The Long Result (13 page)

‘I’m sure of it. I didn’t notice when we came aboard, but just now I had to check the reservation cards to find the right compartment. We’ve taken the wrong bunks. The card on this one bears your name.’

‘And in the dark he didn’t realize. I see. But – no, just a second. He could have used a black light.’

‘Can you see a man carrying a night-vision helmet around the ship? But he could have slipped the parasite in his pocket – it was small enough. With some sort of sealing around it to keep it from touching his skin.’

There was a long silence. Watching Micky, I could almost read his mind. He was thinking:
what if the killer hadn’t made a mistake? I wouldn’t have guessed what was happening. I’d be lying there dead, and no one would know
…

To a modern man, still expecting perhaps eighty years more life, the waste entailed by premature death became not exactly more frightening – it’s always been frightening – but somehow sadder than for a man able to accept that his survival was one long chain of risks passed only by chance. As a saint is said to grow more conscious of his sins as those grow fewer, so men living longer seemed more aware of their vulnerability.

Micky looked up finally and his lips quirked into a wry grin. ‘Shuffled off, unhousel’d, unanneal’d,’ he murmured. ‘Roald, who would have wanted to do this? And why?’

‘Assuming I’m right,’ I parried, ‘who do
you
think?’

‘There’s one possibility that I can see, and that’s so slim it’s absurd. But – perhaps the Starhomers are planning the showdown I suggested, and prefer to catch Earth unawares. They might think that shutting me up would help.’

‘It damned well would,’ I muttered. I stretched my legs,
realized I’d almost put my foot on the dead parasite, and drew back hastily. ‘How many people know about your results?’

‘The computer team who processed my matrices for me may know – if they were sharp-witted enough to see the implications, which I tend to doubt.’

I said thoughtfully, ‘I wonder if someone added two and
x
and got the right answer. In other words, I wonder if someone who wasn’t sure you’d got your positive proof noticed that you were coming back to the Bureau with me, decided you must be on the right track after all, and took this panicky step to silence you.’

There was another pause. Abruptly Micky said, ‘I think you suspect a link between the League and the Starhomers.’

I almost gaped. That very idea had crossed my mind, and I was examining it to see if it was sound enough to utter.

‘Well – you, and the police, and Tinescu all seemed to believe the League would never turn from talk to action. But they have been injected with new life from somewhere. From off Earth, perhaps. Are you with me?’

Micky, chin cupped in his palm, looked like a beardless Mephistopheles as he considered the implications. Abruptly he rose in excitement.

‘I’ve been blind! Of
course
you’re right! What better way to foment distrust of BuCult and hence of Earth’s ability to handle alien and colonial affairs? And the Starhomers are preparing to announce their own version of BuCult – you told me so yesterday. It fits beautifully.’

‘It has the extra advantage that as League ideas spread, decent, intelligent people will begin to despair of Earth’s ability to look after cultural exchange. We’ve had League sympathizers planted in the Bureau already, haven’t we?’

Micky whistled.

‘Directly we land,’ I continued, ‘I think I’d better get
hold of the man who’s investigating these incidents where the League may be involved. Ah—’ I snapped my fingers. ‘Inspector Klabund, that was the name.’

A light tapping came at the door. We started, but when Micky slid the panel back it proved only to be the steward.

‘I’ve called the police,’ he reported. ‘They’ve agreed to question all the passengers when we touch down. No one can possibly get out before we unseal the main door, so we have him trapped.’

He gave a little shiver. ‘Unsettling, isn’t it – travelling with a murderer?’

I put my hand to my face. A prickly-hot sensation was developing. Here was the rash I’d expected. Determinedly I stopped myself rubbing it and making it worse.

‘How could he expect to get away with it?’ the steward went on.

‘He may well be registered under a false name,’ I said. ‘You see, if his plan had gone off right, no one would have suspected the means employed until they held an autopsy. By that time he could have got well away.’

‘Instead of which he’s due for psyching,’ Micky said in a grim voice. ‘But don’t let it worry you, steward. He won’t try anything else. He’s probably sure he succeeded, and the last thing he’ll want is to draw attention on himself.’

