“Hum.” Van stared puzzledly back. “But I’ve seen nothing about it in the news. And there’s certainly nothing about it in the guidebooks.”
“Of course not,” the captain said angrily. “No use panicking the home planets.”
“Hum.” Van Gutyf squinted thoughtfully. “What started it?”
“You mean who,” The captain looked grim. “Some beings are deliberately seeding superstitions.”
Van leaned toward him.
“‘Some’? Can’t you say right out?”
“No,” the captain said sharply. Then in a gentler tone, “Not that I wouldn’t like to, but we simply don’t know.” He grimaced. “It’s maddening. They always leave just before we come or come just after we leave. That’s not chance. That’s timing. They don’t want us to know who they are.”
Van waited quietly while the captain saw to the taping of their course, then he said wonderingly, “What’s in it for the seeders?”
“Why are they doing it?” The captain laughed bitterly. “Again, we simply don’t know.” A pause and then, “But we can guess. They’ve seen Man’s ambitious drive. Apparently they’re putting themselves out to stymie us. They may live in dread of our monopolizing the prospecting and trading and colonizing in their sector. They may dream of invading ours. Whatever motivates them, they’re undermining whole social structures with floodwaters of superstition—all over space transportation and communication are collapsing.”
“Hum.” Van’s body tensed. He braced his mind.
“Now you know how things stand,” the captain said briskly, “will you track down the seeders?
Van waited until he felt he had his vocal cords in hand, like reins, then said, “But why me?”
Captain Burnett scowled. “If you can’t answer that yourself,” he said harshly, “then maybe you’re not the man we want, after all.” He turned away pointedly and ran his eye needlessly over the controls.
Van smiled sadly. “I was hoping to escape this moment. I’ve seen it coming. Ever since winning the four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle contest I’ve known there was more at stake than this free trip around the galaxy.”
The captain smiled sadistically. “Just when did you first realize it?”
Van said quietly, “You know well enough—when I found myself alone in this tub with you.”
The captain laughed. “And you anticipating a luxury liner with lovely stewardesses?” He laughed again. “Your face sure kerplunked!”
Van flushed slightly, though smiling ruefully at himself.
The captain sobered. He said incisively, “Young man, there aren’t any more luxury liners with lovely stewardesses. There are only a few thousand tubs like this. That’s what the seeders have done to our merchant fleet already.” He fell silent a moment, brooding, then snapped out of it; “All right, you tell me. Why you?”
Van made a deprecating gesture. “I’m not falsely modest. I succeeded in mentally piecing together that devilish puzzle, with all those eyes watching and with the time ticking away. Nominally, Doozy-Wheat sponsored the quiz program, but the Galactic Council must’ve been behind it—hunting someone having that twist of mind and the ability to use it under pressure. That’s why me.”
“Right.” The captain’s voice was toneless. “And I have the authority to ask you to set up and head a bureau to find the seeders.”
Van pursed his lips. “Executive work? That kind of thing isn’t my cup of tea.”
The captain examined his nails. “Oh, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to take it on. There’d be powerful forces opposing you. For one, there’d be a pressure group of all those who can’t see slow death for the fast buck—those who’d welcome superstition because they’d capitalize on it.”
“Hum. You mean like that salesman we saw on Kviir—where they believe a ghost has to count all the leaves on a tree growing in front of a home before it can pass and enter—the one selling a sap serum to make trees non-deciduous and ghost-proof homes through the winter?”
“Yes. And you’d be up against the most powerful force of all—Time. According to our trend analysts, Man will have to pull back to the home planets for good—to keep from drowning in superstition—if we don’t stop the seeding by 2828.
“That wouldn’t be giving the bureau much leeway.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” the captain said levelly. “Well?”
“I’ll do my best,” Van said quietly.
“Put it there, son,” the captain said with feeling. “You’re now Chief of the D.S.X.”
