Planetary Agent X

by Mack Reynolds

  Ronny’s eyes bugged. The box contained the partly charred body of an animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool-using life form.

  Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin on the supervisor’s face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than ever.

  Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.

  “You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.

  “It’s an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept secret?”

  “Let’s go back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.

  Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for awhile.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two. “Ronny,” he said, “man isn’t alone in the galaxy. There’s other intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”

  In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.

  Metaxa grunted. “Obviously size means nothing. That little fellow down there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago. How long he’d been drifting through space, we don’t know. Possibly only months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long, he’s proof that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and whoever it was fighting.”

  “But,” Ronny protested, “you’re assuming they’re aggressive. Perhaps coming in contact with these aliens will be the best thing that ever happened to man. Possibly that little fellow down there is the most benevolent creature ever evolved.”

  Metaxa looked at him strangely. “Let’s hope so,” he said. “However, when found he was in what must have been a one-man scout. He was dead and his craft was blasted and torn—obviously from some sort of weapons’ fire. His scout was obviously a military craft, highly equipped with what could only be weapons, most of them so damaged our engineers haven’t been able to figure them out. To the extent they have been able to reconstruct them, they’re scared silly. No, there’s no two ways about it, our little rabbit sized intelligence down in the vault was killed in an interplanetary conflict. And sooner or later, Ronny, man in his explosion into the stars is going to run into either or both of the opponents in that conflict.”

  Ronny Bronston slumped back into his chair, his brain running out a dozen leads at once.

  Metaxa and Jakes remained quiet, looking at him speculatively.

  Ronny said slowly, “Then the purpose of Section G is to push the member planets of UP along the fastest path of progress, to get them ready for the eventual meeting.”

  “Not just Section G,” Metaxa growled, “but all of the United Planets organization, although most of the rank and file don’t even know our basic purpose. Section G? We do the dirty work, and are proud to do it, by every method we can devise.”

  Ronny leaned forward. “But look,” he said. “Why not simply inform all member planets of this common danger? They’d all unite in the effort to meet the common potential foe. Anything standing in the way would be brushed aside.”

  Metaxa shook his head wearily. “Would they? Is a common danger enough for man to change his institutions, particularly those pertaining to property, power and religion? History doesn’t show it. Delve back into early times and you’ll recall, for an example, that in man’s early discovery of nuclear weapons he almost destroyed himself. Three or four different socio-economic systems coexisted at that time and all would have preferred destruction rather than changes in their social forms.”

  Jakes said, in an unwonted quiet tone, “No, until someone comes up with a better answer it looks as though Section G is going to have to continue the job of advancing man’s institutions, in spite of himself.”

  The commissioner made it clearer. “It’s not as though we deal with all our member planets. It isn’t necessary. But you see, Ronny, the best colonists are usually made up of the, well, crackpot element. Those who are satisfied stay at home. America, for instance, was settled by the adventurers, the malcontents, the nonconformists, the religious cultists, and even the fugitives and criminals of Europe. So it is in the stars. A group of colonists go out with their dreams, their schemes, their far-out ideas. In a few centuries they’ve populated their new planet, and often do very well indeed. But often not and a nudge, a push, from Section G can start them up another rung or so of the ladder of social evolution. Most of them don’t want the push. Few cultures, if any, realize they are mortal; like Hitler’s Reich, they expect to last at least a thousand years. They resist any change—even change for the better.”

  Ronny’s defenses were crumbling, but he threw one last punch. “How do you know the changes you make are for the better?”

  Metaxa shrugged heavy shoulders. “It’s sometimes difficult to decide, but we aim for changes that will mean an increased scientific progress, a more advanced industrial technology, more and better education, the opening of opportunity for every member of the culture to exert himself to the full of his abilities. The last is particularly important. Too many cultures, even those that think of themselves as particularly advanced, suppress the individual by one means or another.”

  Ronny was still mentally reeling with the magnitude of it all. “But how can you account for the fact that these alien intelligences haven’t already come in contact with us?”

  Metaxa shrugged again. “The Solar System, our sun, is way out in a sparsely populated spiral arm of our galaxy. Undoubtedly these others are further in toward the center. We have no way of knowing how far away they are, or how many sun systems they dominate, or even how many other empires of intelligent life forms there are. All we know is that there are other intelligences in the galaxy, that they are near enough like us to live on the same type planets. The more opportunity man has to develop before the initial contact takes place, the stronger bargaining position, or military position, as the case may be, he’ll be in.”

  Sid Jakes summed up the Tommy Paine business for Ronny’s sake. “We need capable agents badly, but we need dedicated and efficient ones. We can’t afford anything less. So when we come upon potential Section G operatives we send them out with a trusted Tog to get a picture of these United Planets of ours. It’s the quickest method of indoctrination we’ve hit upon; the agent literally teaches himself by observation and participation. Usually, it takes four or five stops, on this planet and that, before the probationary agent begins sympathizing with the efforts of this elusive Tommy Paine. Especially since every Section G agent he runs into, including the Tog, of course, fills him full of stories of Tommy Paine’s activities.

