Garlock got ready to shut her up, then paused; holding his fire.
“Ah, yes, friend Garlock, you are maturing fast,” came Thaker’s thought and, in answer to Garlock’s surprise, it went on, “This situation will, I think, be self-adjusting; just as will be those in the as yet unexplored regions of space.”
The girl kept on. “I, at least, am going to keep on bossing my own planet, milking it just as I.…”
Her companion had been trying to crack her shield. Failing in that, he stepped in close and tapped her—solidly, but with carefully-measured force—behind the ear. Before she could fall, he ’ported her back up into their quarters. “This happens all the time,” he explained to the group at large. “Carry on.”
Discussion went on, with less and less acrimony, all the rest of the day. And the next day, and the next. Then, argument having reached the point of diminishing returns, the three starships took the forty-six couples home.
The six Primes went into Evans’ office, where the lawyer was deeply engaged with Gerald Banks, the Galaxians’ Public Relations Chief. Banks was holding his head in both hands.
“Garlock, maybe you can tell me,” Banks demanded. “How much of this stuff, if any, can I publish? And if so, how?”
“Nothing,” Garlock said, flatly.
“What do you think, Thaker?” Belle asked. “You’re smarter than we are.”
“What Thaker thinks has no bearing,” Garlock said.
Belle, Fao, and Delcamp all began to protest at once, but they were silenced by Thaker himself.
“Garlock is right. My people are not your people; I know not at all how your people think or what they will or will not believe. I go.”
“That lets Deg and me out too; then, double-plus,” Fao said with a grin, “so we’ll leave that baby on your laps. We go, too.”
“Well, little Miss Weisenheimer,” Garlock smiled quizzically at Belle, “You grabbed the ball—what are you going to do with it?”
“Nothing, I guess.…” Belle thought for a minute. “We couldn’t stuff any part of that down the throat of a simple-minded six-year-old. We haven’t really got anything, anyway. Time enough, I think, when we have six or seven hundred planets in each region, instead of only one planet. Maybe we’ll know something by then. Does that make sense?”
“It does to me,” Garlock said, and the others agreed.
“That Thakern ‘we go’ business sounds rough at first, but it’s contagious. Fao and Deggi caught it, and I feel like I’m coming down with it myself. How about you, Clee?”
“We go,” Belle and Garlock said in unison, and vanished.
Aboard the Pleiades, the next few days passed quietly enough. James set up, in the starship’s memory banks, a sequence to mass-produce instruction tapes and blueprints. Garlock and Belle began systematically to explore the Tellurian Region. Now, however, their technique was different. If either Prime of any world was not enthusiastic about the project—
“Very well. Think it over,” they would say. “We will get in touch with you again in about a year,” and the starship would go on to the next planet.
On Earth, however, things became less and less tranquil with every day that passed. For, in deciding not to publish anything, Garlock had not considered at all the basic function and the tremendous ability, power, and scope of The Press. And Galaxian Hall had never before been closed to the public; not for any hour of any day of any year of its existence. A non-profit organization, dependent upon the public for its tremendous income, the Galaxian Society had always courted that public in every possible ethical way.
Thus, in the first hour of closure, a bored reporter came out, read the smoothly-phrased notice, and lepped it in to the desk. It might be worth, he thought, half an inch.
Later in the day, however, the world’s most sensitive news-nose began to itch. Did, or did not, this quiet, unannounced closing smell ever-so-slightly of cheese? Wherefore, Benjamin Bundy, the newscaster who had covered the starship’s maiden flight, went out himself to look the thing over. He found the whole field closed. Not only closed, but Gunther-blocked impenetrably tight. He studied the announcement, his sixth sense—the born newsman’s sense for news—probing every word.
“Regret…research…of such extreme delicacy…vibration…temperature control…one one-hundredth of one degree Centigrade.…”
He sought out his long-time acquaintance Banks; finding him in a temporary office half a block away from the Hall. “What’s the story, Jerry?” he asked. “The real story, I mean?”