Through an aura of exaltation Van heard himself saying, “D.S.X.? What do the letters stand for?”
The captain smiled. “The whole thing is so hush-hush you’ll probably never learn that.”
They put in at Xivve to refuel. Then, with obliging natives hollering threateningly at the sky to frighten it into giving way, they took off for Terra.
That was at the beginning of the year 2811.
CHAPTER I
In the latter half of 2811, Tyl Waqa, nominally a trader from Alphecca IV, whizzed into Syrma II’s atmosphere. He found not enough trading to make his stay worthwhile. The Syrmans were too busy vying with each other for possession of tovhs. Still, Tyl didn’t whiz right out. It seemed he didn’t care as much about trading as about the Syrmans and their ways.
Tyl himself had a way of putting the Syrmans at their ease. He became something of a fixture, establishing rapport through the medium of easy-going good nature, and one of his new friends filled him in on the tovh craze, since he seemed to want to dowse the why of it.
Tovhs were a strange sort of gem. There were only so many of them. There was no mining of them on Syrma II or on any planet within the Galactic Council’s knowing. A spaceship had landed and the gems had appeared.
Syrma II’s memory of the visitors was vague. It included no knowledge of where they came from and next to nothing about their traits. The one thing that stood out was the visitors’ parting gesture.
On corkscrewing away from Syrma II, they scattered over the planet thousands upon thousands of the gems, each set in a leaden circlet.
And almost at once a thick stand of superstition sprouted around the theme that anyone wearing a circlet would become lightheaded and in a tingling of ecstasy would set out on deeds of daring he feared to dream of before.
But the craze really took hold as a result of what happened to Afzevi, the most famous mummer of Syrma II.
By sheer force of personality, Afzevi had reached the summit of his profession. He made the dramaturgid Syrman stage a setting for his dazzling. This wasn’t easy. Syrman players interrupt their acting at every moment to utter a disclaimer of identity with the part—“This be not I.” For should death take an actor while he played a part he would lose his own identity and be that part in the land of spirits. But in spite of this stepping in and out of character, this disconcerting oscillating between the real and the make-believe, Afzevi made a lasting impression on audience and critics alike.
He attained the height of his ambition. He was to leave his imprint in the pavement fronting the Actors’ Academy.
While waiting for the plastic to reach the proper consistency, Afzevi in high spirits cavorted about, diverting the idolizing gathering. He felt full of bounce and, without much urging from the photographers and to the warming accompaniment of feminine shrieking, he scrambled up, up, up, until he was posturing atop a towering plastic likeness of himself.
He balanced there, carelessly.
Encircling his neck was a collar holding a tovh gem. Afzevi had received it from an unknown admirer who had evidently fallen for his trait profile. With it came a note saying it was something new—a charm, proof against falling from high places.
Tovhs had only lately come to light on Syrma II, but already were lodestones for lore. What he had heard tell of their potency must have imp
ressed Afzevi. He grew more and more unheeding.
Now he twisted his face into what the roaring throng at once recognized as a mimicking of his arch-rival, Dichyl. And his spellbound audience leaped from laugh to gasp as it followed his capering.
He wasn’t himself—or he was very much himself. Ordinarily he shrouded the sparkling talisman so the likes of Dichyl would not share the virtue of it. Now he allowed himself to unveil it.
The throng cheered madly.
And right then the tovh’s reflecting of sunglare blinded him. He missed his footing and hurtled down, down, down. And before you could say “This be not I,” his twisted face impressed itself in the firming plastic.
But, sure enough, the tovh at his neck remained unbroken. Truly, it was proof against falling.
Tyl nodded gravely.
After a respectful silence, Tyl’s friend said, “There were those who suspected Dichyl of being the unknown admirer.” But he went on to say that if such was the case Dichyl had won a hollow triumph; as long as he lived he was never able to top Afzevi and he went chapfallen to meet his other self in the land of spirits.
