Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War (6 page)

Resvik stood up and came over to him. "Well," he said, "that's that. We're wound up here. I've got the pickup ship coming tonight. You and I and Holtz—"

"
Walker
Holtz?"

"Sure, the Geneiid." The contact grinned cynically. "We can't leave him here for that Faris hot-shot to question, can we? It's a shame he got out of here so fast," he mused.

Demaris rolled his eyes frantically toward the Overchief. Had the contact gone out of his head?

Resvik followed the direction of the glance and sniffed contemptuously. "Him!" He flexed the muscles of his forearm and the nose of a hypodermic pistol slipped out between his fingers. "Four micro-cc's of lobotomol, right into the forebrain. What's he going to pay attention to?"

Demaris stared at the contact. Almost unconsciously, he reached out and eased Resvik's forearm aside until he was out of the line of fire.

Holtz laughed pleasantly as the three of them sat in the pickup ship's lounge. The sound came out of his Geneiian throat with very little of its Terrestrial unbanity.

"I'd say it was quite admirable of Old Man Sullivan," he commented in his barbarous accent. He laughed again. "Picture the complexity—the intricacy of the organization. Mr. Black is planted on the capital planet of an empire—" Holtz's bow toward Resvik, attempted with a Geneiian spinal column, was grotesque. "He is assimilated into the imperial government, probably with the aid of that ingenious instrument in his hand, and thereafter devotes himself to the groundwork of systematically lobotomizing such key figures as display any inordinate talent. When a crisis arrives—as, with Old Man Sullivan's ubiquitous help, it inevitably must—Mr. Black offers to supply the talent so unfortunately lacking in the native personnel. Then you, Mr. Demaris, and I, perform our duties—and Old Man Sullivan grows richer, and richer, and richer. Fabulous! And what a sublime disregard for human decency!"

Resvik was watching them impassively. Since the three of them had come aboard the ship, five T.S.T. days ago, he had talked only when spoken to. Most of the conversation had been between Holtz, whose attitude was manifest, and Demaris, who had gleaned as much as he could and was now becoming impatient and irritated as Holtz's personality wore thin.

"But can you
picture
it, man!" Holtz demanded. "The intricacy of the enterprise—the beautifully working plan, endlessly repeated with every race that an Earthman can possibly be made to resemble! I need hardly point out that this means practically every race with which terrestrial minds can communicate at all! Beautiful! Beautiful! And if not for your commendable enterprise, Mr. Demaris, neither of us would ever have been in a position to realize it. Why, not even Mr. Black, here, is anything but another cog in this lovely machine—"

Resvik—Mr. Black, it you preferred the other
nom de guerre
—stood over Holtz. "I think that's about enough," he said flatly. He looked from Holtz to Demaris and back again, spreading his contempt between them. "What are you, anyway?" he said at Holtz. "A misfit hunter, trying to find a new kind of quarry to kill. And you"—he turned to Demaris—"a thug, half a cut below an assassin. You stink with neuroses, both of you. You're misfits. There isn't room for you on Earth. Where else would you go, if there was no Agency?"

"Funny," Demaris said, looking up at him evenly. "Here I am, a thug. When I'm not dressed up for one of these things, I look like a killer. I act like one. And the charming Mr. Holtz is the prototype of all gentleman pickers-off of lowlier life. But you, my friend—I'll bet you don't in the least really resemble Machiavelli."

Resvik sat down suddenly, hate brooding out of his eyes at Demaris.

Demaris smiled as well as his Marakian jaws would let him. "I'd add a nice word about the efficiency of Old Man Sullivan's recruitment teams, if I were you," he said to Holtz.

His hide itched. He scratched fiercely and uselessly at his forearms, then steeled himself by an effort of will and kept his hands motionless. He was having trouble with his vision, too—he'd become accustomed to a slight turn of the head for direct seeing.

"Why do you want to see Old Man Sullivan?" Bill Kaempfert asked.

