came to him that there were probably few worlds in the whole UP where he’d
have been prone to do this within the first few hours he’d been on the
planet. He would have been afraid, elsewhere, of anything from footpads to
police, from unknown vehicles to unknown traffic laws. There was something
bewildering about being an Earthling and being set down suddenly in New
Delos or on Avalon.
Here, somehow, he already had a feeling of peace.
Evidently, although Bakunin was supposedly a city, its populace tilled
their fields and provided themselves with their own food. He could see no
signs of stores or warehouses. And the UP building, which was no great
edifice itself, was the only thing in town which looked even remotely like
a governmental building.
Bakunin was neat. Clean as a pin, as the expression went. Ronny was
vaguely reminded of a historical Tri-Di romance he’d once seen. It had
been laid in ancient times in a community of the Amish in old
Pennsylvania.
He approached one of the wooden houses. The things would have been
priceless on Earth as an antique to be erected as a museum in some crowded
park. For that matter it would have been priceless for the wood it
contained. Evidently, the planet Kropotkin still had considerable virgin
forest.
An old-timer smoking a pipe, sat on the cottage’s front step. He nodded
politely.
Ronny stopped. He might as well try to get a little of the feel of the
place. He said courteously, “A pleasant evening.”
The old-timer nodded. “As evenings should be after a fruitful day’s toil.
Sit down, comrade. You must be from the United Planets. Have you ever seen
Earth?”
Ronny accepted the invitation and felt a soothing calm descend upon him
almost immediately. An almost disturbingly pleasant calm. He said, “I was
born on Earth.”
“Ai?” the old man said. “Tell me. The books say that Kropotkin is an Earth
type planet within what they call a few degrees. But is it? Is Kropotkin
truly like the mother planet?”
Ronny looked about him. He’d seen some of this world as the shuttle rocket
had brought them down from the passing liner. The forests, the lakes, the
rivers, and the great sections untouched by man’s hands. Now he saw the
areas between homes, the neat fields, the signs of human toil—the toil of
hands, not machines.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid not. This is how Earth must
once have been. But no longer.”
The other nodded. “Our total population is but a few million,” he said.
Then, “I would like to see the mother planet, but I suppose I never
shall.”
Ronny said diplomatically, “I have seen little of Kropotkin thus far but I
am not so sure but that I might not be happy to stay here, rather than
ever return to Earth.”
The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe by striking it against the
heel of a work-gnarled hand. He looked about him thoughtfully and said,
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. I am an old man and life has been good. I
suppose I should be glad that I’ll unlikely live to see Kropotkin change.”
“Change? You plan changes?”
-------------------------------------
The old man looked at him and there seemed to be a very faint bitterness,
politely suppressed. “I wouldn’t say _we_ planned them, comrade. Certainly
not we of the older generation. But the trend toward change is already to
be seen by anyone who wishes to look, and our institutions won’t long be
able to stand. But, of course, if you’re from United Planets you would
know more of this than I.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You are new indeed on Kropotkin,” the old man said. “Just a moment.” He
went into his house and emerged with a small power pack. He indicated it
to Ronny Bronston. “This is our destruction,” he said.
The Section G agent shook his head, bewildered.
The old-timer sat down again. “My son,” he said, “runs the farm now. Six
months ago, he traded one of our colts for a small pump, powered by one of
these. It was little use on my part to argue against the step. The pump
eliminates considerable work at the well and in irrigation.”
Ronny still didn’t understand.
“The power pack is dead now,” the old man said, “and my son needs a new
one.”
“They’re extremely cheap,” Ronny said. “An industrialized planet turns
them out in multi-million amounts at practically no cost.”
“We have little with which to trade. A few handicrafts, at most.”
Ronny said, “But, good heavens, man, build yourselves a plant to
manufacture power packs. With a population this small, a factory employing
no more than half a dozen men could turn out all you need.”
The old man was shaking his head. He held up the battery. “This comes from
the planet Archimedes,” he said, “one of the most highly industrialized in
the UP, so I understand. On Archimedes do you know how many persons it
takes to manufacture this power pack?”
[Illustration.]
“A handful to operate the whole factory, Archimedes is fully automated.”
