The Long Result (22 page)

‘I wonder how far we’ll go,’ she murmured absently.

Yesterday, savages hunting through forests, hiding in caves. Today, intermediaries between races under half a dozen suns. Tomorrow —?

We sat for a long time in silence. Finally I got to my feet.

‘Well! How would you like to help me celebrate my new job?’ I exclaimed.

‘I’d like it fine.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘If you don’t mind my celebrating the independence of Starhome while you’re doing it.’

And somehow it turned into a very long celebration indeed. I was still recovering from it on Monday morning when I walked into Tinescu’s office. I was wearing a new outfit Kay had bought me – a cape and breeches in black with a narrow silver stripe, much more dashing than the kind of thing I usually chose – and I must have had an expression which signalled the change which had taken place in me.

Tinescu stared at me. He said, ‘Roald, I’ll be forever damned. You’ve made your mind up about taking over my job.’

‘Yes.’ I dropped into the guest-chair. ‘I’ve decided I’d like to be a Chief of Bureau. So I’m turning down your offer.’

I’d often wondered whether anything ever found Tinescu at a complete loss. This did. But it wasn’t for long. His eyes grew round and his lips pursed in a silent whistle.

‘Roald, you have more sense than I have. You’re going to Starhome. Name of disaster, you’re going to Starhome and I’m a thick-headed foggy-minded —!’

He lapsed into Rumanian. When he got his self-control back, he came around the desk, clapped me on the back,
laughed, swore again and strode back to his own chair.

‘How I came to overlook it I shall never know. What’s the point of putting the best available man into this Bureau when we’ve already agreed to hand over control to the Star-homers as fast as possible?’ He laughed again until he had to wipe his watering eyes. I found myself hoping I’d acquire that facility to mock my own shortsightedness.

‘What kicked you into it, anyway?’ he demanded suddenly. ‘Going to marry the Starhomer girl on the rebound, hey?’

Might be a good idea, at that
… But outwardly I matched his sarcastic tone. ‘Chief, you know as well as I do people don’t marry on Starhome. They have cohabitation contracts.’

‘Mph. Excellent idea in theory – makes sure the children have a stable home. But always sounded cold and clinical to me. Well! How are we going to tackle this? Strictly, you won’t be fit for the job till you’ve done this stint in alien contact I was going to insist on if you stayed here; however, the first job of the Starhome BuCult is confined to human relations – this programme of Micky’s – so you can tackle the rest when the new bureau is being staffed up in a few years from now. Suppose we call on Charisse Wasawati, shall we? She can handle your job provided we haven’t upset her too much by complaining that she failed to monitor her technical assay data from Starhome. Matter of fact, why shouldn’t you just exchange jobs for the time being? No point in making a public announcement about a rival bureau till Micky’s got his plans properly under way. Yes, we’ll post you out as
pro-tem.
relief comptroller, I think. Have to take a few of the staff out there into our confidence, of course…’

He had it cut and dried within ten minutes, but I was still impatient. There was someone else I had to go and see, and ask some very very important questions of.

He was at home. Like Tinescu, I had the impression he was waiting for me. His room was in the staff quarters of the Ark, for he needed no special provisions to make life tolerable. Over the annunciator his voice was soft and emotionless.

‘Good morning, Roald. How nice of you to call. Come in.’

I entered the room. Anovel was perched on a Regulan stool, his feet resting on the floor behind him, watching a TV screen on which a newscaster was just announcing the dissolution of the Stars Are For Man League for complicity in murder and attempted murder.

‘May I finish watching the programme?’ he murmured. ‘There is to be an interview with your Minister of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs.’

‘Please! I’d like to see it myself.’ I moved as quietly as I could to take one of the chairs he kept for human visitors.

Capra came on the screen within seconds. He didn’t address himself to the interviewer, but turned to the camera and spoke directly to the mass audience.

