Alicar Troneff had approached Mannafra on the night side and activated a psi-block in his spacecruiser’s hull while they were still high above the surface. Nine tenths a desert world from pole to pole, Mannafra looked almost featureless under the starblaze. Mining complexes and an occasional government post dotted some areas; between them, the sand dunes rolled from horizon to horizon, broken here and there by dark mountain ranges. Perhaps an hour after they’d entered atmosphere, Alicar’s cruiser dropped down behind such a range, moved through winding passes, and presently came to rest on a wide rock shelf high above the desert floor.
“We’re now about fifteen miles from the mine,” Alicar said, shifting the engines to idling, “and that’s as close as I intend to get to it until you’ve done some preliminary scouting.”
“I’m to scout the mine from the car?” Telzey asked. There was a small aircar stored in the rear of the cruiser near the lock.
Alicar handed her a respirator.
“Fit that over your face,” he said. “We may use the car later, but at present you’re simply going outside.
You wouldn’t actually need a respirator, but it’ll be more comfortable, and it has a mike. Put on a long coat. You’ll find it chilly.”
“You’re staying in the cruiser?” He smiled. “Definitely! Behind its psi-block. The scouting job is all yours.”
She got out her warmest coat, put it on, and fastened the respirator into place. They checked the speaking attachment.
“What am I to do when I’m outside?” Telzey said.
An image appeared in her mind. “Take a look at that man,” Alicar told her. “It’s Hille, the mine’s manager and chief engineer. I want you to identify him at the mental level. Think you can do it?”
“At fifteen miles? I might. How many other people are around?”
“Twelve in all at the mine. It’s run by a Romango computer. There isn’t another installation within nine hundred miles.”
“That’ll make it easier,” Telzey acknowledged. “Anything else?” Hide’s image vanished; that of another man appeared. “Ceveldt, the geologist,” said Alicar. “Try him if you can’t locate Hille. If you can’t find either, any of the minds down there should do for now. But I’d prefer you to contact one of those two.” She nodded. “No special difficulties? Any probe-immunes among them?”
Alicar shrugged. “Would I have a probe-immune working for me?”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Telzey said. “All right. Is there something specific I’m to scan for?”
“No. Just see what general impressions you pick up. Above all, probe cautiously!” He cleared his throat. “It’s possible that there’s a telepathic mind at or near the mine. If you get any indication of that, withdraw your probe at once. We’ll consider then what to do next.”
She reflected a moment, not greatly surprised. “Could the telepath be expecting a probe?”
“I don’t know,” Alicar said. “So be careful about what you do. You’ll have plenty of time. I want as much information as I can get before daybreak, but it’ll be another two hours before it begins to lighten up around here.”
Even in her coat, it was cold on the shelf of rock where Alicar had set down the cruiser. But the shelf extended for about fifty feet ahead of her before the mountain sloped steeply down. To right and left, it wound away into night dimness. She could move around; and that helped.
So now to find out what was going on at the serine crystal mine! The crystals were skeletal remains of a creature belonging to an early geological period when there still had been water on Mannafra. Sizable deposits had been found here and there at what presumably were former lake sites. Their commercial value was high because of a constant demand for the processed product; and no doubt there were outfits around that’d be interested in pirating a working serine mine.
Nevertheless, Telzey felt sure Alicar was holding back information. He’d said the mine wasn’t a large one, and competent psis had no reason to involve themselves in criminal operations at a relatively minor level. When they had larcenous inclinations, it still simply was too easy for them to come by as much money as they wanted without breaking obvious laws. If psis were creating a problem at Alicar’s mine, the cause wasn’t serine crystals; and he probably knew what it was. At a guess, she thought, some enemies had trailed him to this point on Mannafra and were waiting for him to return. It wasn’t at all difficult to imagine Alicar Troneff making enemies for himself among other psis.
Well, she’d see what she could do for him . . .
