"Well, at least as a Sirian gentleman, you're not very prepossessing.
That helps."
"It wasn't my idea. It never is."
"I know. I know that, sir." Kovandaswamy got up nervously from his desk
and paced across the room. "Do you know anything about Ophiuchus IX,
Mayhem?"
"Not much. It's one of the Forgotten Worlds, isn't it?"
"Precisely, sir. Ophiuchus IX is one of scores of interstellar worlds
colonized in the first great outflux from Earth."
"You mean during the population pressure of the 24th century?"
"Exactly. Then Ophiuchus IX, like the other Forgotten Worlds, was all
but forgotten. As you know, Mayhem, the first flux of colonization
receded like a wave, inertia set in, and the so-called Forgotten Worlds
became isolated from the rest of the galaxy for generations. Only in the
past fifty years are we finding them again, one by one. Ophiuchus IX is
typical, isolated from the galaxy at large by a dust cloud that--"
"I know. I came through it."
"It was colonized originally with Indians from southern and eastern
India, on Earth. That's why the Galactic League appointed me Observer.
I'm an Indian. These people--well, they're what my people might have
developed into if they'd lived for hundreds of years in perfect
isolation."
"What's the trouble?"
Kovandaswamy answered with a question of his own. "You are aware of the
Galactic League's chief aim?"
"Sure. To see that no outworld, however small or distant, is left in
isolation. Is that what you mean?"
"Yes," agreed Kovandaswamy. "Their reason is obvious. For almost a
thousand years now the human race has outpaced its social and moral
development with development in the physical sciences. For almost a
thousand years mankind has had the power to destroy itself. In isolation
this is possible. With mutual interchange of ideas, it is extremely
unlikely. Thus, in the interests of human survival, the Galactic League
tries to thwart isolated development. So far, the Forgotten Worlds have
cooperated. But Ophiuchus IX is an exception."
"And the League wants me to find out why?"
"Precisely."
"How are they thwarting--"
Kovandaswamy was sweating despite the air-conditioning, despite his
almost-naked state. "You have the right to turn this mission down, of
course. The League told me that."
"I'm here," Mayhem said simply.
"Very well, sir. Sooner or later, every outworlder who ventures out
among the Ophiuchans kills himself."
"I guess I didn't hear you. Did you say kills himself?"
"Suicide, Mayhem. Exactly."
"But how can you blame--"
"Like their ancestors from the Earthian sub-continent of India, Mayhem,
the Ophiuchans are mystics. The trance, the holy man who sits in
contemplation of his navel, the World Spirit--these are the things of
their culture most important to them. Mayhem, did you ever see a hundred
holy men of India working together?"
"Usually they don't work together."
"Precisely, sir. Precisely. Here on Ophiuchus, they do. And not merely a
hundred. All of them. Virtually all of them. Working together, their
minds in trance, unified, seeking their World Spirit, they can do
amazing things."
"Like mentally forcing the outworlders to kill themselves?"
"Yes, sir. Legally, they are innocent. Morally, they do not recognize
the outworlders as equals of themselves. The League wants to know what
they are trying to hide. It could be a threat to peace and--existence."
"You have a body for me?" Johnny would be ready with that provided.
* * * * *
If anyone but Johnny Mayhem had asked that question, Kovandaswamy would
not have known what he was talking about, or would have thought him
insane, or both. But Johnny Mayhem was, of course, the legendary Man
Without a Body. How many corporeal shells had he inhabited in the past
half dozen years? He shrugged, not remembering. He couldn't remain in
one body more than a month: it would mean the final death of his _elan_,
his bodiless sentience. So far he had avoided that death.
The Galactic League would help him if it could. Every world which had a
human population and a Galactic League post, however small, must have a
body in cold storage, waiting for Johnny Mayhem if his services were
required. But no one knew exactly under what circumstances the Galactic
League Council, operating from the hub of the Galaxy, might summon
Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at the Hub and the
Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observers on primitive
worlds, knew the precise mechanism of Mayhem's coming. To others it was
a weird mystery.
Johnny Mayhem, bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had
been chased from Earth, a pariah and a criminal, almost seven years ago,
who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the
Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the
white magic of the planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as
a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a fresh
corpse or one which had been frozen properly ... an _elan_ doomed to
wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a
month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his
strange, lonely life to the service of the Galactic League because a
normal life and normal social relations were not possible for him....
