Planet in Peril

by John Christopher

  Charles said absently: “Then I don’t see what’s worrying you.”

  “Burt,” Dinkuhl said, “is a more complex person than you might guess. I’ve known him for some time, and I know what he would do if he found out his seditious associations with me and the boys were known to the Genetics brass. He’d transfer—anywhere so long as it was outside Genetics and away from Detroit. He can’t stand to be pitied or laughed at.”

  “Most folk don’t enjoy it.”

  “They get by; Burt wouldn’t you get it, though? Do I tell him the truth or not? He’s not likely to find out unless I do tell him. If I tell him, he’ll leave and he’ll be unhappy. If I don’t tell him... where I want your advice is there: a guy’s living in a fool’s paradise—which is best, to leave him lie or to give him the jolt?”

  Charles’ thoughts were partly on Sara, partly on the problem of the miniaturization of a thermoelectric conversion system. He gave Dinkuhl’s question lukewarm attention, until he realized it was a question of principle on which advice was being sought. He brought his mind to focus.

  “I should tell him. People are always entitled to be told the truth. No one has the right to decide in advance that it’s bad for someone else to know the truth about his own affairs. Whatever it is, and whatever he may do as a result.”

  Dinkuhl pursed his lips. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I was thinking of myself; I’ll be sorry as hell if Burt does light out for somewhere else.”

  “Tell you what,” Charles said. “Affiliate KF to Atomics and bring the works over to Philly. Raven would fork out, if only to make Telecom sore.”

  Dinkuhl smiled. “I’ll think of that. I’ll let you know— I'll be dropping in on you again soon.”

  Things ran smoothly meanwhile. Raven himself dropped in at the laboratory now and then; he showed a good deal of friendliness and an intelligent interest. Charles found him standing beside him one day while he was completing the polishing of a stone. He heard Raven’s voice above the nervous grinding whine of the scaife.

  "Mr. Grayner, are you finding it pleasant working here?”

  "Very pleasant, sir.”

  Raven looked about with an air of deprecation. “Not magnificent. Not at all magnificent. You would have fared better with Telecom; from the material point of view, at least. Still, we must try to do what we can for you. Any complaints, for instance? Are there any complaints, Mr. Grayner?”

  Charles hesitated very briefly; the hesitation was involuntary, and he spoke quickly to cover it up.

  "No complaints, sir. I have everything I want.”

  "You and Miss Koupal are getting on all right together?”

  He said, with no hesitation this time: "Very well.”

  “That’s good. I hope you won’t hesitate to come to me if there should be anything. Don’t hesitate to waste my time. It is yours that is more valuable.”

  Raven went, with his jaunty old man’s step, and Charles had to master an impulse to go after him, or to call him back. He mastered it as he had covered up the earlier hesitation, and for the same reason. It was not that he doubted Raven’s willingness, nor even his ability, to help him. It was that it was impossible to frame any of his doubts or his worries without criticizing, if only by implication, Sara.

  Outside the laboratory, their life together proceeded very harmoniously. They did most things and went to most places together. Charles did not let his doubts carry over to spoil this part of their association. All of love was a new experience for him, and he was determined it should not be spoiled in any way.

  They spent a lot of time airsphering—mostly together, but occasionally each in a single bubble. Then there would be the delight of chasing each other over the invisible hills and valleys of the air. Along the rivers of the wind they would chase each other, and they were rivers capable of turning, without warning, into precipitous waterfalls that plunged the spheres hundreds of feet, either up or down, in an instant. Close on her heels, Charles might suddenly find himself looking down on her far below, or gazing up, blinded by sun, to where her sphere drifted high and remote.

  The Alleghenies provided them with a pleasure ground. There they could ride the updrafts, close against the rocky mountain sides, and glide dangerously alongside the knife edged spurs that could so easily rip the plaspex skin, spilling the sphere’s occupant down great cliffs of fall to distant midget valleys.

  And, of course, there was the delight of bringing the spheres in to some sun-splashed ledge of rock, on the world’s roof, of tethering them to the mountain face with impact suckers, of eating and drinking in that warm silent isolation, of sitting and talking or simply sunbathing. Of making love.