She opened her mental screens, sent light search thoughts drifting through the starlit night. The desert world wasn’t dead; whisperings of life began to come into her awareness. But for a while, there was nothing to indicate human life or thought, nor any guarded and waiting telepathic mind. Alicar, watching her in the cruiser’s screens, remained silent.
Perhaps half an hour later, Telzey opened the respirator’s mike switch, said, “Getting touches of human mind stuff now! I’ll let it develop. Not a psi, whoever he is.”
“Good,” said Alicar’s voice. “Take your time.”
A few minutes passed. Then Telzey went on. “Someone called Ponogan—”
“Yes,” Alicar said. “One of the tnachinists. You’re there! Specific impressions?”
“Nothing useful. Imagery. He’s probably asleep and dreaming. It could be a drug fantasy. Something like a big round drop of water rolling across the desert toward him . . . Traces of another mind now.”
“Yes?”
“Haven’t made out much about it so far. Shall I work on that, or probe directly for Hille?”
Alicar said after a moment, “Try Hille first.”
She projected Hille’s name and appearance lightly among the mental impressions she was touching, sensed, seconds later, a faint subconscious response. “Hille, I think,” she said. And after a pause: “Yes, it is. Self-awareness. He’s awake . . . Calculating something . . . Alone . . .”
“Don’t try probing in depth!” Alicar said quickly. “Simply retain light contact and see what impressions you get.”
She said, with a touch of irritation, “That’s what I’m doing.” Couldn’t he trust her to handle this? Another minute or two went by. She murmured, “Picking up that other mind again. No, wait!” She shifted to Ponogan, strengthened her contact with him.
“Now here’s something odd!” she said suddenly. “Both Hille and Ponogan—” She hesitated.
“Yes?” There was alert interest in Alicar’s voice.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Telzey said. “But each of them seems to have a kind of psi structure attached to him. Quite complicated structures! They seem almost part of their minds, but they’re independent—sort of pseudominds.” She hesitated again. “And I think—” She stiffened. “Djeel oil!”
“What?”
“Djeel oil! Hille’s thinking about it. Alicar, they’re processing djeel at your mine.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Alicar’s voice said: “Come back inside.”
He looked around from the console as Telzey came into the cruiser’s control section. But the face wasn’t Alicar’s, didn’t resemble it in the least. She checked, startled.
The face smiled. “Life mask, of course,” Alicar’s voice said. “Nobody at the mine knows what I really look like. No need to explain why now, is there?”
She sat down. “You’re mining and processing djeel ore here?”
“I am,” Alicar said dryly.
She stared at him. “I didn’t know there was any on Mannafra!”
He shrugged. “No way you could know. I’m reasonably sure I’m the only one to have come across it here, and I haven’t advertised it.”
Telzey shook her head. Djeel was a substance in a class by itself, located so far on only a handful of worlds. The processed ore yielded djeel oil—and djeel oil was believed to have unidentified properties which had scooped a hundred-mile semiglobular section out of a planetary surfa
ce, producing cataclysmic secondary effects. Any djeel detected since then had been confiscated by the Federation for removal and disposal in space. She said, “Aren’t you likely to work yourself into the worst kind of trouble? If you get caught importing djeel anywhere in the Hub, they’ll hang medals on whoever shoots you!”
“I haven’t imported it anywhere in the Hub,” said Alicar. “The oil processed by the mine in its first three months of operation is at present stored away on an asteroid chunk only I can identify. The reason I came back three days ago was to pick up a new load. Let’s drop that subject for the moment. Just before Hille started thinking about djeel, you seemed to have an idea about those psi structures associated with him and Ponogan. What was it?”
“Well, that,” Telzey said. “I’d have to check a lot more closely to be sure. But I think they’re automatic control mechanisms—something that lets the men seem to function normally but cuts in if they’re about to think, or do, something that isn’t wanted. Was that what you noticed three days ago?”
