A Galaxy Of Strangers

by Lloyd Biggle Jr

  Marzoff typed. Mr. Jones had commented on the backwardness of the peasant comrades, and he had been interested in Marzoff’s exposition of how the current Seven-Year Plan would correct that. Mr. Jones had many kind things to say about food in the restaurants of the capital city, but he did not like the native wines. Mr. Jones had complained of the arbitrariness of the Censorship Bureau, and Marzoff had taken some time to explain that drastic action was sometimes an unfortunate necessity. And so on.

  He ripped the page from his typewriter, signed his name, and walked timidly into the presence of the bureau’s director, Dimitri Storavieff. Storavieff said, “Ah, that newspaper correspondent,” glanced at the report, and scribbled his initials. He dismissed Marzoff with a nod. The report, Marzoff knew, would be scrutinized intently by many interested persons and would eventually find its way into a bulging file, to join Marzoff’s other reports and those from various sources, one of which was the sly young man who sometimes followed Jones to the restaurant.

  Marzoff returned to his desk. A stack of copy had been plunked there during his absence, but he was much too perturbed to get down to work immediately. Could it be, he asked himself, that Jones was trying to tell him something? He dismissed the thought as ridiculous. If Jones had any information of importance, he would impart it to someone of consequence. Foreign newspapermen had contacts with all manner of high officials, and Marzoff was a nobody. It was true that his father had been Minister of Agriculture before he had been unfortunately assassinated by capitalistic hirelings, and his uncle was Deputy Director of the Police, but aside from obtaining him his lowly position in the Censorship Bureau this had not altered Marzoff’s insignificant status. No, if Jones wanted to pass along information, he would not pick Marzoff as the recipient. Then what was his purpose?

  Marzoff shuffled through the papers on his desk and put them down again. He fussed with the keys of his typewriter. Suddenly the answer came to him, so startling, so overwhelmingly important, that he sprawled back in his chair and stared open-mouthed at the ceiling. “So!” he murmured.

  So Mr. Jones had been fishing, dangling a tempting bait to see what would come to the surface. He had been trying to find out what Marzoff knew—what the Bureau of Censorship knew. Why had Jones picked that particular moment, just after the flying saucer order had been issued? The order itself was the reason. No doubt it was unexpected. It took the enemies of the state by surprise, and within two hours Jones was violating it in a public restaurant in an effort to find out what was behind it.

  “So!” Marzoff murmured again. So there were flying saucers, or something like that. They were a capitalistic plot, and Jones was connected with it!

  Five minutes later Marzoff stood again in the presence of the director. Storavieff glanced up impatiently. “What is it now?”

  “Sir,” Marzoff said, speaking with a much bolder tone of voice than was customary with him, “I think I have discovered a horrible conspiracy against our glorious People’s Democracy and our Glorious Leader.”

  “One of the newspaper articles? Let’s see it.” “It is not that. It is an outside matter that I myself have discovered.”

  “Then it concerns the police, not the Director of the Censorship Bureau.”

  “True. But it is best to be certain, and I am not yet—that is, I am certain, but there is lacking—I mean—” Marzoff flushed and broke off in confusion.

  Storavieff looked at him sharply. “What is it you want?”

  “A leave of absence,” Marzoff blurted. “A few days, to investigate-“

  Storavieff nodded. “Take a week. If that isn’t enough, let me know.”

  Marzoff beamed. “Thank you, sir.”

  “But clean up the work on your desk before you go.”

  The next day Marzoff was sipping bad wine at a sidewalk table across the square when Mr. Jones arrived at Le Favori des Rois. He reflected sadly that he had only to present himself, and the fabulous expense account of Mr. Jones would automatically provide the best that the restaurant could offer. And would he not be better able to observe this suspected enemy agent at close range?

