Oh. Worse than that, even. Now it came sharp into my mental focus. I’d suggested taking her with me, and that had been the last straw. Then, she’d dropped the mask.
I put out my hand, surprised at how steady it was, and felt for the switch of the phone. Without turning towards the screen, I said, ‘Get me Inspector Klabund.’
24
By now the rain was only a few blocks away. I felt moisture on myself, and was bewildered for as long as it took me to realize that I was sweating with the tension.
Klabund’s face went up on the phone. He nodded, and spoke surprising words.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Vincent. I’ve been hoping to hear from you again.’
‘About what?’ My voice was ragged.
‘Say why you’re calling, first.’ Klabund put on an expectant look.
I said, ‘Have you found out how the location of the Tau Cetians’ quarters was passed to the League?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Vincent. Who did you tell?’
My misery must have been stamped all over my face, for he went on sympathetically, ‘I’d narrowed the possible routes to two. The more likely choice was via yourself; we found the lab technician who gave you directions when you arrived from the spaceport. That’s why I said I was hoping you’d call – I always prefer people to tell me things of their own accord rather than under official interrogation.’
I swallowed painfully. ‘I gave the information to a girl called Patricia Ryder. She works at Area Met. Right now she’s off on a job, and she’ll be away till late tonight. When you – when you do talk to her, I’d appreciate it if you could avoid telling her who put you on to her.’
Not that it would make much difference. If by a million-to-one chance I had drawn the wrong conclusion, I couldn’t see myself facing her again.
And if I was right…
Abruptly I hated Earth. I hated the beautiful soft delicious women of Earth; I hated its bountiful land and it’s rolling seas and its smug self-satisfaction. Most of all, I hated myself.
Klabund was saying something. I forced myself to pay attention.
‘Mr Vincent, one of the oldest privileges of a policeman’s job is to “act on information received” without telling even the courts how he came by it.’ There was something akin to pity in his tone; I wondered if he already knew about my relationship with Patricia.
‘And of course,’ he added, ‘you may be wrong.’
With the breaking of the connexion I felt as though I’d cut off part of myself.
How much had I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with Patricia, the person? How much had I merely reacted to the way she fed my vanity? I didn’t know any longer. I’d never known. As though afraid of breaking a spell, I’d kept from questioning her on controversial matters – hell, the other night I’d realized I didn’t even know the facts behind her orphanhood, which in this long-lived age was a surprising rarity.
All the comfortable roots I’d planted for myself were being torn up, one by one.
‘Lord, but I’ve been a fool!’ I said aloud, and thumped my fist on the edge of the desk till it ached from the blows.
I was so ashamed of myself I couldn’t find the words. What had I done to win Patricia for myself, against the kind of competition a man ought to defeat before marrying so beautiful a woman? The least that I could. It was the same way I’d tackled my career. Here I was, running a good department, a smooth, reliable cog in the Bureau, proud of having been appointed young to this rank … and what had I done in the past few years to prove I was worth it? As little as I could!
There must be something more to life than quiet efficiency, but when had I last faced a job that stretched me to my limits? I couldn’t remember. I’d mastered this little corner of human affairs – our relations with placid, trouble-free Viridis – and month in, month out the work went through the department without snags or hitches. Until when? As Tinescu had said, until I began to rot?
But I was rotting already, if I could let Patricia make such a fool of me!
It was way ahead of quitting time. But the hell with it. I got up and went blindly out of the office, headed for home.
The worst shock came the following morning, though. Overnight I’d come to terms with my self-disgust. I hadn’t figured out what I was going to do, but at least I was resolved to do something to get out of this rut. I was toying with the idea of going over to alien contact, even though it would mean down-rating, or perhaps quitting the Bureau for a sabbatical year and doing as I’d told Patricia I should: go to Regulus with a zoo ship. I was half afraid of doing the latter merely to spite her, so I was trying to evaluate my motives honestly when the phone sounded.
And there she was.
I’d assumed that Klabund would take her in for interrogation long before this morning – perhaps have men waiting to catch her when she returned from the field job, or when she got home. I couldn’t prevent an expression of dismay from spreading over my face, and she leaned forward with a cry of concern.
‘Roald, is something wrong? You look ill!’
I still felt like a traitor, even as my glib mind furnished excuses and half-truths.
‘Yes, I haven’t been feeling well this morning. Perhaps it’s a hangover from nearly being killed. Ah… I may have to cancel our date tonight unless I get over it.’
‘Oh, poor darling!’ And it sounded so genuine, no matter how intently I listened for the betraying ring of falsehood … ‘Look, why don’t we make it at your place, then? I’ll come over early and fix you dinner, how about that? And you can have an absolutely quiet rest…’
I didn’t try to talk her out of the idea. What was the point? She wouldn’t be there to fix dinner for me. She’d be in a police cell.
Yet I waited all the evening, hoping against hope that she would appear, flushed and indignant at the slur cast on her innocence, the recipient of an apology from Klabund for having to ask her all these questions. I did still want her. Or rather, I wanted for my own self-esteem to be able to believe I hadn’t been so monstrously – and so easily – deceived.
