The Magnificent Wilf

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Tom.

  “—But?” ?said Lucy, looking narrowly at Mr. Valhinda.

  “But?” said Tom, looking from her to Mr. Valhinda and back to her again. “But what?”

  .“What’s the but-whatever Mr. Valhinda was about to go on and tell us—unless he’s thought better of it,” said Lucy, sternly, looking at the black-furred, wise, but discreet face of Mr. Valhinda.

  “Lucy is quite right,” said Mr. Valhinda. “I must tell you I’m being replaced as the Oprinkian Representative on the Sector Council; and I have an old friend of yours whom you’ll be glad to see. He’s been waiting in the lounge next to this private office of mine, so that he could surprise you. I’ll call him in now.”

  His hand reached out toward the set of control buttons on his desk.

  “Wait!” said Lucy. Her mind had been rushing at computer speed over the list of their old friends to think of one with whom she and Tom might wish to be closeted here on Cayahno under the present circumstances; and finding none that made any sense. “You don’t mean—Mr. Rejilla?”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Valhinda. His hand dropped from the control buttons. “You see through my little attempt to surprise you. Yes, it is indeed Mr. Rejilla, who’s replacing me. I see you remember him.”

  “Oh, we remember him very well,” said Lucy. “It’s just that I’ve got one quick question for you before he comes in. It would be embarrassing to ask it after he gets here.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Valhinda. “By all means ask me then.”

  “It’s just this,” said Lucy. “You speak our language perfectly. But Mr. Rejilla …”

  She hesitated, searching for the correct words.

  “It’s quite all right,” said Mr. Valhinda, reassuringly. “—I should explain. I used all our up-to-date techniques and technology to acquire use of your tongue. But Mr. Rejilla is a scholar; and prides himself on learning languages only by direct study of available data on those who speak them. As a result, while his vocabulary is as good as mine; and he understands your grammar completely, he may occasionally express himself in a manner that seems a little strange to you.”

  “Ah!” said Lucy.

  “Yes,” went on Mr. Valhinda. “He’s quite aware of the drawbacks of his method; but, being a sincere student of the Universe, he feels it’s a more honest way of attempting to converse in an Alien language than by using artificial means to learn it. He’s not the least disturbed about the fact that he doesn’t produce the highly polished, if perhaps artificial, rendition you hear from me, I assure you. Since you’ve now guessed what I was going to do, shall I bring him in?”

  “Please!” said Lucy.

  He pressed the button that had been under his finger a moment before. A space in the wall on one side of his office vanished; and Mr. Rejilla walked through, smiling at them. The wall became whole again.

  “Hay-lo, hay-lo,” Mr. Rejilla said, approaching them. “A long time since I have seen you double.”

  “Hay-lo, Tom!” he repeated, and shook Tom’s hand. He turned to Lucy and shook her hand. “Hay-lo, Lucy! I have a surprise for the twain of you.”

  It occurred to Lucy that these Oprinldans were far too much in love with surprises.

  “How nice!” she said. “What can it be?”

  “Your grandfather!” said Mr. Rejilla, happily.

  Lucy’s head spun for a second time. Of her three surviving grandparents, none was in physical shape to make a visit to Cayahno, no matter how transported; and none would have any reason for wanting to come here, anyway. Then, too late, she realized what Mr. Rejilla meant.

  A volley of wild, roaring barks echoed through the office and Rex, their Great Dane, came bounding in at top speed. He leaped upon Lucy with such a wild excess of joy that he knocked her over.

  .. “Love Lucy!” roared Rex’s canine thoughts in the telepathic center of Tom’s and Lucy’s minds. “Love Tom. Love, love, love . . .”

  “Tom!” shouted Lucy, fending off Rex’s loving attempt to lick every square inch of skin off her face.

  But Tom already had a good grip on Rex’s collar and was pulling the dog off her. A moment later he was in a battle himself to keep from being knocked down and washed with Rex’s tongue. Finally, order was restored. Rex had, at last, obeyed the command “down!” and was lying panting at Tom’s feet and smiling up at both of them.