“You know, as much about it as I do, Ben. Garlock and James don’t waste time trying to detail me on that kind of business, you know.”
This should have satisfied any newshawk, but Bundy’s nose still itched. He mulled things over for a minute, then probed, finding that he could read nothing except Banks’ outermost, most superficial thoughts.
“Well…maybe…but.…” Then Bundy plunged. “All you have to do, Jerry, is tell me screens-half-down that your damn story is true.”
“And that’s the one thing I can’t do,” Banks admitted; and Bundy could not detect that any part of his sheepishness was feigned. “You’re just too damned smart, Ben.”
“Oh—one of those things? So that’s it?”
“Yup. I told Evans it might not work.”
That should have satisfied the reporter, but it didn’t. “Now it doesn’t smell just a trifle cheesy; it stinks like rotten fish. You won’t go screens down on that one, either.”
“No comment.”
“Oh, joy!” Bundy exulted. “So big that Gerald Banks, the top press-agent of all time, actually doesn’t want publicity! The starship works—this lack-of-control stuff is the bunk—from here to another star in nothing flat—Garlock’s back, and he’s brought—what have you got in there, Jerry?”
“The only way I can tell you is in confidence, for Evans’ release. I’d like to, Ben, believe me, but I can’t.”
“Confidence, hell! Do you think we won’t get it?”
“In that case, no comment.” The interview ended and the siege began.
Newshounds and detectives questioned and peered and probed. They dug into morgues, tabulating and classifying. They recalled and taped and sifted all the gossip they had heard. They got a picture of sorts, but it was maddeningly confusing and incomplete. And, since it was certain that inter-systemic matters were involved, they could not extrapolate—any guess was far too apt to be wrong. Thus nothing went on the air or appeared in print; and, although the surface remained calm, all newsdom seethed to its depths.
Wherefore haggard Banks and harried Evans greeted Garlock with shouts of joy when the four wanderers came back to spend the week end on Earth.
“I’ll talk to ’em,” Garlock decided, after the long story had been told. “Have somebody get hold of Bundy and ask him to come out.”
“Get hold of him!” Banks snorted. “He’s here. Twenty-four hours a day. Eating sandwiches and cat-napping on chairs in the lobby. All you have to do is unseal that door.”
Garlock flung the door wide. Bundy rushed in, followed by a more-or-less steady stream of some fifty other top-bracket newspeople, both men and women.
“Well, Garlock, perhaps you will give us some screens-down facts?” Bundy asked, angrily.
“I’ll give you all the screens-down.…”
“Clee!” “You’re crazy!” “You can’t!” “Don’t!” Belle and all the Operators protested at once.
Ignoring the objections, Garlock cut his shield to half and gave the whole group a true account of everything that had happened in the galaxy. Then, while they were all too stunned to speak, a grin of saturnine amusement spread over his dark, five-o’clock-shadowed face.
“You pestiferous gnats insisted on grabbing the ball,” he sneered. “Now let’s see you run with it.”
Bundy came out of his trance. “What a story!” he yelled. “We’ll plaster it.…”
“Yeah,” Garlock said, dryly. “What a stor
y. Exactly.”
“Oh.” Bundy deflated suddenly. “You’ll have to prove it—demonstrate it—of course.”
“Of course? You tickle me. Not only do I not have to prove it, I won’t. I won’t even confirm it.”
Bundy glared at Garlock, then whirled on Banks. “If you don’t give me this in shape to use, you’ll never get another line or mention anywhere!”
“Oh, no?” For the first time in his professional life Banks gloated, openly and avidly. “From now on, my friend, who is in the saddle? Who is going to come to whom? Oh, brother!”
When the fuming newsmen had gone, Garlock said, “It’ll leak, of course.”
“Of course,” Banks agreed. “‘It is rumored…’ ‘from a usually reliable source…’ and so on. Nothing definite, but each one of them will want to put out the first and biggest.”