When she hadn’t turned up at twenty-one hours, I dialled for a bottle of brandy and drank steadily until I fell asleep in my chair.
Next morning, I felt terrible. But the central hurt had receded to a dull black ache, and I was beyond further harm when Klabund called.
Mutely he held up to the camera of his phone a closely written document, and I read snatches of it, as much as I could stand. It said:
‘Commitment order for sanity trial … Patricia Belafont Ryder … did knowingly and of malice conspire with … endangering the lives of certain intelligent beings commonly known at Tau Cetians … damage to public property … interference with the affairs of the Bureau of Cultural Relations … disaffection and subversion …’
The charges went on and on. I waved the damned thing away.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t put you out of your suspense before this, Mr Vincent,’ Klabund said heavily. ‘But when we started on Miss Ryder, it was like turning a faucet. One thing followed another until … Well, it wasn’t pretty. So perhaps you’d prefer me not to go into details.’
‘But – why?’ I forced out. I meant: how could such foulness happen in such an adorable, beautiful head?
‘Why should anyone join the League? She’s been a member of it for years, incidentally. The psychologists are saying xenophobia, transferred megalomania, puerile trauma – but what it comes down to is that she hates the idea of aliens with the power of rational thought, and wants men to be masters of the galaxy. Did she ever talk about her family to you?’
I shook my head. ‘She has a sister in Alaska – married, and I think with children. But she wouldn’t talk about her parents’ death, if that’s what’s involved.’
‘It is. Her father was with a survey mission at Sigma Sagittarii. He had an accident to his suit, and one of the local bacteria infected and killed him. Now her mother was herself a very unstable woman, I’m told; she was fixated on her husb
and, rather than having any honest affection for him. When she came home, she brought a Sagittarian pet with her – a gift from one of her husband’s Sag friends, specially adapted to Earthly conditions.
‘According to Miss Ryder, this animal was the centre of their home after that. The children were treated as secondary. The older sister was lucky; she escaped the worst effects of this, because she was adolescent – of an age to form friendships, and regard her mother as a person with failings, and so on. Young Patricia, though, was only five or six.
‘I guess she too might have got over it. But by a cruel irony her mother was also killed. You remember the rocket crash the other day?’
‘Of course.’
‘The last such was thirty years ago. And Mrs Ryder was on board.’
Okay; there were reasons, there were excuses. In an age of early death, a child could understand it as a commonplace. Now, it must have seemed that unkind fate had singled out a helpless girl for unmerited punishment. No wonder she turned into a racialist. She must have dated the start of her suffering from her father’s death, and associated it with the aliens who had attracted him to the planet where he died.
‘Do you want me to go on?’ Klabund asked.
‘Yes – yes, I’d like to hear all of it.’
‘Very well. From the moment she joined the Stars Are For Man League, she agitated for deeds and not words. When the Starhomers opened negotiations with the League – she was at some of the very first discussions – and offered to help them with money and weapons, it was obvious that inside knowledge of the affairs of BuCult would make it infinitely easier to undermine public respect for your work by dirty propaganda as well as sabotage. You’ve already heard that because you’d stayed in human colonial work instead of going over to alien contact, which I gather is a more demanding job, the League assumed you were potentially sympathetic. She was assigned to seduce you and worm information from you.’
I shut my eyes and squeezed the lid-muscles tight. I’d hoped random patterns might blot out Patricia’s image in memory, but the effort failed.
‘She was about ready to give up and report that you weren’t after all material for recruitment, when the Tau Cetians arrived. I gather it was that evening she nearly gave herself away when you sparked off her revulsion by suggesting you both sign up with a zoo ship – is that right?’
‘This is what made me suspect she was the one who passed what I told her to the League,’ I agreed miserably.
‘Yes. But she was ordered to return to you, because this snippet of news saved the League from falling down on their first big assignment for the Starhomers. The rocket crash was apparently the League’s own idea, but the attack on the Ark was – ah – “by request”. The plan was that the courier accompanying the Tau Cetians should report to the local chapter of the League, who’d already sent bin Ishmael a threatening message. You scotched that by having her sedated and put in hospital. They were all set to cancel the plan, or make a random attack instead, when Miss Ryder called in as a matter of routine with this datum you’d so casually let slip.
‘Which of course saved the day for them, and made it essential that despite her reluctance she continued to associate with you.’
I said bitterly, ‘Do you think I’m a fool?’
‘For being deceived? No, Mr Vincent, I don’t think you should be so harsh with yourself. She must be a consummate actress.’
‘But—’ No, why the hell should I reveal it all to this near-stranger? Why should I admit that I thought nobody – no body – could pretend to such passion as she had shown me?
I’d been wrong. I’d been trapped by soft, trustful, stupid Earth into a mistake of which I’d be ashamed for the rest of my life.
‘You’ll certainly be interested to know that we found the gun, by the way. And the supply of condensed-matter bullets.’
What was that? Oh, Klabund was still speaking. I tried to seem interested.
