Silence is Deadly

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  The star projection faded, and the desk screen came to life. The beautifully drawn calligraphy shown there was Rok Wllon’s own angular script. Darzek moved over to the desk and pondered the three poems that filled the screen.

  The night was cloudless

  and shimmering with moon shadows

  I reached for its beauty

  and Death’s talons clutched my hand.

  A keeper of secrets

  knows my death date

  She sculpts my future

  with sinewy hands

  intertwining happiness and longevity

  but while she speaks

  the whip is pointed

  and I feel unseen vibrations.

  Vibrant Death

  unwanted

  uninvited

  scrupulously keeps the appointment

  that no one made.

  The screen went blank. Darzek searched the residence thoroughly, but he found no clues—not even the evidence of a hasty departure.

  He returned to his own residence and filed an official request. A few minutes later he had a visitor: Kom Rmmon, now flustered with excitement because he had just received a direct command from Supreme. To a governmental bureaucrat on Primores, this was the equivalent of a message from God. He faced Darzek with consternation, and his naturally bluish complexion had taken on a purplish tint.

  Darzek got him seated. He said sternly, “It is the command of Supreme and of Supreme’s First Councilor, myself, that you answer. Where is the director of your department?”

  Kom Rmmon gazed at Darzek woodenly.

  “Answer! You cannot refuse a command from Supreme and from Supreme’s First Councilor. Where is the director?”

  “Not here,” Kom Rmmon muttered.

  “We know that he is not here. Where is he?”

  “I can’t speak here. Come.”

  He dashed to the entrance hall, punched a destination on Darzek’s transmitter, and stepped through. Darzek paused to look at the setting before he followed him, frowning perplexedly.

  He emerged in a public park. Kom Rmmon already was twenty strides from Darzek and hurrying away. Darzek matched his pace and followed him.

  The world of Primores was beautiful as only an artificial world could be, crafted to perfection in each of its parts and with each small perfection skillfully fitted into the harmonious whole. At one time it had been an airless world, and the tinted domes that enclosed each of its public parks were a reminder of that sterile antiquity. Now the world’s rainbow atmosphere provided a shimmering halo above the domes. Kom Rmmon wound his way through the lush, multicolored vegetation until he reached the edge of the park. Only then did he look back, and when he had assured himself that Darzek was following, he opened a door in the base of the dome and stepped through.

  Darzek stepped through after him and followed, maintaining the twenty-pace distance.

  The transmitter, which permitted whole world populations to move instantly between the blind oases that were windowless buildings and homes and enclosed parks, had transformed many worlds to unseen wastelands; but on Primores, the carefully kept landscape outside the dome was as park-like as that within. Kom Rmmon marched straight ahead for a hundred meters or more, finally coming to a stop at a low building that looked like a massive block of concrete.

  He punched an indentification code, opened a heavy door, and stood waiting for Darzek, who had turned to look back at the park. There was no suggestion of a path worn through the closely cropped vegetation. Whatever the structure was used for, it was not used frequently.

  Darzek entered, and Kom Rmmon followed and closed the door firmly behind them and secured it. They were in a small, tastefully furnished conference room.

  Kom Rmmon dropped into a chair with an attitude of immense relief. “Now we can talk without being overheard,” he said.

  Darzek looked at him incredulously. “Who could have overheard us in the residence of the First Councilor?” he demanded.

  “Supreme,” Kom Rmmon said.

  Darzek backed up to a chair and sat down heavily. He continued to stare at Kom Rmmon. “The director is engaged in an activity that must be kept secret from Supreme?”

  “Yes.”

  “And—this room was built solely to have a place for conferences where Supreme can’t listen?”

  “Yes. The director supervised the construction himself. Supreme is everywhere else.” Kom Rmmon shuddered.

  This probably was true. Supreme’s infinity of tentacles stretched into every building, every public and private place, every fissure of the planet. Supreme was Primores, a world-sized computer with its surface utilized for the governmental workers who were in fact its servants.

