Home > Authors Index > Mack Reynolds > Ultima Thule > This page
Ultima Thule, a fiction by Mack Reynolds |
||
Part 2 |
||
< Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
________________________________________________
_ In the outer office, Ronny said to the receptionist, "Commissioner Metaxa said for me to get in touch with Sid Jakes." She said, "I'm Irene Kasansky. Are you with us?" Ronny said, "I beg your pardon?" She said impatiently, "Are you going to be with the Section? If you are, I've got to clear you with your old job. You were in statistics over in New Copenhagen, weren't you?" Somehow it seemed far away now, the job he'd held for more than five years. "Oh, yes," he said. "Yes, Commissioner Metaxa has given me an appointment." She looked up at him. "Probably to look for Tommy Paine." He was taken aback. "That's right. How did you know?" "There was talk. This Section is pretty well integrated." She grimaced, but on her it looked good. "One big happy family. High interdepartmental morale. That sort of jetsam." She flicked some switches. "You'll find Supervisor Jakes through that door, one to your left, two to your right." He could have asked one what to his left and two what to his right, but evidently Irene Kasansky thought he had enough information to get him to his destination. She'd gone back to her work. It was one turn to his left and two turns to his right. The door was lettered simply Sidney Jakes. He knocked and a voice shouted happily, "It's open. It's always open." Supervisor Jakes was as informal as his superior. His attire was on the happy-go-lucky side, more suited for sports wear than a fairly high ranking job in the ultra-staid Octagon. He couldn't have been much older than Ronny Bronston but he had a nervous vitality about him that would have worn out the other in a few hours. He jumped up and shook hands. "You must be Bronston. Call me Sid." He waved a hand at a typed report he'd been reading. "Now I've seen them all. They've just applied for entry to United Planets. Republic. What a name, eh?" "What?" Ronny said. "Sit down, sit down." He rushed Ronny to a chair, saw him seated, returned to the desk and flicked an order box switch. "Irene," he said, "do up a badge for Ronny, will you? You've got his code, haven't you? Good. Send it over. Bronze, of course." Sid Jakes turned back to Ronny and grinned at him. He motioned to the report again. "What a name for a planet. Republic. Bunch of screw-balls, again. Out in the vicinity of Sirius. Based their system on Plato's Republic. Have to go the whole way. Don't even speak Basic. Certainly not. They speak Ancient Greek. That's going to be a neat trick, finding interpreters. How'd you like the Old Man?" Ronny said, dazed at the conversational barrage, "Old Man? Oh, you mean Commissioner Metaxa." "Sure, sure," Sid grinned, perching himself on the edge of the desk. "Did he give you that drink of tequila during working hours routine? He'd like to poison every new agent we get. What a character." The grin was infectious. Ronny said carefully, "Well, I did think his method of hiring a new man was a little--cavalier." "Cavalier, yet," Sid Jakes chortled. "Look, don't get the Old Man wrong. He knows what he's doing. He always knows what he's doing." "But he took me on after only two or three minutes conversation." Jakes cocked his head to one side. "Oh? You think so? When did you first apply for interplanetary assignment, Ronny?" "I don't know, about three years ago." Jakes nodded. "Well, depend on it, you've been under observation for that length of time. At any one period, Section G is investigating possibly a thousand potential agents. We need men but qualifications are high." He hopped down from his position, sped around to the other side of the desk and lowered himself into his chair. "Don't get the wrong idea, though. You're not in. You're on probation. Whatever the assignment the Old Man gave you, you've got to carry it out successfully before you're full fledged." He flicked the order-box switch and said, "Irene, where the devil's Ronny's badge?" Ronny Bronston heard the office girl's voice answer snappishly. "All right, all right," Jakes said. "I love you, too. Send it in when it comes." He turned to Ronny. "What is your assignment?" "He wants me to go looking for some firebrand nicknamed Tommy Paine. I'm supposed to arrest him. The commissioner said you'd give me details."
