The Long Result Read online

  The second item was closer to home. My reaction to the pamphlet which I’d received in my conveyor box this morning had instinctively matched both Rattray’s and bin Ishmael’s – and they were a lot more directly involved with the realities of interstellar relations than we in BuCult. To write off the Stars Are For Man League as harmless eccentrics was no longer a tenable position. Whether or not the wrecking of our alien wagon was premeditated, whether or not the three – well, slobs, to borrow Rattray’s term – had had advance information of the Tau Cetians’ arrival, was beside the point; any lunatic-fringe belief which could provoke such action was ipso facto dangerous.

  I was going to have to file a report on the day’s activity. Somehow, by loading the terms in the report, I would have to convince Tinescu he was mistaken. It was a fascinating exercise in practical semantics. I was still deep in the phrasing of it when I approached the Bureau.

  With a start, I saw Jacky Demba coming out under the high arched doorway on which the Bureau’s motto was engraved in relief – the ancient Greek instruction which has to precede any dabbling in contact with alien races: KNOW THYSELF! He was deep in conversation with an alien. A Regulan, to be exact – a startlingly beautiful creature like all his kind.

  And the Regulan, aware of me long before Jacky because of his super-delicate senses, gave me a nod of recognition. This put me in the most embarrassing position imaginable. The differences by which Regulans recognized each other were far too subtle for any untrained human to identify. For all I knew, this might be the Regulan whom I had talked to this morning, the one involved in last night’s rocket crash – or another entirely, whom I’d met only in passing when he came to visit the Bureau ten years back.

  I smiled as though I’d instantly remembered the alien’s name, and cast myself on Jacky’s mercies. He was used to dealing with this species, and doubtless was expert at telling them apart; equally, he would realize my difficulty.

  But he didn’t – not at once, at least. For he merely lifted a hand to me and said, ‘Did everything go off all right, Roald?’

  ‘More or less. Where are you off to?’

  ‘I’m finished for the day,’ he said, faintly surprised.

  I checked my watch, and found it was indeed after sixteen-thirty, the usual closing-time. I hadn’t realized it was so late. I muttered a private oath.

  ‘Is the Chief still in?’ I demanded.

  ‘Yes, I think so – though not likely to stay very late. Waiting for your report, perhaps?’ Luckily he didn’t follow that question up, but glanced at the Regulan, who was standing to one side and affecting out of politeness not to listen.

  ‘Anovel, this is Roald Vincent, one of my colleagues here at the Bureau —’

  I cut in, relieved beyond description. ‘We met this morning just for a few minutes. I hope you’re completely recovered from the effects of the rocket crash?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. It would take something like a nuclear explosion to put a dent in my hide.’ The Regulan extended the more delicate of his two right ‘arms’ and I shook the eight-fingered ‘hand’ on the end. This species was unfailingly correct in its observance of the social graces.

  Like all adult specimens of his kind. Anovel stood some five feet eight or nine in height, and his resemblance to a horse was remarkable. He had the same long, rather sad-looking head, and twin nostril-sheaths rose above his eyes to give the effect of a horse’s ears. His skin was a vivid and beautiful blue, while the mane which ran down the nape of his neck was as yellow as a buttercup. He had four ‘arms’, multiply jointed limbs of which two were slender and terminated in the incredibly deft ‘hands’, while the others were muscled like the hindquarters of a Percheron. Purely in deference to Earthly custom, a kilt was belted about his waist and fell to the backward-bending knees of his long legs. He wore nothing else – and indeed did not even need to wear that much, for these paradoxical beasts could be comfortable over a temperature range of at least two hundred degrees, and alone of the known races could utilise oxygen, chlorine or their native fluorine for respiration.

  ‘You’ve met already?’ Jacky said, astonished, and I explained briefly. He nodded comprehension. ‘I see! Well, you’ll have another chance to get better acquainted tonight – I’ve invited Anovel to my party. I thought he might like to meet the people I’ve asked. While I remember, incidentally: I saw Patricia over lunch and you are both coming.’

  A great guy, Jacky. I gave him a smile and apologized for having to dash off, using Tinescu’s impending departure as my excuse.