  Charles had sent Sara to check personally some supplies that had been queried by Conway when Dinkuhl paid his next visit.

  He said: "Hi, Charlie.”

  Charles said: "Burt asked for transfer?”

  Dinkuhl nodded. “He left last night. That advice you gave me. Tell the truth and let the chips fly what way they will. You still think it’s good?”

  “The best. But I’m sorry you’ve lost Burt. Where’s he gone to?”

  “Lignin. Somewhere north of Finland. Lignin should be pleased all right. They’re shorter of good men than most managerials. And they’re all short, with the notable and glorious exception of Atomics. Sara?”

  “Checking supplies. She’ll be back soon.”

  Dinkuhl leaned back against one of the benches; he had a restless look and his voice had taken on the slightly affected drawl that indicated some inner excitement.

  “That the set-up now?” he asked. “You do the work and she checks supplies in? I thought her middle name was Einstein.”

  Charles said angrily: “What the hell do you mean by that, Hiram?”

  “Brother,” Dinkuhl said softly, “you’re worried. You’re plenty worried. Tell Uncle Hiram.”

  Charles stared at him. “For God’s sake! Have you gone crazy? Who’s worried?”

  “What is it, Charlie?” Dinkuhl asked. “She isn’t as bright any longer? She doesn’t grasp things that should be simple going? You wonder even if maybe she had a knock on the head during that fortnight you were apart?” Charles restrained his voice to quietness. “I don’t know what’s got into you. Burt transferring, maybe. Anyway, I want you to keep it for somewhere else, Hiram.” He turned away. “You’ll be welcome in a different mood.” “I’ll carry the invitation in my heart. Here the lady is now. Hi, Sara. Been copying any good sketches lately?”

  Charles had no idea what Dinkuhl was talking about, but the tone was unmistakably offensive. He expected Sara to flare up or to treat him with icy contempt. She did neither. She said placatingly:

  “Glad you managed to get along, Hiram.”

  Dinkuhl watched her for a moment. Then he smiled. “What we all need,” he remarked, “is a drink. You both have a drink?”

  Charles hesitated. Sara said: “Be glad to.”

  Dinkuhl brought a flask out of his back pocket. It had two small plastobeakers attached. He filled them, and looked about him inquiringly.

  “A glass for Uncle Hiram? You find me one, Sara?” While Sara was getting it, Dinkuhl picked up the two already filled. He gave one to Charles; the other he held in his hand, holding it with his palm cupped above it. When Sara came back, he gave it to her, and took the glass she brought and poured out a tot for himself.

  “To all honest men,” he said. He bowed to Sara. “And honest women.”

  She coughed a little as she drank. “What is it?”

  “All right? Liqueur grappa. I have a source.”

  She smiled. “A good one, I should say.”

  “All my sources are.” Dinkuhl considered her speculatively. “You know something? Charles here has been telling me he’s disappointed in you. He thinks you’re lying down on the job. He—”

  Charles stepped across to stand in front of Dinkuhl. He said tightly:

  “I don’t know what’s got into you, Hiram. But, for the last time, l
ay off. Lay off!”

  Dinkuhl said: “You know, I never met Sara. But I know enough about her to know she wouldn’t have needed your help in a slanging match, Charlie.” To Sara, he said: “Well, honey?”

  She said uncertainly: ‘1 feel dizzy.”

  Dinkuhl took her gently round the shoulders. “Come and lie down, honey. You need rest. Easy now. Couch over here.”

  He got her on to the couch, and made her comfortable. She shook her head, as though trying to shake off cobwebs.

  Dinkuhl said: “You’re going to sleep, honey.”

  His voice was significant, and as though in response she jerked up. “You mean…? The drink!”

  Charles demanded: “Just what have you been doing?” Dinkuhl said gently: “What’s your name, honey? Before you go to sleep, what’s your name?”

  Her speech was becoming slurred; unable to sustain the effort she had made, she sank back again. “Sara Koupal. You know—”

  Dinkuhl shook his head. “No. Not that. Your real name.”

