Kutath

Chapter Ten

The chief of security was back again, to trouble the labs. Aver-son blinked and focused on him, this dark man so persistent in his patrols. He glanced likewise at the collection of papers beside him on the desk, made a nervous snatch toward them as Degas gathered one up and looked at it.

"You've made progress with the regul transmissions?" Degas asked. "There's some urgency about it.”

"It's " Averson held out his hand for the paper and received it back. Degas favored him with a sardonic smile as he shuffled it back into order. "It's couched in idiom, not code. It might be clear if we understood Nurag.”

"Nurag.”

"Homeworld has bearing on language," Averson answered shortly, and experienced a little uneasiness as Degas sat down on the edge of the desk facing him. Degas put down cassettes, click, click, click, on the desk top before him.

"There's a great deal going on, Dr. Averson. Our time is escaping us. The onworld mission has decided to go… prudently or not rests elsewhere; they've moved out, to whatever they may find. And they may stir something up. There's always that chance. Now we have a request for permission for a regul shuttle to go down and sit with Flower.”

Averson gnawed at his lips.

"The admiral is stalling," Degas said.

Perhaps he was supposed to make some observation on this. He did not like the thought of regul in Flowers neighborhood; he did not reckon what to do about it

"The admiral," said Degas, "understands from your reports and your advisements, that the regul may move in with or without our permission.”

"They may," Averson allowed. "They would reckon we would not move to stop them.”

"This"; Degas reached across the desk to the spot directly in front of his hands, tapped it with his forefinger. The man was dark in manner, dark in dress, but for the weapons and the badges; he glittered with them, like kerein, Averson thought, much like them. "This, Dr. Averson; you've paralyzed us with your yes and no. You've said nothing, except that there's no action to be taken. Wait, you say; and what is your general feeling on the regul? Where are your opinions?”

"I can't, I've told you. I can't pronounce with any surety “

"Your guess, doctor.”

"But without supporting data “

"Your guess, doctor. It's more valuable than most men's studied opinion.”

"No," Averson said. "It's more dangerous.”

Give it.

"I find it possible… that there is more than one adult. One to remain here, one ... on that ship they want to send down. Logically, you see they don't function without elder direction. You think there are regul ships down there now; I agree. But no elder. I think they would like to get one down there if they could.”

Degas's breath hissed softly between his teeth.

"The hydra's head," Averson said. Degas looked at him with no evidence of comprehension. "An old story," Averson said. "Not the star-snake… the old one. Cut off the head and two more take its place. Kill a regul elder and more than one metamorphoses to take its place. Shock… some biological trigger.…”

Degas frowned the more deeply.

"One thing that bothers me," Averson said, "How do they learn?"

"A question for the science department," Degas said, rising. "Solve that one on your off time. What about the rest of the data I gave you? What about the transmissions?”

"No," Averson said. "Listen to me. It's an important question. They don't write everything down.”

Degas shrugged in impatience. Tin sure that's solved somehow.”

"No. No! Listen to me. They remember… they remember. Eidetic memory. What died with bai Sham ... is forever lost to them. They have to lose something in the transitions. Young regul metamorphosing and taking over adult function by themselves and without outside influence, without the supporting information of their docha-structures and adults “

"The easier to deal with them. There's no reason for panic.”

Averson shook his head, despairing. "Not necessarily easier. You want guesses, good colonel Degas. I shall give you guesses. That we have here regul without home ties, regul without past, regul who can't imagine what they're missing, regul more likely than any others to act as regul don't act; and that is dangerous, sir. A spur, a splinter of Nurag maybe; maybe of Kesrith, maybe that. On Kesrith, regul attacked, and these young regul learned that. They overcame mri. It became reality. The psychology of the eidetic mind ... is different. That's why you asked me up here, is it not, to tell you these things? Those ships that attacked us on the way up here weren't mri; they were regul.”

"Prove it.”