  The chief was indeed still in his office, but he wasn’t alone. I hesitated on the threshold, even though he’d told me to come in via the annunciator.

  ‘Oh, don’t stand there dithering!’ he rapped. ‘Roald, this is Inspector Klabund of the World Police, Pacific Coast District. Just as well you turned up – I gather he wants to talk to you.’

  Me? What on earth for? But I moved forward obediently and took a chair to which Tinescu waved me. The inspector was a big man with short brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. I judged him to be eight or ten years older than myself.

  ‘Now, before the inspector starts on you, I’d like to put some questions to you myself. I gather the Tau Cetians got safely to the Ark, so that’s all right, but there’s this almost hysterical message I had from the port director, Rattray…’

  He broke off, perhaps reading my expression.

  ‘Hysterical be damned,’ I said shortly. ‘Those three young men deliberately rammed our truck. I’m sure of it.’

  Tinescu shut his eyes and sighed. ‘I’ll save my questions, then,’ he said tiredly. ‘That’s what Inspector Klabund is here about.’

  I gave the policeman a startled glance. ‘But we’re not in the Pacific Coast police district!’ I objected.

  ‘Correct,’ Klabund said heavily. ‘I’m in charge of the inquiry into last night’s rocket crash.’

  Several things clicked together with extreme abruptness in my mind. I leaned forward. ‘Was it you who brought Anovel here?’

  Klabund hid a flicker of surprise. ‘The Regulan?’ he parried. ‘Why – yes, that’s so.’

  ‘Then I’m beginning to catch on. Do you suspect that that rocket was sabotaged?’

  ‘You have a remarkably swift mind, Mr Vincent,’ Klabund answered slowly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m relying chiefly on Anovel’s evidence at this stage. He maintains that just before the engines exploded – perhaps a tenth of a second earlier – he heard a sharp noise distinct from the roar of the rockets. I brought him here to confirm that his hearing was sensitive enough to make such fine judgements. He passed one hundred per cent.’

  ‘He would. Regulans are very amazing creatures. But —’ I hesitated, then plunged on: ‘But are you saying that someone would wreck a rocket just to try and kill an alien? Why, anyone should know that a Regulan can stand damage that would mash a man to jelly!’

  ‘Someone insanely convinced of the “natural superiority of human beings” might conveniently overlook that,’ Klabund countered.

  The idea was horrible, but I had to utter it. I said, ‘You mean we’re up against fanatics that won’t object to murdering men and women if they can wipe out a few aliens?’

  ‘I daren’t go that far. But it looks terrifyingly like it.’ Klabund glanced at a small notebook on his lap. ‘Now, Mr Vincent! I gather you found in your office this morning a leaflet issued by the Stars Are For Men League?’

  I nodded. ‘I was so annoyed I called the chief to complain. He said to stuff it in the destructor and forget it – the police had checked on the League three years ago and rated them as negligible.’

  ‘That was true – then. Lately, someone has been pumping money into their organization.’ Klabund scowled. ‘Was that the first you’d heard of the League, Mr Vincent?’

  ‘As far as I recall. But not the last. The men who rammed our alien wagon at the port today had a pile of their literature in the back of their car.’

  ‘Yes,
so I understand.’ Klabund made a note. ‘Now what is your exact status here at the Bureau, please?’

  ‘I’m the assistant to the Chief of Bureau responsible for human colonial cultural assay.’

  ‘Could you make that a bit clearer?’

  I glanced at Tinescu, who could have put it more clearly because he was less involved, but Klabund added sharply, ‘In your own words, for preference!’

  Puzzled, but ready to comply, I said, ‘Well, you know we have two colonies, I presume – Viridis, at 61 Cygni, and Starhome, at Epsilon Eridani. As part of the terms of foundation and support, we’re entitled to cultural survey missions there, and there are two departments in the Bureau which analyse the data received: my own, which is mainly cultural, and Jacky Demba’s which is mainly technical. We’re – well – middlemen. We pass the information on to centres of study which make use of it.’

  ‘I see. Now – if I’ve got this right – your preoccupation with the cultural aspects means you’re more involved with Viridis than Starhome.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Amplify, please.’