The old man was still moving his head negatively. “No. It takes the total
working population of the planet. How many different metals do you think
are contained in it, in all? I can immediately see what must be lead and
copper.”
Ronny said uncomfortably, “Probably at least a dozen, some in microscopic
amounts.”
“That’s right. So we need a highly developed metallurgical industry before
we can even begin. Then a developed transportation industry to take metals
to the factory. We need power to run the factory, hydro-electric, solar,
or possibly atomic power. We need a tool-making industry to equip the
factory, the transport industry and the power industry. And while the men
are employed in these, we need farmers to produce food for them, educators
to teach them the sciences and techniques involved, and an entertainment
industry to amuse them in their hours of rest. As their lives become more
complicated with all this, we need a developed medical industry to keep
them in health.”
The old man hesitated for a moment, then said, “And, above all, we need a
highly complicated government to keep all this accumulation of wealth in
check and balance. No. You see, my friend, it takes _social labor_ to
produce products such as this, and thus far we have avoided that on
Kropotkin. In fact, it was for such avoidance that my ancestors originally
came to this planet.”
Ronny said, scowling, “This gets ridiculous. You show me this basically
simple power pack and say it will ruin your socio-economic system. On the
face of it, it’s ridiculous.”
The old man sighed and looked out over the village unseeingly. “It’s not
just that single item, of course. The other day one of my neighbors turned
up with a light bulb with built-in power for a year’s time. It is the envy
of the unthinking persons of the neighborhood most of whom would give a
great deal for such a source of light. A nephew of mine has somehow even
acquired a powered bicycle, I think you call them, from somewhere or
other. One by one, item by item, these products of advanced technology
turn up—from whence, we don’t seem to be able to find out.”
Under his breath, Ronny muttered, “_Paine!_”
“I beg your pardon,” the old man said.
“Nothing,” the Section G agent said. He leaned forward and, a worried
frown working its way over his face, began to question the other more
closely.
Afterwards, Ronny Bronston strode slowly toward the UP headquarters. There
was only a small contingent of United Planets personnel on this little
populated member planet but, as always, there seemed to be an office for
Section G.
Ronny stood outside it for a moment. There were voices from within, but he
didn’t knock.
In fact, he cast his eyes up and down the short corridor. At the far end
was a desk with a girl in the Interplanetary Cultural Exchange Department
working away in concentration. She wasn’t looking in his direction.
Ronny Bronston put his ear to the door. The building was primitive enough,
rustic enough in its construction, to permit his hearing.
Tog Lee Chang Chu was saying seriously, “Oh, it was chaotic all right, but
no, I don’t really believe it could have been a Tommy Paine case. Actually
I’d suggest to you that you run over to Catalina. When I was on Avalon I
heard rumors that Tommy Paine’s finger seemed to be stirring around in the
mess there. Yes, I’d recommend that you take off for Catalina immediately.
If Paine is anywhere in this vicinity at all, it would be Catalina.”
For a moment, Ronny Bronston froze. Then in automatic reflex his hand went
inside his jacket to rest over the butt of the Model H automatic there.
No, that wasn’t the answer. His hand dropped away from the gun.
He listened, further.
Another voice was saying, “We thought we were on the trail for a while on
Hector, but it turned out it wasn’t Paine. Just a group of local agitators
fed up with the communist regime there. There’s going to be a blood bath
on Hector, before they’re through, but it doesn’t seem to be Paine’s work
this time.”
Tog’s voice was musing. “Well, you never know, it sounds like the sort of
muck he likes to play in.”
The strange voice said argumentatively, “Well, Hector _needs_ a few
fundamental changes.”
“It could be,” Tog said, “but that’s their internal affairs, of course.
Our job in Section G is to prevent troubles between the differing
socio-economic and religious features of member planets. Whatever we think
of some of the things Paine does, our task is to get him.”
-------------------------------------
Ronny Bronston pushed the door open and went through. Tog Lee Chang Chu
was sitting at a desk, nonchalant and petitely beautiful as usual,
comfortably seated in easy-chairs were two young men by their attire
probably citizens of United Planets and possibly even Earthlings.
