The Neutral Stars

by Dan Morgan;John Kippax

  "Then we are all doomed!" Rogers' voice was a wail.

  "Not doomed—on our guard," said Prince, the steel of his Corps training showing for the first time. "On our guard, and preparing for that day, if and when it comes. Not cowering and waiting for the blow to fall"

  "Brave words, Commander," said Gould. "But as I understood it, you were the one who introduced a tone of hopelessness into the situation by your flat assertion that even if we were to beggar ourselves arming our fleet the effort would be useless."

  "Because at the moment our ships would be nothing more than a flock of sitting ducks as far as any Kilroy attack was concerned," said Prince. "That situation, and not the matter of armament, should be our immediate concern. You may be aware of the existence of the Blue Mountain Project, which has been commanded by Admiral Carter for the past eighteen months. Carter was not lightly removed from his task of building Venturer ships, I can assure you. But the Corps is aware that there is no point in going on producing more and more ships which just don't have the necessary mobility in comparison with those of the Kilroys. The Blue Mountain Project is therefore concerned exclusively with research into the possibility of developing a Warp Drive."

  "In other words, what you're saying to us is that there is little point in arming our own ships at this time because Corps ships equipped with the new drive will soon be capable of dealing with the Kilroy situation," said Gould.

  "I'm afraid it isn't that simple," said Prince. "The 'new drive' doesn't even exist yet, except as a body of complex theory based on the mathematics of Koninburger. Added to this, there has been a clash of personalities, which I could have predicted from the outset for almost anyone dealing with an eccentric, easily offended genius like Koninburger. The upshot of this collision is that, in spite of pleas from the President himself, Koninburger has withdrawn from the Blue Mountain Project and holed up in his hunting lodge in the Black Forest. Blue Mountain is carrying on; Carter would be loathe to admit the indispensibility of anyone but himself, but it seems to me quite clear that without Koninburger's trail-blazing genius it may be a long time, if ever, before any positive results are achieved."

  Gould frowned. It seemed to him that Prince had covered a great deal of territory without yet coming to the real point of his discourse. Obviously there was a point, but just what that might be...

  "Thank you, Robert," said Niebohr, nodding in the direction of the younger man. "I think I can take it from there. Now, gentlemen..." The hooded eyes surveyed the members of the board one by one as Prince resumed his seat. "Commander Prince has explained to you just what a waste of money it would be to attempt to arm our fleet at the present time, even if we were capable of persuading the President that such a step was desirable. I am now going to propose that you make an open-ended investment in a project which some of you might earlier have considered wildly impractical and speculative. Clearly, a man like Koninburger does not lightly abandon work to which he has devoted most of his life, and which, should he succeed, would certainly gain him immortal fame and make him the potential savior of the entire human race. On the other hand, the very mention of the word 'Corps' is anathema to him at the present time. Bearing these facts in mind, two days ago I approached him on your behalf and offered him the backing of the Excelsior Corporation in establishing and running his own research program in the task of developing a Warp Drive. This backing will be free of financial limitations or conditions of any kind, other than a basic understanding that when such a drive is developed the patent will be assigned to the Excelsior Corporation in return for a guarantee of five percent royalty on all sales of the device."

  Gould leapt to his feet, his face pale with emotion. "Mr. Niebohr, along with most of the other people around this table I have sat through Commander Prince's long discourse, increasingly mystified as to its ultimate purpose. I am mystified no longer. I intend no reflection on the sincerity of Commander Prince or on the truth of what he has said. But I do object to the maimer in which you are trying to use those conclusions to justify this autocratic decision, which, in your own words, commits this corporation to an open-ended investment in a project that may never succeed in its objective."

