Sundiver

17. SHADOW

The workbench was bare, each tool of its accustomed clutter hanging in uncomfortable disuse from the appropriate hook on the wall. The tools were clean. The scored and pitted tabletop shone under a new layer of wax.

The stack of partly disassembled instruments which Jacob had shoved aside lay on the floor accusingly, like the chief mechanic, who had watched him in idle suspicion as he appropriated the workbench. Jacob didn’t care. Despite, or perhaps because of the fiasco aboard the Sunship, no one objected when he decided to continue his own studies. The workbench was a large and convenient space for him to use, and nobody else wanted it right now. Besides, it made it less likely he’d be found by Millie Martine.

In an apse of the huge Sunship Cavern, Jacob could see a sliver of the giant silvery ship, only partly cut off from view by the rock wall. Far overhead the wall arched into a mist of condensation.

He sat on a high stool in front of the bench. Jacob drew “Zwicky Choiceboxes” on two sheets of paper and laid them out on the table. The pink sheets had a yes or no question written on each, representing alternate possible morphological realities.

The one on the left read: B IS RIGHT ABOUT S-GHOSTS, YES (I)/NO(II)

The other sheet was even more difficult to look at: I HAVE FLIPPED OUT, YES (III)/NO(IV).

Jacob couldn’t let anyone else’s judgment sway him on these questions. That was why he’d avoided Martine and the others since the return to Mercury. Other than paying a courtesy call on the recuperating Dr. Kepler, he had become a hermit.

The question on the left concerned Jacob’s job, thought he couldn’t exclude a linkage with the question on the right.

The question on the right would be difficult. All emotion would have to be put aside to arrive at the right answer to that one.

He placed a sheet with the Roman numeral I just below the question on the left, listing the evidence that Bubbacub’s story was correct.

BOX I: B’s STORY TRUE.

It made a tidy list. First of all there was the neat self-consistency of the Pil’s explanation for the Sun Ghost’s behavior. It had been known all along that the creatures used some type of psi. The threatening, man-shaped apparitions implied knowledge of man and an unfriendly inclination. “Only” a chimpanzee had been killed, and only Bubbacub could demonstrate successful communication with the Solarians. All this fit in with LaRoque’s story — the one supposedly implanted in his mind by the creatures.

The most impressive achievement, one that took place while Jacob was unconscious aboard the Sun-ship, was Bubbacub’s feat with the Lethani relic. It was proof that Bubbacub had some contact with the Sun Ghosts.

To drive one Ghost off with a flash of light might be plausible, (although Jacob was at a loss as to how a being drifting in the brilliant chromosphere could detect anything from the dim ulterior of a Sunship), but the dispersal of the entire herd of magnetovores and herdsmen implied that some powerful force (psi?) must have been the Pil’s means.

Every one of these elements would have to be reexamined in the course of Jacob’s morphological analysis. But on the face of it, Jacob had to admit that box number I looked true.

Number II would be a headache, for it assumed the opposite of the proposition in Box I.

BOX II: B’s STORY WRONG — (HA) HE’S MISTAKEN/(IIB) HE’S LYING.

IIA didn’t give Jacob any ideas. Bubbacub seemed too sure, too confident. Of course, he could have been fooled by the Ghosts themselves… Jacob scribbled a note to that effect and put it in position IIA. It was actually a very important possibility, but Jacob couldn’t think of any way to prove or disprove it short of making more dives. And the political situation made more dives impossible.

Bubbacub, supported by Martine, insisted that any further expeditions would be pointless and probably fatal as well, without the Pil and his Lethani relic along. Oddly enough, Dr. Kepler didn’t fight them. Indeed, it was at his orders that the Sunship was dry-docked, normal maintenance suspended, and even data reduction halted while he conferred with Earth.

Kepler’s motives puzzled Jacob. For several minutes he stared down at a sheet that said: SIDE ISSUE-KEPLER? Finally he tossed it over on the stack of dis to be on Bubbacub’s head. Jacob was disappointed in the man. He turned to sheet IIB.

It was appealing to think that Bubbacub was lying. Jacob could no longer pretend any affection for the little Library Representative. He recognized his own personal bias. Jacob wanted IIB to be true.

Certainly Bubbacub had a motive for lying. The failure of the Library to come up with a reference on solar-type life-forms was an embarrassment to him. The Pil also resented totally independent research by a “wolfling” race. Both problems would be eliminated if Sundiver was cut off in a manner that boosted the stature of ancient science.