  ‘Well … Viridis was planted about a hundred and ten years ago by a group of neo-Roussellians who wanted to return to a pre-technological civilization. On Earth they’d become a laughing-stock, of course, but since the sociologists were pressing the government to aid the study of alternative solutions to the problem of organizing a mass society, their colony was approved and subsidized.’

  ‘They got on well?’

  ‘Oh yes. About half of our modern music, drama and verse is Viridian in origin. Their society has a—’ I fumbled for the right word. ‘A depth, a richness, which ours lacks.’

  ‘You prefer their society to the Starhomers’?’

  ‘Well – yes. Starhome was founded to see how far a technologically oriented society could be driven. Of course in their own way the Starhomers have done exceedingly well; their level of mechanization is amazing. And, naturally, my department deals with the social consequences of this – well – experiment.’

  ‘I see,’ Klabund murmured. ‘Mr Vincent, have you ever been a member of the Stars Are For Man League?’

  8

  I’d always regarded myself as quick-witted, but the speed of my reaction to that astonished me as much as it did Tinescu and Klabund. Presumably it was the last kick of the chronodrin shot bin Ishmael had given me to bring my subjective time up to Tau Cetian level which enabled me to bite back the furious denial that sprang to my lips. Obviously, the question had been designed to catch me by surprise and force an unpremeditated response. Why?

  Logic said: Klabund’s using a lie-detector on me.

  So, purely as a matter of principle – because I do not accept that society has the right to invade the mental privacy of any sane individual – I shot out my hand across the shiny surface of the desk and swept aside the squat bulk of the addresser, which was large enough to conceal from anyone sitting in my chair something as compact as a lie-detector.

  And I was right. A shallow oblong device with lights on the side turned towards Klabund lay exposed; from it, wires fine as spider’s webs trailed towards me and down the front of the desk.

  Cold anger welled up inside me. I said in my most frigid voice, ‘Inspector, what’s the idea of putting that thing on me without my permission?’

  Klabund was embarrassed. He swallowed hard and glanced appealingly at Tinescu. The chief coughed.

  ‘I asked for it, Roald,’ he said.

  ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘Because you’re the reason why the conveyor system has been fed League literature.’

  I digested that slowly. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I said at last.

  ‘No? I wish you hadn’t caught on so quickly, Roald – I’d have liked to see confirmation of the denial you didn’t get around to making …’ Tinescu wiped his face with a weary hand.

  ‘All right, I’d better give it to you straight. You’ve been having trouble with your Starhomer social assay data, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course I have. There’s been a shocking delay on processing the 8c material through Integration – if you hadn’t sent me to the spaceport, I was going to chase it today and raise a little hell.’

  ‘I know. Well, the delays you’ve suffered haven’t been accidental. There’s a cell of League sympathizers in Integration – two key programmers included. And they’ve been weighting the findings of our survey missions with false data. Tomas discovered this some days ago and reported to me; I told him to say nothing until we had a clearer picture of what alterations were being made and the likely reason for such sabotage. Also we hoped – Yes?’ Tinescu cocked an eyebrow on seeing that I wanted to say something.

  My anger was subsiding; I might have known it would take something really serious to make Tinescu commit such a flagrant breach of good manners as asking for me to be tested on a lie-detector.

  ‘Micky Torres knows,’ I said. ‘This was why I was going to call him today – in fact, it’s the main reason I’m due to see him in England this week-end. He’s been complaining about anomalies in the 8a and 8b data, which we sent him last month. I thought he was being excessively critical, and I had it in mind to soothe him and make him look over the files again. But this of course changes everything. I still don’t see, though, how it connects with me.’

  ‘I was just about to explain. We hoped that by leaving the League sympathizers alone for a while, we could tempt them into being over-bold. I believe we’ve succeeded. They began to look around for new recruits, and not unnaturally one of the first people their eyes lighted on was – you.’

  ‘Not unnaturally?’ I echoed. ‘Damn it, chief —!’

