still unaware that anything out of the ordinary was going on with Telzey. But she wasn’t completely alone. A miniature figure of the Psionic Cop hovered before her face, gesticulating and mouthing inaudible protests. He looked ridiculous, Telzey thought. She made a giggling noise at him, shaking her head, and he vanished.

  She got out a handkerchief and dabbed at her face. She felt giddy and weak. Dasinger had noticed nothing, so she hadn’t really gone anywhere physically, even for a second or two. Nevertheless, on Orado half a million miles away, Malrue Parlin, laughing and confident in a group of friends or guests, had been only moments from invisible, untraceable death. If that wave of silent energy had reached her, she would have groaned and staggered and fallen, while her companions stared, sensing nothing.

  What created the wave? She hadn’t done it consciously—but it would be a good thing to remember not to let hot, foggy anger become mixed with a psi impulse again! She wasn’t Gonwil, but to put somebody to death in that manner would be rather horrid. And the weakness in her suggested that it mightn’t be healthy for the psi who did it, unless he had something like the equipment of that alien in the university’s habitat museum.

  At any rate, her anger had spent itself now. The necessity of doing something to prevent Gonwil’s surrender remained.

  And then it occurred to Telzey how it might be done.

  She considered a minute or two, and put out a search-thought for Chomir, touched his mind and slipped into it. Groping about briefly, she picked up the artificial memory section she’d installed to cover the disturbing events in the Kyth Agency’s hideout.

  She had worked the section in rather carefully. Even if Chomir had been a fairly introspective and alert human being, he might very well have accepted it as what had happened. But it wasn’t likely that an intruding telepath who studied the section at all closely would be fooled. She certainly wouldn’t be. It seemed a practical impossibility to invest artificial memories with the multitudinous, interconnected, coherent detail which characterized actual events. Neither was the buried original memory really buried when one began to search for it. It could be brought out and developed again.

  And if such constructions couldn’t fool her, could they fool a high-powered psionic mind-reading device, built for the specific purpose of finding out what somebody really thought, believed and remembered . . . such as, for instance, Transcluster Finance’s verifying machines?

  They couldn’t, of course.

  Telzey sat still again a while, biting her lip, frowning, mentally checking over a number of things. Then she went to look for Gilas.

  “It’s a completely outrageous notion!” her father said a short while later, his tone still somewhat incredulous. He glanced over at Dasinger, who had been listening intently, cleared his throat. “However, let’s look at it again. You say you can manufacture ‘memories’ in the dog’s mind which can’t be distinguished from things he actually remembers?”

  “I can’t tell any difference,” Telzey said. “And I don’t see how a Verifier could.”

  “Possibly it couldn’t,” Gilas said. “But we don’t really know what such a machine is doing.”

  “Well, we know what it does in an ethics hearing,” Telzey said. “Supposing it did see they were fake memories. What would happen?”

  Gilas hesitated, said slowly: “The Verifier would report that it had found nothing to show that the Parlins were connected in any way with the attempt to use Chomir to commit murder. It would report nothing else. It can produce relevant evidence, including visual and auditory effects, to substantiate a claim it has accepted. But it can’t explain or show why it is rejecting a claim. To do that would violate the conditions under which it operates.”

  Dasinger said quietly, “That’s it. We can’t lose anything. And if it works, we’d have them! Vingarran is the only one who can prove the Parlins never came near his device. But we’re keeping him out of sight, and the Parlins can’t admit they know he exists without damning themselves! And they can’t obtain verification for their own claims of innocence . . .”

  “Because of their mind blocks!” Gilas concluded. His mouth quirked for an instant; then his face was sober again. “We will, of course, consider every last detail of this scheme from every possible angle before we make a decision. Telzey, go and get Gonwil. We want her in on it, and no one else.” He looked at Dasinger. “What will we tell the lawyers?”

  Dasinger considered. “That we feel an ethics hearing should be on the record to justify declaring a private war,” he said. “They won’t like it, of course . . . they know it isn’t necessary.”
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  “No,” Gilas agreed, “but it’s a good enough excuse. And if they set it up for that purpose, it will cover the steps we’ll have to take.”

  VII

  “The statements made by this witness have been neither confirmed nor disproved by verification.”

  The expressionless face of the chief adjudicator of the Transcluster ethics hearing disappeared from the wall screen of the little observer’s cubicle before Telzey as he ended his brief announcement. She frowned, turned her right hand over, palm up, glanced at the slender face of the timepiece in the strap of her wrist-talker.

  It had taken less than two minutes for Transcluster’s verification machine to establish that it could find nothing in the mind of Rodel Parlin the Twelfth relevant to the subject matter it had been instructed to investigate, and to signal this information to the hearing adjudicators. Junior, visible in the Verifier’s contact chamber which showed in the far left section of the screen, had not reacted noticeably to the announcement. It could hardly have been a surprise to him. His parents had preceded him individually to the chamber to have their claims of being innocent of homicidal intentions towards Gonwil Lodis submitted to test, with identical results. Only the stereotyped wording of the report indicated in each case that the machine had encountered mental blocks which made verification impossible. From the Parlins’ point of view, that was good enough. The burden of proof rested with their accusers; and they simply had no proof. The demand for an ethics hearing had been a bluff, an attempt perhaps to get a better price for Gonwil’s capitulation. If so, it had failed.

  The central screen view was shifting back to the hexagonal hall where the Verifier was housed. It appeared almost empty. A technician sat at the single control console near the center, while the machine itself was concealed behind the walls. When he brought it into operation, the far end of the hall came alive with a day-bright blur of shifting radiance, darkening to a sullen red glow as he shut the machine off again. So far, that and the reports of the chief adjudicator had been the only evidence of the Verifier’s function; and the play of lights might be merely window dressing, designed to make the proceedings more impressive. It had to be that, Telzey thought, if her speculations about the machine were right. It wasn’t really being switched on and off here, but working round the clock, absorbing uncensored information constantly from hundreds or thousands of minds, and passing it on.