The Tactful Saboteur Part 1

The Tactful Saboteur.

Frank Herbert, 1965.

Chapter I.

'Better men than you have tried!' snarled Clinton Watt.

'I quote paragraph four, section ninety-one of the Semantic Revision to the Const.i.tution,' said saboteur extraordinary Jorj X. McKie. ''The need for obstructive processes in government having been established as one of the chief safeguards for human rights, the question of immunities must be defined with extreme precision.''

McKie sat across a glistening desk from the Intergalactic Government's Secretary of Sabotage, Clinton Watt. An air of tension filled the green-walled office, carrying over into the screen-view behind Watt which showed an expanse of the System Government's compound and people scurrying about their morning business with a sense of urgency.

Watt, a small man who appeared to crackle with suppressed energy, pa.s.sed a hand across his shaven head. 'All right,' he said in a suddenly tired voice. 'This is the only Secretariat of government that's never immune from sabotage. You've satisfied the legalities by quoting the law. Now, do your d.a.m.nedest!'

McKie, whose bulk and fat features usually gave him the appearance of a grandfatherly toad, glowered like a gnome-dragon. His mane of red hair appeared to dance with inner flame.

'd.a.m.nedest!' he snapped. 'You think I came in here to try to unseat you? You think that?'

And McKie thought:Let's hope he thinks that!

'Stop the act, McKie!' Watt said. 'We both know you're eligible for this chair.' He patted the arm of his chair. 'And we both know the only way you can eliminate me and qualify yourself for the appointment is to overcome me with a masterful sabotage. Well, McKie, I've sat here more than eighteen years.

Another five months and it'll be a new record. Do your d.a.m.nedest. I'm waiting.'

'I came in here for only one reason,' McKie said. 'I want to report on the search for saboteur extraordinary Napoleon Bildoon.'

McKie sat back wondering:If Watt knew my real purpose here would he act just this way?

Perhaps. The man had been behaving oddly since the start of this interview, but it was difficult to determine real motive when dealing with a fellow member of the Bureau of Sabotage.

Cautious interest quickened Watt's bony face. He wet his lips with his tongue and it was obvious he was asking himself if this were more of an elaborate ruse. But McKie had been a.s.signed the task of searching for the missing agent, Bildoon, and it was just possible ...

'Have you found him?' Watt asked.

I'm not sure,' McKie said. He ran his fingers through his red hair. 'Bildoon's a Pan-Spechi, you know.'

'For disruption's sake!' Watt exploded. 'I know who and what my own agents are! But we take care of our own. And when one of our best people just drops from sight ... What's this about not being sure?'

'The Pan-Spechi are a curious race of creatures,' McKie said. 'Just because they've taken on humanoid shape we tend to forget their five-phase life cycle.'

'Bildoon told me himself he'd hold his group's ego at least another ten years,' Watt said. 'I think he was being truthful, but ... ' Watt shrugged and some of the bursting energy seemed to leave him. 'Well, the group ego's the only place where the Pan-Spechi show vanity, so ... ' Again he shrugged.

'My questioning of the other Pan-Spechi in the Bureau has had to be circ.u.mspect, of course,' McKie said. 'But I did follow one lead clear to Achus.'

'And?'

McKie brought a white vial from his copious jacket, scattered a metallic powder on the desktop.

Watt pushed himself back from the desk, eyeing the powder with suspicion. He took a cautious sniff, smelled chalf, the quick-scribe powder. Still ...

'It's just chalf,' McKie said. And he thought:If he buys that, I may get away with this.

'So scribe it,' Watt said.

Concealing his elation, McKie held a chalf-memory stick over the dusted surface. A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf. At each break in the circle stood a symbol - in one place the Pan-Spechi character for ego, then the delta for fifth gender and, finally, the three lines that signified the dormant creche-triplets.

McKie pointed to the fifth gender delta. 'I've seen a Pan-Spechi in this position who looks a bit like Bildoon andappears to have some of his mannerisms. There's no ident.i.ty response from the creature, of course. Well, you know how the quasi-feminine fifth gender reacts.'

'Don't ever let that amorous att.i.tude fool you,' Watt warned. 'In spite of your nasty disposition I wouldn't want to lose you into a Pan-Spechi creche.'

'Bildoon wouldn't rob a fellow agent's ident.i.ty,' McKie said. He pulled at his lower lip, feeling an abrupt uncertainty. Here, of course, was the most touchy part of the whole scheme. 'If it was Bildoon.'

'Did you meet this group's ego holder?' Watt asked and his voice betrayed real interest.

'No,' McKie said. 'But I think the ego-single of this Pan-Spechi is involved with the Tax Watchers.'

McKie waited, wondering if Watt would rise to the bait.

'I've never heard of an ego change being forced onto a Pan-Spechi,' Watt said in a musing tone, 'but that doesn't mean it's impossible. If those Tax Watcher do gooders found Bildoon sabotaging their efforts and ... Hmmm.'

'Then Bildoon was after the Tax Watchers,' McKie said.

Watt scowled. McKie's question was in extreme bad taste. Senior agents, unless joined on a project or where the information was volunteered, didn't snoop openly into the work of their fellows. Left hand and right hand remained mutually ignorant in the Bureau of Sabotage and for good reason. Unless ... Watt stared speculatively at his saboteur extraordinary.

McKie shrugged as Watt remained silent. 'I can't operate on inadequate information,' he said. 'I must, therefore, resign the a.s.signment to search for Bildoon. Instead, I will now look into the Tax Watchers.'