But to hypothesize that Bubbacub lied brought up a whole raft of problems. First, how much of the story was a lie? Obviously the trick with the Lethani relic was genuine. But where else could one draw the line?

And if Bubbacub lied he had to be awfully sure that he wouldn’t get caught. The Galactic Institutes, especially the Library, relied on a reputation of absolute honesty. They’d have to fry Bubbacub alive if he was found out.

Box IIB had all of the meat in it. It looked hopeless, but somehow Jacob would have to show that IIB was true or Sundiver was finished.

This was going to be complicated. Any theory that had Bubbacub lying would have to explain Jeffrey’s death, LaRoque’s anomalous status and behavior, the Sun Ghost’s threatening behavior…

Jacob scribbled a note and tossed it onto sheet IIB.

SIDE NOTE: TWO TYPES OP SUN GHOSTS? He remembered the remark that no one had ever actually seen a “normal” Sun Ghost turn into the semi-transparent variety that did the threat pantomimes.

Another thought came to him.

SIDE NOTE: CULLA’S THEORY THAT SOLARIAN’S PSI EXPLAINS NOT ONLY LR BUT OTHER STRANGE BEHAVIOR AS WELL.

Jacob was thinking of Martine and Kepler when he wrote that down. But after thinking about it he carefully wrote a second copy of the same remark and tossed it over on the sheet labeled I HAVE FLIPPED OUT — NO(IV)

The question of his own personal sanity took courage to face. Methodically he listed the evidence that something was wrong, under sheet number III.

1. BLINDING “LIGHT” BACK AT BAJA. The trance he’d entered just before the meeting at the Information Center was the last deep one he’d had. He had been awakened from it by an apparent psychological artifact — a “blueness” that cut _through his hypnotic state like a searchlight. But whatever warning his subconscious must have been sending was interrupted when Culla approached.

2. UNCONTROLLED USE OF MR. HYDE. Jacob knew that the bifurcation of his mind into normal and abnormal parts was a temporary solution at best to a long-range problem. A couple of hundred years ago his state would have been diagnosed schizophrenic. But hypnotic transaction, supposedly, would allow his divided halves to reassemble peacefully under the guidance of his dominant personality. The occasions in which his feral other half pushed through or took control would logically be when it was needed… when Jacob had to revert to the cold, hard, supremely confident meddler he once had been.

Jacob hadn’t been worried, earlier, about his other side’s exploits, so much as embarrassed. For instance, it was logical enough to pilfer samples of Dr. Kepler’s pharmacopoeia on the Bradbury, given what he’d seen so far, although other means to the same ends might have been preferable.

But some of the things he’d said aboard the Sun-ship to Dr. Martine — they implied either a great deal of justified suspicion churning around in his unconscious, or very deep problems down below.

3. BEHAVIOR ON SUNSHIP: ATTEMPTED SUICIDE? That one hurt less than he thought it would, when he wrote it. Jacob felt disconcerted by the episode. But strangely, he felt more angry than ashamed, as if he had been made to act like a fool by somebody else.

Of course that could mean anything, including frantic self-justification, but it didn’t feel that way. Jacob felt no internal resistance when he probed that line of reasoning. Only negation.

Number three could have been part of an overall pattern of mental decay. Or it might have been an isolated case of disorientation, as diagnosed by Dr. Martine (who since landing had been chasing him all over the base in order to get him into therapy). Or it could have been induced by the something external, as he had already considered.

Jacob pushed back from the workbench. This would take time. The only way to get anything done would be to take frequent breaks and let ideas filter up from the unconscious, the very unconscious he was investigating.

Well, that wasn’t the only way, but until he had solved the question of his own sanity he wasn’t about to try the other means.

Jacob stepped back and began to move his body slowly in the pattern of relaxing positions known as Tai Chi Chuan. The vertebrae in his back crackled from sitting awkwardly on the stool. He stretched and allowed energy to return to parts of his body that had fallen asleep.

The light jacket he wore bound his shoulders. He stopped the routine and took it off.

There was a coat rack by the chief mechanic’s office, across the maintenance shop and near the drinking fountain, Jacob walked over to the rack, lightly, on the balls of his feet, feeling taut and energized by the Tai CM.

The chief mechanic nodded grumpily when Jacob passed by; the man was obviously unhappy. He sat behind his desk in the foam-paneled office, wearing an expression Jacob had seen a lot of since coming back, especially among the lower echelons. The reminder pricked Jacob’s bubble.