  "Thank you for your interruption, Mr. Gould," Niebohr said, deep-etched lines of contempt darkening at either side of the thin-lipped mouth. "If I had needed any reassurance about the correctness of my decision, your opposition would have provided it. There may be some people who think of you as a kind of Boy David for the apparently courageous way in which you have seen fit to oppose me here today. If they do so it is because they are, like yourself, in every way small men, pygmies whose brains cannot—or dare not —comprehend the larger issues involved. An open-ended investment—yes. . . But an open-ended potential in both profit and power for the Excelsior Corporation. With the Koninburger Drive, our ships will be able to travel at speeds that will make all existing methods of transportation derisory in their slowness. We shall be able to ship passengers and freight faster and further than any of our competitors, extending our sphere or influence even beyond the frontiers of known space. The Excelsior Corporation will become the most important organization in existence."

  "But you're talking as if the whole thing were already a fait accompli!" protested Gould. "There is no Koninburger Drive. At the moment it is nothing more than an unrealized mass of ideas in the mind of a man who, although admittedly a genius, is not by any standard a specialist in practical applications."

  "Gentlemen!" Niebohr raised one massive hand to point at Gould. "These are the squealings of a conservative, unadventurous mind. The future lies in the hands of the bold. I am an old man now. My reach may exceed my grasp, but there will be others who come after me who will see the realization of the dreams I dared to dream. And if any of you doubt the power of such dreams, let me remind you that thirty years ago this great Corporation whose destiny we guide existed only as an idea in the mind of a poor boy from humble origins who decided that for him there was no way to go but up. More than thirty-five years ago that boy went around to the offices of the money men—the merchant bankers, the wealthy speculators—talking, persuading, explaining, until finally he had the backing he needed to begin the realization of his great dream.

  "But that was only a beginning. Planets were opened up one by one, money and work were poured into the building of a fleet of ships and the setting up of a number of colonies. A program of capital investment was established, so vast that the original backers began to express their nervousness, despite assurances that the apparently bottomless pit into which they were pouring their money would eventually become a source of profit. Some of them—I will not add to their remorse by naming the Judases—even went to the extent of selling their stock and pulling out. But Elkan Niebohr stood by his dream, worked and sweated to bring about its realization, refusing to be discouraged by fate or the wailings of pygmy minds."

  In anyone else, the dropping into the use of the heroic third person when speaking of himself might have seemed a cheap trick, but even Gould found that he was impressed. One could doubt Niebohr's morals and his motives, but there was no denying the power of his physical presence and his oratory.

  "Even in those days there were people who complained of Niebohr's autocratic methods, who failed to understand that you cannot steer a vehicle traveling at top speed along a bumpy road by the deliberations of a committee. One man must be at the controls, one man capable of sensing the hazards, of making split-second decisions and acting on them immediately. Orphelin Three was the result of such a decision, an almost blindfold bid made to the body then known as the Extra Solar Colonization Agency for sole rights to a newly discovered earth-type planet—a bid made on the basis of a very sketchy exploration report, because Elkan Niebohr had decided the time had come to play one of his hunches..."

  Harold Gould listened, and marveled as he saw a living legend renewing itself before his eyes. He and most of the others around the boardroom table knew that there had been a great deal more
to Niebohr's takeover of Orphelin Three than a mere hunch. There had never been any public scandal, both the Agency and Niebohr had made sure of that, but the Commander of the exploration ship in question had been retired prematurely from the service shortly afterwards, and it was rumored that the report that he had personally delivered to Niebohr was considerably more detailed than the one he submitted to his employers. Whether there was any truth in the rumor no one was likely at this stage to enquire, but there was no doubt of the fact that the retired captain had been employed in a nominally "advisory capacity" by the Excelsior Corporation at a salary more than ten times his service pay for the rest of his life.

