The Star Beast (11 page)

“But, boss, you should have seen the cage he broke out of first. Steel I-beams, welded. He tore them like straw.”

“I recall that you inspected him in that cage. Why didn’t you see to it that he was confined so that he couldn’t get out?”

“Huh? Why, it’s no business of the department to provide jails.”

“Son, a factor concerning in any way anything from ‘Out There’ is the very personal business of this department. You know that. Once you know it awake and asleep, clear down to your toes, you’ll begin to trot through a perfunctory routine, like an honorary chairman sampling soup in a charity hospital. You were supposed to be there with your nose twitching and your ears quivering, on the lookout for ‘special situations.’ You flubbed. Now tell me about this beast. I read the report, I saw his picture. But I don’t
feel
him.”

“Well, it’s a non-balancing multipedal type, eight legs and about seven feet high at the dorsal, ridge. It’s…”

Kiku sat up straight. “Eight legs? Hands?”

“Hands? No.”

“Manipulative organs of any sort? A modified foot?”

“None, chief…if there had been, I would have ordered a full-scale investigation at once. The feet are about the size of nail kegs, and as dainty. Why?”

“Never mind. Another matter. Go on.”

“The impression is something like a rhinoceros, something like a triceratops, though the articulation is unlike anything native to this planet. ‘Lummox’ his young master calls him and the name fits. It’s a rather engaging beast, but stupid. That’s the danger; it’s so big and powerful that it is likely to hurt people through clumsiness and stupidity. It does talk, but about as well as a four-year-old child…in fact it sounds as if it had swallowed a baby girl.”

“Why stupid? I note that its master with the history-book name claims that it is bright.”

Greenberg smiled. “He is prejudiced. I talked with it, boss. It’s stupid.”

“I can’t see that you have established that. Assuming that an e.-t. is stupid because he can’t speak our language well is like assuming that an Italian is illiterate because he speaks broken English. A non-sequitur.”

“But look, boss, no
hands
. Maximum intelligence lower than monkeys. Maybe as high as a dog. Though not likely.”

“Well, I’ll concede that you are orthodox in xenological theory, but that is all. Some day that assumption is going to rise up and slap the classic xenist in the face. We’ll find a civilization that doesn’t need to pick at things with patty-paws, evolved beyond it.”

“Want to bet?”

“No. Where is this ‘Lummox’ now?”

Greenberg looked flustered. “Boss, this report I am about to make is now in the microfilm lab. It should be on your desk any minute.”

“Okay, so you were on the ball—this time. Let’s have it.”

“I got chummy with the local judge and asked him to keep me advised. Of course they couldn’t throw this critter into the local Bastille; in fact they did not have anything strong enough to hold him…so they had learned, the hard way. And nothing could be built in a hurry that would be strong enough…believe me, that cage he crushed out of was
strong
. But the local police chief got a brain storm; they had an empty reservoir with sides about thirty feet high, reinforced concrete…part of the fire system. So they built a ramp and herded him down into it, then removed the ramp. It looked like a good dodge; the creature isn’t built for jumping.”

“Sounds okay.”

“Yes, but that isn’t all. Judge O’Farrell told me that the chief of police was so jittery that he decided not to wait for departmental okay; he went ahead with the execution.

“
What?
”

“Let me finish. He did not tell anybody—but accidentally-on-purpose the intake valve was opened that night and the reservoir filled up. In the morning there was Lummox, on the bottom. So Chief Dreiser assumed that his ‘accident’ had been successful and that he had drowned the beast.”

“So?”

“It did not bother Lummox at all. He had been under water several hours, but when the water drained off, he woke up, stood up, and said, ‘Good morning.’”

“Amphibious, probably. What steps have you taken to put a stop to this high-handedness?”

“Just a second, sir. Dreiser knew that firearms and explosives were useless…you saw the transcript…at least of power safe enough to use inside a town. So he tried poison. Knowing nothing about the creature, he used half a dozen sorts in quantities sufficient for a regiment and concealed in several kinds of food.”

“Well?”

“Lummox gobbled them all. They didn’t even make him sleepy; in fact it seemed to stimulate his appetite, for the next thing he did was to eat the intake valve and the reservoir started to fill up again. They had to shut it off from the pumping station.”

