"Most of what I told you was the truth," Camhorn said, leaning back in
his chair. "Perhaps not all of it. And perhaps I haven't told you the
whole truth. But we're out to spread some plausible rumors, Gus. We
could not afford to get caught in obvious lies."
Fry reddened slowly. "You feel the Interstellar Police Authority will
spread those rumors?"
"Of course it will. Be realistic, Gus. Naturally, you'll transmit the
information I've given you only to qualified personnel. But there'll be
leaks, and ... well, what better authentication can we have for a rumor
than precisely such a source?"
"If you know of any potential leaks among the IPA's 'qualified
personnel,'" Fry said, "I'd appreciate seeing the names."
"Don't be stuffy, Gus," Camhorn said affably. "We're not slandering the
Authority. We're banking on the law of averages. As you've indicated,
the IPA can't be expected to carry out this investigation unless it's
given some clues to work on. We're giving it those clues. In the
process, we expect to start the spread of certain rumors. That's all to
the good."
"But what's the purpose?"
"I've told you that. Our criminals may or may not be caught as quickly
as we'd like. The group actually in the know may be--probably
is--quite small. But they should have a wide-spread organization, and
they'll be alert for counteraction now. They certainly will get the
information we want them to have, whether it comes to them through the
IPA or through some other channel; and that should be enough to keep
them from committing any obvious stupidities. Meanwhile, we'll have
avoided making the information public.
"We want to make sure they know--if they don't already know it--that
Ym-400 is unpredictably dangerous. That leaves them with several
choices of action. They can abandon those two thirty-four kilogram
cases, or simply keep them concealed until they obtain more complete
information about the material. Considering the manner in which the
theft was prepared and carried out, neither is a likely possibility.
These people are not ignorant, and they aren't easily frightened--and
they certainly have the resources to handle any expense factor."
Fry nodded.
"The probability is," Camhorn went on, "that they'll evaluate the
warning contained in these rumors realistically, but proceed with
experimentation--perhaps more cautiously than they would have done
otherwise.
"Which is as much as we hope to accomplish. I've told you of the losses
among our personnel. We have no real objection to seeing someone else
attempt to pull a few chestnuts out of the fire for us. That's the
secondary purpose of sacrificing some quite valid information. By the
time we catch up with our friends, we expect the sacrifice will have
been--in one way or another--to our advantage."
"And suppose," said Fry, "that their secret experiments with Ym-400
result in turning another planet into an asteroid cloud?"
"That's an extreme possibility," Camhorn said, "though it exists. The
point is that it exists now whatever we choose to do about it. We can
only attempt to minimize the risks."
"You'd still sooner catch them before they start playing around with
the stuff?"
"Of course we would. But we're working against time there."
* * * * *
"How much time do we have before the thing gets critical?"
"Well," said Camhorn, "assume they've had at least four or five years
to prepare for the day when they could bring a quantity of Ym-400
into their possession. They'll have made every necessary arrangement
for concealed full-scale experimentation. But, unless they are
utterly reckless, they still have to conduct a thorough preliminary
investigation of the compound and its possibilities. That phase of the
matter shouldn't be too dangerous, and it can't be concluded in less
than six months."
Fry shook his head exasperatedly. "Six months!" he said. "We might get
lucky and pick them up next week, Howard ... but there are eighteen
planets and planet-class satellites at peak population levels,
seventy-three space cities with a total of eight times the planetary
populations, five Freeholder planets on each of which you could keep
an army concealed indefinitely if you wanted to go to the trouble. Add
in close to a hundred thousand splinter populations on semihabitables,
asteroids, spaceborne in fixed stations and mobile craft--we can't do
it, Howard! Not in six months. We've already started putting anyone
who might have the slightest connection with that space transport job
through the strainer, and we'll get on your lists of suspects as soon
as they're placed in our hands.
"But don't expect results in anything less than a year...."
* * * * *
Fry, for once, had been too optimistic.