  She tried to speak again, but it was beyond her. For a brief moment she looked at them in agony and fear, and then her eyes closed, and she was unconscious. Charles had rushed over to her, and he sat beside her now, holding her limp hand. He turned to look up at Dinkuhl.

  “Something good, Hiram. It had better be something good.”

  Dinkuhl said: ‘Don't think I’m happy. I wasn't happy when I told Burt, either. That was why I put the question to you the last time I was over. I could see you were happy with the girl, and it made it hard. It was a relief that you should make it so clear things were worrying you, when I came this time. They were, weren't they?”

  Charles felt that anger, and every other positive emotion, had been drained from him. He looked at Sara's quietly breathing body. Sara's? A Sara surprisingly unhelpful in the work, a Sara he could almost think of as trying to cover up her own ignorance. The doubts that he had dammed up were now flooding around him; his thoughts bobbed like chips on the tide.

  Dinkuhl said: “You see, I had had access to those UC Contact Section reports—they included Sara's psychoplan. A wench of spirit. But even if that line hadn't been so strongly marked, it was still reasonable that a girl who showed herself so clearly to be interested in you should have had a different reaction to me. The first time I came over here, I clowned, I made snide remarks. She took them, like a little woolly lamb. It wasn't right, Charlie. It wasn't right for a normal girl, and it was very wrong for one with a psychoplan like Sara’s.”

  Charles looked at him, and back to the girl's figure.

  “You mean, they've done something to her? What? And why, in God's name?”

  “That isn't Sara, Charlie. It never was Sara.”

  Charles shook his head. “I know her. It's Sara. Her voice alone—"

  Dinkuhl bent over the girl. He pulled the neck of her tunic down a fraction, and pointed. There was a line on the skin, barely visible, perhaps an inch long.

  “Gannery's operation. Re-formation of the vocal cords. You can get precision with it and I guess this job was a precision job."

  “How did you know that would be there?"

  “It had to be. I knew she was a phony. You remember the time she'd been showing that blueprint-thing on the wall screen? You took her off to show her the diamond polishing bench. I had a look in her little room while you were away. She had been copying that sketch from a photostat of the original that Sara did. Why should she need to copy, unless it was because she wasn’t Sara at all? They had primed her well, but you can't prime a person with years of scientific experience.”

  Charles stared at the motionless girl. “I can’t believe it. That little scar ... it could be something else."

  Dinkuhl stood beside him. “You remember being Charlie Macintosh, Charlie? Macintosh was a real guy —works at an obscure GD station in South Africa. Would have been a laugh if you'd met up with him. Burt went to some trouble to pick him: he had to be someone who matched you closely, but with extra flesh at all points. You can build up; you can't whittle down. He had full cheeks, while you have thin ones."

  He paused, gazing at the face of the girl who had been Sara. “An interesting face. Good-looking, but not precisely beautiful. The temples bulging a little just above the brow line. Unusual, that."

  From his pocket, Dinkuhl took a small knife; he flipped the catch and the sapphire blade leapt out, gleaming dully. Charles watched in fascination as he bent down toward the unconscious face. He heard himself saying: “Stop . . !” With a deft motion, Dinkuhl sliced the girl's flesh at the base of the forehead.

  He held up a strip of flesh that he had cut away. There was no bleeding from the incision. The cut had laid bare not flesh but plastic. Now, beyond any doubt, Charles knew he had been loving a mask. Dinkuhl tossed the strip into a disposer; he walked away from the girl, and leaned against a bench on the opposite side of the room. He looked at Charles.

  “Well, Charlie boy? What’s it going to be?”

  Charles said dully: “You tell me. How do you expect I should know?”

  “People are always entitled to be told the truth. No, I’m not riding you, Charlie. I’m not the strictly monogamous type, but I can guess how bad it is. This way, though, it’s quick. You would have had to find out sooner or later. They still operate on the assumption that scientists are dumb. Hell, you were finding out already. It was better this way.”

  Charles shook himself. He saw the truth of Dinkuhl’s statements, but that still didn’t make it easy to act on them. To find that he had been deceived in this way was somehow worse than when he had thought Sara killed. He looked up at Dinkuhl, almost in inquiry.

