by J F Bone
“You forget the Confederation. They’re members.” Ballerd sneered. “Show that debating society an established fact and they’ll have to like it.”
“Not necessarily. They never have—and we’re not going to provoke them. I don’t think they’ll touch us as long as we stay in our own back yard—but if we move out they might.”
“Ha!” Ballerd snorted. “Not likely. We’re out on the galactic edge. No fleet could bother us at this range. They’d be too far from their bases.”
“You should study the Firemen,” Varden said.
Ballerd smiled to himself. He should study the Firemen! He’d been working as one for more years than Varden had been alive! The Bureau—insiders called it the Fire Department and its agents Firemen—The Bureau of Interworld Relations of the Galactic Confederation was an outgrowth of the old inspection system that kept peace on earth in the early days of the Atomic Revolution before mankind reached interstellar space. In its thousand years of existence the Bureau had refined its technics to inspect worlds and systems which didn’t want to be inspected, to squelch brush-fire wars, to cool off hot spots before they erupted and engulfed a whole sector of civilization in blazing ruin.
In a civilization where technology was still eons ahead of social development, the Fire Department was an absolute necessity. It was the governor, the balance wheel that kept the whole creaky machinery of the Confederation from flying apart from internal pressures.
If the Fire Department could be said to believe in anything, it believed that there was no such thing as a government beneficial to all its citizens. Therefore, it worked toward the interim improvement and ultimate abolition of all government. It wasn’t going to attain its aim of enlightened anarchy in the foreseeable future, people being what they were, but the goal was there and someday it might be reached providing the Confederation was kept at peace long enough for a true social science to develop. Its methods were legion; from persuasion to assassination, from conversion to coercion, from reason to emotion, from honor to treachery. The goal was what mattered. The means, it was long ago decided, were unimportant. Firemen were the most skillful agent provocateurs, the most convincing messiahs, the most tender empathists, and the most brutal sadists in all the galaxy. They were admired, hated, feared, loved and respected. They were everywhere, yet seldom seen and seldom known. They were the conscience, the lash, the personification of authority that even the most absolute ruler or government eyed with fear and respect. They were dedicated to peace and would preserve it if they had to slaughter every war monger in the galaxy.
“I’ve been expecting them to interfere ever since we took over,” Varden continued. “I thought for awhile that Annalee was one of their agents but there’s no evidence of that. They made no move to interfere, but they’re probably here all right. Still, they haven’t done anything yet—nor will they unless they get an opportunity. Our business is not to give them one. While I agree with you in principle, your method is deadly. So we’ll never make an overt move against Krishna or Thoth. They’ll invite us in!”
“This I want to see,” Ballerd said. “How do you plan to do it?”
Varden chuckled. “Simple. Take Krishna for example. We infiltrate using native Krishnans. The situation there is essentially the same as it was here—a ruling group of city-states and a restless peasantry. An essentially agricultural community eager for change, held back by a small but well-armed police and army. With care, we should be able to get weapons and a limited quantity of ammunition into the hands of the revolt. Now do you get the picture?”
Ballerd smiled. “Yes, sir. It’s obvious. After the peasants revolt, we step in to maintain order.”
“On the invitation of the ruling class,” Varden added.
They’ll invite us?”
“Of course. Officially, we’re friendly. In fact we’re the only friends they have. They’ve been ripe for the Firemen for nearly a generation, and they know it. But they’ve kept their noses clean. They’ll turn to us before they’ll ever turn to Earth Central.”
“Then we liquidate the rulers?”
“Certainly not.”
“The peasants?”
“We remove their leaders. And why not? Most of them will be our own people. After that we’ll be in the saddle—and with their ruling class in our hands and properly conditioned, we’ll take over in fact if not physically. Then we’ll get our labor.”
Ballerd nodded. “I get the idea. It’s neat.”
Varden chuckled. “It is indeed.” He shrugged. “But modern conquest has to be neat. We can’t afford to attract attention.”
“And the Firemen will do nothing?”
“What can they do? They only have two choices. They can either help the Krishnan peasants or their rulers. Either way we’ll win. You see, this is modern conquest. It isn’t exactly war, yet it is war in its broadest sense. Literally anything, can be a useful tool if it furthers our ends. Fighting is no part of the plan nor is direct interference. We simply can’t resort to formal war to gain our ends because we’d have the whole Confederation on our necks if we did. So we must work more slowly and employ a continuing pressure that uses every trick of espionage, sabotage, propaganda, economics, sociology, psychology, and technology to achieve its ends. Until we are bigger than our opposition we can’t come into the open.”
“I see,” Ballerd said slowly. He eyed Varden with respectful admiration. Alone, the man had developed a system that was the duplicate of the Department’s thousand year evolution. Dedicated to a diametrically opposite goal the system would still work. Suddenly he realized that the of goal was unimportant, and that the methods were, in the last analysis, the only thing that held any meaning. Varden was a genius. Evil, perhaps, but a genius nevertheless.
“But this isn’t the thing you asked me up here for,” he continued. “I’ve worked with you long enough to know that. You didn’t summon me here merely to lecture on revolutionary strategy.”