"Then you'll do it?" Kovandaswamy asked on Ophiuchus IX. "Even though
you realize we can give you no official help not only because the
Galactic League approves of your work unofficially but can't sanction it
officially, but because an outworlder can't set his foot outside this
building for long or off the spacefield without risking death...."
"By suicide?"
"Yes. I'm practically a prisoner in Galactic League Headquarters, as is
my staff. You see--"
"What about the body?"
Kovandaswamy looked at him nervously. "A native, Mayhem. A native won't
be molested, you see."
"That figures. What kind of native?"
"In top shape, sir. Healthy, young, in the prime of life you might say."
"Then what's bothering you?"
"Nothing. Nothing, sir."
"Your technicians are ready?"
"Yes, sir. And vowed to secrecy."
Mayhem found a tiny capsule in the pocket of his Sirian jumper, and
popped it in his mouth.
"What--what's that?" Kovandaswamy asked.
Mayhem swallowed. "Curare," he said.
"Curare! A poison!"
"Paralysis," said Mayhem quickly. "Muscular paralysis. You die because
you stop breathing. Painless ... and...."
"But--"
"Call your technicians ... new body ... ready...." Gasping, the Sirian
gentleman, hardly Johnny Mayhem now, fell to the floor.
Trembling, Kovandaswamy pressed a button on his desk. A few moments
later, two white-coated technicians entered the office.
"Project M," Kovandaswamy said.
Grimly the technicians went to work.
* * * * *
Mayhem awoke.
Ordinarily it was his _elan_ alone which journeyed between the worlds,
his _elan_ which was fed the information it would need in hypno-sleep
while the frozen body was thawed out. Sometimes, however, he came the
normal way in a body which still had some of its thirty days left, as he
had come to Ophiuchus IX in the Sirian gentleman.
Darkness. The body felt young and healthy. Mayhem wondered vaguely how
it had died, then decided it did not really matter. For the next thirty
days the body would live again, as Johnny Mayhem.
Recessed lighting glowed at the juncture of walls and ceiling. Mayhem
was reclining on a cot. A loin cloth and a large shawl had been laid out
for him. On the far wall of the room was a tinted mirror. Mayhem got up
and went over there.
What his new body looked like hardly mattered, he told himself. Youth,
health, strength--these were important. He could sense them internally.
He could....
He stared at the image in the mirror. His face turned beet red. He went
for the shawl and the loin cloth and put them on. Cursing, he went to
find Kovandaswamy.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" Mayhem demanded.
"You never asked what the--" Kovandaswamy began.
"How am I supposed to find out anything--like this?"
"It's a young body, a healthy body. It is also the one we were given
when the Galactic League first came here. It is the only one we were
given."
"Take it or leave it, eh?"
"I'm afraid so, Mayhem."
"All right. All right, I guess I shouldn't complain. It could probably
outrun and outfight and outthink the dyspeptic old Sirian gentleman, and
things turned out well enough on Sirius III. But it'll probably take
most of my time just getting used to it, Kovandaswamy. I'm supposed to
be conducting an investigation."
"At least as an Ophiuchan you won't arouse suspicion."
Mayhem nodded slowly, with reluctance. There was nothing else to say. He
shook hands with Kovandaswamy and, wearing the loin cloth and the shawl,
left the Galactic League building.
With, of course, a completely new identity.
Mayhem walked a mile and a half through hot, arid country. The League
building was isolated, as if its inmates might contaminate the native
Ophiuchans. Along the dusty road Mayhem passed a _guru_, the name for a
wise man or a holy man first in India and now here on Ophiuchus IX. The
guru sat in contemplation of the tip of his nose, legs crossed, soles of
feet up, eyes half-closed. The guru remained that way, without moving,
until Mayhem was out of sight. Then the guru behaved in a very
un-guru-like manner.
The guru got up quite nimbly, joints creaking, skin dry and cracked.
Three strides brought him to a tree with a partly hollow trunk. He
lifted a radio transmitter and began to talk.
* * * * *
In twenty generations, the initially small population of Ophiuchus IX,
all colonists from India on Earth, had increased geometrically. The
colonized planet, now, was as over-populated as the teeming
sub-continent which long ago had sent the colonists seeking a new home.
As a result, unemployment was chronic, discontent widespread, and
whatever inner serenity mysticism might bring was widely sought after.
This did not stop the non-mystics, however, of whom there were many,
from seeking jobs that could pay money that could fill empty bellies....