  “Rex down,” he telepathed eagerly. “Good Rex? Tom and Lucy love Rex? Give doggy treat?”

  “Good dog,” said Lucy, petting him. “But we haven’t any treats for you here. Sorry. Good Rex!”

  “—A remarkable grandfather,” Mr. Rejilla was commenting to Mr. Valhinda.

  “So I see,” answered Mr. Valhinda.

  “Though companionable and agreeable in all respects,” went on Mr. Rejilla to his fellow-Oprinkian, “he yet retains the instinctive savageiy of his ancestors.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Valhinda. He turned to Tom and Lucy. “While Mr. Rejilla is to take my place in the Sector Council, that will not be for a short while yet. I must stay with certain matters in which I have been engaged with other Council Members until all of these are taken care of. That leaves Mr. Rejilla free to pursue other matters, in which he will be needing the assistance of the two of you. He will tell you all about this.”

  “Without fail,” said Mr. Rejilla. “Shall we go—Tom, Lucy and grandfather? Perhaps the best place for us to talk would be your own residence here on Cayahno.”

  “Do we have a residence?” asked Tom.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Valhinda. “It was where you stayed last night, after landing here yesterday on Cayahno.”

  “Oh,” said Tom.

  “We will go immediately,” decided Mr. Rejilla. So they did.

  Without warning they were back at the place Tom and Lucy remembered from the night before, which appeared to be a small cottage surrounded by woods. In some inexplicable way, this was supposed to be part of the same building that held the meeting place of the Representatives of the Sector Council. Mr. Rejilla had hardly finished speaking before they were standing in the lounge that was its front room, looking out through transparent windows on three sides at an apparent forest, and what seemed to be a closely cropped lawn between the trees for as far as they could see.

  “There is much to tell,” said Mr. Rejilla. “Shall you sit?”

  “Maybe we better,” said Lucy to Tom; and they both sat down on a very ordinary looking Earth-style sofa. Mr. Rejilla seated himself somewhat angularly in an equally Earthly over-padded armchair facing them. Once in the chair, he seemed all thin arms and legs, his black-furred knees and elbows projecting in various directions.

  “In much of what I have to tell you,” he began, “you will find cause for startlement. In fact some revelations will undoubtedly knock»your noses off. However, perhaps before I get into that, we should be joined by our one missing partner—with whom you are also familiar—if that is agreeable to him?”

  There was a ghostly “yay!” out of thin air and a Xxxytl materialized before them.

  “Hmmm?” demanded Lucy, staring at him.

  “You recognized me!” said Hmmm. “How kind! My sudden appearance here doesn’t disturb you too much?” ..Hmmm had ended on a slightly anxious note.

  “Not at all,” said Tom. “We just weren’t expecting you, that’s all—were we, Lucy?”

  “Not at all,” said Lucy.

  “Of course you were not,” said Mr. Rejilla. “Such expectation would be unreasonable to you because of lack of data. Hmmm has graciously consented to join us in the dangerous search we are about to make that may lead us to an end that I will not even mention now, in hopes that I may never have to mention it.”

  “We’re glad to see him anyway,” said Lucy.

  “In any case,” Mr. Rejilla went on, “the quick perception of the Xxxytl is a by-word, not only in this Sector, but in other places throughout our galaxy. You will remember how the Xxxytl Council Member immediately lea
ped to the proper conclusions about the two of you, when you appeared before the Sector Council and Tom sat down in the Jaktal seat. That Member had also suggested to the Council earlier that one or the pair of you might sometime do just that; and of course he was right. This perception had been prompted by my own study of you, back on your world of Earth, when you were so good as to have me as a guest in your home; and also the way you, Tom, activated yourself, when made an Apprentice Assassin.”

  “You know about that?” asked Lucy.

  “I must shamefully admit that I not only knew about it,” said Mr. Rejilla, “it was my idea. The reasons are convolute and recondite. Nonetheless, perhaps I can explain something of them to you now—possibly with the help of Hmmm.”

  “It was all done with the best of intentions,” said Hmmm, apologetically.