Varden laughed. “You’re right, as usual. I want you to head up the Navy Department, to take Haring’s place.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. You’re a good organizer, a team player, and you’re intelligent. You know how to improvise—and you have a capacity for inspiring loyalty in your staff. Haring isn’t nearly your caliber. He’s tough but he’s a proceduralist and lacks imagination. Frankly, I think the Admirals are running him. I need someone I can depend upon in case there’s a showdown with Earth Central. I need the Fleet for a club. Sure—we couldn’t possibly win a war with the Confederation but we could cause so much damage while losing that they’d think twice before attacking us. I can’t depend on Haring to carry out my orders if it comes to that sort of a showdown but I think I can depend on you. I’m arranging a mutual transfer. You’ll accept, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I was sure you would. After all, there’s more power in the Navy than there is anywhere else except in my office. Now when can you start?”
“Tomorrow?”
Varden laughed. “Take your time,” he said. “It’ll be a few months before we’re ready to move. Take a month. You and Haring can brief each other.”
“Haring’s not going to like this.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Varden said flatly. “I give the orders.”
The mechanics of authoritarian government are simple, Ballerd reflected. The leader states his wishes to his staff, and they in turn transmit them to their staffs. The whole thing spreads outward like ripples from a stone dropped into a quiet pool. And finally, out on the fringes, the will of the ruler is carried out by men who know him only as a name.
The surprising thing, of course, is that people put up with it. It just went to show that society was no better than it had been in the Dark Ages. People were sheep and all the guidance in the universe wasn’t going to make them goats. They wanted someone else to do their thinking for them. And if that thinking involved their suffering and dying, it was a small price to pa
y to avoid the horror and uncertainty of making their own decisions. He realized with a mild revulsion that the only way to stop a setup like this was at the center, by smashing the leader himself. There was no truth in that ancient belief that the system would carry on even if the leader was gone. In an absolute dictatorship the leader was the state. Without him it would die—or change so much that it could no longer act. No subordinate had the leader’s capacity to rule. Had there been one, he would be the leader or be ruthlessly eliminated. A leader doesn’t—can’t—tolerate competition. Ballerd smiled thinly. If there was a weakness in Varden’s system, that was it.
But Varden wasn’t a fool. He couldn’t be destroyed easily and with modern gerontological techniques, there wasn’t much chance of his dying a natural death in the near future. Ballerd grimaced. Destroy him. That was easy to say. But there’d be plenty of work before the first shot could be fired. It would have to succeed the first time. There would be no second chance. The only mistake Varden had made was to assume that the firemen were honorable, that they wouldn’t move unless given cause.
He took a government cab from the carpool and went home. For the moment he had taken all he could endure. He needed the comfort Annalee could offer. He checked in with the defense mechs, landed, opened the door of the cab and stepped down on the familiar roof of his fortress-like house between a cluster of quick firing missile launches. With a silent rush, the cab leaped skyward under its automatic controls and disappeared back in the direction of Union Headquarters. He watched it go as the launchers automatically tracked it, eyes squinted at the unrestful glare of Vishnu’s cloudless yellow sky—and then slowly walked toward the manlift that would take him down to the living area below, automatically giving the proper responses that allowed him to pass through the defenses and alarms.
Everything was abnormal, he thought bitterly. Even the air of his house was strange. There was a faint sharp antiseptic bite to it that tickled his nostrils and made him want to sneeze. For a moment he didn’t recognize the odor—then memory came with a rush—ozone! The whole place reeked of it!
He followed his nose. It led him through the house to the short corridor that ended at Annalee’s room. The hallway smelled like an electroweld plant. Quietly he opened the door.
She was sitting in front of a haywire arrangement of tubes, coils and condensers that pulsed with an eerie bluish glow as the big bronze megatron tube poured ozone into the room from its coruscating surface.
He grimaced, remembering a humorously accurate remark that the only way one could trace a nondirectional communicator was to smell it out. But what was Annalee doing with a thing like this?
She was talking to someone parsecs away, huddled over the microphone, her hand on the scrambler control that varied the frequency to a prearranged pattern—“and to my knowledge the situation is deteriorating badly. It isn’t critical yet—but you’d better make other plans and soon. I don’t think he’s capable of handling it. Just a matter of the wrong man in the right place. I would estimate another month before Varden is ready to move. The preliminary steps should be completed by that time . . . No—he’s still running Manpower, and as you know that position is not the critical one we need to fill . . . No, I still am certain we did the right thing. The only trouble is that Varden is as suspicious as a wild animal . . . Personally, I think I should level with Ballerd but if you insist I’ll hold off. This is a good O.P. and perhaps you’re right . . . Roger. Two Sixty Three out.”
“Very interesting,” Ballerd said.
With a gasp she turned to face him.
“At the risk of sounding trite,” Ballerd said slowly, “how long has this been going on?”
“From the time you brought me here. I just couldn’t see you. taking such chances. So I’ve been trying to get you replaced. I don’t want a corpse.”
“You utter blithering fool,” Ballerd said venomously. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
She shook her head.