'You will not!' Watt snapped.

McKie forced himself not to look at the design he had drawn on the desktop. The next few moments were the critical ones.

'You'd better have a legal reason for that refusal,' McKie said.

Watt swiveled sideways in his chair, glanced at the screenview, then addressed himself to the side wall.

'The situation has become one of extreme delicacy, Jorj. It's well known that you're one of our finest saboteurs.'

'Save your oil for someone who needs it,' McKie growled.

'Then I'll put it this way,' Watt said, returning his gaze to McKie. 'The Tax Watchers in the last few days have posed a real threat to the Bureau. They've managed to convince a High Court magistrate they deserve the same immunity from our ministrations that a ... well, public water works or ... ah ... food processing plant might enjoy. The magistrate, Judge Edwin Dooley, invoked the Public Safety amendment. Our hands are tied. The slightest suspicion that we've disobeyed the injunction and ... '

Watt drew a finger across his throat.

'Then I quit,' McKie said.

'You'll do nothing of the kind!'

'This TW outfit is trying to eliminate the Bureau, isn't it?' McKie asked. 'I remember the oath I took just as well as you do.'

'Jorj, you couldn't be that much of a simpleton,' Watt said. 'You quit, thinking that absolves the Bureau from responsibility for you! That trick's as old as time!'

'Then fire me!' McKie said.

'I've no legal reason to fire you Jorj.'

'Refusal to obey orders of a superior,' McKie said.

'It wouldn't fool anybody, you dolt!'

McKie appeared to hesitate, said: 'Well, the public doesn't know the inner machinery of how we change the Bureau's command. Perhaps it's time we opened up.'

'Jorj, before I could fire you there'd have to be a reason so convincing that ... Just forget it.'

McKie's eyes lifted until the eyes were mere slits. The crucial few moments had arrived. He had managed to smuggle a Jicuzzi stim into this office past all of Watt's detectors, concealing the thing's detectable radiation core within an imitation of the lapel badge that Bureau agents wore.

'In Lieu of Red Tape,' McKie said and touched the badge with a finger, feeling the raised letters there - 'ILRT.' The touch focused the radiation core onto the metallic dust scattered over the desktop.

Watt gripped the arms of the chair, studying McKie with a new look of wary tension.

'We are under legal injunction to keep hands off the Tax Watchers,' Watt said. 'Anything that happens to those people or to their project for scuttling us - even legitimate accidents - will be laid at our door-. We must be able to defend ourselves. No one who has ever been connected with us dares fall under the slightest suspicion of complicity.'

'How about a floor waxed to dangerous slickness in the path of one of their messengers? How about a doorlock changed to delay -'

'Nothing.'

McKie stared at his chief. Everything depended now on the man holding very still. He knew Watt wore detectors to warn him of concentrated beams of radiation. But this Jicuzzi stim had been rigged to diffuse its charge off the metallic dust on the desk and that required several seconds of relative quiet.

The men held themselves rigid in the staredown until Watt began to wonder at the extreme stillness of McKie's body. The man was even holding his breath!

McKie took a deep breath, stood up.

'I warn you, Jorj,' Watt said.

'Warn me?'

'I can restrain you by physical means if necessary.'

'Clint, old enemy, save your breath. What's done is done.'

A smile touched McKie's wide mouth. He turned, crossed to the room's only door, paused there, hand on k.n.o.b.

'What have you done?' Watt exploded.

McKie continued to look at him.

Watt's scalp began itching madly. He put a hand there, felt a long tangle of ... tendrils! They were lengthening under his fingers, growing out of his scalp, waving and writhing.

'A Jicuzzi stim,' Watt breathed.

McKie let himself out, closed the door.

Watt leaped out of his chair, raced to the door.

Locked!

He knew McKie and didn't try unlocking it. Frantically, Watt slapped a molecular dispersion wad against the door, dived through as the wad blasted. He landed in the outer hall, stared first one direction, then the other.

The hall was empty.

Watt sighed. The tendrils had stopped growing, but they were long enough now that he could see them writhing past his eyes - a rainbow ma.s.s of wrigglers, part of himself. And McKie with the original stim was the only one who could reverse the process-unless Watt were willing to spend an interminable time with the Jicuzzi themselves. No. That was out of the question.

Watt began a.s.sessing his position.

The stim tendrils couldn't be removed surgically, couldn't be tied down or contained in any kind of disguise without endangering the person afflicted with them. Their presence would hamper him, too, during this critical time of trouble with the Tax Watchers. How could he appear in conferences and interviews with these things writhing in their Medusa dance on his head? It would be laughable! He'd be an object of comedy.

And if McKie could stay out of the way until a Case of Exchangement was brought before the full Cabinet ... But, no! Watt shook his head. This wasn't the kind of sabotage that required a change of command in the Bureau. This was a gross thing. No subtlety to it. This was like a practical joke.

Clownish.

But McKie was noted for his clownish att.i.tude, his irreverence for all the blundering self-importance of government.

Have I been self-important?Watt wondered.

In all honesty, he had to admit it.

I'll have to submit my resignation today,he thought.Right after I fire McKie. One look at me and there'll be no doubt of why I did it. This is about as convincing a reason as you could find.

Watt turned to his right, headed for the lab to see if they could help him bring this wriggling ma.s.s under control.

The President will want me to stay at the helm until McKie makes his next move,Watt thought.I have to be able to function somehow.

Chapter II.