  “True,” said Mr. Rejilla, “yet necessity drove us. It all dates back, as I say, to the time I spent in your home on Earth, and particularly to that evening while you slept and I inadvertently made you conscious of grandfather’s thoughts. Astonishment captured me when I discovered your various capacities—alarmingly powerful for ones of a Race barely admitted to the fringes of civilized society in this Sector.”

  “Well,” said Lucy, “thank you.”

  “Er—yes,” said Tom.

  “You have nothing to thank me for,” said Mr. Rejilla with a dismissing wave of a long black arm. “I only uncovered what was in the first place there. Yet it was enough to inspire me to wish discovery of more. I should explain that, though Oprinkian through and through, I am also a Past-Master of the Lodge of Assassins in this Sector.”

  “You?” said Tom, goggling at him, “I mean—I hadn’t exactly expected …”

  “Tut-tut,” said Mr. Rejilla. “Expectation of your perceivingness was not to be looked for at a time when you did not even know Galactic Assassins existed. In fact, I only mention the fact now, to explain how I could arrange secretly for Assassin Drakvil, unknowing, to be hired by Mordaunti Representative to take you on as an Apprentice. I may say your behavior, when you were put to test by being sent into a gark-class establishment to assassinate the ruling Pjonik there, was such that I was delighted by your handling of the situation; and Drakvil, who did not know I was observing, was equally so—”

  He broke off and turned to Lucy.

  “—And your pretense of deep concern at Tom’s necessary challenge of two gnruths of Porbomik-jilks was breath-taking. If I had not known that your own latent ferocity rating was comparable to Tom’s, I, too—who was secretly watching at that moment— would have been taken in.”

  “Well—” said Lucy, “as a matter of fact, I wasn’t exactly—but you did say just now my ferocity rating was latent—”

  However, Mr. Rejilla was going on.

  “—But it really was not too surprising,” he was saying, turning to Tom, “considering that—if you will remember—Drakvil also had gotten a reading of point seven two from you on the ferocity scale. Then, when you, Tom, balanced that capacity with such diplomatic finesse, verbally eluding assassination of the Pjonik Pjenik, I felt justified in recommending you be given access to Sector Council Room, expecting you and Lucy would, indeed, be bold enough to take over the Jaktal seat, just as predicted. Add to that, your masterful way of dealing with the long-insufferable Sharks of Xxxytl, left no doubt in any mind—least of all my own—that together we could attack this greater problem.”

  “A terrible problem,” chittered Hmmm.

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Rejilla, “our whole galaxy may tremble in the balance.”

  Chapter 20

  Tom and Lucy looked at each other. Without having to say anything, they both knew they agreed perfectly that they would just as soon not be in the position of helping to try to save the galaxy.

  “Perhaps, we—” Tom paused to clear his throat. “We shouldn’t—”

  “Shouldn’t really be in this,” said Lucy. “After all, we have our own duties and jobs back on Earth; and perhaps being an Ambassador-at-Large is really too large a job for us, too.”

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Rejilla, “do not misunderstand, I beg. If the Sector Council decides that you should control the worlds and Races formerly held in subjugation by the Jaktals—including the Jaktals themselves— it will not be because you want to do such a thing, but because you are of the best Race to do it. As such it becomes a duty. A duty overwhelming. And if that is a duty overwhelming, how much more overwhelming is the duty to save all the Races of our galaxy?”

  “From extermination,” supplemented Hmmm.

  “Extermination?” Tom and Lucy looked at each other again.

  “I see the double of you are at one in your response to this,” said Mr. Rejilla. “It should have occurred to me that of course you would not know what happens to everybody when the Race or Races of one galaxy decide to conquer another galaxy.”

  Tom and Lucy looked at each other again. “Everybody?” asked Tom.