Averson made a helpless gesture. He was confused in the motivations of this man, so supremely stubborn. He understood regul, and failed with this member of his own species, and suddenly he doubted everything, even what he knew he understood.

Degas leaned again toward him, laid his hand on all the papers in the stack. "Prove it, when none of our analyses could. By what do you know? Point it out to me.”

"The action is consistent with the pattern. It makes a larger pattern.”

"Show me.”

Averson shook his head helplessly.

"I have a tight schedule, doctor. Explain it to one of my aides when you think of it. But in the meantime, I have to work on all the possibilities. The cassettes, doctor, come from a downed ship and the one that recovered the recorder. A man died down there. How does that fit your patterns?”

"I've told you, if you would listen.”

"Ill listen when there's consistency in your advice." Degas gathered up one of the cassettes. "Landscan. Can you handle this or do we shuttle it down to Flower?”

"I'm not qualified. Wait Wait, I would like to look at it before you send it on.”

"Inconvenient, to have the science staff split here and there. You say that you can't handle it expertly; someone downworld can. I'll have your affidavit on that You'll record it”

"If you wish.”

"Now." Degas ripped paper off a pad, shoved it across the desk at him, put a stylus down by it. "Write that.”

"Now?" Averson took a deep breath, mustered his anger. "I am also a busy man, colonel. You could wait.”

"Write it.”

He did not like Degas. The man was forceful and unpleasant Capitulation would get him out of the lab. Averson picked up the stylus. Suggest transfer of landscan tape to more affected department, he wrote, and looked up. "I have some notes of my own I'll want to send down when this goes.”

"If they make the shuttle, fine." Degas tapped the paper. "Sign it Write'Urgent'“

"I will not be bullied.”

"Sign it”

Averson blinked and looked up in shock, blinked again, thinking of things going on outside his comprehension, of motives in this man which intended things outside his own interests.

"I should consult with the admiral," Averson protested.

"Do your job. If you can't do it, pass it to those who can. Sign the paper. Note it as I told you. The shuttle will have it down within the hour.”

"Excuses for more flights.”

"Sign it.”

"I'm right, aren't I?"

Degas put his hands framing his and leaned on them, gazing into his face at short range. "Do you know what happens if security is hamstrung, Dr. Averson? Do you comprehend your personal hazard? We have a shuttle down there poking about old sites and weapons, and ships loose we don't have identified; science department is giving us cautions we already understand. We want information. We're in orbit in range of ground-based weapons. Do you comprehend that? Sign it. And put 'Urgent' on it.”

Averson did so, his hand shaking. He did not understand security's function in this. He understood personal threat Degas collected the note and the cassette.

"Thank you," Degas said with great nicety.

And walked out.

Averson clenched his hands together, finding them sweating. Such men had had great power in the days of the mri wars. Some evidently thought that they still did.

This one did, where they sat, with the mri below and the regul above, and themselves neatly in the middle.

He reached for the pad and dashed off another note;

Emil; Boaz was right. Security is involved in this, something maybe personal or political. I don't figure it out. Watch out for the regul. Don't let them into the ship. Please, be careful. All of you be careful. And send Danny up here if you can spare him.

I begin to understand things. I can't make these soldiers comprehend simple logic.

Sim.

He folded the paper in all directions, put it into an envelope, and sealed it. Luiz, he wrote on it, Personal Mail.

And then he sat holding it on his lap and doubting where it would finally go.

The cassettes. He suddenly regretted the loss of the landscan tape, the tiny morsel of information now denied him. He manipulated the new data into the player on the desk, rapid-scanned it. It told partial tales. All the mosaic was not there. Bioscan. He read it with an amateur's eye, split screens, readouts, instruments he did not know. What he did told him only of an intermittent vegetation, more than they had yet seen.

With fevered haste he rejected that tape and pushed in the second. It made even less sense to him, ship's instruments or some such, data with symbols of fields outside his specialization; physics, numbers that made no sense at all except that they might be electrical or some such power symbols.