“That’s what I figured. It’ll have to break sometime and I thought easing it out would be best…but wait a minute.…” he thought for two solid minutes. “But we’re going to need a lot of money, and we’re just about broke, aren’t we?” This thought was addressed to Frank Macey, the Galaxians’ treasurer.
“Worse than broke—much worse.”
“I could loan you a couple of credits, Frank,” Belle said, brightly. “But go ahead, Clee.”
“People like to be sidewalk superintendents. Suppose they could watch the construction of an outpost so far away that nobody ever dreamed of ever getting there. Could you do anything with that, Jerry?”
“Could I! Just!” and Banks, went into a rhapsody.
“That’s the first good idea any one of you crackpots has had for five years,” Macey said, suddenly. “But wouldn’t transportation of material and so on present problems?”
“No; just buying it,” Garlock said, soberly. “Oh, rather, paying for it.”
“No trouble there.…”
“What?” Belle exclaimed. “‘No trouble,’ it says here in fine print? How the old skinflint has changed—instead of screaming his head off about spending money he’s actually offering to. Frank, I’ll loan you threecredits!”
“Hush, honey-chile, the men-folks are talking man-business. Look, Clee. We’ll use the Pleiades at first, while we’re building a regular transport. A hundred passengers per trip, one thousand credits one way.…”
“Wow!” Belle put in. “Our ex-skinflint is now a bare-faced, legally-protected robber.”
“By no means, Belle,” Evans said. “How much would that be per mile?”
“Say ten round trips per day. That would be twenty million a day gross for a small ship not intended for passenger service. When we get ships built…and the extras.…” The money-man went into a financial revel of his own.
“Lots of extras,” Banks agreed. “And oh, brother, what a public-relations dream of heaven!”
“Maybe I’m dumb,” Garlock broke in, “but just what are you going to use for money to get started?”
“The minute we confirm any part of the story, the credit of the Galaxian Society will jump from X-O to AA-A1.”
“Oh. So Belle and I will have to lose our Pleiades for a while. I don’t like that, but we do need the money…but we can have her for this coming week?”
“Of course.”
“So maybe we’d better break the story now, instead of letting it leak.”
“Can you, after what you just told them?”
“Sure I can.” He set his mind and searched. “Bundy, this is Garlock.…”
“So what am I supposed to do—burst into tears of joy?”
“Save it. I changed my mind. You can break it as fast and as hard as you like. I’ll play along.”
“Yeah? Why the switch? What’s the angle?”
“Strictly commercial. Get it from Banks.”
“And you’ll—personally—go on my hour with it?”
“Yes. Also, we’ll demonstrate—take you to any star-system in the galaxy. You and all the rest of the newshawks who were here and any fifty VIP’s you want to invite. Tomorrow morning all right with you?”
“You, personally, in the Pleiades?” Bundy insisted.
“Better than that. The other two starships, too. You’ve got them—particularly those four Primes—clearly in mind?”
“Not exactly, there was so much of it. Spread it on me now, huh?” Garlock did so. “Thanks, pal, for the scoop. I’ll crash it right now, and follow up with Banks. ’Bye!”
“Think you can deliver on that, Clee?” Banks asked.
“Sure. Both Deggi and Alsyne will need a lot of extra money, fast. They’ll play along.”
They did; and that three-starship tour—which visited twenty solar systems instead of one—was the most sensational thing old Earth had ever spawned.
Belle and Garlock did not spend that week end on Earth. “We go,” they said, as soon as the Pleiades was empty of pressmen, and they took James and Lola along. “If we never see another such brawl as this is going to be,” Belle told Banks, who was basking in glory and entreating them to stay on for the show, “it will be exactly twenty minutes too soon.”
Thus it came about that Earth’s first four deep-spacemen were completely out of reach when unexpected developments began.
Alonzo P. Ferber was one of the VIP’s on Bundy’s personally-conducted tour of the stars. As has been said, he was a very able executive. He had an extremely keen profit-sense. This new thing smelled—simply reeked—of money. SSE would have to get in on it.
