Man Who Used the Universe

by Alan Dean Foster

  By that time the research ship was a near-derelict, pitted and hulled by repeated near-misses, able to crawl through space only at sublight velocities. Under normal circumstances it would have drifted helplessly out of the galactic disk. Circumstances in that section of space were anything but normal by that time, though, not with thousands of warships filling a tiny corner of the firmament.

  A Nuel vessel taking up position at its assigned coordinates near the upper curve of the outermost warsphere had fixed on the Tarsis' feeble request for help. More than half its crew had been killed. Most, including Loo-Macklin, who'd lost an arm and was near death from loss of blood when rescue finally arrived, had been wounded.

  The Nuel surgeons had worked on him for hours, with the assistance via transcom of human surgeons elsewhere in the fleet. Stitching, repairing, and replacement of missing parts which had been shot away required the most delicate work. The Nuel were better at that than their human counterparts.

  A prosthetic arm replaced the old one. Blood was analyzed and duplicated (the Nuel are especially facile with fluids). Skin was relaid.

  It took a fleet decision to finally make the news known. No officer would take the risk of announcing Loo-Macklin's survival until it was assured.

  Both on a personal as well as professional level, Chaheel found the events, which followed, to be of particular interest. Gratitude, the gratitude of many races, rained down on the man who had deceived the governments of both in order to save them.

  The main body of the conjoined fleet returned to bases, dispersed to active reserve status. An impressive wall of security monitor stations was erected along the edge of the galactic arm facing the stars from whence the Tremovan had emerged.

  As it is wont to, the general citizenry soon forgot its proximate Armageddon and returned to living and dying and the plethora of ordinary activities, which fill life in between. Business quickly resumed its rapid pace, as did the underworld.

  Nuel and human commerce quadrupled in an impressively short time. The informal alliance forced on both governments by the Tremovan threat was now cemented permanently with taxes and tariffs, notices and exchanges, government officials, and the gloriously hollow pronouncements of bureaucrats.

  The first step in the actual merging of government functions took place when the Family Board of Ten was created. Chosen to sit on this prestigious panel of decision-makers were five Nuel, four humans and one Orischian.

  For the post of Arbiter, who would have an eleventh and tie-breaking vote, a human was selected. He tried to refuse the position. Interracial acclaim forced him to accept. The nomination, after all, had been unanimously approved by both the Master Computer, functioning under the aegis of the Board of Operators, and the Nuel Council of Eight.

  Months slid by, time infected with a droll normalcy. Nothing was heard of the Tremovan though the watch was maintained vigorously by tireless robotic eyes and ears. Commerce flourished in the heady atmosphere of interworld peace. Nuel and mankind drew ever tighter together.

  Despite his protests, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, one-time bullywot and apprentice vaper, was chosen to a second five-year term as Arbiter. When at last at the healthy but advanced age of eighty-seven he refused to stand for yet another term, his retirement from public life was noted by celebration, the bestowing of great honors, and much acclaim. They would have made his birthday a holiday, save that no one knew when it was, the proposed honoree included.

  Chaheel Riens had retired to a mildly rarified position within the Nuel Academy of Mental Sciences. He had reached Nuel late middle-age when he put in his request to see the Great Man. Somewhat to his surprise, it was granted. But then, he thought, Loo-Macklin should have plenty of free time on his tentacles these days.

  He had not changed his home. An entire moon had once been offered him for a residence, but he'd chosen to remain on his little island off the coast of Evenwaith's southern continent.

  The sea has not changed at all either, Chaheel thought as the marcar whisked him across the marching breakers. At least some things are constant.

  The island's security system was somewhat less in evidence than it had been those many years earlier when he'd first visited the sanctuary. He doubted it was less efficient for being less visible. The island still lived, in the sense that traffic in both directions was busy and constant. Although he had "retired" from public life, Loo-Macklin's commercial interests were basically intact and still had to be seen to.