‘I guess so,’ the steward admitted doubtfully. But he didn’t seem visibly comforted as he left us with an automatic good night.

‘You’d better try and catch some more sleep, Roald,’ Micky suggested, and I complied passively, stretching out on the bunk. To judge by the noises across the cabin, Micky had little trouble sleeping but much in finding rest. I couldn’t even doze; within half an hour I gave up trying. Partly, this was because the rash on my face was burning and itching continuously now.

But much more it was due to an iron-hard, ice-cold purpose
that had invaded my mind, locking on to my consciousness with bulldog fangs and promising to give me no respite till it was accomplished.

The purpose was the ending of the Stars Are For Man League.

When the express touched down, the police were waiting with grim faces. Even though their business was crime, we’d managed to make murder such a rarity that the mention of the word hung over us all like a cloud of smoke.

Quietly and competently they stopped each disembarking passenger, summarized what had happened, and led them in turn to a table on which a lie-detector had been set up. The asking of a single question sufficed to eliminate the innocent. At the seventeenth try, a white-faced man who had already been unnerved by the sight of someone he assumed to be dead standing behind the detector table made the needle of the machine jump from the true to the false side of the line.

Two burly constables moved in to flank him and stop him running away. But he attempted nothing so futile, simply let his hands fall limp to his side.

Struggling against tiredness, the aftermath of shock, and the maddening irritation on my face, I whispered to the sergeant in charge of the operation, and the latter rapped out a second query.

‘Are you a member of the Stars Are For Man League?’

The man shook his head determinedly, but again the implacable needle quavered over into ‘false’.

‘Look at him!’ Micky murmured to me. ‘Someone’s got at him, and it may very well be a Starhomer. He’s a Terran – he’d never be so casual about human life if he hadn’t been influenced from outside.’

They recorded testimony for the holding charge before they let us go, and scraped the remains of the parasite off the
floor of our compartment. Organic analysis would identify not only its origin, but even the particular gene-type to which it belonged, and it shouldn’t be long before they traced the murderer’s source of supply.

‘That man won’t last ten minutes at his trial,’ the sergeant commented as the whimpering captive was led away. ‘But there’s something I want to ask you, Mr Vincent. What made you mention the Stars Are For Man League? I’d always had the impression they were all talk and no action – but this is dreadful!’

‘I think you’ll be hearing a lot more about the League,’ I forced out between stiff lips. The allergy all human beings showed towards Sag parasites was bringing my hand out in tiny blisters now, as well as my face, even though I’d touched it with my fingers for only a few seconds.

The sergeant noticed my discomfort, and gestured at a constable whose lapels bore the tiny caduceus of the forensic medicine branch. He looked me over with clucks of sympathy, dug into his first-aid kit and attended to the inflammation.

‘That should take care of it for the time being,’ he said when he had sprayed the affected areas with plastoskin. ‘I can give you some histaminoids to minimize the allergy, but you’ll be groggy at least for the rest of the day, so don’t do anything strenuous.’

‘Sorry,’ I said grimly. ‘I have some strenuous business to see to. Micky! Come on – Tinescu will be waiting for us.’

Tinescu shut down his desk, instructing the secretary to record all his calls and tripping the switch that put the ‘busy’ light on at the door.

‘Sit down,’ he said, waving us to chairs. His eyes lingered on the plastoskin covering my face, which was still fresh enough to be detectable, but he didn’t comment on it.

‘Well, Torres? I imagine it took something galaxy-shaking to shift you from your cosy lair in Cambridge, so let me hear it. I only hope it isn’t bad news.’

‘Depends how you look at it,’ Micky grunted, folding his lanky body into the chair and dumping a portfolio containing his documents on the floor at his feet. ‘According to my latest calculations, Starhome has finally got the edge over us and from here on out will be pulling ahead fast.’

I watched Tinescu closely. I had no idea how he would take this bombshell. The last reaction I’d expected, though, was the one he showed.

All of a sudden ten years seemed to drop away from him. For the first time I could recall he looked actually happy, and he beamed on Micky like a proud father.

‘Torres, I could hug you. The waiting was driving me out of my mind.’