Demaris set his jaw stubbornly. "I think you've got a pretty fair idea."

Kaempfert began a gesture, exhaled in frustration, and thumped his hands on the edge of his desk. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, more to himself than to Demaris. He looked exasperatedly at his friend. "Look—do you want me to go to Old Man Sullivan and tell him one of his employees disapproves of his business methods, and would like an hour's time to tell him so?"

"I disapprove of being put in an unnecessarily dangerous position!" Demaris corrected him. "Suppose Genis had decided to pick off the opposition first? That ninny, Holtz, would never have issued instructions to kidnap, instead of kill. What am I—a tin soldier for Sullivan to move about as he pleases?"

"Have you read your contract lately?"

Demaris looked across the desk. "So that's the policy, is it?"

Kaempfert did not drop his eyes. "The policy is to execute each operation with no avoidable casualties to Agency personnel. This was a toughie. You were warned of that from the beginning. One of these three-way switches is always precarious."

"Precarious? Is that the word?" Demaris looked around at the other supervisors in the room, leaned forward, and lowered his voice, "Bill, I've already decided you couldn't refuse to ship me out into that squeeze-play. That's understandable. What it does to our friendship, neither of us can say as yet. Nothing, I hope. But that's beside the point. Look—this has been nagging at me. You know, and I know, that the Agency started a long time ago. We know it was somehow illegal in nature then, though nobody knows precisely how. We both know what Earth government's like. But, look—is there a chance, any chance, no matter how slim, that it's gradually drifted over and become a secret government arm? I could understand this sort of thing, then."

Kaempfert looked at him silently for a minute. His eyes were weighing something, and at the same time they were aware of all the things Demaris had said, that night before he was shipped out. Then he shook his head slowly. "No. No chance at all."

Demaris sighed and sat back in his chair for a moment. Then the anger returned to his face. "Well, then—"

"Thad," Kaempfert said, "I want to show you something." He got up from his desk. "Come on." He squeezed between his desk and the next, and walked out into the front office with Demaris following him. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a key ring.

Demaris watching him, frowning, as he unlocked a door.

"Come on in," Kaempfert said. Demaris walked through the door. They were in an empty closet. Kaempfert selected a new key, moved a section of molding, and unlocked the concealed door at the back of the closet.

Demaris stepped through the door. He was in a small, bare office. There was no window. Kaempfert turned on the light.

The office was stale and musty. Dust lay thick and furry on the desk, the chair behind it, and the floor.

Demaris spent a minute looking at it. Then he turned to Kaempfert. "So. There is no Old Man Sullivan."

Kaempfert shook his head. "Not any more—not for fifteen years. That's when I quit being an operative. I'm the guy you mean when you talk about Sullivan."

"I don't get it—"

"Sullivan was everything you've called him," Kaempfert interrupted. "And the Agency never was, and is not now, constituted to be anything but a private, money-making enterprise. I run it."

Demaris shook his head and looked at Kaempfert without a trace of recognition. He began to speak, but Kaempfert cut him off again.

"You'll get your chance. Now you tell me what the Agency does."

"I don't follow you."

"The Agency," Kaempfert explained patiently, "supplies Earthmen to do the military planning for all those races which can be reached by us. Right?"

"Yes—"

"What's our military record?"

"Perfect."

Kaempfert smiled wanly. "Not quite. But close enough. All right, next question: What has the Agency done for you?"

"Given me a job."

"All right, it's given you a job. It's also provided an outlet for all the drives and irascibilities that make life on Earth a chancy proposition for you. You're antisocial. You don't fit. The Agency puts you where you do fit."

"Sure. I've admitted that. But—"

"You're one of hundreds. We located you—which isn't hard, considering that all you misfits, myself included, kick up such a row. We trained you, we put you in the best kind of Agency jobs for your personality, and we shipped you out. Right?"

"Admitted. But that doesn't give you the right to make our lives more dangerous than necessary!"

"I could argue about necessities, but I won't. I gather that what you want is a private hunting preserve."