[Illustration: The crazed mob was bent upon rapine and murder.]
A long line gathered outside the employment office of Denebian Exports
the morning after Mayhem had left the League building in his new body.
Denebian Exports was the largest outworld company currently on
Ophiuchus, a company which had solved the outworlder-suicide problem
quite simply by hiring no one but natives. Still, hoots and catcalls
surrounded those on the employment line. Other jobless Ophiuchans,
apparently preferring near-starvation to working for the outworlders,
threatened to make the situation dangerous.
Pandit Gandhi Menon, a lean, handsome Ophiuchan of perhaps thirty years,
wished there was some way he could shut his ears to the abuse. He needed
work. His father and mother were ill, his child was starving, his wife
already dead. The gurus offered their own unique solution, of course.
The body is nothing, they said. The mind is everything. But thus had the
gurus spoken for four thousand years, on Earth and on Ophiuchus. The
great majority of Ophiuchans, Pandit Gandhi Menon included, preferred
food for the body to food for mystic thought. Still, the crowds were
ugly, threatening to break up the line of job-seekers if Denebian
Exports didn't open its doors soon....
An unkempt little man, not old but with a matted growth of beard, an
unwashed body which gave the impression of wiry strength, and wild eyes,
abruptly flung himself at the young woman in line in front of Pandit.
Shouting, "Not our women, too!" the little man attacked the girl, trying
to drag her from the line. "It is bad enough our men, but not our
women!"
* * * * *
Pandit caught the fanatic's wiry arm and brought it behind his scrawny
back in a hammerlock. "Leave her alone," he said. "If you try that
again, I'll break your arm."
The fanatic looked at Pandit with hate in his eyes, but stepped back and
stood to one side mouthing invective.
The girl, who was about twenty-five years old, had a livid mark on her
arm. She wore loin cloth and shawl, the usual garb. She was, Pandit
observed for the first time, quite pretty.
"Thank you," she said. "I--I'm not sure I like working for the
outworlders. But I need the money."
"Don't we all," Pandit told her. "But we're not hired yet. I am Pandit
Gandhi Menon."
"Sria Krishna," the girl said, smiling at him. "What sort of work is
it?"
"Don't you know, Sria Krishna?"
The girl shook her head and Pandit said: "Actually, I guess I don't
know, either. But there are rumors the outworlders want jet-pilots. Not
for rocketry. For jets. To fly to the Empty Places."
* * * * *
"The Empty Places? Why?"
Pandit shrugged. "Because they are empty, perhaps. Because they are too
dry and too arid to support life. Because Denebian Export can claim
whatever it found there, for free export. So go the rumors. But surely
you can't pilot a jet."
"Can you?"
"Yes," Pandit said promptly with a faint show of pride.
"My father taught me. I want to thank you for what--"
"Nothing. Anyone in my position would have done it. This rabble--"
The rabble was still noisy. Occasionally they hurled offal at the
stragglers joining the rear of the long line. But Pandit and Sria
Krishna stood in the forefront, and presently the door opened. In a few
minutes Pandit watched the girl disappear inside. He waited nervously,
licking dry lips with a parched tongue. It was early morning, but
already very hot. He needed the work. Any work. He needed the money
which outworlders could pay so abundantly for honest work. He wondered
if the fanatic gurus ever thought of that. Then the door in front of him
opened again and a fat, unctuous-looking Ophiuchan came out. He seemed
to be an official of sorts.
"One more!" he said. "Only one! The rest of you begone."
Behind Pandit there was a general press of bodies, but he was first in
line and did not surrender his position. The unctuous-looking man
admitted him, half-expecting a bribe. Pandit passed him by; he didn't
have a single copper.
He approached a desk. The crowd noise outside was loud, those who had
not joined the line crowing because most of those on it had been turned
away. Behind the desk sat a small Denebian man of middle years. He
looked nervous.
"Can you fly?" he asked in a voice almost desperately thin.
"Yes," Pandit said. Then the rumors were right.
"How much experience?"
"Five years on and off."
"You have a license?"
"There are no licenses on Ophiuchus IX," Pandit pointed out.
"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. Habit. You people don't lie."
"We try not to."
"Your name?"
Pandit told him. The Denebian wrote it down on a form and said: "You'll
do. Pay is twenty credits a mission." It wasn't much, but it was more
than Pandit had expected.
"What do we fly?" he asked. Questions didn't seem welcome, but no harm
trying.
* * * * *