A year and a half went by. Endless series of more or less promising
leads were run into the ground. The missing Ym-400 didn't turn up.
The IPA put out its nets again, and began to check over the
possibilities that were left.
* * * * *
Seen from the air, Lion Mesa, in the southwest section of the American
continent on the Freehold Planet of Terra, was a tilted, roughly
triangular table-land, furred green with thick clusters of cedar and
pinyon, scarred by outcroppings of naked rock. It was eight miles
across at its widest and highest point, directly behind an upthrust
mass of stone jutting toward the north and somewhat suggestive of the
short lifted neck and heavy skull of a listening beast. Presumably it
was this unusual formation which gave the mesa its name. From there the
ground dropped to the south, narrowing gradually to the third point of
the triangle. Near the southern tip in cleared ground were the only
evidences of human habitation--half a dozen buildings of small to
moderate size, handsomely patterned in wood and native stone. Directly
adjoining one of the buildings was a large, massively fenced double
corral. This was an experimental animal ranch; it and the mesa plus
half a hundred square miles of surrounding wasteland and mountain were
the private property of one Miguel Trelawney, Terrestrial Freeholder.
For the past twenty minutes, Frank Dowland--Lieutenant Frank Dowland,
of the Solar Police Authority--had kept his grid-car moving slowly
along the edges of a cloud bank west of the mesa, at an unobtrusive
height above it. During that time, he was inspecting the ranch area in
the beam of a high-powered hunting-scope. He had detected no activity,
and the ranch had the general appearance of being temporarily deserted,
which might be the case. Miguel Trelawney's present whereabouts were
not known, and Lion Mesa was only one of the large number of places in
which he was periodically to be found.
Dowland put the scope down finally, glanced at the sun which was
within an hour of setting. He was a stocky man in his early thirties,
strongly built, dressed in hunting clothes. The packed equipment in the
grid-car, except for a few special items, was that of a collector of
live game, the role regularly assumed by Dowland when at work on the
planet. The Freeholder Families traditionally resented any indication
of Overgovernment authority on Terra, and would have been singularly
uncordial to a Solar City police detective here, regardless of the
nature of his mission. But the export of surplus native fauna was one
of the forms of trade toward which they were tolerant. Moreover, they
were hunting buffs themselves. Dowland ordinarily got along well enough
with them.
He now opened a concealed compartment in the car's instrument panel,
and brought out a set of pictures of Trelawney's ranch on the mesa,
taken from an apparent distance of a few hundred yards above it. For
some seconds, Dowland compared the depth photographs with the scene he
had been observing. There appeared to have been no changes in any of
the structures in the eight months since the pictures were taken. At
least not above ground.
Dowland rubbed the side of his nose, scowling slightly. If the ranch
really was deserted, it would be best to leave it alone for the time
being and search elsewhere for Trelawney. To go down uninvited in
the absence of the owner would be as much out of character for an
experienced visitor on Terra as for a Freeholder. If observed at it--a
remote possibility perhaps in this area, but the possibility was
there--he could offer the excuse of a suspicion of engine trouble in
the grid-car. The excuse would be good, once. He preferred to reserve
it as a means of introducing himself to the Trelawneys when he caught
up with them--either Miguel, the current head of the dwindled family,
or Miguel's younger half-brother, Dr. Paul Trelawney. Neither rated as
a serious suspect in the matter of the Overgovernment's missing Ym-400,
but it had been a little difficult to find out what they had been doing
with themselves during the past year and a half. Dowland's assignment
was to find out, and to do it unobtrusively. Strictly routine.
* * * * *
Terra, in terms of the YM search, hadn't seemed like too bad a bet
at first. The Freeholders entertained an open grudge against the
Overgovernment, which had restricted their nominally unclouded title
to the planet by somewhat underhanded legal means, when the principle
of the Freehold Worlds was laid down. Essentially, the Families became
the very highly paid caretakers of Terra. To Dowland, raised in the
crowded tunnels of the system of artificial giant asteroids known as
Solar City, the conservation of the natural resources of a living
world looked like a good idea. The Terran Families were interested
in conservation, but on their terms and under their control. The
Overgovernment politely refused.