He flicked off the order box and turned back to Ronny. "I understand you're familiar with hand guns. It's in this report on you." Ronny nodded. He was just beginning to adjust to this free-wheeling character. "What will I need a gun for?" Jakes laughed. "Heavens to Betsy, you babe in the woods. Do you realize this Tommy Paine character has supposedly stirred up a couple of score wars, revolutions and revolts? Not to speak of having laid in his lap two or three dozen assassinations. He's a quick lad with a gun. A regular Nihilist." "Nihilist?" Jakes chuckled. "When you've been in this Section for a while, you'll be familiar with every screwball outfit man has ever dreamed up. The Nihilists were a European group, mostly Russian, back in the Nineteenth Century. They believed that by bumping off a few Grand Dukes and a Czar or so they could force the ruling class to grant reforms. Sometimes they were pretty ingenious. Blew up trains, that sort of thing." "Look here," Ronny said, "what motivates this Paine fellow? What's he get out of all this trouble he stirs up?" "Search me. Nobody seems to know. Some think he's a mental case. For one thing, he's not consistent." "How do you mean?" "Well, he'll go to one planet and break his back trying to overthrow, say, feudalism. Then, possibly after being successful, he goes to another planet and devotes his energies to establishing the same socio-economic system." Ronny assimilated that. "You're one of those who believes he exists?" "Oh, he exists all right, all right," Sid Jakes said happily. "Matter of fact, I almost ran into him a few years ago." Ronny leaned forward. "I guess I ought to know about it. The more information I have, the better." "Sure, sure," Jakes said. "This deal of mine was on one of the Aldebaran planets. A bunch of nature boys had settled there." "Nature boys?" "Um-m-m. Back to nature. The trouble with the human race is that it's got too far away from nature. So a whole flock of them landed on this planet. They call it Mother, of all things. They landed and set up a primitive society. Absolute stone age. No metals. Lived by the chase and by picking berries, wild fruit, that sort of thing. Not even any agriculture. Wore skins. Bows and arrows were the nearest thing they allowed themselves in the way of mechanical devices." "Good grief," Ronny said. "It was a laugh," Jakes told him. "I was assigned there as Section G representative with the UP organization. Picture it. We had to wear skins for clothes. We had to confine ourselves to two or three long houses. Something like the American Iroquois lived in before Columbus. Their society on Mother was based on primitive communism. The clan, the phratry, the tribe. Their religion was mostly a matter of knocking into everybody's head that any progress was taboo. Oh, it was great." "Well, were they happy?" "What's happiness? I suppose they were as happy as anybody ever averages. Frankly, I didn't mind the assignment. Lots of fishing, lots of hunting." Ronny said, "Well, where does Tommy Paine come in?" "He snuck up on us. Started way back in the boondocks away from any of the larger primitive settlements. Went around putting himself over as a holy man. Cured people of various things from gangrene to eye diseases. Given antibiotics and such, you can imagine how successful he was." "Well, what harm did he do?" "I didn't say he did any harm. But in that manner he made himself awfully popular. Then he'd pull some trick like showing them how to smelt iron, and distribute some corn and wheat seed around and plant the idea of agriculture. The local witch doctors would try to give him a hard time, but the people figured he was a holy man." "Well, what happened finally?" Ronny wasn't following too well. "Communications being what they were, before he'd been discovered by the central organization--they had a kind of Council of Tribes which met once a year--he'd planted so many ideas that they couldn't be stopped. The young people'd never go back to flint knives, once introduced to iron. We went looking for friend Tommy Paine, but he got wind of it and took off. We even found where he'd hidden his little space cruiser. Oh, it was Paine, all right, all right." "But what harm did he do? I don't understand," Ronny scowled. "He threw the whole shebang on its ear. Last I heard, the planet had broken up into three main camps. They were whaling away at each other like the Assyrians and Egyptians. Iron weapons, chariots, domesticated horses. Agriculture was sweeping the planet. Population was exploding. Men were making slaves out of each other, to put them to work. Oh, it was a mess from the viewpoint of the original nature boys." A red light flickered on his desk and Sid Jakes opened a delivery drawer and dipped his hand into it. It emerged with a flat wallet. He tossed it to Ronny Bronston. "Here you are. Your badge." Ronny opened the wallet and examined it. He'd never seen one before, but for that matter he'd never heard of Section G before that morning. It was a simple enough bronze badge. It said on it, merely, Ronald Bronston, Section G, Bureau of Investigation, United Planets. Sid