The Currents of Space

by Isaac Asimov

  "When he spoke of it at first," said Balle, "he was communicating with his district office, not with us."

  "Even so. A blackmailer deals with no one but his victim if he can help it."

  "Well then?"

  "He has disappeared. Call the Spatio-analyst honest. But he broadcast dangerous information. He is now in the hands of others who are not honest and they are blackmailers."

  "What others?"

  Fife sat grimly back in his chair, his lips scarcely moving. "You ask me seriously? Trantor."

  Steen shivered. "Trantor!" His high-pitched voice broke.

  "Why not? What better way to gain control of Fiorina? It's one of the prime aims of their foreign policy. And if they can do it without war, so much the better for them. Look here, if we accede to this impossible ultimatum, Fiorina is theirs. They offer us a little" - he brought two fingers close together before his face - "but how long shall we keep even that?

  "On the other hand, suppose we ignore this, and, really, we have no choice. What would Trantor do then? Why, they will spread rumors of an imminent end of the world to the Florinian peasants. As their rumors spread the peasants will panic, and what can follow but disaster? What force can make a man work if he thinks the end of the world will come tomorrow? The harvest will rot. The warehouses will empty."

  Steen lifted a finger to smooth the coloring on one cheek, as he glanced at a mirror in his own apartments, out of range of the receptor-cube.

  He said, "I don't think that would harm us much. If the supply goes down, wouldn't the price go up? Then after a while it would turn out that Fiorina was still there and the peasants would go back to work. Besides, we could always threaten to clamp down on exports. Really, I don't see how any cultured world could be expected to live without kyrt. Oh, it's King Kyrt all right. I think this is a fuss about nothing."

  He threw himself into an attitude of boredom, one finger placed delicately upon his cheek. Balle's old eyes had been closed through all of this last.

  He said, "There can be no price increases now. We've got them at absolute ceiling height."

  "Exactly," said Fife. "It won't come to serious disruption anyway. Trantor waits for any sign of disorder on Fiorina. If they could present the Galaxy with the prospect of a Sark that was unable to guarantee kyrt shipments, it would be the most natural thing in the universe for them to move in to maintain what they call order and to keep the kyrt coming. And the clanger would be that the free worlds of the Galaxy would probably play along with them for the sake of the kyrt. Especially if Trantor agreed to break the monopoly, increase production and lower prices. Afterward it would be another story, but meanwhile, they would get their support.

  "It's the only logical way that Trantor could possibly grip Fiorina. If it were simple force, the free Galaxy outside the Trantorian sphere of influence would join us in sheer self-protection."

  Rune said, "How does the Spatio-analyst fit in this? Is he necessary? If your theory is adequate it should explain that."

  "I think it does. These Spatio-analysts are unbalanced for the most part, and this one has developed some" - Fife's fingers moved, as though building a vague structure - "some crazy theory. It doesn't matter what. Trantor can't let it come out, or the Spatio-analytic Bureau would quash it. To seize the man and learn the details would, however, give them something that would probably possess a surface validity to non-specialists. They could use it, make it sound real. The Bureau is a Trantorian puppet, and their denials, once the story is spread by way of scientific rumormongering, would never be forceful enough to overtake the He."

  "It sounds too complicated," said Bort. "Nuts. They can't let it come out, but then again they will let it come out."

  "They can't let it come out as a serious scientific announcement, or even reach the Bureau as such," said Fife patiently. "They can let it leak out as a rumor. Don't you see that?"

  "What's old Abel doing wasting his time looking for the Spatio-analyst then?"

  "You expect him to advertise the fact that he's got him? What Abel does and what Abel seems to be doing are two different things."

  "Well," said Rune, "if you're right, what are we to do?"

  Fife said, "We have learned the danger, and that is the important thing. We'll find the Spatio-analyst if we can. We must keep all known agents of Trantor under strict scrutiny without really interfering with them. From their actions we may learn the course of coming events. We must suppress thoroughly any propaganda on Fiorina to the effect of the planet's destruction. The first faint whisper must meet with instant counteraction of the most violent sort.