‘Yes, I’m very glad the League is to be banned. And I don’t say that only because they’ve stooped to crimes I never thought we’d see on Earth again. I’m glad for the sake of the other people – other
people,
regardless of their bodily form – who have so much to offer us in fields like psychology … and biology … and whom the League regarded as nothing more than animals. You may have seen their propaganda.’ He held up something I recognised: the cartoon I’d found in my conveyor box the morning the Tau Cetians arrived. ‘Robbing the store of human knowledge! Nonsense! I’m sure there are people listening to me who owe their lives to what the Sigma Sagittarians have taught us about genetics and the artificial manipulation of cells, and there may be some too who —’

Anovel’s blue hand fell to the switch, and he uttered a sound like a sigh.

‘Yes, Roald?’ he said, swivelling around to face me.

‘The other night,’ I began carefully, ‘you told me something about Regulans which – according to Indowegiatuk – you wouldn’t have said without a purpose. She concludes from this that you’re no mere tourist travelling by zoo ship because that’s the easiest way. She says you’re a
kenekito-madual.’

‘This is a self-defining truth,’ Anovel agreed.

‘Everyone concerned with Regulan contact work is now beating his brains out trying to decide why you should have been sent here to divulge this particular
kenekito.
I think they’re on the wrong track. It seems logical to me that there are two sides to your job. As well as divulging crucial facts, a
madual
must presumably also acquire them.’

‘Proceed. So far your logic is flawless.’ There was a ring of irony in the words. I took a deep breath, for here was where I really went off the deep end.

‘After you left Jacky Demba’s party, Helga Micallef called you “a lovely piece of design”. More recently, my chief – Tinescu – commented that you were tailor-made for interstellar colonization because of your amazing adaptability. In fact, everyone up to and including Indowegiatuk thinks that it’s you, rather than we, who should have invented starflight and why the hell didn’t you? So far, the custom has been to dismiss the problem as anthropocentric, and attribute to you ideals which don’t include that line of development.

‘But then it occurred to me to wonder what would have happened if the Tau Cetians had built starships before we contacted them, and discovered men at Viridis without learning of the parent society on Earth.’

Anovel listened, blue head on one side, like a statue.

I chose my final words with care. ‘There’s only one
explanation. You should have developed starflight. You
did
develop starflight. Therefore you’re not a Regulan at all. You’re a colonist.’

The typical sad-looking smile quirked Anovel’s lips. ‘Continue!’ he invited.

‘You want more? Very well. You
were
tailor-made for interstellar colonization. No single world could evolve such an adaptable species. You’re an artificially created optimum life-form.’

Anovel was still apparently waiting for more. I cast about in my mind, and suddenly I thought I had it. I said, ‘Have you decided it’s time for us to know?’

‘Not quite. Not
quite
yet. As you surmised, though, I am here to gather facts, and what I’ve learned suggests that the event will take place well within your lifetime. I’ve detected a subtle change in the content of your broadcasts lately, which indicates that you of Earth may be preparing to cede supremacy to Starhome. If you’re capable of doing that without hysteria, you may well be capable of accepting the existence of a race which has had starflight for fifteen thousand years.’

‘That long?’ I whispered. ‘Why – I’m amazed you can treat us the way you do!’

‘Oh, we have great respect for you. We’ve come further than you have on our own, but you’ve reached your present level faster than we did. Together, we should make an impressive combination.’

‘Where did you come from originally?’

‘A long time ago, we evolved around a star you can’t see from Earth – it’s buried in the Milky Way.’

‘How is it we’ve never met any of your ships? I don’t mean in space – that’s an astronomical coincidence. I mean visiting Regulus.’

‘Until the
madual
think it wise, no more of our ships are calling at Regulus. Not that this worries us – I told you
that our concern is to add the next dimension to our intellect, as it were. Doing things, going places, belong to an earlier day. But of course other colonies have other goals – perhaps as far from ours as the Starhomers’ are from the Viridians’.’

‘How many of them?’ I demanded.

‘Many hundreds.’ But this didn’t seem to interest Anovel much; he shifted on his stool and eyed me curiously.

‘In a sense you’re
madual
yourself, you know. At any rate you fit our concept more closely than any other of your species I’ve met. I think your
kenekito
concerns the matter I referred to just now – transfer of dominance to Starhome. Am I right?’

