Ultima Thule
Page 4
idea,though. You're not in. You're on probation. Whatever the assignment theOld Man gave you, you've got to carry it out successfully before you'refull fledged." He flicked the order-box switch and said, "Irene, where thedevil's Ronny's badge?"
Ronny Bronston heard the office girl's voice answer snappishly.
"All right, all right," Jakes said. "I love you, too. Send it in when itcomes." He turned to Ronny. "What _is_ your assignment?"
"He wants me to go looking for some firebrand nicknamed Tommy Paine. I'msupposed to arrest him. The commissioner said you'd give me details."
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Sid Jakes' face went serious. He puckered up his lips. "Wow, that'll be aneat trick to pull off," he said. He flicked the order-box switch again.Irene's voice snapped something before he could say anything and Sid Jakesgrinned and said, "O.K., O.K., darling, but if this is the way you'regoing to be I won't marry you. Then what will the children say? Besides,that's not what I called about. Have ballistics do up a model H gun forRonny, will you? Be sure it's adjusted to his code."
He flicked off the order box and turned back to Ronny. "I understandyou're familiar with hand guns. It's in this report on you."
Ronny nodded. He was just beginning to adjust to this free-wheelingcharacter. "What will I need a gun for?"
Jakes laughed. "Heavens to Betsy, you babe in the woods. Do you realizethis Tommy Paine character has supposedly stirred up a couple of scorewars, revolutions and revolts? Not to speak of having laid in his lap twoor three dozen assassinations. He's a quick lad with a gun. A regularNihilist."
"Nihilist?"
Jakes chuckled. "When you've been in this Section for a while, you'll befamiliar with every screwball outfit man has ever dreamed up. TheNihilists were a European group, mostly Russian, back in the NineteenthCentury. They believed that by bumping off a few Grand Dukes and a Czar orso they could force the ruling class to grant reforms. Sometimes they werepretty ingenious. Blew up trains, that sort of thing."
"Look here," Ronny said, "what motivates this Paine fellow? What's he getout of all this trouble he stirs up?"
"Search me. Nobody seems to know. Some think he's a mental case. For onething, he's not consistent."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, he'll go to one planet and break his back trying to overthrow, say,feudalism. Then, possibly after being successful, he goes to anotherplanet and devotes his energies to establishing the same socio-economicsystem."
Ronny assimilated that. "You're one of those who believes he exists?"
"Oh, he exists all right, all right," Sid Jakes said happily. "Matter offact, I almost ran into him a few years ago."
Ronny leaned forward. "I guess I ought to know about it. The moreinformation I have, the better."
"Sure, sure," Jakes said. "This deal of mine was on one of the Aldebaranplanets. A bunch of nature boys had settled there."
"Nature boys?"
"Um-m-m. Back to nature. The trouble with the human race is that it's gottoo far away from nature. So a whole flock of them landed on this planet.They call it Mother, of all things. They landed and set up a primitivesociety. Absolute stone age. No metals. Lived by the chase and by pickingberries, wild fruit, that sort of thing. Not even any agriculture. Woreskins. Bows and arrows were the nearest thing they allowed themselves inthe way of mechanical devices."
"Good grief," Ronny said.
"It was a laugh," Jakes told him. "I was assigned there as Section Grepresentative with the UP organization. Picture it. We had to wear skinsfor clothes. We had to confine ourselves to two or three long houses.Something like the American Iroquois lived in before Columbus. Theirsociety on Mother was based on primitive communism. The clan, the phratry,the tribe. Their religion was mostly a matter of knocking into everybody'shead that any progress was taboo. Oh, it was great."
"Well, were they happy?"
"What's happiness? I suppose they were as happy as anybody ever averages.Frankly, I didn't mind the assignment. Lots of fishing, lots of hunting."
Ronny said, "Well, where does Tommy Paine come in?"