  "Most of all, we must remain united. That is the whole purpose of this meeting, in my eyes; the forming of a common front. We all know about continental autonomy and I'm sure there is no one more insistent upon it than I am. That is, under ordinary circumstances. These are not ordinary circumstances. You see that?"

  More or less reluctantly, for continental autonomy was not a thing to be abandoned lightly, they saw that.

  "Then," said Fife, "we will wait for the second move."

  That had been a year ago. They had left and there had followed the strangest and most complete fiasco ever to have fallen to the lot of the Squire of Fife in a moderately long and a more than moderately audacious career.

  No second move followed. There were no further letters to any of them. The Spatio-analyst remained unfound, while Trantor maintained a desultory search. There was no trace of apocalyptic rumors on Fiorina, and the harvesting and processing of kyrt continued its smooth pace.

  The Squire of Rune took to calling Fife at weekly intervals.

  "Fife," he would call. "Anything new?" His fatness would quiver with delight and thick chuckles would force their way out of his gullet.

  Fife took it bleakly and stolidly. What could he do? Over and over again he sifted the facts. It was no use. Something was missing. Some vital factor was missing.

  He knew he had the answer, and it was what he had not expected.

  And then it all began exploding at once, and he had the answer.

  He had called a meeting once again. The chronometer now said two twenty-nine.

  They were beginning to appear now. Bort first, lips compressed and a rough hangnailed finger rasping against the grain of his grizzly-stubbed cheek. Then Steen, his face freshly washed clear of its paint and presenting a pallid, unhealthy appearance. Balle, indifferent and tired, his cheeks sunken, his armchair well cushioned, a glass of warm milk at his side. Lastly Rune, two minutes late, wet-lipped and sulky, sitting in the night once again. This time his lights were dimmed to the point where he was a hazy bulk sitting in a cube of shadow which Fife's lights could not have illuminated though they had had the power of Sark's sun.

  Fife began. "Squires! Last year I speculated on a distant and complicated danger. In so doing I fell into a trap. The danger exists, but it is not distant. It is near us, very near. One of you already knows what I mean. The others will find out shortly."

  "What do you mean?" asked Bort shortly.

  "High treason!" shot back Fife.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE FUGITIVE

  Myrlyn Terens was not a man of action. He told himself that as an excuse, since now, leaving the spaceport, he found his mind paralyzed.

  He had to pick his pace carefully. Not too slowly, or he would seem to be dawdling. Not too quickly, or he would seem to be running. Just briskly, as a patroller would walk, a patroller who was about his business and ready to enter his ground-car.

  If only he could enter a ground-car! Driving one, unfortunately, did not come within the education of a Florinian, not even a Florinian Townman, so he tried to think as he walked and could not. He needed silence and leisure.

  And he felt almost too weak to walk. He might not be a man of action but he had acted quickly now for a day and a night and part of another day. It had used up his lifetime's supply of nerve.

  Yet he dared not stop.

  If it were night he migh
t have had a few hours to think But it was early afternoon.

  If he could drive a ground-car he could put the miles between himself and the City. Just long enough to think a bit before deciding on the next step. But he had only his legs.

  If he could think. That was it. If he could think. If he could suspend all motion, all action. If he could catch the universe between instants of time, order it to halt, while he thought things through. There must be some way.

  He plunged into the welcome shade of Lower City. He walked stiffly, as he had seen the patrollers walk. He swung his shockstick in a firm grip. The streets were bare. The natives were huddling in their shacks. So much the better.

  The Townman chose his house carefully. It would be best to choose one of the better ones, one with patches of colored plastic briquets and polarized glass in the windows. The lower orders were sullen. They had less to lose. An "upper man" would be falling over himself to help.