I hesitated. With a touch of pique, he added, ‘Roald, I
am
one who is trusted with such things!’

Granted. So I overcame my reluctance and told him the full story.

‘I wish you all success,’ he said when I was done. ‘If it goes well, you should be ready to meet us in fifty years. My compliments!’

He rose and held out his hand; I did the same.

‘But before you leave,’ he said, ‘there is one thing I have to do. I regret the necessity, but… There is a third side to the work of a
madual.
And that is the suppression of
kenekito
not yet ripe to be divulged.’

Some force seemed to flow from the hand which touched mine, and instantly I forgot what I had learned.

Roald Vincent, Director-in-chief of the Interstellar Cultural Exchange, chairman of the Multiracial Board,
ex-officio
vice-chairman of the Starhome Planetary Council, Fellow of the Starhome Scientific Academy, corresponding member of the Academy of Earth, honorary patron of the Sociology Society, fourteen times an honorary doctor of various universities under three different suns, folded his new cohabitation contract and slipped it into his pocket along with pictures of Kay, his two sons, and his granddaughter. He gave a sigh of contentment. It was a good idea to try separating for a while when the oldest boy got married, and he couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed his little fling. He was pretty sure Kay had enjoyed hers, too; she was still amazingly attractive. The point was neither of them enjoyed it enough. So
…

Fifty years since their first meeting! In the old days it would have been a lifetime. But here he was, still vigorous
–
as he had recently proved to his entire satisfaction – and looking forward to another thirty years of productive work.

He gazed out of his office window at the world which he had made his home. It wasn’t Earth. But in some ways it was better than Earth, and he could take some of the credit for it becoming so.

His mind roamed. Some of the changes that had taken place were fantastic, considering it was only half a century. Who’d have expected Shvast, the little interpreter, to be
elected first planetary president of Tau Ceti Four? A world government and a world language already – and probably, before he died, he’d see a starship built by Tau Cetians landing at the port here.

And Jacky Demba becoming Minister of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs, back Earthside! Attending Tinescu’s funeral, laying the wreath of Starhome lilies which Roald had been able to send when the new Starhomer ships cut interstellar freight charges from prohibitive to merely exorbitant.

And Micky Torres, of course. When they’d finally revealed the secret masked by the innocuously-titled Department of Pan-human Relations, there had been that fantastic write-in campaign which almost made him President of Earth against his will. Ridiculous! President of Earth at forty? But he would have refused the job anyway; his eyes were set on something much more crucial, and here it was turning up at last. He’d been behind the scenes all the time when they set up the Multiracial Board, had masterminded its progress for more than a decade, and now was resigned to coming into the spotlight, for the other races would accept no one else as chairman when they turned it into the brand-new Council of Worlds.

Roald was glad that with the dissolution of the old Board he’d have one less job on his shoulders. He’d never had Micky’s gift for cramming his time to the uttermost. His eyes lingered on a row of books in a place of honour under the window; three novels, three authoritative texts on social evolution, and a classic study of the forces responsible for war, all bearing the proud name of Miguel de Madrigal de las Altas Torres.

When the hell did Micky fit all of it in?

He was roused from his reverie by the phone. The face of one of his aides appeared on the screen, taut with excitement.

‘What is it, Wegener?’ he grunted.

‘Sir, there’s a general alert been signalled!’

‘What?’ Roald sat bolt upright. ‘Why in the galaxy a general alert?’

‘As far as I can learn, sir, it’s due to an unidentified ship. The
Alcor
broached normal half an hour ago and a few minutes later beamed in a message about some strange ship heading into the system from the direction of Galactic Centre. There aren’t supposed to be any of our ships in that area, certainly not under sublight drive. Director, it must be an alien ship!’

Roald sat rock-still. In a single instant his mind had been snapped back fifty years, and he remembered.

By what miraculous insight into human psychology Anovel had worked his trick, Roald dared not guess. But he bore no resentment; fifty years he had said, and fifty years were up, and here they were: those who had had starflight for fifteen millennia
…