Kenneth Bulmer (4 page)

Howland moved slightly in the comfortable
chair. Then, slowly, he said, "I'm a new boy at the moment, professor, i
have the deepest admiration for your work. The importance of it cannot be
underestimated. But we can't move forward another step on Earth. We now need
Pochalin Nine and the Maxwell Fund to buy us our equipment and take us
there."

"Of
course you're new, Peter! I was particularly pleased to have a fresh brain on
the problem. Already your work has proved invaluable—in fact, you've helped
directly in bringing us to the present stage. Simple cell creation we've been
doing for years; but only that. We believe it to be Life—but to prove it beyond
doubt the cells must be able to reproduce.
That's
life! They must be able to use energy obtained in whatever form is most
suitable and convert it, reverse the flow of entropy, organize, put the order
of life into primal unliving chaos."

This
praise, the first he had received from Randolph in so outspoken a tone,
obscurely alarmed Howland. It smacked of the notorious, "We like it,
but..."

Slouched in his chair and listening quietly,
Mallow caught some of the fervor of these scientists. To create life! A life
that recreated itself, grew, expanded
...
he began to envision many-tentacled monsters with slimy bodies . . .

Randolph
crossed his little legs on the footstool and gestured irritably with his tiny
fingers. "You see how we are placed. You know the value of the work we are
doing, I have no need to belabor that point. All we now require is money to
finance ourselves. Everything hangs on that."

"Quite
so, sir," said Howland, a trifle bewildered by the nuances he couldn't
quite interpret in Randolph's manner. "Nothing now stands in our
way."

"Liking
your sentiments doesn't make them so." Randolph prodded a stick-like
finger at Howland. "Nothing can stand in our way—nothing mustl I believe
you to have the same dedication to your chosen profession as I have. What would
you say, Peter, if I told you the Maxwell Fund was not coining to my department
this year?"

Howland
smiled. "My first thought, I think, would be one of annoyance that I'd
come to Lewistead at all."

"Oh?
How's that?" , "As you know I had a choice—restricted, but still a
choice—of appointments. I chose you and Lewistead because I was doing similar
work and because I knew you were getting the Maxwell Fund and could therefore
finance the sort of work I—all of us—want to do on Pochalin Nine."

If
Randolph felt surprise he did not show it. Instead, he said, "You would
then be very annoyed and upset-angry, shall we say?"

Again
Howland smiled that boyish smiled. "I'd be so flaming mad I'd—I'd—"

"You'd
what?"

"Why—why,
I don't really know. I should feel—cheated. Criminally so. But as the question
doesn't arise—"

"But you see, my dear
Peter, the question does arise."

Peter
Howland stood up slowly, section by section, until his tall lanky frame towered
up above tiny Randolph as though Howland was scraping the ceiling.

"You mean—we don't get
the Maxwell Fund?"

It was a whisper.

"That's right, Peter.
We don't get the Maxwell Fund."

"You
seem to be taking it very calmly. Your life's work— you've told me that often
enough—shattered. We're not in line for the Fund next year, that I know. And
it's all earmarked out—we should have it this yearl My Godl And what about all
the work—and me
...
I chose this appointment
because of the Maxwell Fund—turned down other good positions—and now we're out
in the cold. What
a
ghastly joke! Surely there must be some . .
."

"There
are no possible grounds for hoping to reverse the decision." Randolph's
words were icy. "As you say, the Fund is earmarked for the next twenty
years or more. This was our year—and we are the unlucky ones. We are now told
that nothing hitherto was official and we do not get the Fund."

"But
what are we going to do?" Howland sat down jerkily, looking despairingly
at Randolph. Mallow sat in his chair, quiet and watchful. "What can we do?
Anyway, why don't we get the Fund? Whose decision is it? Where is it
going?"

"As
to your questions, my dear Peter, the first is the only one of importance. For
the others, briefly, we do not receive the Fund because the Trustees decided
that it should go to Professor Chase. Now—"

"To
Helen!" Memory of what she'd been half-saying flooded back. "Why, the
cheap—"

"Recriminations
use up valuable energy uselessly. But I do gather that you feel strongly about
this iniquitous affront to science?"

Howland
took
a
deep breath. Randolph appeared not the
slightest perturbed about this affair. Peter Howland trembled with the
murderous rage that possessed him and he guessed that Randolph had been through
that. There was a contained exultation about the professor; there radiated from
him an aura of confidence, of defiance, even. Howland decided to try to contain
his own anger, but, he couldn't help saying, "I'm so furious I could
cheerfully wring the necks of the Trustees, one at a time. As for
Helen—well—"

"And
you also believe our work is of value to the galaxy? Yes. Well, then, I have no
way of judging your integrity to our monstrous modem system of social justice.
I think I understand Terence here. I mean to prove that I can synthesize
a
living cell and make it grow, multiplying by generations in mere
minutes. I intend to show the whole galaxy I can create lifel For this work I
need money. I was blind. I'd calmly sat down for a decade waiting until some
moss-bound armchair bureaucrats in their generosity felt it expedient to hand
me the Maxwell Fund."

Randolph
was growing more excited as he spoke and the look now crossing his face was one
of self-contempt, and a growing realization of new horizons, like a child who
has been introduced for the very first time to sweets.