Jakes explained. "You'll get co-operation with that through the Justice Department anywhere you go. We'll brief you further on procedure during indoctrination. You in turn, of course, are to co-operate with any other agent of Section G. You're under orders of anyone with"--his hand snaked into a pocket and emerged with a wallet similar to Ronny's--"a silver badge, carried by a First Grade Agent, or a gold one of Supervisor rank." Ronny noted that his badge wasn't really bronze. It had a certain sheen, a brightness. Jakes said, "Here, look at this." He tossed his own badge to the new man. Ronny looked down at it in surprise. The gold had gone dull. Jakes laughed. "Now give me yours." Ronny got up and walked over to him and handed it over. As soon as the other man's hand touched it, the bronze lost its sheen. Jakes handed it back. "See, it's tuned to you alone," he said. "And mine is tuned to my code. Nobody can swipe a Section G badge and impersonate an agent. If anybody ever shows you a badge that doesn't have its sheen, you know he's a fake. Neat trick, eh?" "Very neat," Ronny admitted. He returned the other's gold badge. "Look, to get back to this Tommy Paine." But the red light flickered again and Jakes brought forth from the delivery drawer a hand gun complete with shoulder harness. "Nasty weapon," he said. "But we'd better go on down to the armory and show you its workings." He stood up. "Oh, yes, don't let me forget to give you a communicator. A real gizmo. About as big as a woman's vanity case. Puts you in immediate contact with the nearest Section G office, no matter how near or far away it is. Or, if you wish, in contact with our offices here in the Octagon. Very neat trick." He led Ronny from his office and down the corridors beyond to an elevator. He said happily, "This is a crazy outfit, this Section G. You'll probably love it. Everybody does."
He was initially taken aback by the existence of the organization at all. He'd known, of course, of the Department of Justice and even of the Bureau of Investigation, but Section G was hush-hush and not even United Planets publications ever mentioned it. The problems involved in remaining hush-hush weren't as great as all that. The very magnitude of the UP which involved more than two thousand member planets, allowed of departments and bureaus hidden away in the endless stretches of red tape. In fact, although Ronny Bronston had spent the better part of his life, thus far, in studying for a place in the organization, and then working in the Population Statistics Department for some years, he was only now beginning to get the over-all picture of the workings of the mushrooming, chaotic United Planets organization. It was Earth's largest industry by far. In fact, for all practical purposes it was her only major industry. Tourism, yes, but even that, in a way, was related to the United Planets organization. Millions of visitors whose ancestors had once emigrated from the mother planet, streamed back in racial nostalgia. Streamed back to see the continents and oceans, the Arctic and the Antarctic, the Amazon River and Mount Everest, the Sahara and New York City, the ruins of Rome and Athens, the Vatican, the Louvre and the Hermitage. But the populace of Earth, in its hundreds of millions were largely citizens of United Planets and worked in the organization and with its auxiliaries such as the Space Forces. Section G? To his surprise, Ronny found that Ross Metaxa's small section of the Bureau of Investigation seemed almost as great a secret within the Bureau as it was to the man in the street. At one period, Ronny wondered if it were possible that this was a department which had been lost in the wilderness of boondoggling that goes on in any great bureaucracy. Had Section G been set up a century or so ago and then forgotten by those who had originally thought there was a need for it? In the same way that it is usually more difficult to get a statute off the lawbooks than it was originally to pass it, in the same manner eliminating an office, with its employees can prove more difficult than originally establishing it. But that wasn't it. In spite of the informality, the unconventional brashness of its personnel on all levels, and the seeming chaos in which its tasks were done, Section G was no make-work project set up to provide juicy jobs for the relatives of high ranking officials. To the contrary, it didn't take long in the Section before anybody with open eyes could see that Ross Metaxa was privy to the decisions made by the upper echelons of UP. Ronny Bronston came to the conclusion that the appointment he'd received was putting him in a higher bracket of the UP hierarchy than he'd at first imagined. His indoctrination course was a strain such as he'd never known in school years. Ross Metaxa was evidently of the opinion that a man could assimilate concentrated information at a rate several times faster than any professional educator ever dreamed possible. No threats were made, but Ronny realized that he could be dropped even more quickly than he'd seemed to have been taken on. There were no classes, to either push or