"
No!
Look, I'm no killer. If I can change something with my brain instead of my gun, I damn well will!"

"O.K. Then mull this over in your brain:
With
our 'perfect' military record, and
with
Sullivan's efficient system, which I don't dare monkey with—how much have the other races in the universe progressed?"

"Plenty! Stain's a major power, just because of you."

"Oh, yeah? And next year, is it still going to be? What about Farla, that inherited the Vilk empire? Charging back and forth isn't progress. Small but steady forward motion is. You don't fight wars in space—not big, slam-bang fleet actions, you don't. But you do infiltrate, and you do sabotage. And next year, the guy you skunked sabotages
you
. How far do you get, working that way?

"Thad, you've been griping about Earth government not moving out of the Solar System. Even if their motives are bad, they're right, in a way.

"Except that you, and I, and hundreds of others can't take it. So we're all in the Agency, with new ones joining up every day. And now you tell me—what do you call an outfit that pushes forward when the government wants to stay home? What do you call an organization that operates beyond the accepted frontier, that has its force of fighting men, its politicians, and its board of directors? What do you call an organization set up to penetrate foreign territory, to indulge in extra-national politics, to support its employees? Well you might call it The British East India Company, or the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, or Mr. Sullivan's Agency. But I call it a private government. And I say this is the one kind of government that's set up to clear the road for the day Earth—all of Earth, under its own government—steps out into the stars again."

Demaris had been trying to interrupt at Kaempfert's every pause for breath. Now he realized that he was out of breath himself—and that he suddenly had no real points to argue. The Agency was a business. It ran for profit, and the system was designed for profit only.

He looked around the office again. With a little cleaning up, it wouldn't be half-bad—

No. The head of an outfit like this was too used to, and too much in need of, protective coloration.

"Well," he said. "Well, Bill, let's lock it up and see if we can find me some desk space out in Assignments."

 
"So, we are the Agency's boy scouts—
We do our good deeds every day.
Remember our names to our kids, my boys,
When we have drifted away.
And teach 'em that crime doesn't pay, my boys,
Except every thirtieth day, my boys,
And hold out for raises in pay."

Can there be barbarians in an interstellar civilization? Many of the best science fiction writers have thought so. H. Beam Piper postulated several ways that planets could "decivilize." Isaac Asimov's
Foundation
series was built on the premise.

Even so, at first thought the notion is absurd. Star travel requires high technology and complex equipment; how could ignorant savages have all that?

But of course the savages need not
invent
high technology, nor even be able to build or maintain it; it is enough that they could obtain it and make it work. One needs no understanding of electronics to operate a television of video cassette recorder; one need not understand very large scale integrated circuits to use a computer; few automobile drivers can explain the theory of internal combustion engines, fuel injection, or even Kettering ignition.

Indeed, we can think of contemporary examples. Consider torrorists, whether ideological or religious fanatics. All seem perfectly capable of obtaining and using high technology. Perhaps the notion of "space barbarians" is not quite so silly as we thought.

For that matter, those who do understand technology may not much care for other aspects of civilized behavior. "When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my revolver." said Reichsmarshal Goering; yet Goering was an air ace, successor to von Richthofen as commander of the Flying Circus, and quite at home with what was then quite advanced technology. Nor were his education and background any bar to his amassing as large a collection of pure loot as has any human in history.

One should not forget: the sailing ships of the Napoleonic era were highly complex, considerably more difficult to operate properly than most modern ships. It would be easier to learn how to operate a space station than a 100-gun ship of the line. Obsolete doesn't mean
simple
.

Finally, of course, new designs continue to make really complex equipment easier to use without understanding. Artificial intelligence and computer systems may well make it possible for savages to operate star ships.

Poul Anderson majored in physics; but he has long been an avid student of history. This story was written before
sputnik
; long before the first men went to space; decades before computers. It's surprising just how well Poul's technology holds together. It's not a story about technology anyway.