  He thrust the temptation aside and turned his thoughts to what he knew about the art of trapping spies. Unfortunately, this was very little. Everyone knew that the People’s Democracies were infested with such criminals, but to Marzoff’s knowledge there was no manual of instruction detailing easy methods for catching them. He continued to sip wine and think, and when Mr. Jones at last strolled away in search of a taxi, Marzoff had accomplished nothing beyond a mild and extremely distasteful intoxication.

  He finished his wine and walked slowly to the end of the square and back. He bought a small loaf of bread and munched on it as he made a complete circuit of the square. Finally he returned to his seat at the sidewalk table and—for the want of a better excuse—ordered more wine.

  “Suppose—” he said to himself, “—just suppose that Mr. Jones’s professed admiration for the food at Le Favori des Rois is feigned.” Marzoff found the meals tasteful and ample, but surely an important man such as Mr. Jones, blessed with a magical expense account, would not eat in such degraded surroundings even if the food were as good as he said. Very well. Then why the daily visit to this sordid neighborhood?

  Obviously he visited Le Favori des Rois to meet someone. The proprietor? A logical choice and therefore unlikely. The proprietor had little contact with his patrons except to wave them toward empty tables. On the other hand—

  The waiter!

  It would be a simple matter for the waiter to pass messages to Jones along with the food and for Jones to leave a message under his plate when he finished eating or conceal it with the money when he paid his bill. It had been going on for months, right under Marzoff’s nose, and he hadn’t suspected a thing!

  He leaped to his feet and set out to explore the neighborhood. His wanderings terminated in the alley behind the restaurant, a narrow, littered passageway so foul smelling that it forced him into a hasty, nauseated withdrawal. He returned to the sidewalk table. Through the open restaurant door he could sometimes see the old waiter tottering about with his comical half limp. Marzoff performed a calculation on the probable hours worked by waiters and decided that spy catching could be a tedious occupation.

  Darkness came at last. Marzoff, lurking in the shadows, watched the other business establishments close one by one, watched the square become deserted, watched lights wink out in the apartments above the shops. Midnight came and went. Finally even the stubborn proprietor of Le Favori des Rois accepted the inevitable and closed his door with an echoing slam. The rusty bolt shrieked a protest as it was driven home. Marzoff, his heart thumping violently, raced down the square to the jagged opening where the alley vented its vile odors. Such divine providence as deigned to watch over a People’s Democracy was on his side, for the alley of Le Favori des Rois had only the one exit.

  Minutes passed, and then the waiter shuffled into view. Marzoff clung to the shadowed wall of a building and allowed him to reach the end of the square before he started after him.

  He was led on a stumbling, nightmarish ramble through narrow, unlighted streets. Once he tripped over a metallic object and fell with a crash that seemed to rattle the nearby windows. The old waiter evidently was deaf as well as lame, for he never looked back; but only his hesitant, uncertain pace enabled Marzoff to keep close to him in the darkness.

  Finally the waiter turned into a narrow court, loomed for a moment against darker shadows, and disappeared. Marzoff sprinted after him. As he reached the end of the court, strong arms seized him, flung him to the ground, pummeled him. He came up fighting and was instantly slugged into unconsciousness. Minutes or hours later he opened his eyes in a crowded cell with a single, high, barred window and learned he was in the hands of the police.

  “Your name,” the officer said, shuffling Marzoff’s papers, “is Serge Marzoff?” “It is.”

  “My assistant informs me that you refuse to speak with such an underling
as himself. Is my modest rank sufficient for your conversation, or must I call in my superior?”

  There were snickers among the bystanders. Marzoff summoned his courage and spoke clearly. “I have information concerning an infamous conspiracy, and I demand an audience with our Glorious Leader.”

  The officer silenced the laughter with a gesture. “Marzoff,” he mused. “You are not, by chance, related to General Marzoff?” “He is my uncle.”

  In the silence that followed, feet shuffled uneasily. The officer eyed Marzoff warily. “And—our lately lamented Minister of Agriculture?” “He was my father.”