"He snuck up on us. Started way back in the boondocks away from any of thelarger primitive settlements. Went around putting himself over as a holyman. Cured people of various things from gangrene to eye diseases. Givenantibiotics and such, you can imagine how successful he was."
"Well, what harm did he do?"
"I didn't say he did any harm. But in that manner he made himself awfullypopular. Then he'd pull some trick like showing them how to smelt iron,and distribute some corn and wheat seed around and plant the idea ofagriculture. The local witch doctors would try to give him a hard time,but the people figured he was a holy man."
"Well, what happened finally?" Ronny wasn't following too well.
"Communications being what they were, before he'd been discovered by thecentral organization--they had a kind of Council of Tribes which met once ayear--he'd planted so many ideas that they couldn't be stopped. The youngpeople'd never go back to flint knives, once introduced to iron. We wentlooking for friend Tommy Paine, but he got wind of it and took off. Weeven found where he'd hidden his little space cruiser. Oh, it was Paine,all right, all right."
"But what harm did he do? I don't understand," Ronny scowled.
"He threw the whole shebang on its ear. Last I heard, the planet hadbroken up into three main camps. They were whaling away at each other likethe Assyrians and Egyptians. Iron weapons, chariots, domesticated horses.Agriculture was sweeping the planet. Population was exploding. Men weremaking slaves out of each other, to put them to work. Oh, it was a messfrom the viewpoint of the original nature boys."
A red light flickered on his desk and Sid Jakes opened a delivery drawerand dipped his hand into it. It emerged with a flat wallet. He tossed itto Ronny Bronston.
"Here you are. Your badge."
Ronny opened the wallet and examined it. He'd never seen one before, butfor that matter he'd never heard of Section G before that morning. It wasa simple enough bronze badge. It said on it, merely, _Ronald Bronston,Section G, Bureau of Investigation, United Planets_.
Sid Jakes explained. "You'll get co-operation with that through theJustice Department anywhere you go. We'll brief you further on procedureduring indoctrination. You in turn, of course, are to co-operate with anyother agent of Section G. You're under orders of anyone with"--his handsnaked into a pocket and emerged with a wallet similar to Ronny's--"asilver badge, carried by a First Grade Agent, or a gold one of Supervisorrank."
Ronny noted that his badge wasn't really bronze. It had a certain sheen, abrightness.
Jakes said, "Here, look at this." He tossed his own badge to the new man.Ronny looked down at it in surprise. The gold had gone dull.
Jakes laughed. "Now give me yours."
Ronny got up and walked over to him and handed it over. As soon as theother man's hand touched it, the bronze lost its sheen.
Jakes handed it back. "See, it's tuned to you alone," he said. "And mineis tuned to my code. Nobody can swipe a Section G badge and impersonate anagent. If anybody ever shows you a badge that doesn't have its sheen, youknow he's a fake. Neat trick, eh?"
"Very neat," Ronny admitted. He returned the other's gold badge. "Look, toget back to this Tommy Paine."
But the red light flickered again and Jakes brought forth from thedelivery drawer a hand gun complete with shoulder harness. "Nasty weapon,"he said. "But we'd better go on down to the armory and show you itsworkings."
He stood up. "Oh, yes, don't let me forget to give you a communicator. Areal gizmo. About as big as a woman's vanity case. Puts you in immediatecontact with the nearest Section G office, no matter how near or far awayit is. Or, if you wish, in contact with our offices here in the Octagon.Very neat trick."
He led Ronny from his office and down the corridors beyond to an elevator.He said happily, "This is a crazy outfit, this Section G. You'll probablylove it. Everybody does."
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Ronny learned to love Section G--in moderation.
He was initially taken aback by the existence of the organization at all.He'd known, of course, of the Department of Justice and even of the Bureauof Investigation, but Section G was hush-hush and not even United Planetspublications ever mentioned it.
The problems involved in remaining hush-hush weren't as great as all that.The very magnitude of the UP which