Man Who Used the Universe (34 page)

"Did I? Sometimes I wonder."

"As you are a psychologist, it should be more obvious to you than anyone else. Our two races are now bound together in peace and by the strings of mutual alliance in order to counter any threat from outside the UTW or the Family Worlds."

"Truly are they tightly tied together. Many years I've spent considering why."

Another man might have grown exasperated with the psychologist's obstinate refusal to accept the obvious. Not Loo-Macklin.

"Do you deny that the alliance has been of benefit to both peoples?"

"No. Nor can anyone deny it has been a boon in particular to a single individual named Kees vaan Loo-Macklin."

"Why should I deny it? War is bad for business, despite what a few primitives of both our races might think."

"Oh, business, yes, truly!" Chaheel gurgled with bitter delight. "You have spent several terms as the Arbiter of the Council of Ten, overseeing the course of government for both races. Through this you have been able to cement your position as not only the most powerful and wealthy single entity in this part of the galaxy, but the most respected and honored as well.

"It strikes me more strongly than most, because our family-oriented government differs from those of human history, Kees. Differed, I suppose I must say. We have never been ruled by the equivalent of what you call emperors and dictators."

"I'm no dictator," insisted Loo-Macklin. "I've never exercised nor demanded absolute power."

"Naturally, not. That would be bad for your public image. For your perceived altruism. The term is perhaps invalid: the reality is not. You have as much power as you choose to exercise."

"Not any more. I retired, gave up the post of Arbiter years ago."

Chaheel enjoyed the throw rug's struggles with his cilia. The material was designed to respond to the weight of human feet and cushion them accordingly. It was having difficulty with the Nuel's hundreds of supporting appendages. He pressed down savagely.

"Reality, Kees. I am something of a student of reality. You say you have no more power, yet I know for a fact that Karamantz, the Nuel first mother who is the current Arbiter, owes her office to the influence of your commercial interests."

"I have no control over Karam. She's a fine administrator. One of your own kind. She makes her own decisions."

"And occasionally calls on you for 'advice,'" added Chaheel sarcastically.

Loo-Macklin moved to his desk, sat down behind it and folded his hands across his lower abdomen. He had not developed an abdominal skirt, as some older humans did. Such extra flesh was not a mark of beauty among Homo sapiens.

"I'd be wasting my experience and shirking my duty to both races if I selfishly turned down requests for advice. I have a lot of accumulated knowledge to share."

"Oh, the proportions of the farce!" Chaheel muttered in Nuel, turning in an irritated circle. "End this, Kees. Have yourself declared Emperor of the Human-Nuel alliance and dispose of the sham! Think not to fool me, I've watched you for too long. The government makes many decisions you have no say in, because you choose not to. It does nothing you do not approve of. Why hide behind this veil of false modesty? It fits not your character."

"It pleases me," the industrialist said in response to the psychologist's accusing outburst, "to keep out of the public eye."

"Truly? Tell me, Kees, what if I were to take my conclusions, my sociographics and computer results, to the board responsible for monitoring government activities? To the moralists and lovers of freedom?"

"Wouldn't make any difference," Loo-Macklin replied calmly. "Even if they believed you and you roused them to action, they couldn't do anything. You might find a few allies among other social scientists, but the inhabitants of over a hundred worlds have come to think of me as sort of a father figure. I have a hundred and sixty billion friends, Chaheel. I don't think your theoretical course of action would bring you anything but grief."

"You're still nothing but a professional vaper, a killer," said Chaheel. "You're acknowledged a legal, but that's superficial. That doesn't change what you are inside. You've killed whenever necessary to protect your interests. Now you've murdered the freedom of two races."

"My, the grandiose gesture. It fits not your character," he said mockingly. "On the contrary, human and Nuel have greater freedom now than ever. The freedom to move between the worlds of their neighbors without trailing fear behind them or pushing prejudice before them."