"To think I patiently sat like a
spineless ninny waiting for those fools to give me money. Money is all about
us, here in this rich galaxy. It exists in abundance, and it is not being used
as it should be. I don't need to mention the criminal waste of money fostered
by Professor Chase and the Trustees with the Maxwell Fund. There is the matter
of the billions wasted every year on advertising rubbishy products that no one
in his right senses would have in the house. Money is being squandered by the
million every second—"

"I agree with that,
uncle," said Mallow, uneasily.

Howland sat quietly now,
listening intently.

"And
what is the greatest waste of money today? I'll tell you." He fixed a
penetrating eye on Mallow. "Youl"

Both Mallow and Howland
jumped.

"But,
uncle!" Panicky thoughts fleeted through Mallow's scheming brain.

Randolph
prodded a skinny finger at his nephew. He was riding a hobby horse, and it was
a brand new one and gripped him in a mounting frenzy of enthusiasm. "I
don't mean you personally, Terence. Merely what you represent. War! That's
what. Oh, I don't mean your petty little rebels on wherever it is."

"They
fight a tough battle," Mallow said, still able to feel aggrieved at the
slight on his service. Then the idiocy of that tattered pride struck him—his
service? His no longer.

Professor
Randolph ploughed on, unheedingly. "In our galaxy live human beings,
whether bom on Earth or among her dependencies doesn't matter. There are
protoplasmic forms of life with which we have little in common and even less in
contact. And there are—or may be—other forms of life of which at the moment we
have not the faintest conception. So who are we going to fight? Against whom is
the colossal armament we are building going to be used?"

"I was a space navyman and I don't owe
them a damn thing. But the Navy feel they have
a
job to do, patrolling the starlanes, seeing that our trade moves freely
between the stars . . ."

"Freely. Well, who, apart from your
potty little rebels, is going to interrupt it?"

"I
don't know. We don't think about that angle too much. But among all the stars
in the galaxy we haven't even looked at yet, there may easily exist a race
inimicable to us."

"Rubbish.
The armed services exist to provide an outlet for taxation. And to provide
a
prop for industry and a training ground in discipline for young men like
yourself. They are maintained only as
a
governmental
weapon in the eternal game of balancing production and consumption."

"That's one way of
looking at it."

"It's
the only wayl" As Randolph spoke both Howland and Mallow were impressed
more and more forcibly by the change in the little man. He spoke like a
fanatic.
"Think
of it, thousands of young
men trained to kill and armed with the most lethal weapons flitting about from
planet to planet— the whole concept is
a
ghasdy
farce."

"Well, we can't stop
it."

"I'm
not trying to do that. I don't care now what the cotton-wool brained
politicians do. I am concerned now with what Mahew told me."

"The
Chancellor!" Howland said, surprised within this vortex of surprises.

"Secretary
for Extra-Solar Affairs," Mallow said, rubbing his pomaded chin.
"H'm. I suppose the long-awaited and rather dreaded contact with
inimicable humanoid aliens hasn't arrived at last? That's one good reason for
keeping the space Navy. No one—no
one—
knows
what lies out there beyond the furthest stars."

"Very poetic." Randolph brushed
that whole line of thought aside. "I am not, by nature, a modest man. But
I hope I am successful in disguising that fact. I have cultivated a reputation
for dogged perseverance just as much for an explosive temper—all, you will
note, guided by a single controlling brain. My real self is
beginning
to exert pressure, bursting out to the
surface of my wonderful machine-made personality."

"But what did Mahew say that started you
off like this?"

"I
repeat that I am not by nature a modest man. But in this scheme I am forcing
myself to aim at a modest target. I am, if you wish, excusing myself beforehand
for the essential meanness of my project."

Mallow
began to give up hope that the little man would ever get there.

"Scattered around on various planets are
space naval bases. Also, of course, Army guard units, the Civil Service,
Ambassadorial staff and other organizations maintained by us across space.
Those I am not concerned with—although they, too, waste far too much of the
taxpayers' wealth. No—I restrict myself to this ridiculous space Navy."

"Right,"
said Mallow with resignation. He was perched on the arm of a chair now, wearily
lighting a fresh cigarette. Howland still sat, quiet and contained.

"I
am personally convinced that the space Navy serves no useful purpose,
granting
its actions against the rebels that could
have been carried out with a tithe of the cost Therefore the money lavished on
the space Navy is wasted, tossed away, lost—a criminal waste. I intend to do something
about that. I've been thinking over what Mahew said. Mahew told me that—"

"Yes, uncle?"

Randolph
looked up, furrowing his broad forehead. "If you would kindly refrain from
continual interruption, Terence, perhaps I might be allowed to speak."

"Sorry,"
said Mallow. But a Utile smile touched his rapacious mouth.

"Quite
casually, Mahew mentioned that the money I required and was hoping to obtain
from the Maxwell Fund was a mere fleabite—his own disgusting
expression—compared to the amounts he was daily handling. Why, he said with
stupid pride, he'd only that day signed orders for the transmission of a
year's pay for a space Navy base across the other side of Callahan 739."

Mallow
nodded, remembering the place. And he began to vibrate to the same wavelength
as the professor.