Tyl had listened with such flattering attention that when he spoke of wanting to own a tovh his friend volunteered to help him, though it was no light undertaking. There was a continuing demand for the stones—all Syrma II sought to find in the tovh the means of emulating Afzevi, of attaining his lightness of spirit and the selfless glory of his ending—and they were hard to get even though they changed owners rather rapidly.
Tyl’s friend tipped him off to a private sale. It took some spirited bidding, but Tyl at last had his tovh.
It was a perfect gem, not a scratch on it. But finding the weight and the matte hue of the lead setting not to his liking, he had a jeweler pry the stone loose and attach it to his gleaming phosphor-silicon charm bracelet. As soon as he began wearing the tovh a strange thing happened. His very character seemed to change. He felt curiously buoyant, but with an underlying iceberg bulk of unease.
He tried to tell himself he was imagining things, and it worked at first. Then he grew aware of an eerie compulsive action he couldn’t pass off as something he was imagining.
He found himself saluting when there was no one and nothing to salute. His hand would slowly rise to his temple. At the touch he would become angrily conscious of the hand and would snap it down smartly. It gave him a creepy feeling.
It was proving embarrassing too. His Syrman friends kept badgering him about the chilling formality they caught him practicing. They hinted that his mask of easygoing good nature was slipping, baring some ulterior motive.
It was the tovh’s doing, though Tyl shrank from admitting it. He used to smile at superstition. Now he had to believe there might be something in it or believe he was unbalancing.
He wondered if his tovh was the one that had led to Afzevi’s plummeting and if it would ecstatize him, too, to a fall. At least, he told himself wryly, if he fell he would make his mark, though he was far from having the heavy Syrman build. He caught himself saluting as if honoring Afzevi’s memory.
All at once he shivered. His spine was an icicle.
* * * *
He saluted. “Tyl Waqa, DSX Agent 504, reporting, sir.”
Chief Van Gutyf returned the salute. The specter of the seeders had left shadows under the penetrating eyes that now regarded Tyl. He said quietly, “Welcome back, Tyl.”
Tyl saluted. “Thank you, sir.
The Chief returned the salute. He waited gravely.
Tyl said, somewhat haltingly, “Sorry I’m late, sir. I made amazingly good time from Syrma II to Terra, but that cross-town traffic…”
“That’s all right, Tyl, the Chief said quietly. “I understand.”
Tyl saluted. “Thank you, sir.”
The Chief returned the salute. He waited gravely.
Tyl said, “Sir, I understand you wish me to amplify my report.” He saluted.
The Chief automatically started to salute back. The Chief’s face suddenly purpled. With a loud fist the Chief struck his desk, and an object resting on the desk—a leaden circlet with a gouge in its outer rim—rumbled. “Take the damn thing off!” he shouted.
“Sorry, sir.” Flustered, Tyl fumbled with the catch of his charm bracelet. The bracelet slipped out of his over-anxious hands.
It began to fall, then thought better of it. For a moment it wavered like the bubble of a spirit level in a palsy-shaking hand, then lifted slowly.
It came to rest against the ceiling with a brassy ring. Tyl leaped up and grabbed it.
He tried to look casual. “That’s what I spoke of in my report, sir.”
“Hum.” The Chief brooded for a moment. “Well, we’ll let the labsters worry about how it does what it does. What did you find out about the visitors who scattered the tovhs?”
Tyl shook his head regretfully. “Not much, sir. Upright, mammal with a trace of reptile. That’s all the Syrmans know about them. And the Syrmans never got a close look at the spaceship. It hovered fairly high—a wolf in wool pack, you might say.” He smiled tentatively.
“Hum.
Tyl withdrew the smile. He said, “Each visitor wore a belt.” He pointed to the leaden circlet on the Chief’s desk. “With the tovh in it, of course. To reach the ground the visitor dove out of the air-lock. To return to the ship the visitor swam up.”