  Even the meeting room was basically the same: the furnishings, the sweeping window that overlooked the ocean, the well-polished wood mosaic floor.

  Then he was facing Kees vaan Loo-Macklin once again. He was not shocked by the human's appearance. After all, he'd been a familiar figure on the media screens of both the UTW and the worlds of the Families for nearly half a century now.

  The massive upper torso seemed to have shrunk slightly. The muscled arms were thinner and the flesh beneath the clothing perceptibly looser. Still, the man moved about energetically, if a little slower than years ago. The artificial skin covering the metal fingers of his artificial left hand and arm reflected slightly more light than the other arm. That was the only thing to hint that his arm was beryllium up to the shoulder.

  Loo-Macklin extended a hand to exchange fluids and Chaheel responded. Beyond the signs of surface wasting, the man looked to be in excellent health. His hair was more than half gray now. Another ten years would see it all turned only slightly brighter than a Nuel's skin.

  "Do you remember," Chaheel Riens said quietly, "when I last stood before you in this same room, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin?"

  "I would think that of the whole race of the Nuel, you at least have the right to call me by my familiar name alone, Chaheel Riens. That was quite some time ago."

  "Do you remember it, Kees?"

  "Of course I remember." The human's voice had not shrunk in tandem with the body. It remained as sharp and distinctive as ever, as did those half-closed turquoise eyes. Sleepy, always he feigns sleep and disinterest, Chaheel thought.

  Loo-Macklin smiled slightly. "As I recall, you had come here to kill me. You left feeling differently about me."

  "Truly." Chaheel slid toward the window-wall, squatted and regarded the constant movement of the ocean. "So many webs and deceits had you enveloped yourself with that truth was hidden from both the families and your own kind. And from myself also, of course."

  "All those elaborate fabrications were needed, Chaheel. I explained why many years ago. You saw why it was necessary, at the same time as everyone else."

  "Did I? Sometimes I wonder."

  "As you are a psychologist, it should be more obvious to you than anyone else. Our two races are now bound together in peace and by the strings of mutual alliance in order to counter any threat from outside the UTW or the Family Worlds."

  "Truly are they tightly tied together. Many years I've spent considering why."

  Another man might have grown exasperated with the psychologist's obstinate refusal to accept the obvious. Not Loo-Macklin.

  "Do you deny that the alliance has been of benefit to both peoples?"

  "No. Nor can anyone deny it has been a boon in particular to a single individual named Kees vaan Loo-Macklin."

  "Why should I deny it? War is bad for business, despite what a few primitives of both our races might think."

  "Oh, business, yes, truly!" Chaheel gurgled with bitter delight. "You have spent several terms as the Arbiter of the Council of Ten, overseeing the course of government for both races. Through this you have been able to cement your position as not only the most powerful and wealthy single entity in this part of the galaxy, but the most respected and honored as well.

  "It strikes me more strongly than most, because our family-oriented government differs from those of human history, Kees. Differed, I suppose I must say. We have never been ruled by the equivalent of what you call emperors and dictators."

  "I'm no dictator," insisted Loo-Macklin. "I've never ex
ercised nor demanded absolute power."

  "Naturally, not. That would be bad for your public image. For your perceived altruism. The term is perhaps invalid: the reality is not. You have as much power as you choose to exercise."

  "Not any more. I retired, gave up the post of Arbiter years ago."

  Chaheel enjoyed the throw rug's struggles with his cilia. The material was designed to respond to the weight of human feet and cushion them accordingly. It was having difficulty with the Nuel's hundreds of supporting appendages. He pressed down savagely.

  "Reality, Kees. I am something of a student of reality. You say you have no more power, yet I know for a fact that Karamantz, the Nuel first mother who is the current Arbiter, owes her office to the influence of your commercial interests."

  "I have no control over Karam. She's a fine administrator. One of your own kind. She makes her own decisions."

  "And occasionally calls on you for 'advice,'" added Chaheel sarcastically.