A man dead, Degas had said. There was a pilot lost; he had heard that, a man named Van. The flow of data rippled past, with a man's death in it, and told him nothing. They took land-scan, of which he could have made at least a modicum of sensible interpretation and left him this jargon ... in payment for his signature. It was the signature security had wanted, to get another shuttle launched, a ship down there, nothing more than that. They had made games of him and he had let them. Perhaps what motivated them really was locked in these incomprehensible records… and Degas placed them in his hands for mockery.

They must not even need interpretation of the data ... or they would have taken it all.

Harris; he thought of the pilot Harris, one man he knew on the ship who had some expertise in shuttles and the kind of scan they were carrying, who at least might know what field these strange notations came of. He cut off the tape with a jab of bis finger, punched in ship's communications.

Com answered, a young voice.

"This is Dr. Simeon Averson down in lab. Request you locate one Lt. Harris, pilot, and ask him to come to my lab as soon as possible.”

"Yes, sir.”

He thanked com, broke connection and leaned back, gnawing at his knuckle.

And in a moment the screen activated again. "Dr. Averson," said a different and female voice.

"Yes."

"Dr. Averson, this is Lt McCray, security. Col. Degas's regards, sir, but your last request violates lines of operations.”

"What request?”

"For communication with the military arm, sir. Regulations make it necessary to deny that interview. Lt. Harris is on other assignment.”

"You mean he's not on the ship?”

"He's on other assignment, sir.”

"Thank you." He broke connection, clenched his hands a second time.

And after a moment he snatched up a pertinent handful of his notes, his notebook, and the tapes, stalked across to the door and opened it.

There was a young man in AlSec uniform just outside, not precisely watching or moving, or with reasonable business in the otherwise deserted corridor.

Averson retreated inside and closed the door between them, feeling a prickling of sweat, a pounding of his heart which was not good for him. He walked back to the desk and sat down, slammed his notebook at the cassettes and the papers down, fumbled in his breast pocket for the bottle of pills. He took one and slowly the pounding subsided.

Then he stabbed at the console and obtained com again. "This is Averson. Get me the admiral.”

"That has to go through channels, sir.”

"Pttt it through channels.”

There was prolonged silence, without image.

"Dr. Averson," Degas's voice came suddenly over the unit "Do I detect dissatisfaction with something?”

Averson sucked in his breath, let it out again. "Put me through to the admiral, sir. Now.”

The silence again. His heart beat harder and harder. He was Havener. In the war, such men had had power there. Absolute power. He had learned so.

"Now," Averson repeated.

More silence.

"That comes by appointment," Degas said. "I will make that appointment for you."

"This moment”

"I will meet you in the admiral's office. If there is some question regarding security operations, it will be necessary.”

The heartbeat became painful again, even more than in the terror of the flight up.

"I trust you won't be needing transfer back downworld," Degas said blandly. "Flights are very much more hazardous than they were when you came up. I would not risk it.”

"No," Averson said, short of breath.

"Perhaps you have come up with some new advice. I would like to hear it”

"A complaint A complaint about security's bullying tactics. I want that man taken off my door. I want access to anyone I choose. I want contact with the admiral.”

"In short, the whole ship should arrange itself and its operations to accommodate you. Dr. Averson, I have tried to be help-fuL”

"You have taken away data I could use.”

"A copy will be sent you. But I have your statement that you aren't qualified in that area. Precisely what direction are your researches taking now, Dr. Averson? The admiral will want to know.”

"I object to this intimidation and harassment”

"Stay there, Dr. Averson.”

Panic set in. He sat still, hearing the connection broken, sat still with the realization that there was no contact he could make past this man; nowhere he might go without encountering the man in the corridor. Sensibly he suspected that no violence would be done him if he tried to leave, but he was not a physical man; he flinched from the possibility of unpleasantness and confrontations, which touched on his medical condition. He dared not, could not, would not

He had to sit and wait

And eventually the man arrived, closed the door and crossed the room to him, quiet and looking ever so much more conciliatory than needed be.