‘I was pretty sure you already knew,’ Micky said.

‘Oh, that’s putting it too strong. But you must admit it was inevitable sooner or later. Just recently there have been so many pointers I was practically biting my nails with anxiety in case we were overtaken by events. What put you wise – the nature of the survey findings which they tried to have doctored?’

‘That, and a few other things.’

Tinescu gave a wise nod. ‘They haven’t neglected the soft
sciences as much as we used to believe, that’s definite. But since they made it a matter of policy to hide their progress from our survey missions, all we’ve been getting is bits and pieces. Well! This is excellent news. And perhaps,’ he added with a mock glare in my direction, ‘Roald will feel a trifle less harshly towards me for not stepping on the Starhomers’ toes.’

I couldn’t meet his eyes; I was embarrassed. But I still had objections.

‘Surely you could have raised the matter with the Minister,’ I suggested. ‘We could have made some sort of advance arrangements —’

‘And told the Starhomers by implication what they didn’t yet realize?’ Tinescu shook his head. ‘Roald, I’m surprised at your lack of subtlety. Speaking of lack of subtlety, I’m sure you’ve deduced that it must be the Starhomers who are financing the Stars Are For Man League?’

‘We reached that conclusion by another route,’ Micky said. ‘A League member tried to kill me on the way over. And got Roald by mistake.’

‘Is that what’s made such a mess of your face?’ Tinescu peered at me in great concern. ‘If they’re getting that desperate, we shall have to – But tell me the details first.’

I summarized the episode of the parasite, and Tinescu heard me out with a deepening frown.

‘Well, that was an ingenious choice of weapon,’ he declared. ‘By the same token, though, it’s going to make it easy to trace the person responsible. All the parasites we’ve had sent to Earth were gene-typed and indexed before being distributed to research labs. As a matter of fact, I’ve just been given the latest report on them. Care to see it?’

Thinking it was not a bad idea to learn all I could about the things which had so nearly ended my life, I put out my hand for the file he offered. It held an information copy of a communication from the Department of Pathology at Melbourne
University to the Bureau’s biochemical section, which stated that the university’s sample Sag parasites were being returned because a certain compound – diagram of molecular structure appended – reacted on human epidermis. Please ask the Sagittarians to develop an alternative strain.

Micky twisted around to peer at the report sideways, and demanded of Tinescu, ‘Where else have they been sent besides Melbourne – do you know?’

‘I haven’t seen the full list of recipients. But I do recall that a batch went to the Faculty of Medicine at Cambridge.’ He shook his head in reluctant admiration. ‘Using one to commit murder! Hasn’t it got a quality of diabolical genius, that?’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Roald!’ Tinescu went on. ‘Who told you about these things, anyway? Because whoever it was, he saved your life. You must have had a lot of detail to realize what was happening in so short a time.’

‘It was like an eternity while it lasted,’ I muttered. ‘Who
did
tell me?’ I pondered a moment, and then snapped my fingers. ‘Oh yes! Helga Micallef. Some time about the beginning of the year, when her department was having bad problems with them, she caught it from Matkyevitch – venting his frustration on the first person who came handy, the way he tends to. And she left the lab in a towering temper and the first person
she
found to share her troubles with happened to be me.’

I felt a tremor of awe at the narrowness of the edge on which my life had been balanced.

‘There hasn’t been any reason to keep information about the things secret,’ Tinescu shrugged. ‘And I can see you’re getting impatient, Torres. Sorry, go ahead.’

Micky hunched forward eagerly, spreading notes all over the desk-top.

‘So far Roald and I haven’t had time to draw up more than a sketchy plan of action. But one thing’s definite – the Starhomers will stage their showdown in not more than eighteen months from now. We shouldn’t bank on longer than twelve. Now here’ – selecting a sheet of closely-typed figures – ‘is the matrix of the extreme case: letting the news break to an unprepared Earthly audience. See this set here? That’s for the League and other similar organizations. It branches in about six directions, all bad; the best we can hope for is a strong lobby at governmental level in favour of imposing an economic boycott on Starhome.’

‘The best?’ echoed Tinescu in dismay.