Sense of Obligation Part 5

Ihjel looked down at her, fondling his jaw, fingers sunk deep into the rolls of flesh. "My faith in our recruiters is restored," he said.

"That's a combination that is probably rare--even on Earth. You're as scrawny as an underfed chicken but young enough to survive if we keep a close eye on you." He cut off Lea's angry protest with a raised hand.

"No more bickering. There isn't time. The Nyjorders must have lost over thirty agents trying to find the bombs. Our Foundation has had six people killed--including my late predecessor in charge of the project.

He was a good man, but I think he went at this problem the wrong way. I think it is a cultural one, not a physical one."

"Run it through again with the power turned up," Lea said frowning. "All I hear is static."

"It's the old problem of genesis. Like Newton and the falling apple, Levy and the hysteresis in the warp field. Everything has a beginning.

If we can find out why these people are so h.e.l.l-bent on suicide, we might be able to change the reasons. Not that I intend to stop looking for the bombs or the jump-s.p.a.ce generator either. We are going to try anything that will avert this planetary murder."

"You're a lot brighter than you look," Lea said, rising and carefully stacking the sheets of the report. "You can count on me for complete co-operation. Now I'll study all this in bed if one of you overweight gentlemen will show me to a room with a strong lock on the inside of the door. Don't call me, I'll call you when I want breakfast."

Brion wasn't sure how much of her barbed speech was humor and how much serious, so he said nothing. He showed her to an empty cabin--she did lock the door--then looked for Ihjel. The Winner was in the galley adding to his girth with an immense gelatin dessert that filled a good-sized tureen.

"Is she short for a native Terran?" Brion asked. "The top of her head is below my chin."

"That's the norm. Earth is a reservoir of tired genes. Weak backs, vermiform appendixes, bad eyes. If they didn't have the universities and the trained people we need, I would never use them."

"Why did you lie to her about the Foundation?"

"Because it's a secret--isn't that reason enough?" Ihjel rumbled angrily, sc.r.a.ping the last dregs from the bowl. "Better eat something.

Build up the strength. The Foundation has to maintain its undercover status if it is going to accomplish anything. If she returns to Earth after this, it's better that she should know nothing of our real work.

If she joins up, there'll be time enough to tell her. But I doubt if she will like the way we operate. Particularly since I plan to drop some H-bombs on Dis myself--if we can't turn off the war."

"I don't believe it!"

"You heard me correctly. Don't bulge your eyes and look moronic. As a last resort I'll drop the bombs myself, rather than let the Nyjorders do it. That might save them."

"Save them--they'd all be radiated and dead!" Brion's voice was raised in anger.

"Not the Disans. I want to save the Nyjorders. Stop clenching your fists and sit down and have some of this cake. It's delicious. The Nyjorders are all that counts here. They have a planet blessed by the laws of chance. When Dis was cut off from outside contact the survivors turned into a gang of swamp-crawling homicidals. It did the opposite for Nyjord. You can survive there just by pulling fruit off a tree."

"The population was small, educated, intelligent. Instead of sinking into an eternal siesta they matured into a vitally different society.

Not mechanical--they weren't even using the wheel when they were rediscovered. They became sort of cultural specialists, digging deep into the philosophical aspects of interrelations.h.i.+p. The thing that machine societies never have had time for. Of course this was ready made for the Cultural Relations.h.i.+ps Foundation, and we have been working with them ever since. Not guiding so much as protecting them from any blows that might destroy this growing idea. But we've fallen down on the job."

"Nonviolence is essential to those people--they have vitality without needing destruction. But if they are forced to blow up Dis for their own survival--against every one of their basic tenets--their philosophy won't endure. Physically they'll live on. As just one more dog-eat-dog planet with an A-bomb for any of the compet.i.tion who drop behind."

"Sounds like paradise now."

"Don't be smug. It's just another world full of people with the same old likes, dislikes and hatreds. But they are evolving a way of living together, without violence, that may some day form the key to mankind's survival. They are worth looking after. Now get below and study your Disan and read the reports. Get it all pat before we land."

VI

"Identify yourself, please." The quiet words from the speaker in no way appeared to coincide with the picture on the screen. The s.p.a.cer that had matched their orbit over Dis had recently been a freighter. A quick conversion had tacked the hulking shape of a primary weapons turret on top of her hull. The black disk of the immense muzzle pointing squarely at them. Ihjel switched open the s.h.i.+p-to-s.h.i.+p communication channel.

"This is Ihjel. Retinal pattern 490-Bj4-67--which is also the code that is supposed to get me through your blockade. Do you want to check that pattern?"

"There will be no need, thank you. If you will turn on your recorder, I have a message relayed to you from Prime-four."

"Recording and out," Ihjel said "d.a.m.n! Trouble already and four days to blowup. Prime-four is our headquarters on Dis. This s.h.i.+p carries a cover cargo so we can land at the s.p.a.ceport. This is probably a change of plan and I don't like the smell of it."