  Loo-Macklin moved to his desk, sat down behind it and folded his hands across his lower abdomen. He had not developed an abdominal skirt, as some older humans did. Such extra flesh was not a mark of beauty among Homo sapiens.

  "I'd be wasting my experience and shirking my duty to both races if I selfishly turned down requests for advice. I have a lot of accumulated knowledge to share."

  "Oh, the proportions of the farce!" Chaheel muttered in Nuel, turning in an irritated circle. "End this, Kees. Have yourself declared Emperor of the Human-Nuel alliance and dispose of the sham! Think not to fool me, I've watched you for too long. The government makes many decisions you have no say in, because you choose not to. It does nothing you do not approve of. Why hide behind this veil of false modesty? It fits not your character."

  "It pleases me," the industrialist said in response to the psychologist's accusing outburst, "to keep out of the public eye."

  "Truly? Tell me, Kees, what if I were to take my conclusions, my sociographics and computer results, to the board responsible for monitoring government activities? To the moralists and lovers of freedom?"

  "Wouldn't make any difference," Loo-Macklin replied calmly. "Even if they believed you and you roused them to action, they couldn't do anything. You might find a few allies among other social scientists, but the inhabitants of over a hundred worlds have come to think of me as sort of a father figure. I have a hundred and sixty billion friends, Chaheel. I don't think your theoretical course of action would bring you anything but grief."

  "You're still nothing but a professional vaper, a killer," said Chaheel. "You're acknowledged a legal, but that's superficial. That doesn't change what you are inside. You've killed whenever necessary to protect your interests. Now you've murdered the freedom of two races."

  "My, the grandiose gesture. It fits not your character," he said mockingly. "On the contrary, human and Nuel have greater freedom now than ever. The freedom to move between the worlds of their neighbors without trailing fear behind them or pushing prejudice before them."

  "Tell me, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, does that mean anything to you? Does that matter, or is it just an incidental by-product of your personal ambitions? It's power and control you've always sought. If you could have accomplished your ends by having human and Nuel war against one another, would you not have incited such a war? The Tremovan forced you to impose peace. It became necessary for 'business,' not necessarily desirable."

  "It's true that I did consider the results of war at one time. As you point out, though, it was important to encourage peace and alliance." Something strange, Chaheel thought. Something strange in that always enigmatic smile-expression of his. Missing something important am I?

  "This honor you accept, this posture as savior of both races, is all sham. I had your psychological profile correct from the beginning, from that day when you witnessed the Birthing."

  "I always thought you did, Chaheel. Worried about you from that same day. 'There,' I recall telling myself, 'is one mighty dangerous and smart Nuel.'"

  "Tell me," said the psychologist, "what would you have done if someone had believed my story of suspicious transactions between you and the Tremovan, had acted on it years before you were ready to betray them and thus force the alliance?"

  "Ah, the Tremovan," the industrialist/killer laughed softly.

  A genuine laugh, I believe, Chaheel thought. Over the years he had become acutely sensitive to human mannerisms.

  "Yes. You betrayed them as you threatened to betray us. Three races at one time or another betrayed. The character of our savior!"

  "I can't say for certain what I would have done, Chaheel. Had you killed, I suppose."

  "I thought as much."

  "Nothing personal. I like you, Chaheel Riens."

  "I am not flattered. None of your murders are personal. You may have emotions, but they do not involve themselves in those slaughterings you deem necessary."

  "Why recriminate based on events passed? Everything worked out as planned. I would truly have missed you. You were the pin around which a great deal pivoted, Chaheel Riens. I needed you alive and suspicious. It was the timing, which was important. I wanted your story believed, at the proper moment."

  Chaheel's thoughts stumbled, forced him to backpedal mentally. "You . . . you wanted my story believed? Then that means that you wanted . . ."

  "You to have the information. Truly. You remember the voluble computer programmer who first piqued your interest, the one who so kindly supplied you with the proof of your suspicions about me? The one who told you about the additive plot?"

