Walton left the Assembly meeting about 1215, pleading urgent Popeek
business. The voting began at 1300, and half an hour later the result
was officially released.
The 1400 _Citizen_ was the first to carry the report.
_WALTON ELECTED POPEEK HEAD_
_The General Assembly of the United Nations gave Roy Walton a
healthy vote of confidence today. By a 95-0 vote, three abstaining,
he was picked to succeed the late D. F. FitzMaugham as Popeek czar.
He has held the post on a temporary basis for the past eight days._
Walton rang up Percy. "Who wrote that _Citizen_ piece on me?" he asked.
"I did, chief. Why?"
"Nicely done, but not enough sock. Get all those three-syllable words
out of it by the next edition. Get back to the old _Citizen_ style of
jazzy writing."
"We thought we'd brush it up a little now that you're in," Percy said.
"No. That's dangerous. Keep to the old style, but revamp the content.
We're rolling along, now. What's new from the pollsters?"
"Fifty percent swing to Popeek. You're the most popular man in the
country, as of noon. Churches are offering up prayers for you. There's
a move afoot to make you President of the United States in place of old
Lanson."
"Let Lanson keep his job," Walton chuckled. "I'm not looking for any
figurehead jobs. I'm too young. When's the next _Citizen_ due?"
"At 1500. We're keeping up hourly editions until the crisis is over."
Walton thought for a moment. "I think 1500's too early. The Dirnan
arrives in Nairobi at 1530 our time. I want a big splash in the 1600
edition--but not a word before then!"
"I'm with you," Percy said, and signed off.
A moment later the annunciator said, "There's a closed-circuit call for
you from Batavia, sir."
"From where?"
"Batavia. Java."
"Let's have it," Walton said.
A fleshy face filled the screen, the face of a man who had lived a soft
life in a moist climate. A rumbling voice said, "You are Walton."
"I am Walton."
"I am Gaetano di Cassio. Pleased of making the acquaintance, Signor
Director Walton. I own rubber plantation in the area here."
Walton's mind immediately clocked off the top name on the list of
landed proprietors Lassen had prepared for him:
_di Cassio, Gaetano. 57. Holdings estimated at better than a billion
and a quarter. Born Genoa 2175, settled in Amsterdam 2199. Purchased
large Java holding 2211._
"What can I do for you, Mr. di Cassio?"
The rubber magnate looked ill; his fleshy face was beaded with globules
of sweat. "Your brother," he grunted heavily. "Your brother worked for
me. I sent him to see you yesterday. He has not come back."
"Indeed?" Walton shrugged. "There's a famous phrase I could use at this
point. I won't."
"Make no flippancies," di Cassio said heavily. "Where is he?"
Walton said, "In jail. Attempted coercion of a public official." He
realized di Cassio was twice as nervous and tense as he was.
"You have jailed him," di Cassio repeated flatly. "Ah, I see. Jail."
The audio pickup brought in the sound of stertorous breathing. "Will
you not free him?" di Cassio asked.
"I will not."
"Did he not tell you what would happen if he would not be granted his
request?"
"He told me," Walton said. "Well?"
The fat man looked sick. Walton saw that the bluff was going to be
unsuccessful; that the conspirators would not dare put Lamarre's drug
into open production. It had been a weapon without weight, and Walton
had not let himself be cowed by it.
"Well?" Walton repeated inflexibly.
"You trouble me sorely," said di Cassio. "You give my heart pain, Mr.
Walton. Steps will have to be taken."
"The Lamarre immortality serum--"
The face on the screen turned a leaden gray. "The serum," di Cassio
said, "is not entered into this talking."
"Oh, no? My brother Fred made a few remarks--"
"Serum _non esiste_!"
Walton smiled calmly. "A nonexistent serum," he said, "has,
unfortunately, nonexistent leverage against me. You don't scare me, di
Cassio. I've outbluffed you. Go take a walk around your plantation.
While you still have it, that is."
"Steps will be taken," di Cassio said. But his malevolence was hollow.
Walton laughed and broke contact.
He drew Lassen's list from his desk and inscribed a brief memo to Olaf
Eglin on it. These were the hundred biggest estates in the world.
Within a week, there would be equalized Japanese living on all of them.
He called Martinez of security. "I've ordered my brother Fred remanded
to your care," he said.
"I know." The security man sounded peeved. "We can't hold a man
indefinitely, not even on your say-so, Director Walton."