  “I see.” The officer twiddled his thumbs against a background of total silence. “If you would consent to speak with me in confidence, I would guarantee to use my small influence to place your information before the proper authority.”

  “Our Glorious Leader,” Marzoff said firmly.

  “Take him away,” the officer said.

  The scene was repeated four times during the day, before officials of dazzlingly ascending rank. Each scrutinized Marzoff’s papers, contemplated the undeniable importance of his family connections and the probable unimportance of his information, and had him returned to a cell. After each interview the cell improved in quality. The last one, in which he spent the night, was almost comfortable.

  On the second day he was left undisturbed, and his resolution slowly eroded into panic. He had absented himself from the service of the State in pursuit of a wild speculation, he had violated an unimaginable number of regulations, he had wasted the time of several high-ranking officials, and only his connection with a family that long since had written him off as worthless had prevented his summary execution.

  He was jerked from his bed at midnight. He went trembling, expecting a firing squad, but instead he was hurried into a car and driven recklessly through dark streets. The car halted by an unfamiliar rear entrance, and he was led through endless corridors and at length into a dim room where a group of men waited to sit in judgment on him. Then he recognized one of them.

  “Our Glorious Leader,” he murmured and sank to his knees.

  “On your feet, Comrade Marzoff,” the familiar voice said. “We are all equal in our service to the people.”

  Marzoff stood and kept his eyes lowered.

  “You have information for me, Comrade Marzoff?”

  Marzoff took a deep breath. He had known this man for years, although the Glorious Leader certainly would not remember him. Marzoff had watched him in timid admiration back in the earliest days of his memory when the Glorious Leader, as well as his father and uncle, were fugitives from what a tyrannous government chose to call justice. The voice, and the face, were as familiar to him as those of a member of his family. His timidity fell away from him, and he stammered out the full account of his conversation with Mr. Jones and what it had led to.

  The room was silent when he finished. The Glorious Leader cleared his throat ostentatiously and said, not unkindly, “Comrade Marzoff. Your motives are beyond reproach, your zeal is commendable, and your thinking is indescribably muddled. Flying saucers? Everyone knows they were invented by the capitalistic imperialists to cower their rebellious populations. Our citizens need no such fantasies to inspire their loyalty. As for your espionage work, I know I can rely on your discretion when I tell you that the man you were following is an agent of our police. You have made a nuisance of yourself, Comrade Marzoff, but you meant well, and you are the son of an old friend. You will return to the Censorship Bureau in the morning, and in the future you will be attentive to your duties there and leave the protection of the State to experts. I assure you that it is in good hands. Agreed?”

  Marzoff nodded.

  “Good.”

  The Glorious Leader got to his feet and walked away. Marzoff’s admiring eyes followed him, drank in the familiar profile, gazed at his face as he turned to look back, contemplated his ears, odd-looking ears that seemed sculptured in low relief on the sides of his head—

  “You aren’t the Glorious Leader!” Marzoff blurted.

  The man halted, all kindness drained from his face. He glared at Marzoff. Then he nodded, and that silent nod struck Marzoff as a thunderous clap of doom.

  Which it was.

  Dimitri Storavieff looked up impatiently and said, “Ah, Marzoff. You’re back.” “Yes, sir.”

  “And what of this mysterious conspiracy?”

  “There wasn’t any, sir. I’m sorry to have wasted the time.”

  Storavieff nodded. Marzoff was a silly little fool, but on the other hand he had important relatives, and even fools had been known to stumble onto something important. But there was no harm done. Certainly the Censorship Bureau hadn’t missed him.

  “By the way,” Storavieff said, “about that newspaper correspondent, Jones. He had an unfortunate accident last night. Most regrettable. There’ll be all kinds of tiresome inquiries. It might be appropriate for you to write a note of regret to his family.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. You know what to do.” A moment later Storavieff was distracted by an altercation in the outer office. Marzoff had absently seated himself at the wrong desk. Storavieff watched him apologize and shuffle back to his proper corner.