  Chaheel Riens searched his memory. "Thomas Lindsay. But there was no additive plot. You had him killed to protect your plan to deceive the human government on the Families behalf."

  "Yes, but he was no renegade from my company. He was sent to seek you out and give you that information."

  "And still you had him killed."

  "It was necessary to maintain the fiction."

  "But that means that you wanted me to come to you and try to kill you."

  Loo-Macklin nodded. "Then it was necessary that you return to your ship, uncertain of my true motives but persuaded that I was still working on the Families' behalf. Then the message your commander intercepted arrived and you were compelled to return to Evenwaith and take a position where you could keep watch on me."

  "You had the commander and the others killed."

  Loo-Macklin said nothing.

  "The information on the Tremovan which I 'discovered'?"

  "You have discovered many things, Chaheel Riens. You are persistent."

  "All arranged, all planned by you. For why?"

  "Isn't that obvious? So that when the Tremovan fleet was detected, your previously ignored accusations and suspicions would lend validity to their presence."

  "That means you had to know well in advance when the Tremovan were going to attack. But at the time . . ."

  He stopped. Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was laughing. Chaheel had never seen him laugh before and he was fascinated and appalled all at once. No one else had ever seen Loo-Macklin laugh long and hard either. No one ever would again.

  "Always the Tremovan! I thought you would have it by now, Chaheel. Your instincts were always correct, always! It was your range which let you down."

  "I do not understand, Kees."

  "You will. I promise you. I owe you that much. I've used you for too many years."

  He turned and touched several contacts in sequence. A whirring noise filled the huge room as somewhere large motors came to life. Chaheel tensed.

  Across the room to his left a panel was sliding upward into the wall. Behind it stood a large, globular body some twelve feet tall. Its golden scales glistened in the light that poured in through the window-wall and multiple black eyes gleamed like cabochons of malevolent onyx. It stepped out into the room, the weight of it clicking against the polished wood floor at the terminus of the carpet.

  Chaheel Riens started to back away from that towering, threatening shap
e. Then something caught his eye and he hesitated. The Tremovan had stopped. It balanced on the floor, utterly motionless, turning neither right nor left and showing no sign of life.

  He looked with one eye toward the desk, keeping the other on the massive alien form in case he'd guessed wrongly. Loo-Macklin was still smiling at him.

  "Yes, it's a mechanical simulacrum. You've forgotten, a lot of people have forgotten, that both as legal and illegal I was deeply involved with the business of entertainment. It was the foundation of my legal fortune. I'm still heavily tied to the interworld entertainment industry, with interests in nearly every subfield.

  "My engineers have become very sophisticated. Nuel bioengineering added a completely new aspect to the business." He gestured at the Tremovan. "This imposing fellow was built by my people thinking it was intended for one of the many amusement parks I operate throughout the eighty-three worlds."

  "But surely you didn't plan to kill . . ." Chaheel cut himself off. How many people had actually seen a Tremovan? There were reports, many reports, but . . .

  I'm the only one, he thought dazedly. I, and those officers on my monitoring ship.

  No wonder he had them all killed.

  "Then there was no Tremovan ship, no transmission between you and them?"

  "Of course not, Chaheel. I was talking to my toy here, sequestered far out in free space where he couldn't be easily traced." He touched contacts and the huge alien form promptly tipped over and executed a headstand. It remained in that position while Chaheel Riens gaped at it.

  "What if all these elaborate falsehoods had failed to provoke me properly?" he finally asked, feeling not like an experienced scientist but like a laboratory animal. "What if I'd failed to return to Evenwaith to study your actions, for example, and had returned home instead?"

  Loo-Macklin shrugged. "I had backups in mind, other ways and means. But I was counting on your personal drive and intelligence, your intense curiosity, not to mention your suspicions about me and my motives, to drive you to seek further. You didn't disappoint me, Chaheel Riens. The success of the Human-Nuel alliance is partly due to your efforts, even if you didn't know what you were doing."