As he bent over the drinking fountain, Jacob heard a clattering sound. He lifted his head as it repeated, coming from the direction of the ship. Half of the ship was now visible from where he stood. As he walked to the corner of the rock wall, the rest came slowly into view.

Slowly, the wedge-shaped door of the Sunship descended. Culla and Bubbacub waited at the bottom, holding a long cylindrical machine between them. Jacob ducked behind the rock wall. Now what are those two doing?

He heard the catwalk extend from the rim of the Sunship’s deck, then the sound of the Pil and Pring pulling the machine up into the ship.

Jacob rested his back against the rock wall and shook his head. This was too much. If he was given just one more mystery he’d probably really flip out.… that is if he hadn’t already.

It sounded like an air compressor was being used inside the ship, or a vacuum cleaner. Clattering and sliding and occasional squeaky Pilan oaths implied that the machine was being dragged all over the interior of the ship.

Jacob gave in to temptation. Bubbacub and Culla were inside the ship and no one else was in sight.

In any event there was probably nothing to be lost by being caught spying but the rest of his reputation.

He bounded up the springy catwalk in a few powerful steps. Near the top of the ramp he flattened and looked inside.

The machine was a vacuum cleaner. Bubbacub pulled it, his back to Jacob, as Culla manipulated the long rigid suction member at the end of its flexible hose. The Pring shook his head slowly, his dentures chattering softly. Bubbacub shot off a series of sharp yaps at his Client and the chattering increased, but Culla worked faster.

This was most queer and disturbing. Culla was apparently vacuuming the space between the deck and the curving ship’s wall! Nothing existed there but the force fields that held the deck in place!

Culla and Bubbacub disappeared around the central dome as they made their way around the rim. At any moment they’d be coming around the other side and facing him this time. Jacob slid back down the ramp a few feet, then descended the rest of the way on foot. He walked back to the apse and sat again on the stool in front of the slips of paper.

If there was only time! If the central dome had been bigger or Bubbacub’s work slower, he might have found a way to get down into that force-field gap and get a sample of whatever they were collecting. Jacob shuddered at the thought, but it would have been worth a try.

Or even a picture of Culla and Bubbacub at work! But where could he get a camera in the few minutes he had left?

There was no way to prove that Bubbacub was up to mischief, but Jacob decided that theory IIB had received a big boost. On a piece of paper he scribbled: B’S DUST OR WHATEVER… HALLUCINOGEN RELEASED ON BOARD SHIP? He threw it on that pile, then hurried over to the chief mechanic’s office.

The man grumbled when Jacob asked him to come along. He claimed that he had to sit by his phone and said he couldn’t imagine where a regular still camera could be found nearby. Jacob thought the fellow was lying but he had no time to argue. He had to get to a phone.

There was one set on the wall near the corner where he watched Culla and Bubbacub climb the ramp. But as he raised it he wondered who he could call, and what he could say.

Hello, Dr. Kepler? Remember me, Jacob Demwa? The guy who tried to kill himself on one of your Sunships? Yeah… well I’d like you to come down here and watch Pil Bubbacub do spring cleaning…

No, that wouldn’t do. By the time anyone got down here Culla and Bubbacub would be gone and his call would be another item on his list of public aberrations.

That thought struck Jacob.

Did I just imagine the whole thing? There was no sound of a vacuum cleaner now. Only silence. The whole thing was so damnably symbolic anyway…

From around the corner came a squeal, Pilan curses, and a clattering of falling machinery. Jacob closed his eyes for a moment. The sound was beautiful. He risked a peek around the edge.

Bubbacub stood at the bottom of the ramp holding one end of the vacuum cleaner, the bristles around his eyes jutting starkly on end, and his fur stuck out in a ruff around his collar. The Pil glared at Culla, who fumbled with the catch of the machine’s dust bag. A small pile of red powder leaked from the opening.

Bubbacub snorted in disgust as Culla scooped handfuls of powder together and then turned the reassembled machine on the pile. Jacob was sure a handful went, instead of to the pile, into the pocket of Culla’s silvery tunic.

Bubbacub kicked the remaining dust around until it blended with the floor. Then, after a furtive glance on all sides that sent Jacob’s head jetting back behind the wall, he barked a quick command and led Culla back to the elevators.

When he returned to the workbench, Jacob found the chief mechanic looking over the scattered sheets of his morphological analysis. The man looked up when he approached.