"The charge is conspiracy," Walton said. "Conspiracy against the
successful operation of Popeek. I'll have a list of the ringleaders on
your desk in half an hour. I want them rounded up, given a thorough
psyching, and jailed."
"There are times," Martinez said slowly, "when I suspect you exceed
your powers, Director Walton. But send me the list and I'll have the
arrests made."
* * * * *
The afternoon crawled. Walton proceeded with routine work on half
a dozen fronts, held screened conferences with each of his section
chiefs, read reports augmenting what he already knew of the Venus
disaster, and gobbled a few benzolurethrin tranquilizers.
He called Keeler and learned that no sign of Lamarre had come to
light yet. From Percy he discovered that _Citizen_ had added two
hundred thousand subscribers overnight. The 1500 edition had a lengthy
editorial praising Walton, and some letters that Percy swore were
genuine, doing the same.
At 1515 Olaf Eglin called to announce that the big estates were in the
process of being dismembered. "You'll be able to hear the howls from
here to Batavia when we get going," Eglin warned.
"We have to be tough," Walton told him firmly.
At 1517 he devoted a few minutes to a scientific paper that proposed
terraforming Pluto by establishing synthetic hydrogen-fusion suns
on the icy planet. Walton skimmed through the specifications, which
involved passing a current of several million amperes through a tube
containing a mixture of tritium and deuterium. The general idea, he
gathered, was to create electromagnetic forces of near-solar intensity;
a pulsed-reaction engine would supply a hundred megawatts of power
continuously at 10,000,000 degrees centigrade.
_Has possibilities_, Walton noted, and forwarded the plan on to Eglin.
It sounded plausible enough, but Walton was personally skeptical of
undertaking any more terraforming experiments after the Venus fiasco.
There were, after all, limits to the public relations miracles Lee
Percy could create.
At 1535 the annunciator chimed again. "Call from Nairobi, Africa, Mr.
Walton."
"Okay."
McLeod appeared on the screen.
"We're here," he said. "Arrived safely half a microsecond ago, and
all's well."
"How about the alien?"
"We have him in a specially constructed cabin. Breathes hydrogen and
ammonia, you know. He's very anxious to see you. When can you come?"
Walton thought for a moment. "I guess there's no way of transporting
him here, is there?"
"I wouldn't advise it. The Dirnans are very sensitive about traveling
in such a low gravitational field. Makes their stomachs queasy, you
know. Do you think you could come out here?"
"When's the earliest?"
"Oh--half an hour?" McLeod suggested.
"I'm on my way," said Walton.
* * * * *
The sprawling metropolis of Nairobi, capital of the Republic of Kenya,
lay at the foot of the Kikuyu Hills, and magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro
towered above it. Four million people inhabited Nairobi, finest of the
many fine cities along Africa's western coast. Africa's Negro republics
had built soundly and well after achieving their liberation from
colonial status.
The city was calm as Walton's special jet decelerated for landing
at the vast Nairobi airport. He had left at 1547 New York time; the
transatlantic trip had taken two hours and some minutes, and there was
an eight-hour time zone differential between Kenya and New York. It
was now 0313 in Nairobi; the early-morning rain was falling right on
schedule as the jet taxied to a halt.
McLeod was there to meet him. "The ship's in the hills, five miles out
of town. There's a copter waiting for you here."
Moments after leaving the jetliner, Walton was shepherded aboard the
'copter. Rotors whirred; the 'copter rose perpendicularly until it hung
just above the cloud-seeders at 13,000 feet, then fired its jets and
streaked toward the hills.
It was not raining when they landed; according to McLeod, the night
rain was scheduled for 0200 in this sector, and the seeders had already
been here and moved on to bring rain to the city proper. A groundcar
waited for them at the airstrip in the hills. McLeod drove, handling
the turboelectric job with skill.
"There's the ship," he said proudly, pointing.
Walton felt a sudden throat lump.
The ship stood on its tail in the midst of a wide, flat swath of
jet-blackened concrete. It was at least five hundred feet high, a
towering pale needle shimmering brightly in the moonlight. Wideswept
tailjets supported it like arching buttresses. Men moved busily about
in the floodlighted area at its base.
McLeod drove up to the ship and around it. The flawless symmetry of the
foreside was not duplicated behind; there, a spidery catwalk ran some
eighty feet up the side of the ship to a gaping lock, and by its side a
crude elevator shaft rose to the same hatch.
McLeod drew efficient salutes from the men as he left the car; Walton,
only puzzled glares.
"We'd better take the elevator," McLeod said. "The men are working on
the catwalk."