That was one part of it. The other was that numerous contentious
factions in the space cities and on the so-called open worlds wanted
to spill over on the Freeholder planets. Again the Overgovernment
refused, and again it made sense to Dowland. But the Freeholders
feared--perhaps with justification, so far as Dowland could tell--that
political pressures would mount with each increase in excess population
and eventually lead to such measures. Many of them, probably the
majority, led by Anthony Brand Carter--Firebrand Carter, head of the
largest and wealthiest of the Families--believed that the only safe
solution was to arm the planet. They wanted heavy weapons, and enough
of them: the right to build them, to man them and, if necessary, to
use them to beat off encroaching groups. The Overgovernment pointed
out that the possession and use of major implements of war was by law
its own exclusive privilege. Litigation on the matter had gone on
for decades, was periodically renewed by Carter and his associates.
Meanwhile, many of Terra's sportsmen became members of an extremely
able-bodied group called Carter's Troopers, and assiduously practiced
the skills of battle with the means allowed them. Dowland and the Solar
Police Authority knew the Troopers were crack shots, excellent fliers
and horsemen, but the Overgovernment was not worrying about it at
present.
Mr. Paul Trelawney, the younger of the brothers, had been a Trooper
for two years while in his twenties, then had quarreled violently
with Firebrand Carter, had left Terra to major in physics at the
Overgovernment's universities, and presently received his degree.
What he had done after that wasn't known. He appeared occasionally
on Terra, might be here at present. Miguel, Paul's senior by almost
twenty years, now in his early fifties, had also taken an interest in
physics, attending an Overgovernment university a quarter of a century
earlier. Miguel's studies terminated before he obtained a degree,
as a result of a difference of opinion with the president of the
university, whom he challenged to a duel. The records of both brothers
indicated, in Dowland's opinion, more than a trace of the megalomania
not too uncommon among men with excessive wealth and no real claim
to distinction. But, in spite of their choice of studies, there was
nothing to link either Trelawney to the missing YM. Mental brilliance
might have made them suspect; but their I.Q. readings, while definitely
better than average--a number of notches above Dowland's own, for
that matter--were not outstanding. Their scholastic performance had
been of comparative quality. Miguel, on his return to Terra, had
dropped physics in favor of experimental biology. The ranch on Lion
Mesa was adapted to his hobby, which at the moment was directed to the
production of a strain of gigantic wild hogs for hunting purposes.
Presumably the breeding of bad-tempered tons of bacon on the hoof
satisfied his urge to distinguish himself as a gentleman scientist.
Aside from Paul's brief connection with Carter's Troopers neither
brother had shown any interest in Terran politics.
* * * * *
Rather poor prospects, but Dowland's information was that after a year
and a half the better prospects were regarded as nearly exhausted, and
hadn't produced the slightest results, putting the various divisions
of the Interstellar Police Authority in the discouraging position of
now having to suspect almost anybody. If there was no sign of Miguel
Trelawney's presence here by sundown, he decided, he would move on to
the next check point. Trelawney's pets would be cared for by automatic
machinery; it might be several weeks before their owner showed up to
look them over.
His gaze shifted briefly around the plain out of which the mesa loomed.
It was turbulent today; gusty winds shook the car and electric storms
were boiling along the northern mountain ranges. Below, sand and dust
whirled up the mesa's steep flanks. Picking up the hunting-scope
again, Dowland began moving the visibeam almost at random and with low
magnification over the back of the table-land. Dense masses of trees
swept past, shouldered aside here and there by wind-scarred rock. A
thoroughly wild place. He brought the glasses back to the ranch area,
suddenly checked them there....