‘It was at the home of the head of the local chapter. And we found a supply of Starhome-made bombs, too, which our experts say might have been used to wreck the rocket which crashed. I don’t quite know how to say this, Mr Vincent, but you’ve shown a degree of insight into this whole affair which is absolutely staggering. I suppose sooner or later we’d have turned all these facts up, but your brilliant deduction about the weapon used against the Tau Cetians …’
He went on, and went on, and went on. After a while I gave up trying to listen. It was only at the very end of his fulsome compliments that he said something which startled me back to alertness.
‘As far as I can see, the only reason why Starhomers should be involved in this is that they’re hoping to break off their dependence on Earth, and —’
‘Inspector! Have you mentioned this idea to anyone?’
‘Not yet.’ He blinked at me, puzzled. ‘But I must report it – to my mind, it’s so important it ought to go straight to government level.’
‘Before you talk to anyone else about it, governmental or not, call my chief – call Tinescu. This is dynamite, Inspector, and I’m not exaggerating.’
‘I’ll do as you say,’ he promised, and rang off.
25
So there it was. I looked at the heap of work waiting in the conveyor box, laid a small mental bet that there was nothing among it to lose me a single night’s sleep, and won the bet.
I shoved the whole lot back, counted off three minutes to give Klabund time to finish talking to Tinescu, and went to the chief’s office.
He seemed to have been waiting for me; at any rate, his desk was clear of work and he was leaning back in his chair, gazing at the door with pursed lips, when I entered. He indicated the guest-chair.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly. ‘Klabund was just on the phone and told me what happened.’
‘I asked him to have a word with you,’ I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. ‘He’s worked out why the Star-homers —’
‘Blazes, that’s not important. Klabund’s an astute man, and something of the sort was inevitable. Torres wrote in a chain of side-factors to take care of it yesterday.’ Tinescu waved it away irritably. ‘No, what concerns me is the state to which one of my right-hand men is being reduced through his own silly fault. Roald, what possessed you to fall for the line this woman fed you?’
I said stonily, ‘Have you ever met her?’
‘No, but – oh, forget it. What’s done is done. I was going to tell you that in spite of everything I feel proud of you, and of my own judgement. It takes a high order of courage to sacrifice your personal feeling the way you’ve done, for the sake of an ideal.’
‘It wasn’t for any such reason,’ I grunted. ‘It was half spite and half revenge.’
‘I don’t think so. I think you discovered you couldn’t stand a certain kind of person – a kind we as a race are very ashamed of, though the fault which made them as they are is by no means entirely theirs. I’m pleased. Which brings me to the point.
‘You know, of course, that you’re the youngest person to be appointed to your rank in over a century?’
‘There was enough fuss about it when you promoted me,’ I muttered.
‘Not enough, apparently, to get the implications through that armoured skull of yours. It may, however, have crossed your mind that I’ve held down this chair for almost a quarter-century, and sooner or later I’d ossify and move on?’
He was getting sarcastic; I recognized the danger sign and tried to make out what he was driving at.
‘I don’t intend to stretch the regulations as Indowegiatuk has done. She has unrivalled experience which would mean she was wasted in any but a Bureau post. I have no such excuse, and this business with the Tau Cetians has finally borne it in on me that I’m wearing out. So! This is no news, of course – I’ve known it must eventually happen. And I’ve taken certain steps.
‘For example, you’ll recall that before taking on your present position you were given certain aptitude tests. We already knew yo
u possessed high intelligence, fast reactions, ability. What we were looking for was a rare and precious extra talent – the ability to draw correct conclusions from barely adequate data. Intuition, you might call it. Without a little of that gift, it would be hard to hold down any responsible post in modern government. Certainly it would be impossible to cope with the Bureau.’
I suddenly recalled Micky saying that Tinescu had that talent – he’d even described it by the same term, intuition.
‘Well, over the past few days you’ve turned that talent on full, haven’t you? Klabund can hardly stop talking about the way you figured out the method used to attack the Tau Cetians; bin Ishmael was delighted with what you did round at the Ark; Indowegiatuk is beside herself because you —’
‘Please, chief,’ I said.
‘Come to the point? I’m coming, all right. If you will kindly consent to get the hell out of your cosy office for the next two years and go see what’s happening with the Regulans and the Sags and all the rest of them, I propose to nominate you as the next Chief of Bureau.’
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
‘Well? What’s got your tongue?’ Bright sharp eyes transfixed me. ‘There’s a precedent, you know. You won’t be as young as my predecessor Brown. I know he broke under the strain – I saw him cave in, and it was pitiful! But he didn’t have what you’ve got.’
‘But I haven’t anything so special that —!’
‘Oh, shut up and let me finish. You put on a front of thoroughness and taking pains. It’s a front. It hides the fact that you’re damnably lazy. I know as well as you that if you don’t work till your guts burst you’ll go the way Brown went. But I also know that right now, because of what’s happened, you’re feeling sufficiently annoyed with yourself to take me seriously. If I don’t get at you before your shell seals over, I’ll find you’re too comfortable to make your own mind up. I won’t fire you if you refuse the offer – you’re worth something even operating at your usual half-pressure. But you’ll spend the rest of your life in the Bureau wondering whether you could do better than whoever does take over my chair, and I’m glad I’ll be safely dead before you start regretting the chance you missed, because by then you won’t be fit company.’