retard the rate of study. He worked with a series of tutors, and pushed himself. The tutors were almost invariably Section G agents, temporarily in Greater Washington between assignments, or for briefing on this phase or that of their work. Even as he studied, Ronny Bronston kept the eventual assignment, at which he was to prove himself, in mind. He made a point of inquiring of each agent he met, about Tommy Paine. The name was known to all, but no two reacted in the same manner. Several of them even brushed the whole matter aside as pure legend. Nobody could accomplish all the trouble that Tommy Paine had supposedly stirred up. To one of these, Ronny said plaintively, "See here, the Old Man believes in him, Sid Jakes believes in him. My final appointment depends on arresting him. How can I ever secure this job, if I'm chasing a myth?" The other shrugged. "Don't ask me. I've got my own problems. O.K., now, let's run over this question of Napoleonic law. There are at least two hundred planets that base their legal system on it." But the majority of his fellow employees in Section G had strong enough opinions on the interplanetary firebrand. Three or four even claimed to have seen him fleetingly, although no two descriptions jibed. That, of course, could be explained. The man could resort to plastic surgery and other disguise. Theories there were in plenty, some of them going back long years, and some of them pure fable.
One of the others was shaking his head negatively. "You don't understand this Tommy Paine's system, Bronston." "You sure don't," the other agent, a Nigerian, grinned widely. "I've been on planets where he'd operated." Ronny leaned forward. The three of them were having a beer in a part of the city once called Baltimore. "You have?" he said. "Tell me about it, eh? The more background I get on this guy, the better." "Sure. And this'll give you an idea of how he operates, how he can get so much trouble done. Well, I was on this planet Goshen, understand? It had kind of a strange history. A bunch of colonists went out there, oh, four or five centuries ago. Pretty healthy expedition, as such outfits go. Bright young people, lots of equipment, lots of know-how and books. Well, through sheer bad luck everything went wrong from the beginning. Everything. Before they got set up at all they had an explosion that killed off all their communications technicians. They lost contact with the outside. O.K. Within a couple of centuries they'd gotten into a state of chattel slavery. Pretty well organized, but static. Kind of an Athenian Democracy on top, a hierarchy, but nineteen people out of twenty were slaves, and I mean real slaves, like animals. They were at this stage when a scout ship from the UP Space Forces discovered them and, of course, they joined up." "Where does Tommy Paine come in?" Ronny said. He signaled to a waiter for more beer. "He comes in a few years later. I was the Section G agent on Goshen, understand? No planet was keener about Articles One and Two of the UP Charter. The hierarchy understood well enough that if their people ever came to know about more advanced socio-economic systems it'd be the end of Goshen's Golden Age. So they allowed practically no intercourse. No contact whatsoever between UP personnel and anyone outside the upper class, understand? All right. That's where Tommy Paine came in. It couldn't have taken him more than a couple of months at most." Ronny Bronston was fascinated. "What'd he do?" "He introduced the steam engine, and then left." Ronny was looking at him blankly. "Steam engine?" "That and the fly shuttle and the spinning jenny," the Nigerian said. "That Goshen hierarchy never knew what hit them." Ronny was still blank. The waiter came up with the steins of beer, and Ronny took one and drained half of it without taking his eyes from the storyteller. The other agent took it up. "Don't you see? Their system was based on chattel slavery, hand labor. Given machinery and it collapses. Chattel slavery isn't practical in a mechanized society. Too expensive a labor force, for one thing. Besides, you need an educated man and one with some initiative--qualities that few slaves possess--to run an industrial society." Ronny finished his beer. "Smart cooky, isn't he?" "He's smart all right. But I've got a still better example of his fouling up a whole planetary socio-economic system in a matter of weeks. A friend of mine was working on a planet with a highly-developed feudalism. Barons, lords, dukes, counts and no-accounts, all stashed safely away in castles and fortresses up on the top of hills. The serfs down below did all the work in the fields, provided servants, artisans and foot soldiers for the continual fighting that the aristocracy carried on. Very similar to Europe back in the Dark Ages." "So?" Ronny said. "I'd think that'd be a deal that would take centuries to change." The Section G agent laughed. "Tommy Paine stayed just long enough to introduce gunpowder. That was the end of those impregnable castles up on the hills." "What gets me," Ronny said slowly, "is his motivation." The other two both grunted agreement to that.