“What was that all about?” he pointed his chin toward the Sunship.

“Oh, nothing,” Jacob answered. He chewed on his cheek gently for a moment. “Just some Eatees messing around with the ship.”

“With the ship?” The chief mechanic came erect. “Is that what you were jabbering about before? Why the hell didn’t you say so!?”

“Wait, hold up!” Jacob held the man’s arm as he turned to hurry to “the Sunship cradle. “It’s too late, they’re gone. Besides, figuring out what they’re up to will take more than just catching them in the act of doing something strange. Strangeness is what Eatees are best at anyway.”

The engineer looked at Jacob as if for the first time. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “You have a point. But maybe now you’d better tell me what you saw.”

Jacob shrugged and told the whole story, from hearing the sound of the hatch opening to the comedy of the spilled powder.

“I don’t get it,” the chief mechanic scratched his head.

“Well, don’t worry about it. Like I said, it’ll take more than one clue to get this buttock-beeper placed.”

Jacob sat again on the stool and began scribbling carefully on several sheets.

C. HAS SAMPLE OF PWDR… WHY? DANGEROUS TO ASK HIM TO SHARE?

IS C. WILLING ACCOMPLICE? FOR HOW LONG?

GET A SAMPLE! ! !

“Hey, what are you doing here, anyway,” the chief mechanic asked.

“I’m chasing clues.”

After a moment of silence the man tapped the sheets at the far right of the table. “Boy I couldn’t be so coldblooded about it if I thought I was going nuts! What did it feel like? I mean when you went swacko and tried to drink poison?”

Jacob raised his eyes from his writing. There was an image. A gestalt. The smell of ammonia filled his nostrils and a powerful throbbing beat at his temples. It felt as if he had spent hours under the glare of an inquisitor’s spotlight.

He remembered the image vividly. The last thing he saw before he collapsed was Bubbacub’s face. The small black, eyes stared at him below the brow of the psi helmet. Alone of those aboard, the Pil watched impassively as Jacob lurched forward and fell to the deck senseless, a few feet away.

The thought made Jacob grow cold. He started to write it down but then stopped. This was too big. He jotted a short note in pidgin dolphin-trinary and threw it on pile IV.

“I’m sorry,” he looked up at the chief engineer. “Were you saying something?”

The engineer shook his head.

“Oh, it was none of my business anyway. I shouldn’t have butted my nose in. I was just curious what you were doing here.”

The man paused for a moment.

“Y’re trying to save the project, aren’t you?” he finally asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then you must be the only one of the hotshots who is,” he said bitterly. “I’m sorry I growled at you earlier. I’ll stay out of your way so you can work.” He started to move away.

Jacob thought for a moment. “Would you like to help?” he asked.

The man turned. “What do you need?”

Jacob smiled. “Well, for starters I could use a broom and a dustpan.”

“Coming right up!” The chief mechanic hurried away.

Jacob drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. Then he gathered the scattered sheets and stuffed them back into his pocket.

18. FOCUS

“The director said no one was supposed to go in there, you know.”

Jacob looked up from his work. “Gosh, chief,” he grinned savagely, “I didn’t know that! I’m just trying to pick this lock for my health!”

The other man shifted nervously where he stood, and mumbled about never having expected to be involved in a burglary.

Jacob rocked back. The room swayed and he touched the plastic leg of the table next to him for balance. In the dim light of the photo lab it was hard to see straight, especially after twenty minutes of close work with tiny tools.

“I’ve told you before, Donaldson,” he said slowly. “We have no choice. What have we that we can show anyone? A patch of dust and a cockeyed theory? Use your head. We’re caught TwoTwo as it is. They won’t let us near the evidence because we haven’t the evidence to prove we need it!”

Jacob rubbed at the muscles at the back of his neck. “No, we’re going to have to do this ourselves… that is, if you want to hang around…”

The chief mechanic grunted. “You know I’ll stay.” His tone was hurt.

“Okay, okay.” Jacob nodded. “Apologies. Now will you please hand me that small tool over there? No, the one with the hook on the end. That’s right.

“Now why don’t you go over to the outer door and keep a lookout? Give me some time to clean up if someone comes. And watch out for that trip-fall!”

Donaldson moved away a small distance, but he stayed to watch as Jacob went back to work. He rested against the cool side of one of the doorjambs and wiped perspiration from his cheeks and eyebrows.

Demwa seemed rational and reasonable, but the wild path his imagination had taken in the last few hours left Donaldson dizzy.