"We have a misunderstanding," Degas said. "We should clear that up."

"You should get that man off my door.”

"There is no man out there.”

Averson drew in his breath. "I object," he said, "to being intimidated.”

"You are free to object as I am free to state otherwise.”

"What is the matter with you?" Averson cried. "Are we on opposite sides?”

"Opposite sides of opinion, perhaps." Degas settled again on the edge of the desk, towering over him. "We are both men of conscience, doctor. You have an opinion colored by panic. Mine rests on convictions of practicality. A pattern, you say. Have you met mri, doctor? Have you dealt with the agent who became mri?”

"We are all Haveners. All of us remember. . . but “

"Some interests here want to throw over alliance with the regul for protection of the mri. Do you understand that?”

He bunked, realized his mouth was open and closed it. The matter of politics began to come clear to him. "I don't see where it is… No. Breaking up the regul alliance is insanity.”

"And unnecessary.”

"Unnecessary, yes." He lifted a hand and wiped perspiration from his upper lip, gazed up at Degas, who backed off from him a few paces.

"You do not counsel this," Degas said.

"No. It's possible to deal with the regul. I know this; I would never say otherwise. It is possible to deal with them. But dangerous… dangerous under present conditions.”

"Do you really understand the situation, doctor? Certain interests are pro-mri. Why they have taken this position… leave that to them to answer. It is a very dangerous position. The mission onworld, the personnel on that mission the mission leader, your own Dr. Boaz, if you will forgive me, who is with them… are predisposed to find the mri nonaggressive, to counsel us into an approach to them. Regul do not threaten us; regul are not an aggressive species. Regul don't pose the primary threat. Do you agree; they don't pose the primary threat?

"We're in a dangerous position here. You yourself said “

"But the mass of mankind, back home ... a threat to them?"

"No. No danger from regul. No possible danger.”

"Do you see what these well-meaning influences would have you do? And what the result will be? From which species is the real threat of conflict, doctor?”

"I see what you're saying. But “

"Application of humanitarian principles. But Cultures above all ought to see through our moralistic impulses. We're talking about a species of killers, Dr. Averson, a species that lives by killing, parasites on the wars of any available power, who cultivate wars as regul cultivate trade. We may lose the regul here. And save what we'll regret. You understand me?”

"I suggest, Dr. Averson, that these are points worth considering. That reports you make should be carefully considered for effect on policy at high levels. We have new data from the surface, a disturbing resurgence in the destroyed sites. The mri do not offer to contact us. So we send a peace mission stirring into the ruins. We have allies taking on independent operations thanks to these changes in our policy and the killing of their leader by a mri agent.… You can't interpret their intention ... or won't. How do we proceed? Do you have answers? Or do we let the situation go others' way?”

Averson sat and sweated and slowly, after considering, wadded up the envelope in his hand, put it into his pocket under Degas's stare. "You found life in the old sites and the mission went anyway.”

"We learned it this morning. We don't have direct contact with the mission… can't reach them without endangering everything.”

"Can't call them back?”

"Officially," Degas said in a low voice, leaning close to touch a finger before him, "not without blowing what we're doing wide open to the regul, among other things. And how do regul take that? What reaction could we anticipate? You should appreciate the significance of your own reports, doctor. They set directions. You should understand that.”

"I do not intend to set directions.”

"You're in that position. What do you say about the regul? I should have hoped your peculiar insights into their culture would have balanced… other interests in Cultures. What do you say?”

"We should not lose them, no. We should not let that happen.”

"Make it clear, then." Degas leaned there with both hands. "We have dissenting views. We need this in writing, in recommendations with practical application, or we slip toward another line of policy. We're sitting up here blind, over active weapons. We're protecting mri at the expense of all we've gained by the treaties. We're alienating a species from whom the gains could be enormous. I suggest, Dr. Averson, that you and I have a long conference on these matters.”

"I will-talk about it.”

"Now," Degas said.