“You’ve alerted Varden! Sure, I know they can’t trace this rig but they can tap it. And even though Security can’t crack our scrambler, they know it’s us by the mere fact that they can’t crack it. And given time they’ll unscramble some of the stuff. They’ve got it all on tape and judging from what you’ve been saying they’ll have enough to put the finger on both of us—and whatever we’ve done will go down the drain! Varden knows that we’re here, and it’s only a question of time before he finds out. He’s not stupid. He’s a genius. He’s duplicated our setup. Now clean that mess up—dispose of it, and don’t ever try to broadcast again. Trust a woman to louse things up. Just when I’ve conned Varden into giving me the Navy!”
“He what?”
“You heard me. I’ve been offered the Navy—N-A-V-Y—get it?”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“When do you take over?”
“No comment.”
“Why not?”
“No trust.”
“But how can I help if I don’t know what’s going on?” Annalee wailed.
“You can’t but you can’t hinder either. Now be a good girl and keep out of my way, or I’ll beat you like a drum.”
“Men,” she snorted. “That’s all they can think of. Shoot them. Kill them. Beat them up. All of you think with your biceps rather than your brain!”
“You should talk. But I suppose you’re right. Still, I wonder what part of your anatomy takes over when your brain quits.” He looked at her meaningly and she blushed.
“I can’t help what they did when they remodelled me,” she said. “I had a normal set of emotions once.”
“Well, just sit on them and stop thinking with them.”
“You’re insufferably nasty,” she said.
Ballerd grinned. She was on the defensive now. Women might be Firemen but they’d never stop being subjective. It was about ready to come now, the barrage of recrimination and justification.
“And after all I did for you—” Annalee began.
Ballerd sighed and stopped listening. It would be over after awhile and then they could start planning. He’d tell her his plans, of course. She had a good head and a quick eye for detail. If only she were not a woman—and if only she were not—he shook his head. He didn’t mean that last, not any part of it.
“One thing’s certain,” Annalee said. “No matter how we work it it’s going to be difficult. We’ll need everything at hand, a split second timetable, and more luck than we deserve if we expect to get away with it. We can blank the scanners for about three minutes by shorting the line in your office.”
“I know. But Varden’s the key to everything. We have to take the chance. It’s the only way.”
“Yes—that’s why I sent in his profile a year ago.”
“I read it. It was good.”
She smiled. “And those tridi photos were honeys,” she said. “I even had scale calibrations incorporated in the shots.”
“You what?”
“Scale calibrations—you know, measurements!”
“Get on that communicator—right now!”
“But you said—”
“Forget it. You were smart to build it. Get your contact and have a tissuemold of Varden made as soon as possible. Make it crash priority. I want that duplicate here in a month. No longer. And make it clear to them that it’s essential!”
“What are you thinking of?”
“It’s just an idea now. We’ll kick it around and polish it later.” He grinned. “Did I ever tell you that sometimes you are a genius, besides being beautiful?” he asked.
“You had some other ideas a short while ago,” she replied.
“Forget it. You’ve made up for everything. You’re wonderful.”
Annalee smiled as she closed the power switch on the communicator. He wasn’t angry now, and later perhaps he’d prove it. She shook her head. Sometimes this new body interfered with rational thought, and it was questionable as to whether it or her mind was in
control.
“Ballerd!” Varden’s voice crackled over the intercom. “I want to see you at once!”
“Coming, sir,” Ballerd said. He rose slowly—well—to use a much-worn cliche—this was it. Either it worked or the fleet came in and blasted Vishnu out of the sky. The command decision had been reached a week ago. He had two more days until deadline—and a hundred million more or less innocent lives were hanging on his actions. The Confederation was alarmed and it reacted in the only way it knew—with overwhelming naked force. Orders were already issued and if Varden wasn’t checked there would be war. Already the fleet units were assembling. It was a chancy business. The Vishnan fleet was good and its smallness was counterbalanced by its closeness to base. If the Confederation went through with this and success wasn’t immediate, the Union could hold out indefinitely. The armed force of the Confederation would be chewed up in a grinding war of attrition. Defections would occur, and in the end the whole of Civilization would lose whether the Union was smashed or not. Social evolution would be set back several generations and much of the painfully built work of the Fire Department would be undone.
He walked across the room, pushed the button to summon the elevator that would take him to Varden’s quarters, and waited while the door slid open. The door to his inner office opened and a man came out followed by Annalee. She was acting as his secretary now—and perhaps giving Suzuki’s surveillance boys something to grin about with some of her actions. But it was good camouflage. The two men entered the elevator. Nothing happened. “The scanners are off. Come on,” Ballerd said. His fingers caressed the tiny needle gun in his pocket as he applied his ID plaque to Varden’s private entrance. He shot down the two Security men inside the door before they realized he was armed, and opened the inner door to Varden’s chambers.
Varden glared at him furiously. “Did you know this?” he asked accusingly, waving a paper in his hand. Ballerd didn’t have to look at it. He’d made it up himself. It was the intelligence summary of Earth Central’s recent actions.