  ‘Why not?’ His tone was bitter. ‘Roald, you’re one of the most talented people in this whole Bureau, and you prefer to spend your time fiddling away with Viridis material, nice soft cosy cultural data, instead of doing what anyone with your gifts damned well ought to do. Which is get stuck into alien contact work and tackle a job with substance!’

  ‘Now look here—!’ I exploded.

  ‘Oh, shut up. Even if it’s unpleasant, it’s the truth. And it’s not my personal opinion alone. It’s so obvious that even these lame-brained League members spotted it and concluded the only explanation must be that you didn’t care to dirty your hands working for alien races. So they took it for granted you were temperamentally in sympathy with them.’

  Klabund gave a cough. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in my staying any longer, is there?’ he suggested. I noticed he was avoiding my eyes; Tinescu had tempted him into what was strictly a breach of legal investigatory procedure, and – as one might have expected – he’d taken a dislike to me in consequence, as the indirect cause of his lapse of discretion and the absolutely direct cause of it being exposed. I hoped I wouldn’t have any more to do with this brown-haired man, and I was fairly sure he’d keep from further contact if he could.

  Tinescu agreed that he should go, and the moment the door had closed I let go the pent-up fury which I hadn’t wanted to release in a stranger’s presence. I was really amazed at myself, for normally I’d never have talked back to my boss in this violent fashion.

  ‘Now you can say what you like about my preferring to stay in social assay instead of going over to alien contact! But there’s one fact you can’t deny, isn’t there? My department gets run! Have I ever had a foul-up as bad as this one that’s just broken on the alien side? The Bureau has let the Starhomers stampede it into a hopeless mess over these Tau Cetians – a delegation brought in without warning, a courier on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and that’s probably not more than half the story!’

  ‘Roald!’ Tinescu shot to his feet. ‘Who’s in charge of BuCult? Me, or you? If you’re so proud of your ability to run a smooth department, try tackling something difficult! Name of disaster, I could slot a dozen competent people into your present post – I could put Micky Torres on, straight from college and without even a year’s fieldwork. We
ll, couldn’t I?’

  ‘Now Micky Torres is an exception,’ I countered feebly.

  ‘Exception be – Ach!’ He thrust his fingers into his lank hair. ‘He’s still twenty years your junior. The point stands: you have no right to accuse me of letting the Bureau be – what did you say? – stampeded by the Starhomers, unless you show you could have handled the situation better yourself. I won’t deny you might have done. But how the hell am I or anybody to know that unless you come out from your snug little office and prove it?’

  Breathing heavily, he sat down. For long moments I think I literally gaped at him, unable to frame words.

  ‘Go home and calm down, Roald,’ he sighed at length. ‘And take this with you, hm? It’s my impression that everybody has confidence in you except yourself. And if you can see the truth of that, you’ll do what I want because you want it too.’

  By the time I got home to my apartment, I’d added one more accusation to the list Tinescu had fired at me. I wasn’t really riled any longer; I’d accepted that the chief must have been under tremendous pressure to avoid putting a foot wrong with the touchy Starhomers, and the strain accounted for his snapping my head off. I was still wound up of course – losing my temper was such a rare occurrence the let-down took nearly as long as the build-up, and my pulse was running fifteen above normal. But a relaxing hot bath would take care of that, I figured.

  It was this additional accusation, which he’d refrained from hurling at me, that mainly engaged my mind. I’d let myself make a stupid error. Presumably because I disliked Starhome and its conceited inhabitants, I’d never looked closely enough at the recent social assay material from it to spot the faked information added between receipt and dispatch. And I should have been sufficiently thorough to detect it long before Tomas did in Integration.

  How much of the altered material had related to the Tau Cetians?

  At that point I really began to feel ashamed of myself. As the Bureau file had informed me, that race was roughly where we’d been in the nineteenth or twentieth century. They were competent engineers, astronomers, chemists and architects; they were laying the foundations of the more difficult, because ‘softer’, disciplines like psychology. Such a race was potential dynamite. In the last resort I should have been able to say, from the cultural survey missions’ reports, that the Starhomers were likely to use their existence as a weapon against Earth. I’d never come out and said so: I’d let it be inferred from other sources.