Somebody was in sight, moving toward the edge of the mesa nearest
him. He caught a flash of something white. Centering carefully on the
figure, Dowland turned on full magnification, and in the lenses, the
image of a young woman appeared at close-up range.
She had come to a stop; and for an instant Dowland was startled to
realize she was peering back at him through a pair of binoculars. But
lacking the visibeam of the IPA, her glasses couldn't, of course, do
much more than show her there was a grid-car up there. Now her free
hand lifted the long white cloth it was holding, and began swinging it
in swift, vigorous gestures through the air above her head.
In spite of the binoculars, Dowland was immediately sure of the woman's
identity--having, in the past few days, studied a number of pictures
of her. She was Jill Trelawney, the youngest of the three surviving
members of the Trelawney Freeholders. Miguel and Paul were her
uncles--and if she was here, one or the other of the men must certainly
be here also.
It was obvious that she was signaling to the car. Dowland glanced at
the communicator in the panel before him, saw it was turned on but
registering no local calls. His eyes narrowed with speculation. This
suddenly looked just a little bit interesting. If the Trelawneys were
expecting a visitor but preferred not to address him over the open
communication system, it indicated that they intended to be hard to
find.
Which might mean a number of things of no interest at all to the IPA.
But....
Dowland took his police gun from the pocket of his hunting jacket, and
began checking it by touch, as he swung the car's nose about toward the
ranch and went slanting down toward the air. Either of the brothers
might decide to make trouble, particularly if they had something to
conceal--but, at any rate, they couldn't claim he hadn't been invited
down.
Picking up the girl in the scope again, he saw that she realized he was
coming in. She had dropped the cloth but was still gazing up toward
the car, her free hand shielding her eyes from the setting sun.
In the next instant, without the slightest preliminary warning, every
instrument in the panel before Dowland went dead. Then the grid-car
began to drop like a stone.
* * * * *
The world-wide gravity grid was Terra's general power source. It had
been an idiotically expensive installation; actually, no other planet
could have afforded it at present. Once installed, it was drawn on for
idiotically minor services. There weren't enough human beings on Terra
to begin to make a significant use of the grid.
But, there were compensating features. The grid was esthetically
unobtrusive, and available everywhere. It supplied power for anything
from personal wrist watches on up through the giant docking machines at
the space-ports. And it was reliable. There had been no power failures
and no accidents connected with the grid recorded in its eighty years
of operation.
That shining safety record, Dowland thought, manipulating the flight
controls with desperate haste, might become seriously marred in
something like three-quarters of a minute now. He'd be lucky to get
down alive. And another thought was clamoring for a different kind of
action with almost equal urgency--unusual and unexplained physical
phenomena of any kind were one of the things the YM searchers were
alerted to look out for; and he'd certainly run into one of them here.
He shot a glance down to his camouflaged wrist communicator. Just a few
seconds to spare, and he could get a private-beam alarm in to the Solar
Police Authority representative at the Columbia spaceport.
He didn't have a few seconds to spare. The grid-car was a lousy
glider--ponderous, sickeningly slow to respond. The rim of the mesa
swayed up. If he missed that stretch of cleared ground around the
Trelawney ranch, the car would either tear itself to pieces in the
forest beyond or do a ditch into the piled rubble at the mesa's foot.
He hauled back on the controls again, felt the car actually begin to
rise for an instant--
* * * * *
"I'm sorry," Jill Trelawney was crying, running up the slope toward
him. "I'm so terribly sorry. I tired to warn you. I simply didn't
realize--are you hurt?"
Her face, Dowland thought, was probably no whiter than his own. The
canopy had caved in around him, and a jagged chunk of engine was
nestling in the passenger seat to his right. As he tried to stand up,
a section of the plastic floorboard collapsed; his foot followed it
through and struck solid ground. He worked himself out of the seat. The
grid-car creaked tiredly and settled another six inches. Dowland shoved
a piece of canopy aside and found he could straighten out.