There was something behind Ihjel's grumbling this time, and without conscious effort Brion could sense the chilling touch of the other man's _angst_. Trouble was waiting for them on the planet below. When the message was typed by the decoder Ihjel hovered over it, reading each word as it appeared on the paper. He only snorted when it was finished and went below to the galley. Brion pulled the message out of the machine and read it.

IHJEL IHJEL IHJEL s.p.a.cEPORT LANDING DANGER NIGHT LANDING PREFERABLE CO-ORDINATES MAP 46 J92 MN75 REMOTE YOUR s.h.i.+P VION WILL MEET END END END

Dropping into the darkness was safe enough. It was done on instruments and the Disans were thought to have no detection apparatus. The altimeter dials spun backwards to zero and a soft vibration was the only indication they had landed. All of the cabin lights were off except for the fluorescent glow of the instruments. A white-speckled gray filled the infrared screen, radiation from the still-warm sand and stone. There were no moving blips on it, nor the characteristic shape of a s.h.i.+elded atomic generator.

"We're here first," Ihjel said, opaquing the ports and turning on the cabin lights. They blinked at each other, faces damp with perspiration.

"Must you have the s.h.i.+p this hot?" Lea asked, patting her forehead with an already sodden kerchief. Stripped of her heavier clothing she looked even tinier to Brion. But the thin cloth tunic--reaching barely halfway to her knees--concealed very little. Small she may have appeared to him--unfeminine she was not. In fact she was quite attractive.

"Shall I turn around so you can stare at the back, too?" she asked Brion. Five days' experience had taught him that this type of remark was best ignored. It only became worse if he tried to answer.

"Dis is hotter than this cabin," he said, changing the subject. "By raising the interior temperature we can at least prevent any sudden shock when we go out--"

"I know the theory--but it doesn't stop me from sweating," she snapped.

"Best thing you can do is sweat," Ihjel said. He looked like a glistening captive balloon in shorts. Finis.h.i.+ng a bottle of beer he took another from the freezer. "Have a beer."

"No thank you. I'm afraid it would dissolve the last shreds of tissue and my kidneys would float completely away. On Earth we never--"

"Get Professor Morees' luggage for her," Ihjel said. "Vion's coming, there's his signal. I'm sending this s.h.i.+p up before any of the locals spot it."

When he cracked the outer port the puff of air struck them like the exhaust from a furnace. Dry and hot as a tongue of flame. Brion heard Lea's gasp in the darkness. She stumbled down the ramp and he followed her slowly, careful of the weight of packs and equipment he carried. The sand burned through his boots, still hot from the day. Ihjel came last, the remote-control unit in his hand. As soon as they were clear he activated it and the ramp slipped back like a giant tongue. As soon as the lock had swung shut the s.h.i.+p lifted and drifted upwards silently towards its...o...b..t, a shrinking darkness against the stars.

There was just enough starlight to see the sandy wastes around them, as wave-filled as a petrified sea. The dark shape of a sandcar drew up over a dune and hummed to a stop. When the door opened Ihjel stepped towards it and everything happened at once.

Ihjel broke into a blue nimbus of crackling flame, his skin blackening, charred, dead in an instant. A second pillar of flame bloomed next to the car and a choking scream, cut off even as it began. Ihjel died silently.

Brion was diving even as the electrical discharges still crackled in the air. The boxes and packs dropped from him and he slammed against Lea, knocking her to the ground. He hoped she had the sense to stay there and be quiet. This was his only conscious thought, the rest was reflex.

Rolling over and over as fast as he could.

The spitting electrical flames flared again, playing over the bundles of luggage he had dropped. This time Brion was expecting it, pressed flat to the ground a short distance away. He was facing the darkness away from the sandcar and saw the brief, blue glow of the ion-rifle discharge. His own gun was in his hand. When Ihjel had given him the missile weapon he had asked no questions, just strapped it on. There had been no thought that he would need it this quickly. Holding it firmly before him in both hands he let his body aim at the spot where the glow had been. A whiplash of explosive slugs ripped the night air. They found their target and something thrashed voicelessly and died.

In the brief instant after he fired a jarring weight landed on his back and a line of fire circled his throat. Normally he fought with a calm mind, with no thoughts other than the contest. But Ihjel, a friend, a man of Anvhar, had died a few seconds earlier and Brion found himself welcoming this physical violence and pain.

There are many foolish and dangerous things that can be done, such as smoking next to high octane fuel and putting fingers into electrical sockets. Just as dangerous, and equally deadly, is physically attacking a Winner of the Twenties.

Two men hit Brion together, though this made very little difference. The first died suddenly as hands like steel claws found his neck and in a single spasmodic contraction did such damage to the large blood vessels there that they burst and tiny hemorrhages filled his brain. The second man had time for a single scream, though he died just as swiftly when those hands closed on his larynx.

Running in a crouch, partially on his knuckles, Brion swiftly made a circle of the area, gun ready. There were no others. Only when he touched the softness of Lea's body did the blood anger seep from him. He was suddenly aware of the pain and fatigue, the sweat soaking his body and the breath rasping in his throat. Holstering the gun he ran light fingers over her skull, finding a bruised spot on one temple. Her chest was rising and falling regularly. She had struck her head when he pushed her. It had undoubtedly saved her life.