  “What peculiar ears that man has!” Storavieff thought suddenly. “Strange I never noticed it before.”

  Ears! He snapped his fingers. There was something about ears-yes, in a new regulation he had been reading when Marzoff interrupted him. He returned to his desk and picked up the list.

  Ears. Certain capitalistic correspondents were ridiculing the shape of ears among citizens of the southern provinces. This treasonable activity was aimed at inciting racial strife in the People’s Democracy similar to that which plagued the capitalistic nations. Any mention of ears henceforth would be a criminal offense.

  “And properly so,” Storavieff murmured and initialed the paper.

  page 41

  EYE FOR AN EYE

  Walter Dudley and his wife paused at the top of the ramp for their first glimpse of the independent world of Maylor. The bleak landscape stretched unbroken to the taut line of the horizon.

  “It doesn’t look very interesting,” Dudley observed.

  Eleanor Dudley was more emphatic. “It stinks.”

  “Maybe it’ll be better in town,” Dudley said, though he knew it wouldn’t. One could not expect to find much of the tinsel of civilization on a world that was, admittedly, the last refuge of the failure.

  A noisy, vilely malodorous groundcar arrived in a choking swirl of dust and fumes, and they climbed aboard with their hand luggage. Minutes later, bounced and jolted to the verge of nausea, they were deposited at the diminutive passenger terminal.

  Hamal Bakr, the Galactic Insurance Company’s temporary resident manager, was waiting for them. Dudley disliked him at sight. Not only was he tall and handsome, but his casual afternoon robe displayed his trim figure with the effectiveness of a military uniform. Dudley had met his type before—met it frequently, and always to his profound regret. Bakr would be the darling of his sector manager, and even his infrequent failures would count more than other men’s successes.

  He crushed Dudley’s hand and bent low over Eleanor’s, brushing her fingers with his mustache and murmuring that this world of Maylor’s long-standing reputation as the abode of beautiful women had been sheer fraud until the moment of her arrival. Eleanor tittered.

  “I’ve found an apartment for you,” Bakr said. “You won’t like it, but it’s the best I could do on short notice. There’s a terrible housing shortage here.”

  “Whatever it is, we’ve probably seen worse,” Dudley said. But he doubted that, too.

  “I have my ‘car waiting,” Bakr said. “I’ll drive you.”

  He herded them through customs, bullying officials, snarling at baggage attendants, and frightening porters. Then he loaded them and their luggage into his sleek groundcar and triumphantly roared away with them, trailing clouds o
f acrid white dust.

  “In case you’re in suspense,” he said to Dudley, “I can summarize the present condition of our business in three words: There isn’t any.”

  “I gathered that the situation wasn’t healthy.”

  “The Maylor business is worse than just unhealthy. It’s deceased. If you’re thinking of doing anything except arrange a decent burial, forget it.”

  Dudley scratched his head perplexedly. “It shouldn’t be that bad. What’s the competition? I know no one has better air vehicular coverage than Galactic, and our fire coverages—”

  ‘There aren’t any air vehicles on Maylor. They’re prohibited. Too dangerous. But this—” Bakr swerved, narrowly missing an oncoming ‘car that crowded the center of the road. “This they consider safe.”

  “They must have an appalling accident rate. How many groundcar policies do we have in force?”

  “One.”

  Dudley stared. “Just one policy? On the entire planet? You can’t be serious!”

  “But I am serious. The Galactic Insurance Company has one groundcar policy in force on this planet, and it’s mine. I only bought it to be patriotic. Because of the peculiar customs and legalities of Maylor, its citizens consider insurance unnecessary or incomprehensible or both. They won’t buy it at any premium or under any circumstances. Wasn’t this explained to you? I thought you were being sent out to wind things up and close the office.”

  “Nothing was explained to me,” Dudley said grimly. “I was sent out to make the business go here—or else.”

  “Old man, I had no idea, or I’d have broken the news gently.”