“Yes,” Alicar said. “But I didn’t stay around long enough to analyze it. Apparently everyone at the mine has been equipped with such a mechanism—we can check on that presently. The immediate question is why it was done.”
Telzey nodded. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Nothing definite,” he said. “Look, let me give you the background on this—I want your opinions. I was scouting around last year, looking for good investment possibilities. Most of Mannafra’s mining is concentrated in sections where rich strikes have been made. This whole general area has been almost completely neglected. But something about the formations down there looked interesting to me. It was mainly a hunch, but I came down, and inside an hour I knew I’d found a quite respectable deposit of serine crystals.
“If I hadn’t been doing my own analysis, that’s as far as it would have gone. There were djeel traces in the samples I’d taken.” Alicar smiled. “Those, naturally, weren’t the samples submitted with my application for mining rights, and I got the rights under an identity which goes with this appearance.” He tapped the life mask’s cheek.
“Well, now wait!” Telzey said. “Why did you want djeel oil in the first place? If they’re right about what happened on Tosheer, it’s horribly dangerous. And I’ve never heard that it was supposed to be good for anything. Though—” She paused abruptly.
“So now it’s occurred to you!” Alicar nodded. “Something capable of releasing energies of that magnitude isn’t going to be simply ignored. You can be sure the djeel ore the Overgovernment obligingly hauls off wherever it’s found isn’t being dumped into some solar furnace, though that’s the story.”
“You know that?”
“I know it. A good many other people suspect it.” Alicar chewed his lip. “I spent a large part of the past year trying to find out just what is being done with it, but that’s one of the best-guarded operations around. I couldn’t even establish what government branch is involved. Incidentally after we’ve cleaned up the problem here, continuing that investigation may be your next assignment.”
Telzey said after a moment, “I didn’t think you really intended to let me go again.”
He laughed. “No, not for a while! You’re too useful. I have several jobs lined up for you. You can see that a supply of djeel oil would have a fabulous value if the right people can be contacted safely.”
“You want to sell it?”
“I might. I’d prefer to set up a research project designed to harness djeel, but I may decide it’s too risky. Because that’s where djeel oil becomes dangerous—the experimental stage! It’s not general knowledge, but it’s been processed and stored without incident in much greater quantities than this mine, for example, would produce in years. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what kind of experiments that industrial outfit on Tosheer was conducting with djeel when the planet’s mantle erupted.
“Now to get back to the present situation. The mine went into operation roughly seven months ago. It took careful preparation, and the personnel had to be handpicked. Of the twelve men down there, nine knew only that we’d be producing serine crystals—which, aside from serving as our cover, has turned out to be sufficiently profitable in itself. The three involved in the processing of djeel oil are Hille, Ceveldt and Gulhas who is the Romango computer technician.”
Telzey said, “You were controlling those three?”
“No. As I’ve told you, I use psi only when it’s necessary. I did check their personalities carefully, of course, and knew they’d go along with me dependably in the matter of the djeel. During the first month, we worked only serine. Then the secret djeel operation began. As soon as it was underway, I left Mannafra.”
“Why?”
“Because I intend to stay in the clear in this, Telzey! The chance of discovery seemed remote. But if it happened, all Hille and his colleagues could point government investigators to was this substitute identity of mine. It was created to give me cover in other activities which might have brought me into conflict with various authorities. I can drop it at any time.”
Telzey said, “If you still are in the clear, wouldn’t this be a good moment to back out of the djeel project and discard your cover identity for good? You’d be safe then.”
Alicar smiled. “No doubt. But I’m not going to give up that easily!”
“We don’t know at all what’s happened here,” she pointed out. “Supposing we go on with the investigation and I get caught.”
“That would be unfortunate,” Alicar told her. “I wouldn’t like to lose you.”