  “You were one of the quickest to stumble on the true nature of our Section G. After calling at only three planets you saw that we ourselves are Tommy Paine.”

  “But… but what’s the end?” Ronny said plaintively. “You say our job is advancing man, even in spite of himself when it comes to that. We start at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder in a condition of savagery, clan communism in government, simple animism in religion, and slowly we progress through barbarism to civilization, through paganism to the higher ethical codes, through chattel slavery and then feudalism and beyond. What is the final end, the Ultima Thule?”

  Metaxa was shaking his head again. He poured himself another drink, offered the bottle this time to the others. “We don’t know,” he said wearily. “Perhaps there is none. Perhaps there is always another rung on this evolutionary ladder,” He punched at his order box and said, “Irene, have them do up a silver badge for Ronny.”

  Ronny Bronston took a deep breath and reached for the brown bottle. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I’m ready to ask for my first assignment.”

  It was Sid Jakes who looked at him glumly. “You’re not going to like it, you know.”

  Ronny poured the drink. “How do yo
u mean?” But in a way, he knew what the other meant.

  Sid said, “We’re all the same in Section G, Ronny. We come in all Gung Ho. We’re burning with romantic enthusiasm. No other types are encouraged in this agency—can’t be. And what do we find? We find ourselves in the Department of Dirty Tricks. Half our work comes under the head of Machiavellianism. Oh, sure, your first assignment might be above-board routine. And maybe even your second. But sooner or later you’ll run into one of the jobs for which we really exist. One of the jobs where it’s up to you to sacrifice an individual, a city, sometimes even a whole nation, for the sake of the long range view of United Planets. That’s when the guts of your conscience are strained, Ronny.”

  Metaxa growled, “What’re you trying to do, run him away?”

  Sid grunted a caricature of his usual humor. “There’s no running him away. Ronny’s slated to be as dedicated a Section G operative as we’ve ever had. I was just wondering how we’re going to feel when he pulls off his first real assignment. And just wondering how he’s going to feel about himself.”

  Then he too reached for the tequila bottle.

  PART TWO

  XV

  Billy Antrim was riding hard. He had little sure knowledge of just how far behind him the sheriff’s men might be—nor, for that matter, of how many they were.

  He was keeping off the roads as much as he could, but that was becoming increasingly difficult since the area was far from sparsely populated now that he was approaching the city. His only chance, he figured, was to get to the city and go to ground.

  He twisted and turned over the open fields, trying to keep to such cover as was offered by clumps of trees, by gullies, by lines of fence. And from time to time he cast a glance over his shoulder.

  Not that Billy was particularly afraid. Scared, he would have called it. In his profession, you couldn’t afford that emotion. A pistolero in action is cool—he either keeps that way, under stress, or he doesn’t long survive. And thus far Billy Antrim had survived—in spades.

  He rode hard and he rode deviously, and from time to time unconsciously he loosened the gun wedged into his belt. For in spite of manufacturers of quick-draw holsters to the contrary, the fastest draw is from the belt.

  He could see the lights of the city ahead. In fact, he had been able to see them for some time. He became more optimistic. His favorite slogan was, one chance in a million, but he felt he had better than that now. At least so far as getting to the city was concerned. Beyond that…

  It was then that he picked up the sound behind him. His ears were good, with the sensitiveness of the organs of youth, since Billy Antrim was nineteen years of age. There was no doubt in his mind. At this time of night, others would have been sticking to the roads, not riding madly over fields, crossing streams, thundering up and down hillocks.

  He darted a look back. Spotted them. Shot a calculating glance toward the city ahead. He would never make it. They were coming up fast. How many of them, he still didn’t know.

  “One chance in a million,” Billy muttered. He sneered his own brand of amusement.

  He was a slight youth, just past the pimply age, with a sallow face, dirty blond hair and baby-blue eyes—the traditional eyes of the man killer. His teeth were buckteeth enough usually to show through his lips. In spite of youth, he could never have been called good looking. He was five foot eight, weighed slightly less than one fifty, and he moved with the grace of a girl—no, not a girl; with the grace of a panther on the hunt.

  There was an outcropping of rocks immediately before him, out of place in this vicinity of gentle fields. He quickly swung around it and came to a halt. His hope was that their eyes were as keen as his own and that they had already spotted him and knew that they were closing in. The other man’s reflexes weren’t usually as fast as those of Billy Antrim’s and now that was all he had left to depend upon.

  When they came slewing around the rock outcropping, slowed a bit in view of the fact that they couldn’t be sure exactly where he had gone beyond, Billy was standing there, at comfortable ease, the short barreled gun in his hand and already half aimed.

  There were two of them. Only two.

  He had flicked the selector switch to full blast, automatic. Now he gently squeezed the trigger and the windshield of the pursuing floater shattered into slivers and dust and the vehicle, suddenly driverless, banked to the left, crashing into the rock pile in a grinding, collapsing, shrieking complaint of agonized machinery, framework and glass.