  “Raven?”

  “Just a fine old Southern gentleman. Ledbetter was no more than peanuts. Raven’s good. All these tricky arrangements made on the assumption that they were going to get you away from Telecom. We only made it easier for him by arranging the break ourselves. Raven’s the kingpin, all right. You’ve reached the managerial top, Charlie. You can’t go higher. This is where they put gloves on before they reach for their knives.”

  Charles looked at Dinkuhl helplessly. “What’s the best thing to do? I should like to see Raven. Is that silly?”

  “No. Not at all silly. Inevitable, I should say.” He glanced around the lab. “I should hazard a guess that the usual precautions are in operation. Even if they aren’t, I can think of easier things than just walking out of a place like this. The air of casualness has, to my mind, a somewhat studied look.”

  "I guess so. That kind of crook doesn’t take chances” “Don’t be bitter, Charlie—not about individuals. It doesn’t pay any percentage.” Dinkuhl raised his head slightly. There was the sound of a door sliding open in the lobby. “A visitor. Red-handed. In this same country, and besides, the wench is not dead.”

  It was Raven himself. He stopped just inside the door. His bright amused eyes took in the tableau—Dinkuhl leaning against the bench, Charles still sitting on the couch beside the girl’s recumbent body.

  Raven said: “Good morning, Mr. Grayner. And Mr. Dinkuhl.” He peered toward the girl. “The lady would appear to be indisposed.”

  Automatically, Charles said: “Good morning, sir.” Dinkuhl leaned back a little further. He drawled:

  “I guess the lady drank something that disagreed with her. Would there be any objection to your introducing her to us, Director, so we shall know whom to apologize to?”

  Dinkuhl watched with bland unconcern as Raven walked across to the couch, and bent down to examine the girl. Raven straightened up again a moment later, and looked at them both.

  “Would you gentleman object if I were to arrange for Miss Levine to be taken away and put properly to bed? I doubt if she is likely to recover her faculties for some hours yet.”

  Charles did not say anything. Dinkuhl nodded.

  “Go right ahead. It’s your home territory. We should appreciate it to have Miss Levine attended to.”

  Raven went across to the call
screen. They heard him asking for two stretcher-men. Then he switched off and turned his attention back to them. He said:

  “This has been rather unfortunate. I had hoped it would be delayed for some time—a few more weeks, at any rate. But we must put up with events as they fall out.”

  “Life,” Dinkuhl said gravely, “is like that. I hope you will arrange to convey our regrets to Miss Levine when she wakes up. She will understand it was nothing personal.”

  Raven said: “And you, Mr. Grayner? Your regrets as well?”

  The implication was obvious, and Charles resented it. But he was prevented from saying anything immediately by the arrival of the stretcher-men. They put the girl gently on to the stretcher. Raven said: “To her rooms, please, and then get a nurse for her.”

  Charles felt Raven watching him while the little procession left the room. He said, as the door slid closed behind them:

  “A lot of regrets, Director. But they are all concerned with being made a fool of. No regrets about finding the truth out. Assistant Levine was doing her duty, I guess. No one’s fault if it came out this way.”

  “If we must use these titles,” Raven said softly, “we should use the right ones. Manager Levine. An exceptionally brilliant and talented young lady, and we are very proud of her.”

  “With the views I now hold of Atomics,” Charles said bitterly, “that fails to surprise me.”

  ‘Tour views are understandable. They would be understandable even if you had not had the benefit of Mr. Dinkuhl’s tutelage. But I hope they will not be permanent. You are an intelligent man, Mr. Grayner—that is not flattery, but a statement germane to the situation. Mr. Dinkuhl is also of high intelligence, but his intellect is hampered by his emotions; particularly by that overriding urge to destruction, which is so marked a feature of his attitude toward society. I have discussed this point with you before.”

  Dinkuhl said lazily: “That’s me. Samson, with each arm around a pillar.”

  Charles said: “You convinced me that Hiram had taken an unreasonably pessimistic view. But part of the conviction at least was from believing that you, and Atomics, represented something higher than the others.”