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The technician nodded and
replied, “Right, chief.”

Park watched as the Premm agent
slumped into the depression that followed the cessation of the device that
activated the brain’s pleasure center and then left the monitor room. He pause
a few seconds and then opened the door to the interrogation room, and remained
in the open doorway.

The Premm agent looked up
hopefully as his pleasure center was tickled once more. He smiled broadly as
he
 
began, “Oh, merciful goodness!
Servant of the one True...”

“Blasphemer!” Park boomed,
pointing an accusing finger at the man. “Sinner! You are not worthy to speak
the name!”

“After that,” Park told Iris and
Marisea not too long after, “it was fairly easy and he told me everything I
needed to know. Yes, he is a Premm agent and yes he was sent here with the
mission of disrupting the friendship between the Mer and the humans of Van
Winkle. There are other Premm agents on Earth, however and they may have
different objectives. I got the name of his immediate superior, the only other
Premm he actually knew on Earth by sight and name, but it turned out he was
killed in the attempt on Terius.”

“It still sounds like you got a
lot out of him,” Iris opined.

“I had to wade through piles of
‘We are the True’s and ‘The Premm are the Chosen’s,” Park shook his head. “It
was sickening, really, to think those people actually believe that crap. I
never had much use for anyone who felt they were better than others simply
because they were born with the right color hair and eyes or skin color or the
shape of his ears or any other criterion beyond one’s personal achievements.”

“So you don’t believe there
should be an upper class, Park?” Marisea asked. “Or is it that you would prefer
one’s societal class be based strictly on one’s abilities and accomplishments?”

“That would be called a
meritocracy,” Park smiled at her. “I suppose as a form of government it might
be better than most, but there’s nothing in the concept that guarantees the
best and the brightest would be any better to rule than an upper class born to
the position whether by divine right or having rich parents.”

“I don’t know,” Marisea
considered the situation. “I admit that I’m an upper class girl in Mer society,
but I’d like to think I would do fairly well on my own abilities.”

“I’m sure you would,” Park
agreed. “You’re intelligent and industrious. You’ve learned all sorts of
things
 
from our world that were unknown
here before we woke up and you teach them as well. You aren’t afraid to get
your hands dirty and you delight in learning new things, but you had a very
unusual upbringing. You had the benefit of money and a good education combined
with a father who refused to live a life of the upper class simply because he
was born to it. Instead he took to science and started exploring the world.”

“There were quite a few of the
upper class who did the same thing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,”
Iris pointed out. “Taodore has always reminded me forcibly of a Victorian
nobleman.”

“So what’s wrong with, what did
you call it?” Marisea asked, “A Merry-toc…”

“Meritocracy,” Park supplied.
“Well, I suppose it is fine in theory. In practice it is just a myth. While we
might applaud hard work and tell ourselves it gets rewarded, some of the
hardest workers get the least pay, at least they did back in the Twenty-first
Century. I’m still not sure where the money comes from in the Mer society, but
even there you have those who are better off than others and it isn’t all
determined by who does the most work or who’s the most intelligent.

“The fact of the matter,” Park
went on, “is that those who are born to wealth have a distinct advantage over
those who are not, so even while a very talented individual might, through his
intelligence and hard work, pull himself up and even become a community leader,
he will be the exception, not the rule. Most of the leaders will be those who
were fortunate to have the right parents. I could go on, but we’re off on a
tangent. I got word that Prime Terius has ordered two factories to start
building the Premm detectors Ronnie designed and
 
there should be one or two in every port by
the end of the week even if they have to hand-build them like she did.”

“I’ve been wondering about
those,” Iris commented. “They were built to use body temperature as the primary
detection criterion, right? What’s to stop an agent from during something to
mask his temperature. A Thermal jacket, for example can be set to ‘Cool,’ and
make him seem to have what we consider a normal temperature. And we mentioned
that temperature was what we were looking for to the reporters.”