"Tell me, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, does that mean anything to you? Does that matter, or is it just an incidental by-product of your personal ambitions? It's power and control you've always sought. If you could have accomplished your ends by having human and Nuel war against one another, would you not have incited such a war? The Tremovan forced you to impose peace. It became necessary for 'business,' not necessarily desirable."

"It's true that I did consider the results of war at one time. As you point out, though, it was important to encourage peace and alliance." Something strange, Chaheel thought. Something strange in that always enigmatic smile-expression of his. Missing something important am I?

"This honor you accept, this posture as savior of both races, is all sham. I had your psychological profile correct from the beginning, from that day when you witnessed the Birthing."

"I always thought you did, Chaheel. Worried about you from that same day. 'There,' I recall telling myself, 'is one mighty dangerous and smart Nuel.'"

"Tell me," said the psychologist, "what would you have done if someone had believed my story of suspicious transactions between you and the Tremovan, had acted on it years before you were ready to betray them and thus force the alliance?"

"Ah, the Tremovan," the industrialist/killer laughed softly.

A genuine laugh, I believe, Chaheel thought. Over the years he had become acutely sensitive to human mannerisms.

"Yes. You betrayed them as you threatened to betray us. Three races at one time or another betrayed. The character of our savior!"

"I can't say for certain what I would have done, Chaheel. Had you killed, I suppose."

"I thought as much."

"Nothing personal. I like you, Chaheel Riens."

"I am not flattered. None of your murders are personal. You may have emotions, but they do not involve themselves in those slaughterings you deem necessary."

"Why recriminate based on events passed? Everything worked out as planned. I would truly have missed you. You were the pin around which a great deal pivoted, Chaheel Riens. I needed you alive and suspicious. It was the timing, which was important. I wanted your story believed, at the proper moment."

Chaheel's thoughts stumbled, forced him to backpedal mentally. "You . . . you wanted my story believed? Then that means that you wanted . . ."

"You to have the information. Truly. You remember the voluble computer programmer who first piqued your interest, the one who so kindly supplied you with the proof of your suspicions about me? The one who told you about the additive plot?"

Chaheel Riens searched his memory. "Thomas Lindsay. But there was no additive plot. You had him killed to protect your plan to deceive the human government on the Families behalf."

"Yes, but he was no renegade from my company. He was sent to seek you out and give you that information."

"And still you had him killed."

"It was necessary to maintain the fiction."

"But that means that you wanted me to come to you and try to kill you."

Loo-Macklin nodded. "Then it was necessary that you return to your ship, uncertain of my true motives but persuaded that I was still working on the Families' behalf. Then the message your commander intercepted arrived and you were compelled to return to Evenwaith and take a position where you could keep watch on me."

"You had the commander and the others killed."

Loo-Macklin said nothing.

"The information on the Tremovan which I 'discovered'?"

"You have discovered many things, Chaheel Riens. You are persistent."

"All arranged, all planned by you. For why?"

"Isn't that obvious? So that when the Tremovan fleet was detected, your previously ignored accusations and suspicions would lend validity to their presence."

"That means you had to know well in advance when the Tremovan were going to attack. But at the time . . ."

He stopped. Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was laughing. Chaheel had never seen him laugh before and he was fascinated and appalled all at once. No one else had ever seen Loo-Macklin laugh long and hard either. No one ever would again.

"Always the Tremovan! I thought you would have it by now, Chaheel. Your instincts were always correct, always! It was your range which let you down."

"I do not understand, Kees."

"You will. I promise you. I owe you that much. I've used you for too many years."

He turned and touched several contacts in sequence. A whirring noise filled the huge room as somewhere large motors came to life. Chaheel tensed.

Across the room to his left a panel was sliding upward into the wall. Behind it stood a large, globular body some twelve feet tall. Its golden scales glistened in the light that poured in through the window-wall and multiple black eyes gleamed like cabochons of malevolent onyx. It stepped out into the room, the weight of it clicking against the polished wood floor at the terminus of the carpet.