  He walked up a short path to such a house. It was set back from the street, another sign of affluence. He knew he would have no need of pounding the door or breaking it in. There had been a noticeable movement at one window as he walked up the ramp. (How generations of necessity enabled a Florinian to smell the approach of a patroller.) The door would open.

  It did open.

  A young girl opened it, her eyes white-rimmed circles. She was gawky in a dress whose frills showed a determined effort on the part of her parents to uphold their status as something more than the ordinary run of "Florinian trash". She stood aside to let him pass, her breath coming quickly between parted lips.

  The Townman motioned to her to shut the door. "Is your father here, girl?"

  She screamed, "Pa!" then gasped, "Yes, sir!"

  "Pa" was moving in apologetically from another room. He came slowly. It was no news to him that a patroller was at the door. It was simply safer to let a young girl admit him. She was less apt to be knocked down out of hand than he himself was, if the patroller happened to be angry.

  "Your name?" asked the Townman.

  "Jacof, if it please you, sir."

  The Townman's uniform had a thin-sheeted notebook in one of its pockets. The Townman opened it, studied it briefly, made a crisp check mark and said, "Jacof! Yes! I want to see every member of the household. Quickly!"

  If he could have found room for any emotion but one of hopeless oppression, Terens would almost have enjoyed himself. He was not immune to the seductive pleasures of authority.

  They filed in. A thin woman, worried, a child of about two years wriggling in her arms. Then the girl who had admitted him and a younger brother.

  "That's all?"

  "Everyone, sir," said Jacof humbly.

  "Can I tend the baby?" asked the woman anxiously. "It's her nap time. I was putting her to bed." She held the young child out as though the sight of young innocence might melt a patroller's heart.

  The Townman did not look at her. A patroller, he imagined, would not have, and he was a patroller. He said, "Put it down and give it a sugar sucker to keep it quiet. Now, you! Jacof!"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You're a responsible boy, aren't you?" A native of whatever age was, of course, a "boy".

  "Yes, sir." Jacof's eyes brightened and his shoulders lifted a trifle. "I'm a clerk in the food-processing center. I've had mathematics, long division. I can do logarithms."

  Yes the Townman thought, they've shown you how to use a table of logarithms and taught you how to pronounce the word.

  He knew the type. The man would be prouder of his logarithms than a Squireling of his yacht. The polaroid in his windows was the consequence of his logarithms and the tinted briquets advertised his long division. His contempt for the uneducated native would be equal to that of the average Squire for all natives and his hatred would be more intense since he had to live among them and was taken for one of them by his betters.

  "You believe in the law, don't you, boy, and in the good Squires?" The Townman maintained the impressive fiction of consulting his notebook.

  "My husband is a good man," burst in the woman volubly. "He hasn't ever been in trouble. He doesn't associate with trash. And I don't. No more do the children. We always-"

  Terens waved her down. "Yes. Yes. Now look, boy, I want you to sit right here and do what I say. I want a list of everyone you know about on this block. Names, addresses, what they do, and what kind of boys they are. Especially the last. If there's one of these troublemakers, I want to know. We're going to clean up. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. There's Husting first of all. He's down the block a way. He-"

  "Not like that, boy. Get him a piece of paper, you. Now you sit there and write it all down. Every bit. Write it slowly because I can't read native chicken tracks."

  "I have a trained writing hand, sir."

  "Let's see it, then."

  Jacof bent to his task, hand moving slowly. His wife looked over his shoulder.

  Terens spoke to the girl who had let him in. "Go to the window and let me know if any other patrollers come this way. I'll want to speak to them. Don't you call them. Just tell me."

  And then, finally, he could relax. He had made a momentarily secure niche for himself in the midst of danger.

  Except for the noisy sucking of the baby in the corner, there was reasonable silence. He would be warned of the enemy's approach in time for a fighting chance at escape.

  Now he could think.

  In the first place, his role as patroller was about over.