  "Orphelin Three, gentlemen," continued Niebohr, one arm outstretched, palm upwards as if holding the glowing jewel of a planet up for inspection. "A breakthrough in the history of colonization. A paradise planet, whose settlement was so organized that, instead of requiring many years of effort and investment before reaching the break-even point, it began to show a.profit within a scant eighteen months. A planet where—thanks in part to our welfare policies, of course—the original population of colonists has now increased to almost five million. A planet of such fertility and lushness that its exports have increased year by year until at the present time they account for over twenty percent of the profits of this great Corporation. In that respect, I should add that we are expecting a considerable boost to this figure within the next couple of years, when the new fishery project gets under way. You may recall that at the time of first colonization the oceans, which cover eighty-two percent of the surface, were seeded with various earth-type fish—more particularly, varieties that were in danger of becoming extinct in the polluted seas of Earth. According to my preliminary reports from Doctor MacGuinness, the biologist who is at the moment conducting a detailed survey, the prospects are very good, especially with regard to salmon—a species which was at one time considered an expensive delicacy even by the more well-to-do people of Earth, but which has been so rigorously protected for the past seventy years that very few people living can ever have tasted its flesh. I need hardly add that our advertising department is already drafting for my approval a number of pilot campaigns designed to exploit this potential luxury market. With the background of such future planning, it seems to me that the stockholders of the Excelsior Corporation. . Niebohr was in control

  Chapter Two

  The man who does not seek to know himself in private meditation may find revelation in public disgrace.

  MAHARISHI GUYNEHAH

  Mario Falangetti's penthouse apartment was in the expensive Mamelin Heights section of Lake Cities. Perched high at the top of a soaring tower block, served by silently efficient anti-grav elevators, air conditioned and furnished in a luxurious Renaissance Modern style, it was a million miles away from the bustle and scurry of the thronging lower levels of Lake City, where Harold Gould had spent his childhood. A frosted glass clutched hard in his right hand, he looked out of the observation window, which covered one entire wall of the lounge, towards the great spangled phallus of the Excelsior Building two kilometers away.

  "He used me—that crafty, conniving old swine!" Gould muttered.

  Mario Falangetti, nearby, showed dark eyes full of concern. "No, Harry; how could you possibly have known? There's no point in blaming yourself."

  "Because he's fooled better men than me in his time, is that it?" Gould turned to face his host, his lean features set in a grin of self-contempt. "Maybe so, but he sure nailed me. He led me by the nose right along the line. Niebohr, the big man."

  "He is the big man," said Falangetti gently. "Whether you agree with him or not, that's something you've got to admit Any time anyone questions that, all Niebohr has to do is point to the record. . ."

  "Which he does."

  "Not all the time," said Falangetti. "He's too clever to'imagine that he can go on drawing on the credit of past achievements, even achievements as great as the Orphelin Three deal. He knows that whatever has gone before, there always has to be that carrot up ahead, the dream of bigger and better profits, of more and more power." '

  "Power for whom?" Gould said. "Nobody but Elkan Niebohr, and don't you kid yourself. Those sheep around that table, they just sit there on their fat butts and let him run things any way he likes. And when any one of them shows the slightest sign of getting out of line he gets slapped down, just like I was this afternoon. Remember me? I'm the bright young fellow who just got himself wiped out It reminds me of something I read once in a book about the British Navy way back. There was this admiral who somehow got out of line, so they shot him. Some wit at the time said: 'to encourage the others.' That was my function. Nobody's going to stand up to Niebohr for a while, not after the way he demolished me." He downed the remains of his drink with a gulp and thrust the empty glass towards Falangetti. "Get me another one of those, for crissake."

  Falangetti took the glass; he looked anxious. "Why don't you call Mary and tell her you'll be staying the night here with us?"

  "No—I told her I'd be home."

  "Sure, but it's after eight already and its a two hundred mile run. Besides..

  "Besides, all I need right now is a drunk driving rap? The hell with that; I'll take my chances. Now, are you going to get me that drink, or do I have to go down to the cocktail lounge and buy one?"

  "I suppose you figure I let you down," said Falangetti, moving towards the black-and-gold-decorated corner bar.

  "Did I say that?"

  "No, but..."

  "Look, I was tbe bright boy with all the mouth. What was it the old bastard called me—the Boy David? So I blew it, because I was out of my class, and that's the end of it."