She looked up at him. "Hello, Ronny. Thought you'd be off on your assignment by now. Got any clues on Tommy Paine?" "No," he said. "That's why I'm here. I wanted to see the commissioner." "About what?" She flicked a switch. When a light flickered on one of her order boxes, she said into it, "No," emphatically, and turned back to him. "He said he wanted to see me again before I took off." She fiddled some more, finally said, "All right, Ronny. Tell him he's got time for five minutes with you." "Five minutes!" "Then he's got an appointment with the Commissioner of Interplanetary Culture," she said. "You'd better hurry along." Ronny Bronston retraced the route of his first visit here. How long ago? It already seemed ages since his probationary appointment. Your life changed fast when you were in Section G. Ross Metaxa's brown bottle, or its twin, was sitting on his desk and he was staring at it glumly. He looked up and scowled. "Ronald Bronston," Ronny said. "Irene Kasansky told me to say I could have five minutes with you, then you have an appointment with the Commissioner of Interplanetary Culture." "I remember you," Metaxa said. "Have a drink. Interplanetary Culture, ha! The Xanadu Folk Dance Troupe. They dance nude. They've been touring the whole UP. Roaring success everywhere, obviously. Now they're assigned to Virtue, a planet settled by a bunch of Fundamentalists. They want the troupe to wear Mother Hubbards. The Xanadu outfit is in a tizzy. They've been insulted. They claim they're the most modest members of UP, that nudity has nothing to do with modesty. The government of Virtue said that's fine but they wear Mother Hubbards or they don't dance. Xanadu says it'll withdraw from United Planets." Ronny Bronston said painfully, "Why not let them?" Ross Metaxa poured himself a Denebian tequila, offered his subordinate a drink again with a motion of the bottle. Ronny shook his head. Metaxa said, "If we didn't take steps to soothe these things over, there wouldn't be any United Planets. In any given century every member in the organization threatens to resign at least once. Even Earth. And then what'd happen? You'd have interplanetary war before you knew it. What'd you want, Ronny?" "I'm about set to take up my search for this Tommy Paine." "Ah, yes, Tommy Paine. If you catch him, there are a dozen planets where he'd be eligible for the death sentence." Ronny cleared his throat. "There must be. What I wanted was the file on him, sir." "File?" "Yes, sir. I've got to the point where I want to cram up on everything we have on him. So far, all I've got is verbal information from individual agents and from Supervisor Jakes." "Don't be silly, Ronny. There isn't any file on Tommy Paine." Ronny just looked at the other. Ross Metaxa said impatiently, "The very knowledge of the existence of the man is top secret. Isn't that obvious? Suppose some reporter got the story and printed it. If our member planets knew there was such a man and that we haven't been able to scotch him, why they'd drop out of UP so fast the computers couldn't keep up with it. There's not one planet in ten that feels secure enough to lay itself open to subversion. Why some of our planets are so far down the ladder of social evolution they live under primitive tribal society; their leaders, their wise men and witch-doctors, whatever you call them, are scared someone will come along and establish chattel slavery. Those planets that have a system based on slavery are scared to death of developing feudalism, and those that have feudalism are afraid of creeping capitalism. Those with an anarchistic basis--and we have several--are afraid of being subverted to statism, and those who have a highly developed government are afraid of anarchism. The socio-economic systems based on private ownership of property hate the very idea of socialism or communism, and vice versa, and those planets with state capitalism hate them both." He glared at Ronny. "What do you think the purpose of this Section is, Bronston? Our