“Hello, Ronny,” Tog said softly. “Meet Frederic Lippman and Pedro Nazaré,
both Section G operatives. This is my colleague, Ronald Bronston,
gentlemen. Fredric and Pedro were just leaving, Ronny.”
The two agents got up to shake hands.
Ronny said, “You can’t be in that much of a hurry. What’s your assignment,
boys?”
Lippman, an earnest type, and by his appearance not more than twenty-five
or so years of age, began to answer, but Nazaré said hurriedly, “Actually,
it’s a confidential assignment. We’re working directly out of the
Octagon.”
Lippman said, frowning, “It’s not that confidential, Tog. Bronston’s an
agent, too. What’s your assignment, Ronny?”
Ronny said very slowly, “I’m beginning to suspect that it’s the same as
yours and various pieces are beginning to fall into place.”
Lippman was taken aback. “You mean you’re looking for Tommy Paine?” His
eyes went to his associate. “How could that be, Tog? I didn’t know more
than one of us were on this job. Why, that means if Bronston here finds
him first, I won’t get my permanent appointment.”
Ronny looked at Tog Lee Chang Chu who was sitting demurely, hands in lap,
and a resigned expression on her face. He said, “Nor if you find him
first, will I. Look here, Tog, how many men does Sid Jakes have out on
this assignment?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said mildly.
He snapped, “A few dozen or so? Or possibly a few hundred?”
“It seems unlikely there could be that many,” she said mildly. She looked
at the other two agents. “I think you two had better run along. Take my
suggestion I made earlier.”
“Wait a minute,” Ronny snapped. “You mean that they go to Catalina? That’s
ridiculous.”
Tog Lee Chang Chu looked at Pedro Nazaré and he turned and started for the
door followed by Fredric Lippman who was still scowling his puzzlement.
“Wait a minute!” Ronny snapped. “I tell you it’s ridiculous. And why
follow her suggestions? She’s just my assistant.”
Pedro Nazaré said, “Come on, Fred, let’s get going, we’ll have to pack.”
But Lippman wasn’t having any.
“His assistant?” he said to Tog Lee Chang Chu.
Tog Lee Chang Chu’s face changed expression in sudden decision. She opened
her bag and brought forth a Section G identification wallet and flicked it
open. The badge was gold. “I suggest you hurry,” she said to the two
agents.
They left, and Tog turned back to Ronny, her eyebrows raised
questioningly.
Ronny sank down into one of the chairs recently occupied by the other two
agents and tried to unravel thoughts. He said finally, “I suppose my
question should be, why do Ross Metaxa and Sid Jakes send an agent of
supervisor rank to act as assistant to a probationary agent? But that’s
not what I’m asking yet. First, Lippman just called his buddy Tog. How
come?”
Tog took her seat again, rueful resignation on her face. “You should be
figuring it out on your own by this time, Ronny.”
He looked at her belligerently. “I’m too stupid, eh?” The anger was
growing within him.
“Tog,” she said. “It’s a nickname, or possibly you might call it a title.
Tog. T-O-G. The Other Guy. My name is Lee Chang Chu, and I’m of supervisor
grade presently working at developing new Section G operatives.
Considering the continuing rapid growth of UP, and the continuing crises
that come up in UP activities, developing new operatives is one of the
department’s most pressing jobs. Each new agent, on his first assignment,
is always paired with an experienced old-timer.”
“I see,” he said flatly. “Your principal job being to needle the fledging,
eh?”
She lowered her eyes. “I wouldn’t exactly word it that way,” she said. She
was obviously unrepentant.
He said, “You must get a lot of laughs out of it. If I say, it seems to me
democracy is a good thing, you give me an argument about the superiority
of rule by an elite. If I say anarchism is ridiculous, you dredge up an
opinion that it’s man’s highest ethic. You must laugh yourself to sleep at
nights. You and Metaxa and Jakes and every other agent in Section G.
Everybody is in on the Tog gag but the sucker.”
“Sometimes there are amusing elements to the work,” Lee Chang conceded,
demurely.
“Just one more thing I’d like to ask,” Ronny rapped. “This first
assignment, agents are given. Is it always to look for Tommy Paine?”
She looked up at him, said nothing, but her eyes were questioning.
“Don’t worry,” he snapped. “I’ve already found out who Paine is.”