Chaheel Riens started to back away from that towering, threatening shape. Then something caught his eye and he hesitated. The Tremovan had stopped. It balanced on the floor, utterly motionless, turning neither right nor left and showing no sign of life.

He looked with one eye toward the desk, keeping the other on the massive alien form in case he'd guessed wrongly. Loo-Macklin was still smiling at him.

"Yes, it's a mechanical simulacrum. You've forgotten, a lot of people have forgotten, that both as legal and illegal I was deeply involved with the business of entertainment. It was the foundation of my legal fortune. I'm still heavily tied to the interworld entertainment industry, with interests in nearly every subfield.

"My engineers have become very sophisticated. Nuel bioengineering added a completely new aspect to the business." He gestured at the Tremovan. "This imposing fellow was built by my people thinking it was intended for one of the many amusement parks I operate throughout the eighty-three worlds."

"But surely you didn't plan to kill . . ." Chaheel cut himself off. How many people had actually seen a Tremovan? There were reports, many reports, but . . .

I'm the only one, he thought dazedly. I, and those officers on my monitoring ship.

No wonder he had them all killed.

"Then there was no Tremovan ship, no transmission between you and them?"

"Of course not, Chaheel. I was talking to my toy here, sequestered far out in free space where he couldn't be easily traced." He touched contacts and the huge alien form promptly tipped over and executed a headstand. It remained in that position while Chaheel Riens gaped at it.

"What if all these elaborate falsehoods had failed to provoke me properly?" he finally asked, feeling not like an experienced scientist but like a laboratory animal. "What if I'd failed to return to Evenwaith to study your actions, for example, and had returned home instead?"

Loo-Macklin shrugged. "I had backups in mind, other ways and means. But I was counting on your personal drive and intelligence, your intense curiosity, not to mention your suspicions about me and my motives, to drive you to seek further. You didn't disappoint me, Chaheel Riens. The success of the Human-Nuel alliance is partly due to your efforts, even if you didn't know what you were doing."

"Used. You have used me truly, Loo-Macklin. My whole life has been toyed with in your service."

"Consider the end results, though. Your part in all this will be made known some day. Your family will be proud of your accomplishments, of the important events of history you played a part in. Even if you were something less than an active participant in planning those accomplishments.

"I used the Nuel. I used my own race. Why shouldn't I use a single brilliant psychologist?"

"Confirmation," Chaheel was muttering. "You needed someone to give confirmation." He switched both eyes to the human. "This Tremovan-thing is false. What of the Tremovan armada?"

"Oh, that," Loo-Macklin said easily. His fingers touched other controls.

The alien resumed its feet and backed up into its cubbyhole. The panel slid down, concealing it once again. Nearby, a screen lowered from the ceiling, came to life. It was vibrant with stars against which distant flecks of bright light moved slowly, traveling from right to left. The outlines of tiny ships slowly became discernible.

"With a little imagination it's not hard to build an alien," he explained. "If you can do that, why not an entire fleet of aliens? When you're talking about detection over distances that are in parsec multiples, it's possible to fool a lot of people in a lot of ways.

"Put a small but hot engine in a multiplier envelope of opaque mylarmer and to long-range detection equipment it will give the appearance of a ship. Expensive, but workable. Four thousand and several odd are much more expensive, equally workable.

"The components were manufactured in separate plants on different worlds. Final assembly took place out in space, by a small crew of very loyal engineers."

"I didn't think you trusted anyone."

"I had holds of one sort or another on every one of them.

It's not necessary to voice threats when the subject is already aware of them. That sort of thing's for illegals fond of dramatics."

Chaheel let one eye favor the panel, which concealed the Tremovan simulacrum. "So the whole business was truly faked. Fleet and threat as well as the original transmission. There never was a Tremovan attack. There was no reason for human and Nuel fleets to mobilize together."

"Indeed there was," Loo-Macklin shot back. "Unless you can get the military personnel of two groups working together, it doesn't matter how many treaties and professions of friendship two governments concoct." At a touch, the "fleet" of lights vanished from the screen, which promptly slid back up into the ceiling.