  Darzek had never given a thought to the possibility that Supreme might be listening and making a record of his every chance remark. Even if he had, he doubted that he would have cared. “Is the director on the world of Kamm?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What is there about the world of Kamm that must be kept secret from Supreme?”

  “There’s a pazul.”

  “What’s a pazul?” Darzek asked.

  “A death ray.”

  Mentally Darzek twiddled his thumbs. The concept of a death ray conveyed no special menace to him. Among the strictly controlled products of a galaxy’s science and technology were devices that could serve as frightful instruments of death. As far as he knew the legendary death ray was not among them, but he doubted that its presence could have added much to their destructive potential.

  Then, with a start, he saw the problem as Rok Wllon had seen it.

  Such products from member worlds of the Synthesis were not a menace because they could be controlled. But if the world of Kamm, an Uncertified World and a non-member of the Synthesis, had in fact produced a pazul, the implications were terrifying. No wonder Supreme had listed it as a potential trouble spot! Its science and technology must be enormously advanced, especially in their more destructive aspects. Darzek said as much.

  Kom Rmmon remarked gloomily, “It has a vegetable technology.”

  Darzek stared at him. “Nonsense!”

  “But it does. It has some very unusual tree-like plants. One—our agents call it the sponge tree—has a flabby bark and a soft, pithy interior, but when the core is aged and dried properly, and treated, it becomes enormously hard and durable. It provides the basis for a technology without metal. They use metals only for coining money.”

  “But they do have metals. I was wondering how they could evolve electrical circuitry with a wood technology.”

  Kom Rmmon’s gloom deepened. “They haven’t discovered electricity.”

  Darzek said gravely, “If they can produce a death ray with a wood instrument that uses neither metal nor electricity, they’re an astonishingly talented species. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Our agents have seen it,” Kom Rmmon said.

  “Were they able to photograph it, or make drawings of it?”

  “It’s a pazul!” Kom Rmmon protested. “The agents who have seen it are dead!”

  Darzek leaned forward. The hilarious notion of a wood pazul had suddenly become unfunny. “The Synthesis has lost agents on Kamm?”

  “Nine.”

  Darzek winced. “Nine? What makes you think a pazul killed them?”

  “Because nothing killed them. There was no cause of death, but they died.”

  “Some worlds have strange diseases,” Darzek said. “The victim of one might seem to have died without cause.”

  “We’ve had agents on Kamm for more than a hundred years. We know the diseases. A pazul caused those deaths.”

  Darzek remained unconvinced, but at least he finally had an inkling of what was bothering Rok Wllon. The Department of Uncertified Worlds occasionally lost an agent, through accident or disease, but one in a hundred years would have been a reasonable average. If nine had died within a short time, there assuredly was something wrong on the world of Kamm.

>   “Tell me about Kamm,” he said.

  “It’s the Silent Planet,” Kom Rmmon whispered.

  “What’s so horrifying about that? Surely there’s no natural law that requires a world’s life forms to develop and retain a sense of hearing. Obviously the Kammian life forms have managed to survive and evolve without one, and even to create a civilization. What is there about Kamm that has to be kept secret from Supreme?”

  “The pazul.”

  “Does Kamm have space travel, or anything approaching it?”

  “No. Its technology is at level three.”

  Darzek felt increasingly perplexed. Kamm’s technology ranked slightly below that of Earth during the Middle Ages. He asked slowly, “Why should Supreme care if an Uncertified World without space travel has a pazul? At worst, the people of Kamm can only destroy themselves. The Synthesis never intervenes in the internal affairs of such a world.”

  Kom Rmmon’s blue-tinted expression was anguished. “There’s a Mandate.”

  “Ah! What is it?”

  “An Uncertified World with a pazul must be destroyed.”

  Darzek pursed his lips for a silent whistle. Supreme’s Mandates dated from a distant past long since forgotten except by Supreme. Obviously in some crisis at the dawn of the galactic government’s history a pazul had been flaunted, and Supreme’s designers had provided the computer with an automatic response. Supreme learned new facts with appalling ease, but it had difficulty in unlearning old solutions; and it possessed a stubborn craftiness in its fondness for supporting old solutions with new facts. Darzek had attempted unsuccessfully on more than one occasion to reform Supreme’s thinking.