Kiku snickered. “I’m beginning to like this Lummox. Did you say he
ate
the valve? What was it made of?”

“I don’t know. The usual alloy, I suppose.”

“Hmm…seems to like a bit of roughage in its diet. Perhaps it has a craw like a bird.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What did the Chief do next?”

“Nothing as yet. I asked O’Farrell to impress on Dreiser that he was likely to end up in a penal colony thirty light-years from Westville if he persisted in bucking the department. So he is waiting and trying to figure out his problem. His latest notion is to cast Lummox in concrete and let him die at his own convenience. But O’Farrell put the nix on that one—inhumane.”

“So Lummox is still in the reservoir, waiting for us to act, eh?”

“I believe so, sir. He was yesterday.”

“Well, be can wait there, I suppose, until other action can be taken.” Mr. Kiku picked up Greenberg’s shortform report and recommendation.

Greenberg said, “I take it that you are overruling me, sir?”

“No. What gave you that idea?” He signed the order permitting the destruction of Lummox and let it be swallowed by the outgoing basket. “I don’t reverse a man’s decision without firing him…and I have another job for you.”

“Oh.” Greenberg felt a twinge of compassion; he had been expecting, with relief, that the chief would reprieve Lummox’s death sentence. Well…too bad…but the beast
was
dangerous.

Mr. Kiku went on, “Are you afraid of snakes?”

“No. I rather like them.”

“Excellent! Though it’s a feeling I can’t imagine. I’ve always been deathly afraid of them. Once when I was a boy in Africa…never mind. Have you ever worked closely with Rargyllians? I don’t recall.”

Greenberg suddenly understood. “I used a Rargyllian interpreter in the Vega-VI affair. I get along all right with Rargyllians.”

“I wish I did. Sergei, I have some business which involves a Rargyllian interpreter, a Dr. Ftaeml. You may have heard of him.”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

“I’ll admit that, as Rargyllians go…” He made the noun sound like a swear word. “…Ftaeml is all right. But this involvement has the odor of trouble…and I find my own nose for trouble blanked out by this phobia of mine. So I’m putting you on as my assistant to sniff for me.”

“I thought you didn’t trust my nose, boss?”

“We’ll let the blind lead the blind, if you’ll forgive a switch in metaphor. Perhaps between us we’ll sniff it out.”

“Yes, sir. May I ask the nature of the assignment?”

“Well…” Before Mr. Kiku could answer, his secretary’s light flashed and her voice stated, “Your hypnotherapist is here, sir.”

The Under Secretary glanced at his clock and said, “Where does the time go?”…then to the communicator: “Put him in my dressing room. I’ll be in.” He continued to Greenberg, “Ftaeml will be here in thirty minutes. I can’t stop to talk, I’ve got to get braced for it. You’ll find what there is…little enough!…in my ‘pending-urgent’ file.” Mr. Kiku glanced at his incoming basket, which had filled to overflowing while they talked. “It won’t take five minutes. Spend the rest of the time clearing up that stack of waste paper. Sign my name and hold anything that you think I must see…but it had better be no more than half a dozen items, or I’ll send you back to Harvard!”

He got up hurriedly, while making a mental note to tell his secretary, from his dressing room, to note everything that went through in the next half hour and let him see it later…he wanted to see how the lad worked. Mr. Kiku was aware that he would die someday and he intended to see to it that Greenberg replaced him. In the meantime life should be as tough for the boy as possible.

The Under Secretary headed for his dressing room, the door ducked aside, contracted behind him; Greenberg was left alone. He was reaching for the pending urgent file when a paper dropped into the incoming basket just as the light on it blinked red and a buzzer sounded.

He picked up the paper, ran his eye down the middle and had just realized that it really was urgent when a similar light-and-buzzer combination showed at the interoffice communicator and its screen came to life; Greenberg recognized the chief of the bureau of system liaison. “Boss?” the image said excitedly.

Greenberg touched the two-way switch. “Greenberg here,” he answered. “I’m keeping the chief’s chair warm for him. Your memo just came in, Stan. I’m reading it.”

Ibañez looked annoyed. “Never mind that. Get me the boss.”