The worst part was that it all hung together so well. It was exciting, this hunt for clues. And what he’d found out before meeting Demwa here supported the man’s story. But it was also frightening. There was always the chance that the guy really was crazy, in spite of the consistency of his arguments.

Donaldson sighed. He turned away from the tiny sounds of scraping metal and the nodding of Jacob’s bushy head, and walked slowly toward the outer door of the photo lab.

It didn’t really matter. Something was rotten under Mercury. If someone didn’t act soon there wouldn’t be any more Sunships.

A simple tumbler lock for a ridged and slotted key. Nothing could be easier In fact, Jacob could not have helped noticing that Mercury had few modern locks. Electronics required shielding on a planet where the magnetosheath grazed across the bare unprotected surface. It wasn’t very expensive to shield but still someone must have thought such an expenditure ridiculous for locks. Who would want to break into the Inner Photo Lab anyway? And who would know how?

Jacob knew how. But that didn’t appear to be helping. Somehow it didn’t feel right. The tools weren’t speaking to him. He felt no continuity from his hands to the metal.

At this rate it could take all night.

Let me do it.

Jacob gritted his teeth and slowly pulled the rake out of the lock. He laid it down.

Stop personifying, he thought. You’re nothing but a set of asocial habits I’ve put under hypnotic lock for a while. If you keep acting like a separate personality you’ll get us… me into a full-blown schizophrenic state!

Now look who’s personifying.

Jacob smiled.

I shouldn’t be here. I should have stayed home for the full three years and finished my mental house-cleaning in peace and quiet. The behavior patterns I wanted… needed to keep submerged are now needed wide awake, by my job.

Then why not use them?

When this mental arrangement was set up it wasn’t supposed to be rigid. That sort of suppression would really lead to trouble! The amoral, cold-blooded, savant qualities leaked out in a steady stream, though usually under complete control. It had been intended that they be available in an emergency.

The suppression and personification by which he’d reacted to that stream lately may have caused some of his problem. His sinister half was to sleep as he worked off the trauma of Tania… not be severed off at the wrist.

Then let me do it.

Jacob picked another rake and rolled it in his fingers. The light slip of tool steel felt smooth, cool.

Shut up. You’re not a person, just a talent unfortunately linked to a neurosis… like a well-trained singing voice that can only be used while standing naked on a stage.

Fine. Use the talent. The door could be open by now!

Jacob carefully laid his tools down and shuffled forward until his forehead rested against the door. Should I? What if I did flip out on the Sunship? My theory could be wrong. And then there’s that blue flash back at Baja. Can I risk opening up if something’s gone loose inside?

Weak from indecision, he felt the trance begin to fall. With an effort he stopped it, but then, with a mental shrug, allowed it to proceed. At the count of seven a barrier of fear blocked him. It was a familiar barrier. It felt like the edge of a precipice. He consciously brushed it aside and continued down.

At twelve he commanded: This Shall Be Temporary. He felt assent.

The backcount was done in an instant. He opened his eyes. A tingle wandered down the length of his arms and entered his fingers, suspiciously, like a dog returning, sniffing, to an old home.

So far so good, Jacob thought. I feel no less ethical. No less “me.” My hands don’t feel as if they’re controlled by an alien force… only more alive.

The lockpicking tools weren’t cool when he picked them up. They felt warm, like extensions of his hands. The rake slid sensuously into the lock and caressed the tumblers as the torque bar pulled. One after another tiny click telegraphed along the metal. Then the door was open.

“You did it!” Donaldson’s surprise hurt a little. “Of course,” was all he said. It was reassuringly easy to squelch the insulting reply that popped into his mind. So far so good. The genie seemed benign. Jacob swung the door wide and entered.

Filing cabinets lined the left wall of the narrow room. Along the other wall a low table supported a row of photoanalysis machines. At the far end an open door led to the unlit and seldom used chemical darkroom.

Jacob began at one end of the row of filing cabinets, bending to look at labels. Donaldson worked along the bench. It wasn’t long before the chief mechanic said, J’l found them!” He pointed to an open box, next to a viewing machine halfway down the table.

Each spool was held in a padded niche, its sides inscribed with the date and times covered and a code for the instrument that made the recording. At least a dozen niches were empty.

Jacob held several cassettes to the light. Then he turned to Donaldson.

“Someone’s been here first and pilfered every cassette we wanted.”

“Stolen?… But how!”