“Ah?” She was suddenly interested. “Then I’m glad I ordered that other
probationary agent to leave. Evidently, he hasn’t. Obviously, I didn’t
want the two of you comparing notes.”
“No, that would never do,” he said bitterly. “Well, this is the end of the
assignment so far as you and I are concerned. I’m heading back for Earth.”
“Of course,” she said.
-------------------------------------
He had time on the way to think it all over, and over and over again, and
a great deal of it simply didn’t make sense. He had enough information to
be disillusioned, sick at heart. To have crumbled an idealistic edifice
that had taken a lifetime to build. A lifetime? At least three. His father
and his grandfather before him had had the dream. He’d been weaned on the
idealistic purposes of the United Planets and man’s fated growth into the
stars.
He was a third-generation dreamer of participating in the glory. His
grandfather had been a citizen of Earth and gave up a commercial position
to take a job that amounted to little more than a janitor in an obscure
department of Interplanetary Financial Clearing. He wanted to get into the
big job, into space, but never made it. Ronny’s father managed to work up
to the point where he was a supervisor in Interplanetary Medical Exchange,
in the tabulating department. He, too, had wanted into space, and never
made it. Ronny had loved them both. In a way fulfilling his own dreams had
been a debt he owed them, because at the same time he was fulfilling
theirs.
And now this. All that had been gold, was suddenly gilted lead. The dream
had become contemptuous nightmare.
Finally back in Greater Washington, he went immediately from the
shuttleport to the Octagon. His Bureau of Investigation badge was enough
to see him through the guide-guards and all the way through to the office
of Irene Kasansky.
She looked up at him quickly. “Hi,” she said. “Ronny Bronston, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. I want to see Commissioner Metaxa.”
She scowled. “I can’t work you in now. How about Sid Jakes?”
He said, “Jakes is in charge of the Tommy Paine routine, isn’t he?”
She shot a sharper look up at him. “That’s right,” she said warily.
“All right,” Ronny said. “I’ll see Jakes.”
Her deft right hand slipped open a drawer in her desk. “You’d better leave
your gun here,” she said. “I’ve known probationary agents to get excited,
in my time.”
He looked at her.
And she looked back, her gaze level.
Ronny Bronston shrugged, slipped the Model H from under his armpit and
tossed it into the drawer.
Irene Kasansky went back to her work. “You know the way,” she said.
This time Ronny Bronston pushed open the door to Sid Jakes’ office without
knocking. The Section G supervisor was poring over reports on his desk. He
looked up and grinned his Sid Jakes’ grin.
“Ronny!” he said. “Welcome back. You know, you’re one of the quickest men
ever to return from a Tommy Paine assignment. I was talking to Lee Chang
only a day or so ago. She said you were on your way.”
Ronny grunted, his anger growing within him. He lowered himself into one
of the room’s heavy chairs, and glared at the other.
Sid Jakes chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Before we go any
further, just to check, who is Tommy Paine?”
Ronny snapped, “You are.”
The supervisor’s eyebrows went up.
Ronny said, “You and Ross Metaxa and Lee Chang Chu—and all the rest of
Section G. Section G is Tommy Paine.”
“Good man!” Sid Jakes chortled. He flicked a switch on his order box.
“Irene,” he said, “how about clearing me through to the commissioner? I
want to take Ronny in for his finals.”
Irene snapped back something and Sid Jakes switched off and turned to
Ronny happily. “Let’s go,” he said. “Ross is free for a time.”
Ronny Bronston said nothing. He followed the other. The rage within him
was still mounting.
In the months that had elapsed since Ronny Bronston had seen Ross Metaxa
the latter had changed not at all. His clothing was still sloppy, his eyes
bleary with lack of sleep or abundance of alcohol—or both. His expression
was still sour and skeptical.
He looked up at their entry and scowled, and made no effort to rise and
shake hands. He said to Ronny sourly, “O.K., sound off and get it over
with. I haven’t too much time this afternoon.”
Ronny Bronston was just beginning to feel tentacles of cold doubt, but he
suppressed them. The boiling anger was uppermost. He said flatly, “All my
life I’ve been a dedicated United Planets man. All my life I’ve considered
its efforts the most praiseworthy and greatest endeavor man has ever
attempted.”