  “Everybody,” said Mr. Rejilla, solemnly. “You must be aware of the exponential rate at which your own Race multiplies generationally in numbers of individuals; and requires more area necessary for all to live a proper life. The figures may seem too large for belief to you right at the moment; but consider a galaxy like ours, with billions of worlds where intelligent Races live, in conjunction with a great many less than intelligent Races. Imagine them all multiplying at exponential rates. Eventually, while their galaxy may have a number of empty solar satellites which are usable worlds, only a certain number of these are comfortable, let alone ideal, for the happy existence all of those of all Races.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Tom.

  “Yes,” answered Mr. Rejilla. “Eventually more space is a mustness. They recognize this fact. Their attention turns to a nearby galaxy where there are available unused worlds on which their Races could live and grow. They must have space. The space is there. Their response—not a true Civilized response, we must all admit, but still their response—is to take that nearby galaxy away from whatever native Races are already existent in that other galaxy.”

  “It doesn’t seem to make sense that all life in the universe uses the same sort of planets that we and the Skikana and Xxxytl need,” said Tom. “It’s enough of a coincidence that a certain percentage of us—in this Sector anyway—seem to like what we’d call Earth-livable worlds, and so we’ve developed on them. But certainly that can’t be the rule throughout the whole universe?”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Rejilla, “it is not. However, the invading races will want to make sure that there are no technologically-capable, or otherwise dangerous-abilities Races, already possessing worlds in the same areas they wish to colonize. The original inhabitants may not seem a danger when first colonized; but— safety first! To play safe, invaders will cleanse the planets of our galaxy of all life, before taking over the kind of worlds they like to colonize themselves. It is only universal common sense, after all—harsh as it seems.”

  “Harsh is hardly the word for it,” murmured Lucy.

  “True,” chittered Hmmm, sadly. “But there it is. They have to play safe. We have to play safe, by making sure they never even get started invading us.”

  “How do you know anyone’s starting?” asked Lucy. “You don’t have spies in other galaxies, do you? And even if you do—how do the spies know who to spy on?”

  “No, of course we don’t,” said Mr. Rejilla. “But an infallible prelude to any such invasioning, is always an attempt by invaders to send a test number of their people into the galaxy they wish to invade, to see how well they survive, or whether the life forms already there are powerful and decisive enough to immediately destroy any attempt, even that small.”

  “You see,” said Hmmm, almost confidentially, “this isn’t a new problem. In the history of our galaxy—as far as historic records go back—there’ve been a number of attempts by other galaxies to move in on us; but each time we found a weakness in them. Something that showed us how we could
stop them if they tried to move in in force. If we don’t find it this time, then they will move in. We’ve lots of races who are very brave and ready to fight—you met the Skikana; and there’s the jaktals, for example, plus many others. Even we Xxxytl … but even if we do manage to stop them, once they’ve tried a full scale invasion, it’ll be at the cost of countless lives of intelligent and worthwhile beings.”

  “Ummm,” said Lucy, thoughtfully.

  “If I understand you right,” said Tom, “they’ve already sent a few of their Beings into our galaxy to see what we could do to them; and if we can’t do anything to them then the rest of them will come. That’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it?”

  “It is nutshelled to perfection,” said Mr. Rejilla.

  “Then you know where these sample Extra-galactic Aliens are, then?” said Tom.

  “Oh, certainly,” chittered Hmmm. “But we’ve been watching and waiting, hoping they’ll do something to betray where their strength lies, or where their weakness could lie. Now, thanks to your deduction about the sale of our Xxxytl buildings to illegal galactic collectors—some of whom, I may tell you now, are Extra-Galactic—you’ve opened up a new opportunity to test these invaders. We believe they’ve been dealing with the illegal Shark traders for the jewels from our buildings. Representing another whole galaxy as they do, they can out-bid any single collector in our own galaxy with no trouble at all. Our foolish, wicked Cayahno sharks have possibly been selling to them. It’s doubtful the Extra-Galactics could really want our buildings or jewels. They must use their trading only to gain information about us. If so, it’s a matter of finding out what they’ve been trying to learn; and then seeing if we can’t deduce from that a weakness in them, which we could take advantage of to drive them off!”

  “But how can Tom and I help you in this?” said Lucy. “You’ve got a whole galaxy full of very intelligent, trained beings who could do a better job than we can.”