“I suppose it was a stupid question,” Telzey said after a moment. “You’d simply kill me before I could give you away—”
“I’d have to, wouldn’t I?” Alicar said. “But we’ll take every reasonable precaution to keep you from getting caught. You know as much as I can tell you now, so let’s get on with this. You say we don’t know what’s happened here. But we do know one thing, don’t we? A psi’s been operating on Hille and Ponogan, and probably on all the mine personnel. In other words, they’re now controlled.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Telzey agreed. “But so far, the picture doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” said Alicar, watching her.
“Well—somebody outside realizes djeel is being processed at the mine. If that somebody is government, they’d want to catch the absent owner—”
“Mr. Ralke,” supplied Alicar. “It’s the Ralke Mine.”
“All right—Mr. Ralke. They can’t locate him elsewhere in the Hub because he becomes nonexistent there. So, knowing he’s come back once to pick up the processed djeel oil, they stake out the mine. In your other activities, have you given anyone reason to suspect Mr. Ralke might be a psi?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it very much.”
“But it’s possible?”
Alicar shrugged. “Let’s say it’s possible.”
“If that were discovered,” Telzey said, “it would bring in government psis—the Psychology Service. But then why control the mine people with mechanisms that would make any probing telepath suspicious? They have to assume that Mr. Ralke, psi, does probe his employees before showing himself at the mine.”
Alicar scratched his chin. “It really doesn’t make very much sense, does it?”
“None at all,” Telzey said. “If it were the Service and they thought Ralke might be a psi, everything at the mine would look completely normal now. In fact, it would be normal—except that there’d be a strike group sitting up here in the mountains somewhere, one of them a third-string Service telepath. And he’d be in watch-contact with someone at the mine, probably Hille, and as soon as you came back, he’d know.”
Alicar pursed his mouth, frowning. “Well, let’s say it’s not the Service then. How does an independent psi operator like myself look to you?”
“Not much better,” Telzey said. “Unless it’s someone you know.”
“Huh? Why that?”
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“Somebody who doesn’t like you,” she explained. “It probably would be a hot-shot psi, because if those mechanisms are as complicated as they seemed to me, I don’t think either you or I would be able to construct something like them.”
The expression on Alicar’s life mask indicated he didn’t enjoy the suggestion. “There might be someone like that,” he said slowly. “What would be his purpose?”
Telzey said, “He needn’t be interested in djeel as such. But he knows you own the mine and will come back to it. So he sets up a psi phenomenon you’re bound to detect and which you’ll have to investigate before you risk setting foot in the mine.” She grimaced briefly. “In that case, something very unpleasant—I don’t know what—is supposed to happen to you while you’re probing the phenomenon. What he couldn’t know, of course, is that you’d do your probing by proxy.”
Alicar’s eyebrows had lifted. “An interesting theory!”
Telzey went on. “It isn’t some psi who doesn’t know you and simply wants to take over the djeel project.
Because, while he might have some reason for constructing those mechanisms, he’d certainly slap shields on Hille and the others besides, so nobody else could catch them leaking thoughts about djeel.”
“Yes, that omission’s a curious aspect,” Alicar said. He regarded her a moment. “Any more theories?”
“Only one—that’s completely wild.”
He smiled. “You’ve been doing well so far! Let’s hear the wild one.”
“I was wondering whether it might be the djeel that created those psi mechanisms.”
“The djeel?” Alicar repeated.
“It’s supposed to be a unique form of matter, isn’t it?” Telzey said. “Mystery stuff?”
“Yes, it’s that. But still—” Alicar shook his head. “Well, we’re speculating! And we seem to have speculated sufficiently. In the light of what’s actually established, what do you suggest as our next step?”
“Our next step? That’s obvious. Let’s get out of here!”
He laughed. “No. You might be surprised at how quickly I could get out of here if I had to. But I don’t intend to do that unless we come across a very definite reason for it.” She sighed. “Then I’ll have to go on probing. And if I go outside again and do it from here, there’s too much chance of diffusion. A telepath might pick me up.”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 246