  There were undoubtedly road blocks at all possible exits from the town, and they knew he could use no means of transportation more complicated than a diamagnetic scooter. It would not be long before it would dawn on the search-rusty patrollers that only by a systematic quartering of the town, block by block and house by house, could they be sure of their man.

  When they finally decided that, they would undoubtedly start at the outskirts and work inward. If so, this house would be among the first to be entered, so his time was particularly limited.

  Until now, despite its black and silver conspicuousness, the patroller uniform had been useful. The natives themselves had not questioned it. They had not stopped to see his pale Florinian face; they had not studied his appearance. The uniform had been enough.

  Before long the pursuing hounds would find that fact dawning upon them. It would occur to them to broadcast instructions to all natives to hold any patroller unable to show proper identification, particularly one with a white skin and sandy hair. Temporary identifications would be passed out to all legitimate patrollers. Rewards would be offered. Perhaps only one native in a hundred would be courageous enough to tackle the uniform no matter how patently false the occupant was. One in a hundred would be enough.

  So he would have to stop being a patroller.

  That was one thing. Now another. He would be safe nowhere on Fiorina from now on. Killing a patroller was the ultimate crime and in fifty years, if he could elude capture so long, the chase would remain hot. So he would have to leave Fiorina.

  How?

  Well, he gave himself one more day of life. This was a generous estimate. It assumed the patrollers to be at maximum stupidity and himself in a state of maximum luck.

  In one way this was an advantage. A mere twenty-four hours of life was not much to risk. It meant he could take chances no sane man could possibly take.

  He stood up.

  Jacof looked up from his paper. "I'm not quite done, sir. I'm writing very carefully."

  "Let me see what you have written."

  He looked at the paper handed him and said, "It is enough. If other patrollers should come, don't waste their time saying that you have already made a list. They are in a hurry and may have other tasks for you. Just do as they say. Are there any coming now?"

  The girl at the window said, "No, sir. Shall I go out in the street and look?"

  "It's not necessary. Let's see now. Where is the nearest elevator?"

  "It's about a quarte
r of a mile to the left, sir, as you leave the house. You can-"

  "Yes, yes. Let me out."

  A squad of patrollers turned into the street just as the door of the elevator ground into place behind the Townman. He could feel his heart pound. The systematic search was probably starting, and they were at his heels.

  A minute later, heartbeat still drumming, he stepped out of the elevator into Upper City. There would be no cover here. No pillars. No cementalloy hiding him from above.

  He felt like a moving black dot among the glare of the garish buildings. He felt visible for two miles on every side and for five miles up in the sky. There seemed to be large arrows pointing to him.

  There were no patrollers in view. The Squires who passed looked through him. If a patroller was an object of fear to a Florinian, he was an object of nothing-at-all to a Squire. If anything would save him, that would.

  He had a vague notion of the geography of Upper City. Somewhere in this section was City Park. The most logical step would have been to ask directions, the next most logical to enter any moderately tall building and look out from several of the upper-story terraces. The first alternative was impossible. No patroller could possibly need directions. The second was too risky. Inside a building, a patroller would be more conspicuous. Too conspicuous.

  He simply struck out in the direction indicated by his memory of the maps of Upper City he had seen on occasion. It served well enough. It was unmistakably City Park that he came across in five minutes' time.

  City Park was an artificial patch of greenery about one hundred acres in area. On Sark itself, City Park had an exaggerated reputation for many things from bucolic peace to nightly orgies. On Fiorina, those who had vaguely heard of it imagined it ten to a hundred times its actual size and a hundred to a thousand times its actual luxuriance.

  The reality was pleasant enough. In Fiorina's mild climate it was green all year round: It had its patches of lawn, wooded areas and stony grottoes. It had a little pool with decorative fish in it and a larger pool for children to paddle in. At night it was aflame with colored illumination till the light rain started. It was between twilight and the rain that it was most alive. There was dancing, trimensional shows, and couples losing themselves along the winding walks.