  He stood for a moment, the gun still at the ready, though there was small chance that any life could have survived his attack. He watched expressionlessly, poker-faced, feeling nothing whatsoever in the way of regret or compassion. They had played the game of pursuit and lost. What was there to regret, so far as he was concerned? He had won, in his one chance in a million gamble.

  He tucked the gun back into his belt and scrambled to the top of the rocks, marveling as he went that there should be comparatively open countryside this near to Greater Washington. It was deliberate, undoubtedly. Evidently the largest city on Earth had some desperate need of a bit of countryside surrounding it. What amounted to a national park, where there were air, trees, and even an occasional stream. A memory of what the world had been in yesteryear.

  From the top he surveyed back over the route he had just covered. So far as he could see, there were no further pursuers. They had evidently sent no more than two men, confident that with radar, sensi-screens and their other ultramodern police equipment and armament, one man posed no problems. There was the faintest of smiles on his usually poker-face.

  He returned to his floater, lifted it and headed toward the city. He would have to plan carefully now. Undoubtedly his two pursuers had been in continual communications with their headquarters. Suddenly their reports would have been cut off. Headquarters would undoubtedly send out more men, but, what was more pressing, would call ahead for the city’s police to be on the watch for him.

  Billy Antrim’s problems were far from over.

  Ronald Bronston said to Irene, “What’s roiling the Old Man?”

  She paused long enough from her switches, her order-box, her buttons and phones to say snappishly, “How would I know? He never tells me what’s going on around here. I’m supposed to be clairvoyant, telepathic, and omniscient to boot. I tell you, there’s a lot of jetsam around this office.”

  Ronny grinned at her. “Sid Jakes called and said Ross wanted to see me immediately.”

  Irene Kasansky was as important a cog in the wheels of Section G, of the Bureau of Investigation, of the Department of Justice, of the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, of United Planets, as was Ross Metaxa himself. Or so, at least, everybody said, including the Old Man when he was slightly in his cups. She loved every soul in the small department and the affection was reciprocated with interest—though no one would have dreamed of admitting it, on either side.

  She said now, “Well, don’t stand there. If his high mucky-muck summoned you, scamper.” She added, “Tell him he can have up to fifteen minutes with you. Then he’s got to see Lee Chang about the Han rebellion.”

  “Got it,” Ronny told her, making for the inner door.

  She looked after him for a split second, deciding that of all the top field agents in Section G, Ronny Bronston least looked the part, which was possibly to be one of his most valuable assets. Irene loved them all, these spearhead men of the conquest of space, but there was a particular something about Ronny Bronston. She snorted inwardly—first thing she knew she’d be letting him catch onto the fact, and then where would things be?

  Ronny went through the entry and turned left to the door inconspicuously lettered, ROSS METAXA, COMMISSIONER, SECTION G.

  Section G, Ronny thought, all over again. What an innocuous name for Department of Trouble-shooting, Department of Cloak and Dagger, Department of Secret Treasury Department devoted, he reminded himself bitterly, to the principle that the end justifies the means. Ronny
had yet to forget he had been raised in an atmosphere of high ethic and ideals.

  Ronny knocked and the door slid open.

  Ross Metaxa, bleary eyed as always, looked up, as always affecting the acid surliness which fooled everybody—sometimes even himself.

  He pushed some reports away from that part of his desk immediately before him and fished the brown bottle from a drawer as he said, “Sit down, Ronny. Drink?”

  “Not from that bottle,” Ronny said.

  “How’s the wound?” Metaxa growled, pouring himself a slug. “Doctor got you off booze?”

  “I’m okay now. I’ve got myself off that Denebian tequila of yours,” Ronny said, sinking into a chair. “I know when I’m well off. I’ll stick to kerosene.”

  “Very funny,” Metaxa grumbled, knocking the liquor back over his tonsils, impervious to the other’s shudder. He put the top back on the bottle, began to return it to the drawer, changed his mind and shoved it to one side of the desk. “What do you know about Palermo?” he said.

  Ronny cast his eyes slightly upward and spoke as though remembering a lesson. “One of the far out planets, in more ways than space. Colonized by Italians…”

  “Sicilians,” Metaxa grunted.

  “… only recently joining the UP. The government and socio-economic system seem to be unique.”

  His superior grunted sour amusement. “That’s a gentle way of putting it,” he said. “The government is by Maffeo, a very old Sicilian institution which they seem to export along with their emigrants. Its origins are lost in antiquity but seem to go as far back as the slave rebellions of the Romans.”

  “Romans?”

  “What’s wrong with your history, Ronny?” the other said gruffly. “The Roman Empire. Controlled…”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember.”

  The other grunted. “You can look it up in the archives later. At any rate, it seems that the planet Palermo was originally settled by peasant types, evidently largely interested in fleeing this very institution. They found their planet, way beyond what were then the reaches of UP, and paid through the nose to have themselves and their scanty belongings hauled out. Space Freightways handled the transportation. One of their usual gyp arrangements.”