“Of course, old chap,” Jakes told him cheerfully. “We know all that, or
you wouldn’t ever have been chosen as an agent for Section G.”
Ronny looked at him in disgust. “I’ve resigned that position, Jakes.”
Jakes grinned back at him. “To the contrary, you’re now in the process of
receiving permanent appointment.”
Ronny snorted his disgust and turned back to Metaxa. “Section G is a
secret department of the Bureau of Investigation devoted to subverting
Article One of the United Planets Charter.”
Metaxa nodded.
“You don’t deny it?”
Metaxa shook his head.
“Article One,” Ronny snapped, “is the basic foundation of the Charter
which every member of UP and particularly every citizen of United Planets,
such as ourselves, has sworn to uphold. But the very reason for the
existence of this Section G is to interfere with the internal affairs of
member planets, to subvert their governments, their economic systems,
their religions, their ideals, their very way of life.”
Metaxa yawned and reached into a desk drawer for his bottle. “That’s
right,” he said. “Anybody like a drink?”
Ronny ignored him. “I’m surprised I didn’t catch on even sooner,” he said.
“On New Delos Mouley Hassan, the local agent, knew the God-King was going
to be assassinated. He brought in extra agents and even a detail of Space
Forces guards for the emergency. He probably engineered the assassination
himself.”
“Nope,” Jakes said. “We seldom go _that_ far. Local rebels did the actual
work, but, admittedly, we knew what they were planning. In fact, I’ve got
a sneaking suspicion that Mouley Hassan provided them with the bomb. That
lad’s a bit too dedicated.”
“But _why_,” Ronny blurted. “That’s deliberately interfering with internal
affairs. If the word got out, every planet in UP would resign.”
“Probably no planet in the system that needed a change so badly,” Metaxa
growled. “If they were ever going to swing into real progress, that
hierarchy of priests had to go.” He snorted. “An immortal God-King, yet.”
Ronny pressed on. “That was bad enough, but how about this planet Mother,
where the colonists had attempted to return to nature and live in the
manner man did in earliest times.”
“Most backward planet in the UP,” Metaxa said sourly. “They just had to be
roused.”
“And Kropotkin!” Ronny blurted. “Don’t you understand, those people were
_happy_ there. Their lives were simple, uncomplicated, and they had
achieved a happiness that—”
Metaxa came to his feet. He scowled at Ronny Bronston and growled,
“Unfortunately, the human race can’t take the time out for happiness. Come
along, I want to show you something.”
He swung around the corner of his desk and made his way toward a
ceiling-high bookcase.
Ronny stared after him, taken off guard, but Sid Jakes was grinning his
amusement.
Ross Metaxa pushed a concealed button and the bookcase slid away to one
side to reveal an elevator beyond.
“Come along,” Metaxa repeated over his shoulder. He entered the elevator,
followed by Jakes.
There was nothing else to do. Ronny Bronston followed them, his face still
flushed with the angered argument.
The elevator dropped, how far, Ronny had no idea. It stopped and they
emerged into a plain, sparsely furnished vault. Against one wall was a
boxlike affair that reminded Ronny of nothing so much as a deep-freeze.
For all practical purposes, that’s what it was. Ross Metaxa led him over
and they stared down into its glass-covered interior.
Ronny’s eyes bugged. The box contained the partly charred body of an
animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had
obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool
using life form.
Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin
on the supervisor’s face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than
ever.
Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.
“You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.
“It’s an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept
secret?”
“Let’s go on back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.
Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for a
while.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two.
“Ronny,” he said, “man isn’t alone in the galaxy. There’s other
intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”
In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down
there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the
ridiculousness of his statement.
Metaxa grunted. “Obviously, size means nothing. That little fellow down
there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago.
How long he’d been drifting through space, we don’t know. Possibly only
months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long he’s proof
that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when
the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and
whoever it was fighting.”
[Illustration.]
“But,” Ronny protested, “you’re assuming they’re aggressive. Perhaps
coming in contact with these aliens will be the best thing that ever
happened to man. Possibly that little fellow down there is the most
benevolent creature ever evolved.”