  "But it isn't. We both know that," said Falangetti, returning with the drinks. "He won't fire you. You'll be shunted down some corporation back alley where you'll spend the rest of your life doing a rubber stamp job."

  "Vice-president in charge of latrines, maybe? If I stick around." Gould took a stiff pull at the new drink and grimaced approvingly. "Now that really has bones in it. Keep the recipe."

  "What do you mean, if you stick around?" pursued Falangetti.

  "That's clear enough, isn't it? Look, Mario, I may be a pigmy in Niebohr's book, but I wouldn't have too much trouble getting a job with Solar "

  "What about your contract?"

  "Let Niebohr sue. There are one or two little ditties I'd take great pleasure in performing before an open court—like that load of pharmaceutical supplies that got shipped into Gavlan and landed Astral with a chronic drug addiction problem on their most promising planet. Then there was that trouble way back with the Athena. I was only a junior executive at the time, but I know where the copies of the manifest are for that trip. Not the one that was shown at the court of inquiry—the real one."

  "What good would it do anyone to rake up that kind of dirt?" said Falangetti, his pale forehead furrowed in a worried frown.

  "None at all," said Gould, grinning. "And I'm sure it will never come to that I was just saying what could happen."

  "Look, things may not really be that bad," said Falangetti with a forced air of cheerfulness. "Once Prince takes over there are bound to be a lot of changes."

  "Prince?" Gould snorted his derision. "Did you fall for that 'handing on of the torch of progress' routine too? I tell you this, that old man isn't going to hand anything on until they pry it from his dead fingers— and he's going to live for quite a while yet Prince is a fine fellow, all right, but he's nothing but a babe in arms as far as Niebohr is concerned. He may or may not succeed to the presidency when Niebohr finally dies,, but for the time being he's just a piece of democratic window-dressing to keep the board and the stockholders happy while the old man continues to run things in his same old dictatorial way. I tell you another thing..."

  He stopped speaking as Toyo, Falangetti's Japanese wife, came into the room. Tiny, and cute as a button in a jade green kimono, she approached the men, smiling.

  "Dinner in twenty minutes," she
said. "Won't you change your mind and stay, Harold?"

  Gould shook his head regretfully. "You know that under normal circumstances I could never resist your tempura, but tonight I promised Mary I'd make it home." He glanced at his wrist watch. "In fact, I (should have been on my way ten minutes ago."

  "All right, I'll let you go, provided you promise that both of you will come over one night next week— say, Wednesday?"

  "It's a date," said Gould. "Sorry to drink and run, but that's the way it has to be."

  Pausing to give Toyo a peck on the cheek, he hurried out into the hallway. Falangetti followed on behind, his round face troubled.

  "Look, Harold, I can't help having this feeling that I've let you down in some way. Maybe we can get together again tomorrow and figure something out?"

  "Forget it, Mario," Gould said, with every appearance of cheerfulness. "This is one situation that I shall have to figure out for myself. Thanks anyway." He shook hands and walked quickly out along the corridor towards the elevators.

  On the way down to fiftieth level, alone and robbed of the rattle of his own brave talk, his spirits began to sink. A great deal of what he had said to Falangetti had been nothing more than whistling in the dark. The boast about the exposures he would make if he were brought to court in a breach of contract action were nothing more than that, he knew. Niebohr would go to any lengths at all to prevent such a thing from happening.

  Walking out of the elevator toward his parked fly-car, Gould was already coming to the humiliating conclusion that the safest and most sensible thing he could do would be to relax and accept whatever demotion or railroading Niebohr cared to hand out to him, to sing small and hope, as Falangetti had suggested, that things might be slightly different when Prince finally took over.

  Fine. . . But how was he going to explain such a sudden check in his upward progress within the corporation to Mary? She was very sensitive to such things, and she took a real pride in his advancement that had nothing to do with the financial aspect of the matter.