Greenberg hesitated. Ibañez’s problem was simple, but sticky. Ships from Venus were regularly granted pratique without delay, each ship’s doctor being a public health deputy. But the
Ariel
, already due at Port Libya, had suddenly been placed under quarantine by her doctor and was now waiting in a parking orbit. The Venerian foreign minister was aboard…most unfortunately, as Venus was expected to support Terra’s position against Mars in the impending triangular conference.

Greenberg could stall the touchy problem until the boss was free; he could break in on the boss; he could go over the boss’s head to the Secretary himself (which meant picking an answer and presenting it so as to get that answer approved); or…he could act, using Mr. Kiku’s authority.

Mr. Kiku could not have predicted the emergency…but the boss had a pesky habit of pushing people off the deep end.

Greenberg’s summing up had been quick. He answered, “Sorry, Stan, you can’t talk to the boss. I am acting for him.”

“Eh? Since when?”

“Just temporarily, but I am.”

Ibañez frowned. “Look, chum, you had better find the boss. Maybe you are signing his name on routine matters…but this is not routine. We’ve got to bring that ship down in a hurry. Your neck would be out a yard if you took it upon yourself to authorize me to overlook a basic rule like quarantine. Use your head.”

Break quarantine? Greenberg recalled the Great Plague of ’51, back in the days when the biologist serenely believed that each planetary life group was immune to the ills of other planets. “We won’t break quarantine.”

Ibañez looked pained. “Sergei, we can jeopardize this conference…‘jeopardize?’ What am I saying? We can’t toss away ten years’ work because some crewman has a slight fever. The quarantine
must
be broken. But I don’t expect you to do it.”

Greenberg hesitated. “He’s under hypnosis, for a tough job coming up. It may be a couple of hours before you can see him.”

Ibañez looked blank. “I’ll have to tackle the Secretary. I don’t dare wait two hours. That sacred cow from Venus is like as not to order his skipper to head home…we can’t risk that.”

“And we can’t risk bringing in an epidemic, either. Here’s what you do. Call him and tell him you are coming to get him in person. Use a fast scout. Get him aboard and leave the
Ariel
in quarantine orbit. Once you get him aboard the scout…and not before…tell him that both you and he will attend the conference in isolation suits.” The isolation suit was a sealed pressure suit; its primary use was to visit planets whose disease hazards had not yet been learned. “The scout ship and crew will have to go into quarantine, too, of course.”

“Isolation suit! Oh, he’ll love that. Sergei, it would be less damaging to call off the conference. An indignity like that would put him against us for certain. The jerk is poisonously proud.”

“Sure he’ll love it,” Greenberg explained, “once you suggest how to play it. ‘Great personal self-sacrifice’…‘unwilling to risk the welfare of our beloved sister planet’…‘the call of duty takes precedence over any et cetera.’ If you don’t feel sure of it, take one of the public relations boys along. And look, all through the conference he must be attended by a physician…in a white suit…and a couple of nurses. The conference must stop every now and then while he rests…put a cot and hospital screens in the Hall of Heroes near the conference table. The idea is that he’s come down with it himself but is carrying on as his dying act. Get it? Tell him before you land the scout ship…indirectly, of course.”

Ibañez looked perturbed. “Do you think that will work?”

“It’s up to you to make it work. I’m sending down your memo, ordering quarantine to continue but telling you to use your initiative to insure his presence at the conference.”

“Well…all right.” Ibañez suddenly grinned. “Never mind the memo. I’m on my way.” He switched off.

Greenberg turned back to the desk, feeling exhilarated by the sensation of playing God. He wondered what the boss would have done?…but did not care. There might be many correct solutions, but this was one; it felt right. He reached again for the pending-urgent file.

He stopped. Something was gnawing at the back of his mind. The boss had not wanted to approve that death sentence; he had felt it. Shucks, the boss had
told
him that he was wrong; the proper action was a full investigation. But the boss, as a matter of loyalty to his subordinates, had not reversed him.

But he himself was sitting in the boss’s chair at the moment. Well?

Was that why the boss had placed him there? To let him correct his own mistake? No, the boss was subtle but not omniscient; he could not have predicted that Greenberg would consider reopening the matter.

Still… He called the boss’s private secretary. “Mildred?”

“Yes, Mr. Greenberg?”

“That brief-and-rec on that intervention I carried out…Rt0411, it was. It went out fifteen minutes ago. I want it back.”