Silently they rode up into the ship. They stepped through the open
airlock into a paneled lounge, then into narrow companionways. McLeod
paused and pressed down a stud in an alcove along the way.
"I'm back," he announced. "Tell Thogran Klayrn that I've brought
Walton. Find out whether he'll come out to talk to him."
"I thought he had to breathe special atmosphere," Walton said. "How can
he come out?"
"They've got breathing masks. Usually they don't like to use them."
McLeod listened at the earpiece for a moment, then nodded. To Walton
he said, "The alien will see you in the lounge."
* * * * *
Walton had barely time to fortify himself with a slug of filtered rum
when a crewman appeared at the entrance to the lounge and declared
ostentatiously, "His Excellency, Thogran Klayrn of Dirna."
The alien entered.
Walton had seen the photographs, and so he was partially prepared. But
only partially.
The photos had not given him any idea of size. The alien stood eight
feet high, and gave an appearance of astonishing mass. It must have
weighed four or five hundred pounds, but it stood on two thick legs
barely three feet long. Somewhere near the middle of the columnar
body, four sturdy arms jutted forth strangely. A neckless head topped
the ponderous creature--a head covered entirely with the transparent
breathing mask. One of the hands held a mechanical device of some sort;
the translating machine, Walton surmised.
The alien's hide was bright-green, and leathery in texture. A faint
pungent odor drifted through the room, as of an object long immersed in
ammonia.
"I am Thogran Klayrn," a booming voice said. "Diplomasiarch of Dirna. I
have been sent to talk with Roy Walton. Are you Roy Walton?"
"I am." Walton's voice sounded cold and dry to his own ears. He knew he
was too tense, pressing too hard. "I'm very glad to meet you, Thogran
Klayrn."
"Please sit. I do not. My body is not made that way."
Walton sat. It made him feel uncomfortable to have to crane his neck
upward at the alien, but that could not be helped. "Did you have a
pleasant trip?" Walton asked, temporizing desperately.
A half-grunt came from Thogran Klayrn. "Indeed it was so. But I do not
indulge in little talk. A problem we have, and it must be discussed."
"Agreed." Whatever a diplomasiarch might be on Dirna, it was _not_ a
typical diplomat. Walton was relieved that it would not be necessary to
spend hours in formalities before they reached the main problem.
"A ship sent out by your people," the alien said, "invaded our system
some time ago. In command was your Colonel McLeod, whom I have come to
know well. What was the purpose of this ship?"
"To explore the worlds of the universe and to discover a planet where
we of Earth could settle. Our world is very overcrowded now."
"So I have been given to know. You have chosen Labura--or, in your
terms, Procyon VIII--as your colony. Is this so?"
"Yes," Walton said. "It's a perfect world for our purposes. But Colonel
McLeod has informed me that you object to our settling there."
"We do so object." The Dirnan's voice was cold. "You are a young and
active race. We do not know what danger you may bring to us. To have
you as our neighbors--"
"We could swear a treaty of eternal peace," Walton said.
"Words. Mere words."
"But don't you see that we can't even _land_ on that planet of yours!
It's too big, too heavy for us. What possible harm could we do?"
"There are races," said the Dirnan heavily, "which believe in violence
as a sacred act. You have long-range missiles. How might we trust you?"
Walton squirmed; then sudden inspiration struck him. "There's a planet
in this system that's as suitable for your people as Labura is for
ours. I mean Jupiter. We could offer you colonial rights to Jupiter in
exchange for the privilege of colonizing Labura!"
The alien was silent for a moment. Considering? There was no way of
telling what emotions passed across that face. At length the alien
said, "Not satisfactory. Our people have long since reached stability
of population. We have no need of colonies. It has been many thousands
of your years since we have ventured into space."
Walton felt chilled. _Many thousands of years!_ He realized he was up
against a formidable life form.
"We have learned to stabilize births and deaths," the Dirnan went on
sonorously. "It is a fundamental law of the universe, and one that you
Earthfolk must learn sooner or later. How you choose to do it is your
own business. But we have no need of planets in your system, and we
fear allowing you to enter ours. The matter is simple of statement,
difficult of resolution. But we are open to suggestions from you."
Walton's mind blanked. Suggestions? What possible suggestion could he
make?
He gasped. "We have something to offer," he said. "It might be of value
to a race that has achieved population stability. We would give it to
you in exchange for colonization rights."
"What is this commodity?" the Dirnan asked.
"Immortality," Walton said.