  Normally the only harm done was measured in inefficiency. Supreme could not be changed, but with patience, bureaucrats could be taught when to ignore a computer and what information to conceal from it.

  But a Mandate was a procedure Supreme could carry out itself. It was programmed to react to certain situations with automatic orders to whomever or whatever was best placed to accomplish the Mandate. Once Supreme had positive proof of a pazul on Kamm, it would use whatever means were at hand and destroy the planet.

  No wonder Rok Wllon had built an eavesdrop-proof conference room! The Director of the Department of Uncertified Worlds maintained a love-hate attitude toward his charges. He deplored their depraved conduct, their stunted moral senses, their barbarian institutions; but let an outsider utter a word of criticism, and Rok Wllon girded himself for the defense. If a Mandate required the destruction of one of his worlds, he would seek to prevent it with any legal means at hand.

  But he would be incapable of resorting to an illegal means, however unjust the Mandate. He would keep a rumor, an assumption, a speculation from Supreme—but on a discretionary basis only while he investigated it thoroughly. Once he found proof, he would feel duty-bound to report it. No doubt this dilemma had brought about his peculiar conduct. He was obligated to search for proof, and he feared that he would find it.

  Darzek said, “I come from an Uncertified World. My planet has developed atomic weapons, and probably laser beams that could kill at enormous distances, or microwaves that would cook a victim’s liver before he became aware of it, or instruments to produce far worse atrocities that I couldn’t even guess at. What’s to prevent Supreme from deciding that my world has a pazul and proceeding to destroy it?”

  “The death ray does not burn or cook or explode. It simply stops life.”

  It sounded like a non-answer to Darzek, but obviously Kom Rmmon did not know a better one. “What do the Kammian poems have to do with this?” he asked.

  “They are evidence of a death cult on Kamm. Because of the pazul, the director thought.”

  “And the director went to Kamm to investigate in person. What has he learned?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When did you hear from him last?”

  “We haven’t heard from him since he left Slonfus.”

  “Why haven’t you asked your agents on Kamm about him?”

  “They know nothing about him. They didn’t know he was coming. He didn’t want them to know.”

  “Had he been to Kamm before?”

  “Yes. He went there several times to help look for the missing agents.”

  Rok Wllon was a veteran of service on many worlds, and he knew how to handle himself in any situation. But if he had been on Kamm for more than a cycle without sending back a single message, it was time someone in the Department of Uncertified Worlds faced up to the fact that the nine missing agents had become ten.

  There was no point in alarming Kom Rmmon further. Darzek said, “If a world with a level three technology has a pazul, obviously it came from another world. The problem is to figure out who brought it there and why.”

  Kom Rmmon blurted, “Impossible!”

  Contact of any kind with an Uncertified World was forbidden. The law was strict, the punishment severe, and as far as Darzek knew, there’d never been a violation; but it seemed silly to accept the existence of a death ray on a world with a level three, vegetable technology without even suspecting that it could have come from somewhere else.

  A star map of the Kamm sector was displayed on the wall. Darzek went to look at it and quickly assured himself that a technologically advanced Synthesis world was the only possible source for the alleged pazul. Kamm’s sector was sparsely populated and completely devoid of member worlds; and no inhabited non-member world in the sector had a technology rating remotely suggestive of a capability for interstellar travel. The question, then, was which member world of the Galactic Synthesis was responsible for the pazul on Kamm, and Darzek had his own method for checking that.

  But even when he found out, the solution of the Kamm problem was certain to require more resourcefulness and initiative than could be expected of a bureaucrat. He said to Kom Rmmon, “What would I have to do in order to go to Kamm?”

  Back in his own office, Darzek composed himself for an exceptionally tricky interview. He had to find out what Supreme knew about Kamm. Specifically, he had to find out why Supreme had listed Kamm as a potential trouble spot. Did Supreme already suspect the existence of a pazul on Kamm?