“Hum. That all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hum.” The Chief prodded the circlet with a forefinger.
Tyl cleared his throat and the Chief glanced up. “Might I venture a bit of guessing, sir?”
“Hum.”
“Thank you, sir. Well, the run of the visitors must be about as much lighter than I am, as I am than a Syrman. The tovh must counterbalance the weight of the belt and the one wearing it. And so—”
“Hum. Then why didn’t the belts they scattered take off, when there was nothing to counterbalance, instead of falling to the ground?”
“That bothered me, too, sir.”
“Hum.”
“Then I reasoned it out—more lead or smaller tovh.”
“Hum. Reason out why they scattered the things?”
“That’s what I was coming to sir.
“Hum.
“Sir, I believe these beings are the ones seeding superstition. They knew the Syrmans would try to emulate their use of the belts. They knew the Syrmans’ memory of the stone’s properties would decay to superstition. And they knew that as the lead wore away with use and the belt got lighter and lighter the eerie sensation would grow more intense and reinforce the superstition.”
“Hum. How’d they know the Syrmans wouldn’t respond by experimenting, analyzing?”
“The Syrman mind doesn’t work that way, sir. It jumps to conclusions. It can’t take shorter hops and skips.”
“Hum.” The Chief glanced up quizzically. “You don’t call it experimenting when Syrmans wear the belts around their necks?”
Tyl smiled. “Sir, have you ever seen a Syrman? That’s as far as they can squeeze into it.”
“Hum.”
“Experimenting, sir? Why, no Syrman ever dreamed of removing the tovh from its setting. The jeweler thought I was crazy.”
“Hum. Hold on. Why didn’t the tovh float away when he pried it out?”
“Sir, I think tovh is anti-grav only when it touches solid elements.”
“Hum. Then why didn’t your bracelet take off as soon as he set the tovh in it, the way it took off just now?”
“I was wearing it, sir, while he attached the tovh. I wear it always. It’s a kind of a—a habit.”
“Hum.
“It wasn’t until I had the amusing thought that the tovh might really be bringing some sort of influence to bear…”
He broke off with a slight shudder. It relieved him to see th
e Chief glance up with a sympathetic look. He went on. “It was then I first removed the bracelet and learned what was making me salute.”
“Hum.”
“Well,” Tyl said, after an awkward hiatus, “we have one thing to go on, sir.”
“Hum?”
“The lightness of the visitors.”
“Hum.
“Well, don’t you see, sir? That should give us a lead to the kind of planet they come from.”
The Chief said, very calmly, “All we have to do is find the right star.”
“Yes, sir.
The Chief struck his desk; the leaden circlet rumbled. “Damn it, man, we don’t even know their name! Finding that out is the minimum goal I’ve set the DSX for the coming year… All right, Tyl, you can leave.”
“Yes, sir.” Tyl turned and made for the door.
The Chief waited for Tyl to reach it, then barked, “Tyl!” Tyl spun around in alarm. The Chief made thunderclouds of his brows. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Tyl gazed around the room. “Why, I don’t think so, sir,” he said worriedly.
“We can’t let discipline go lax,” the Chief said, smiling. “You forgot to salute before leaving.”
CHAPTER II
In 2812, Izuivo’ Idvuv, otherwise DSX Agent 1499, sped to Tarazed VI. He burned with zeal to get at his job—investigating why a being from Kitalpha I was languishing in jail there. He knew only that the charge arose out of conflicting superstitions.
It agitated him to learn he might just as well have taken his time getting there. The Tarazedd were celebrating one of their two Overlap Weeks. Affairs of state had to wait—a shocking state of affairs.
Overlap Weeks are the great holidays of the Tarazedd. The males hibernate, the females estivate. But, luckily for the running on of the race, there’s one common waking period at the ending of estivating and the beginning of hibernating, and there’s another at the ending of hibernating and the beginning of estivating. Happy, happy Overlap Weeks.
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