job is to keep our member planets from being afraid of each other. If they found that Tommy Paine and his group, if he's got a group, were buzzing through the system subverting everything they can foul up, they'd drop out of UP and set up quarantines that a space mite couldn't get through. No sir, there is no file on Tommy Paine and there never will be. And if any news of him spreads to the outside, this Section will emphatically deny he exists. I hope that's clear." "Well, yes sir," Ronny said. The commissioner had been all but roaring toward the end. The order box clicked on Ross Metaxa's desk and he said loudly, "What?" "Don't yell at me," Irene snapped back. "Ronny's five minutes are up. You've got an appointment. I'm getting tired of this job. It's a mad-house. I'm going to quit and get a job with Interplanetary Finance." "Oh, yeah." Ross snarled back. "That's what you think. I've taken measures. Top security. I've warned off every Commissioner in UP. You can't get away from me until you reach retirement age. Although I don't know why I care. I hate nasty tempered women." "Huh!" she snorted and clicked off. "There's a woman for you," Ross Metaxa growled at Ronny. "It's too bad she's indispensable. I'd love to fire her. Look, you go in and see Sid Jakes. Seems to me he said something about Tommy Paine this morning. Maybe it's a lead." He came to his feet. "So long and good luck, Ronny. I feel optimistic about you. I think you'll get this Paine troublemaker." Which was more than Ronny Bronston thought. Sid Jakes already had a visitor in his office, which didn't prevent him from yelling, "It's open," when Ronny Bronston knocked. He bounced from his chair, came around the desk and shook hands enthusiastically. "Ronny!" he said, his tone implying they were favorite brothers for long years parted. "You're just in time." Ronny took in the office's other occupant appreciatively. She was a small girl, almost tiny. He estimated her to be at least half Chinese, or maybe Indo-Chinese, the rest probably European or North American. She evidently favored her Asiatic blood, her dress was traditional Chinese, slit almost to the thigh Shanghai style. Sid Jakes said, "Tog Lee Chang Chu--Ronny Bronston. You'll be working together. Bloodhounding old Tommy Paine. A neat trick if you can pull it off. Well, are you all set to go?" Ronny mumbled something to the girl in the way of amenity, then looked back at the supervisor. "Working together?" he said. "That's right. Lucky you, eh?" Tog Lee Chang Chu said demurely, "Possibly Mr. Bronston objects to having a female assistant." Sid Jakes snorted, and hurried around his desk to resume his seat. "Does he look crazy? Who'd object to having a cutey like you around day in and day out? Call him Ronny. Might as well get used to it. Two of you'll be closer than man and wife." "Assistant?" Ronny said, bewildered. "What do I need an assistant for?" He turned his eyes to the girl. "No reflection on you, Miss ... ah, Tog." Sid Jakes laughed easily. "Section G operatives always work in pairs, Ronny. Especially new agents. The advantages will come home to you as you go along. Look on Tog Lee Chang Chu as a secretary, a man Friday. This isn't her first assignment, of course. You'll find her invaluable." The supervisor plucked a card from an order box. "Now here's the dope. Can you leave within four hours? There's a UP Space Forces cruiser going to Merlini, they can drop you off at New Delos. Fastest way you could possibly get there. The cruiser takes off from Neuve Albuquerque in, let's see, three hours and forty-five minutes." "New Delos?" Ronny said, taking his eyes from the girl and trying to catch up with the grasshopper-like conversation of his superior. "New Delos it is," Jakes said happily. "With luck, you might catch him before he can get off the planet." He chuckled at the other's expression. "Look alive, Ronny! The quarry is flushed and on the run. Tommy Paine's just assassinated the Immortal God-King of New Delos. A neat trick, eh?" _ |