"You understand, I had another motive, too."
"Yes. I don't think you could be blamed for that, either."
* * * * *
Jubb looked at him with his large inscrutable eyes, totally alien,
unmistakably intelligent. "I didn't know what you would be like, Mr.
Durham, whether you would be in sympathy with your employers or not.
Now of course it is evident that you can't be."
Durham said quietly, "I've been to a lot of trouble already to put a
rope around their necks. I'm ready to go to a lot more. They've used me
like--" He could not think of the right word. Jubb nodded.
"Contempt is not an easy thing to take. I know. Then you will help?"
"In any way I can."
"I want you to go back with me to The Hub, Mr. Durham. Before, I was
helpless without proof. Now, as head of a planetary government, I can
insist on seeing the ranking Ambassador himself, and I can bypass
Hawtree now that I know who he is. I want you to be my witness."
"Nothing," said Durham, "would please me more."
"Good," said Jubb. "Good. Karlovic, it looks as though the end of our
long fight may be in sight at last. Take good care of Mr. Durham. He is
more precious than gold.
"Meanwhile, Morrison had made us a problem on transportation. We
provided that particular ship for the consul's comfort, when there was
reason for him to travel in our territory, and we had planned to refit
it so that it would accommodate two on the return journey. Now I must
ask a ship from our friends on Nanta Dik, and that may take a little
time. So rest well, Mr. Durham."
He went out, and Karlovic led Durham back into the hall and from there
into a tall gloomy chamber that had a shiny little kitchen lost in one
corner of it. There was a table and chairs. Durham sat down and watched
Karlovic busy himself with packages of food.
"You don't look very happy about all this," he said.
"I'm not unhappy. I'm worried."
"About what? Morrison can't do anything now."
"No? Listen, Mr. Durham, the emperors of Rome only ruled part of one
little world, but they didn't give it up easily. Morrison won't,
either. Remember, things are so bad for him now they can't possibly get
any worse, only better."
Durham looked out the window. It was a double one, with a vacuum
between the panes and protective mesh on the outside. The green air
pressed thick against it. The sun had wheeled far over, and the shadows
of the buildings were long and black.
"Do you stay here much?" he asked.
"I have lately," said Karlovic. "I had to. My life wasn't safe on
Nanta Dik. You've no idea how high their feelings run there, thanks to
Morrison." He began to set the table. Durham made no move to help. He
was tired. He watched the shadows lengthen and fill the circle of lofty
walls with their darkness.
"Couldn't the government there protect you?"
"Only part of the government wants to. And Morrison is working hard to
frighten them with all this propaganda about the Bitter Star."
"Propaganda. That's what he said. Is it?"
"Absolutely--as far as the Senyans using it is concerned. But the thing
itself is real. It's in the city here. I've seen it."
Karlovic put the heated containers on the table and sat down. He began
methodically to eat.
"It's kind of a weird story. Probably it could only have happened on a
world like this, with a totally non-human, bio-chemical set-up. Senyan
science started early and advanced fast, a good deal faster than it did
on Nanta Dik, for some reason. They did a lot of experimenting with
solar energy and atomics and the forces that lie just on the borderline
of life--or maybe intelligence would be a better word."
"Aren't the two more or less synonymous?"
"A hunk of platinum sponge or a mess of colloids can be intelligent,
but never alive. The Star is. The darkbirds are. They're not matter,
they're merely a nexus of interacting particles. But they live and
think."
"What about the Star?"
"The scientists were trying for an energy matrix that would absorb
solar power and store it like a battery. Something slipped, and the
result was the Bitter Star. It absorbs solar power, all right, but in
the form of heat, and it will take heat from anything. And it doesn't
give it up. It merely absorbs more and more until every living thing
near it is frozen and there's no more heat to be had. The Senyan
scientists didn't know quite what to do with this thing they had
created, but they didn't want to destroy it, either. It had too many
angles they wanted to study. So they made the darkbirds, on the same
pattern but without the heat-hunger, and with a readier intelligence,
to be a bridge between themselves and the Star, to control it. They
studied the thing until it proved too dangerous, and they prisoned it
by simply starving it at a temperature of absolute zero. So it has
stayed ever since, but the darkbirds still guard it in case anything
should happen to free it again. They almost seem to love it, in some
odd unfleshly way."