Ferber was not thin-skinned; where money was concerned it would never even occur to him to cherish grudges or to retain animosities. Wherefore SSE’s purchasing department suggested to the Galaxian Society that negotiations be opened concerning licenses, franchises, royalties, and so on. These suggestions were politely but firmly brushed off. Then emissaries were sent, of ever-increasing caliber and weight. Next, Ferber himself tried the tri-di; and finally, he came in person.
Rebuffed, he made such legally-sound threats that Evans and Macey agreed to a meeting; stating flatly, however, that no commitments could possibly be made without the knowledge and approval of the Society’s president, Cleander Garlock. Thus, at the meeting, the Galaxians made only two statements that were even approximately definite. One was that Garlock would probably return to Earth during the afternoon or evening of the following Friday; the other that they would take the matter up with Garlock as soon as they could.
After that meeting Macey was unperturbed, but Evans was a deeply worried man.
“You see,” he explained, “the real crux was not even mentioned.”
“No? What is it, then?”
“Operators, Primes, and the practically non-existent laws pertaining to their…what? Labor? Skill? Genius? For instance, could Garlock be forced to do whatever it is that he does? On the other hand, if Ferber offered Belle Bellamy five million credits a year to ‘work’ for SSE, is there anything we could do about it?”
“Oh. I thought all there was to it was that you’d delay ’em for a year or so and that’d be it.”
“Far from it. To date I have listed fifty-eight points for which, as far as we can learn, there are no precedents,” and the lawyer called a meeting of his staff.
For Belle and Garlock, the week went fast. On Friday afternoon, high above Earth’s Galaxian Field, Garlock said, more than half regretfully, “No more fun. Back to the desk. Back to the salt-mines.”
“I weep for you,” Belle snickered. “Sob, sob. Shed him a tear, Lola.”
“One tear coming up. Oh, woe; oh, woe.…”
“Oh, whoa!” James snorted. “Why the sob-and-moan routine, Clee, from a guy who’s going to be monarch of all he surveys?”
“His conscience aches him,” Belle explained. “This monarching business is tough if you haven’t thought about how to monarch, and he hasn’t. Have you, Clee?”
“Not a lick.” Garlock smiled slightly. “I been busy.”
“You better start to,” she advised, darkly. “You aren’t busy now and we have an
hour. We better confer—I’ll make like a slave-driver.”
They ’ported into his room and he set the blocks. His attitude changed instantly. “Nice act, Belle. What was it all about?”
“That theory of yours. Your predictions are too uncannily accurate to be guesswork, and the more times you dead-center the bullseye the worse scared I get. I really want to know, Clee.”
“Okay. It isn’t complete—I need a lot more data—but I’ll show you what I have. It’s fairly strong medicine and it comes in big chunks.”
“It would have to—it covers the whole macrocosmic universe, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. I’ll start with the striking fact that, on every out-galaxy planet we visited, the human beings were Homo sapiens to N decimal places. Fertile with each other and, according to expert testimony, with us. All planets had humanoid ‘guardians,’ the Arpalones and Arpales. Some, but not all, had one or more non-human, more-or-less-intelligent races, such as the Fumapties, the Lemarts, the Sencors, and so on. These other races never seemed to fight each other, but both races of Guardians fought any and all of them, on sight and to the death. What do those facts mean to you?”
“Nothing beyond face value. I’ve thought about them but I haven’t been able to come up with anything.”
“I have.” He unrolled a sheet of drafting paper covered with diagrams, symbols, and equations. “But before I go into this stuff, consider the human body. How many red cells are there in your blood stream?”
“Billions, I suppose.”
“And there are billions of human beings on billions of planets; each having red blood cells identical, as far as we know, with yours and mine. Also white cells. Also, sometimes, various kinds of pathogenic micro-organisms, such as staphs, streps, viruses, spiros, and so on.
“Okay. My thought is that the Lemarts, Ozobes, and the like are analogous to disease-producing organisms. We saw the full range of effects—from none at all up to death itself.”
“But they—the Ozobes and so on—died, too.”
The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales Page 114