“That was a mistake,” Park
admitted. ”We were so anxious to allay fears we didn’t realize that we
shouldn’t have explained how we were doing it, at least not in detail. But the
fact that temperature can be masked is why we’re also have EEG, CT and X-Ray
scans built into the devices. Sadly, the biggest different in internal organs
between us and the Premm is that they don’t have appendices. But then many of
us have had ours removed too. There are going to be false alarms, but I’m more
worried about what we may have missed. Is it possible for an arriving Premm to
avoid the scanners altogether?”

“No security measure is
foolproof,” Iris told him, “but I think real problem right now with these Premm
agents is what other missions might they have besides disrupting relations
between Mer and humans?”

“Yeah,” Park agreed, “That
worries me too. I doubt there are as many as a dozen Premm on Earth and it’s
probable even they don’t know how many there are.”

“They might tell each other there
are more of them than there are to keep up morale,” Iris suggested.

“Good point,” Park admitted, “but
I’m still worried about what these other objectives might be.”

“What about the Atackack?”
Marisea asked. “We really do all look alike to them. I mean they can only tell
a Mer from a Human by looking below the waist.”

“That’s the only way I can too
for that matter,” Park laughed. “I understand facial recognition patterns vary
between Van Winkle humans and Mer, but I would need computer analysis in most
cases to spot it. Facial recognition! We need to program that into the sensors.
I’d better call Ronnie.”

“She ought to be asleep right
now,” Iris pointed out.

“I don’t know if she ever
sleeps,” Park chuckled. “Well, I won’t call the direct line and just leave a
message on her machine.” He did so and then turned back to Iris and Marisea,
“What was that about the Atackack?”

“I was saying,” Marisea told him,
“that most Atackack can’t tell one human from another and they’re one of our
greatest allies.”

“I always thought the Premm saw
them as savages,” Iris remarked.

“Savages, perhaps,” Park nodded,
“but they are important allies of ours and there was quite a fuss by the news
people on Owatino when they learned we have Atackack crewmen on our ships. “
His torc chimed just then. “Holman,” he answered.

“Park!” Ronnie’s image appeared,
“What were you thinking, leaving a message like that on my answer machine? I
might have missed it for days! I love the facial recognition idea. I took a
quick look into Dannet’s shared data banks on the Premm and I think it will
work. Their cheek bones are maybe three percent higher and broader than ours on
the average, their foreheads maybe one percent higher, their jaws a bit broader
too.”

“Beyond the normal range on
Homo sapiens
?” Park asked.

“Unfortunately no,” Ronnie shook
her head, “but it is one more factor to add in and one less way to get a false
positive. I’ve been thinking, though. We’ve been focusing our scans on humans.
We probably should be careful of Mers as well.”

“You don’t think the tail would
give it away?” Marisea asked, obviously amused.

“The tail can be faked,” Ronnie
told her, “especially with a suspensor belt. I’m not saying there are Premm
agents masquerading as Mers, but with facial recognition routines they’ll be
easy to spot if there are. The Differences between Premm and Mer faces is
enough that results will be clear. The good news is that we have everything we
need already built into the sensors. It’s just a matter of adding to the
programming. I’ll upload the improvements into the Mer network and the units
will upgrade even as they come online.

“Good,” Park nodded. “Now, do you
have a portable model? We need one that is self-contained. Something we can
just point at a suspect and get a reading.”

“I went over this with you days
ago, Park,” Ronnie told him. “This isn’t Star Trek and we don’t have
tricorders. I could give you a temperature sensor that might catch a Premm
agent, but that’s about it.”

“How about a visual scanner with
facial recognition routines?” Park asked.

“Hmm, I suppose I could combine
that with a temperature sensor,” Ronnie considered, “but why do you need such a
thing? It won’t be as easy to update as the stationary units.”

“I need it to scan for Premm
agents when I am out of touch from the Mer network,” Park explained.

“You mean while in a spaceship?”
Ronnie asked. “Scan everyone getting on or off at the port.”

“No,” Park shook his head, “I’m
going to need that sort of scanner in Atackack territory.” He went onto explain
what he had discussed with Marisea and Iris. “How soon can you put one together?”