  Darzek first requested reports on several worlds from Supreme’s crisis list. Kamm was the only Uncertified World on the list, and the information Supreme supplied was a precis of reports filed by Synthesis agents over the years. It concerned geography, geology, sociology, religion, technology, politics, culture—a thorough summary, and it took Darzek more than an hour to read it.

  For another hour he simply sat and thought—the outwitting of a world-sized computer was not a venture to be undertaken casually—and then he composed a request for Supreme. He cited the reference number of Supreme’s listing of Potential Trouble Sources, added a heading, “World Listed in Error,” and then he wrote, “Kamm. There is no justification for this listing in the information supplied. Please explain.”

  Supreme responded instantly: The reference number, Darzek’s subheading, “World Listed in Error,” and then a comment. “Kamm: Deleted because no justification for this listing appears in the information available.”

  Darzek studied that for a long time. Supreme’s thought processes were forever a mystery, but he knew that Kamm wouldn’t have been listed as a Potential Trouble Source without an apparently good reason. Somewhere in Supreme’s infinite maze of cross references was the hint of a crisis on Kamm; but obviously Supreme could not produce that particular cross reference again unless someone posed the pertinent problem or asked the right question.

  After a time Darzek gave up and went to see E-Wusk. The old trader sat amid the swirling turmoil of his business office, surrounded by clerks and seemingly carrying on a dozen transactions simultaneously. What Darzek had to say was too private for any office, even with the clerks banished to adjoining rooms, so he carried the protesting E-Wusk off to the structure Rok Wllon had fashioned. Kom Rmmon accompanied them to open the conference room, and then he left them th
ere.

  Darzek told E-Wusk what he had learned from Kom Rmmon.

  “I’ve never heard of a pazul,” E-Wusk protested.

  “Probably they don’t turn up very often in interstellar trade,” Darzek said. “I’m not even sure what one is. I wish I knew what Supreme thinks one is, but I agree with Rok Wllon that this isn’t the most propitious moment for mentioning pazuls to Supreme. Supreme has been known to draw conclusions from the questions we ask. Do you know of any way to override a Mandate?”

  “No.”

  “Nor do I. Have you ever heard of a Mandate with such a severe obligatory penalty?”

  “No.”

  “Nor have I. Now answer this. If it should prove true that the world of Kamm has an unlikely genius who has somehow managed to produce something Supreme considers a pazul, how is Supreme going to carry out the Mandate?”

  E-Wusk opened his oversized mouth and then said nothing. He sat perplexedly elongating and then contracting one of his limbs.

  “Precisely,” Darzek said. “In the days when that Mandate was formulated, the Galactic Synthesis no doubt had a well-armed space navy that was subject to Supreme’s orders. But that’s ancient history. Today we have space law and order and no navy. No armed force of any kind. Weapons capable of destroying a world have been suppressed. So how is Supreme going to carry out that Mandate?”

  “It couldn’t,” E-Wusk said.

  “Would you guarantee that?”

  E-Wusk thought for a moment. “No. We don’t know what Supreme is capable of, and there’s no way to find out except—”

  “Which would be much too late. I’ve already learned never to underestimate Supreme. Next question. In my opinion, empiricism has limits that don’t include pazuls. What could a world like Kamm have to offer that would justify the risk of contact for aliens?”

  E-Wusk did not hesitate. “Nothing.”

  “Here’s the report on Kamm. Here are the star charts. Let’s assume that there has to be something. Tell me what it is and who might want it.”

  E-Wusk took more than an hour. He studied the report diligently. He studied the star charts. Then he said again, “Nothing. Some of these woods sound interesting, but why pay shipping costs to import a substitute for metal when you already have metal? And there are plenty of interesting woods available legally and at less distance. Kamm is perched out in the center of a sector of Uncertified Worlds where it would have very little trade even if it could be traded with legally. There’d be few trade routes through this sector even if all of the worlds were Synthesis members. No, my friend. If the pazul came from an alien world, you can take it from me that it wasn’t used to buy anything.”