“How soon do you need it?” Ronnie
countered.

“I’ll pick it up in the morning
on my way,” Park told her.

“On your way to where?”

“Where the hell is Keekah?” Arn
demanded.

“It’s a trading town in the no
man’s land between the Pakati and Totkeba tribal lands,” Park explained.
“Taodore assures me we aren’t likely to find outsiders in any of the nest-towns
of the Atackack. They would be attacked on sight. That’s why there are trading
towns on the peripheries of the tribal lands.”

“You didn’t land in a trading
town when you crashed the
Hudson
in
Kogack territory,” Arn pointed out. “You weren’t actually attacked, were you?”

“We didn’t actually land in a
nest-town either,” Park replied. “The Kogacks did surround us and attack,
though, but Tack arrived and convinced them we were to be honored and not
attacked. Only a shaman, and probably only a mystic could have managed it. We
got lucky.”

“Unless you believe in Tack’s
prophecy,” Arn countered.

“I didn’t realize he had
converted you,” Park bantered.

“Me?” Arn asked, taken aback for
just a moment. “No. But you might be surprised how many people are starting to
take that seriously.”

“The prophecy is vague the way he
tells it,” Park told him. “It can mean a lot of different things. It probably
means something more to Tack than even he lets on, but he plays it close to his
chest and only tells us what he wants us to know. And, he’s not perfect. Tack
could be mistaken. Besides, I hear the Premm have a prophecy as well. They
can’t both be true considering Tack’s prophecy is that we will save the Earth
and the Premm say we’ll be destroyed.”

“There is that,” Arn nodded. “But
Keekah? I would have thought you
 
might
go to…uh what’s that big town in Southern Geck. Tackiteeka?”

“Takikata,” Park corrected him.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Arn
nodded. Park got the impression he could have mumbled any set of syllables that
sounded vaguely like an Atackack name and Arn would have agreed. “The biggest
trade town, isn’t it? The one all the Mer traders go to.”

“We’re going there too,
eventually,” Park replied, “but Takikata is not the only town the Mer and
humans trade with the Atackack in, just the biggest. We plan to hit as many of
them as we need to, to get the word out. I wish I had the new portable sensors
to hand out, but right now I just hope Ronnie has the one I asked for ready
when I blow through Van Winkle in the morning.”

“Are you taking
Hannibal’s Pride
back?” Arn asked.

“I don’t have the time for that
and figured you’d want a lift when you were ready to return,” Park told him.
“Iris has already arranged for seats on the red eye to Van Winkle. We’ll be
leaving in a couple hours with Marisea and Taodore.”

“You’re taking the monkey aren’t
you?” Arn asked.

“Well, Cousin isn’t actually a
monkey,” Park told him sternly, “but yes, we’re taking her with us. I didn’t
know she bothered you.”

“I’m more of a dog person,” Arn
muttered. “But if you’re not taking the
Pride
,
how do you intend to get to Keekah?”

“I couldn’t take a spaceship
there anyway,” Park chuckled. “No landing fields anywhere in the Atackack
tribal lands. We’ll need a buggy although I do have a way to get there
superfast.”

The flight to Van Winkletown was
predictably empty that late in the evening with only ten passengers on board
besides Park and his party. Park caught himself suspiciously eyeing the other
passengers. They were mostly Mer students headed back to the University, but
one was a human from somewhere in the Alliance. Park did not know him but
finally relaxed when he reminded himself that the man’s face was too long in
shape to be a Premm and that everyone had been trooped through the new sensor
at the aerospaceport.

The security team at Van Winkle
on the pre-dawn shift earned themselves a reprimand by attempting to wave Park
and the others past the checkpoint.

“We can’t afford to take chances
until we know how the Premm agents arrived unnoticed in the first place,” Park
growled at them. “Even so, it does no one any harm to walk through the sensors
and if I ever hear of you making exceptions again, even for Governor Theoday,
you’ll be on sanitation duty for a year.”