Jacob shrugged. “Maybe the way we did it, by breaking and entry. Or maybe they had a key. All we know is that the final spool for each recording device is missing.”

They stood for a moment in dark silence.

“Then we haven’t got any proof at all,” Donaldson said.

“Not unless we can track down the missing spools.”

“You mean we should bust into Bubbacub’s rooms too?… I don’t know. If you ask me, those data are burned by now. Why would he keep them around?

“No, I suggest we sneak out of here and let Dr. Kepler or Dr. deSilva discover the fact that they’re missing by themselves. It’s not much but they may see it as slight evidence to support our story.”

Jacob hesitated. Then he nodded.

“Let me see your hands,” Jacob said.

Donaldson presented his palms up. The thin coating of flex-plastic was intact. They were probably safe from chemical and fingerprint tracing, then “Okay,” he said. “Let’s put everything back in its place, as exactly as you can remember it. Don’t disturb anything you haven’t already touched. Then we’ll leave.”

Donaldson turned to comply but then there was a crash as something fell in the Outer Photo Lab. The sound carried, muffled through the door.

The trap Jacob had set by the hall door had gone off. Someone was in the outer lab. Their escape route was blocked!

The two men hurried back into the dim doorway of the darkroom. They made it around the corner of the light-trap maze just as the sound of a metal key scratching at the lock carried across the narrow room.

Jacob heard the door sigh open slowly, over the subjective roar of his own rapid breathing. He patted the pockets of his overalls. Half of his burglar tools were out there, on top of one of the filing cabinets.

Fortunately his dentist’s mirror wasn’t. It was still in his breast-pocket case.

The intruder’s footsteps clicked softly in the room a few feet away. Jacob carefully weighed the hazards against the potential benefits and then slowly eased the mirror out. He knelt and poked the round, shiny working end into the threshold, a few inches above the floor.

Dr. Martine stooped in front of a filing cabinet, sorting through a ring of metal keys. Once, she shot a furtive glance toward the outer door. She looked agitated, though it was hard to tell from the image in the tiny mirror, jiggling on the floor two meters from her feet.

Jacob felt Chief Donaldson leaning over, above and behind him, trying to peek past the doorway. Irritated, he tried to wave the man back, but Donaldson overbalanced instead. His left hand shot out for support and landed on Jacob’s back.

“Oof!” The air expelled from Jacob’s lungs as the chief engineer’s weight fell on him. His teeth jarred as he took the full force through his stiffened left arm. Somehow he kept them both from collapsing into the doorway, but the mirror fell out of his hand and onto the floor with a tiny clink.

Donaldson slid backward into the dimness, breath-tag heavily — pathetically trying to be quiet. Jacob smiled wryly. Anyone who hadn’t heard that debacle had to be deaf.

“Who… who’s there?”

Jacob stood and brushed himself off deliberately. He cast a brief, disdainful glance at Chief Donaldson, who sat glumly and avoided Jacob’s eyes.

Quick footsteps receded in the outer room. Jacob stepped out into the doorway.

“Wait a minute, Millie.”

Dr. Martine froze midstep at the door. Her shoulders hunched as she turned slowly, her face a mask of fear until she recognized Jacob. Then her dark, patrician features washed deep red.

“What the hell are you doing here!”

“Watching you, Millie. An enjoyable pastime usually, but now especially interesting.”

“You were spying on me!” she gasped.

Jacob walked forward, hoping Donaldson would have enough sense to stay hidden. “Not just you, dear. On everybody. Something is fishy on Mercury, all right. Everyone’s whistling a different tuna, and they’re all red herrings! I have a feeling you know more than you’re telling.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Martine said coldly. “But that’s not surprising. You’re not rational and you need help…” She started to back away.

“Perhaps,” Jacob nodded seriously. “But maybe you will need help explaining your presence here today.”

Martine stiffened. “I got my key from Dwayne Kepler. What about you?”

“Did you get the key with his knowledge?”

Martine blushed and didn’t answer.

“There are several data spools missing from the collection taken last dive… all covering the period when Bubbacub did his trick with the Lethani relic. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”

Martine stared at Jacob.

“You’re kidding! But who… ? No…” she shook her head slowly, confused.

“Did you take them?”

“No!”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. How should I know? What business have you. questioning…”

“I could call Helene deSilva right now,” Jacob rumbled ominously. “I could have just arrived to find this door open with you inside and the key with your prints on it in your pouch. She’d search and find the spools missing and there you’d be. You’ve been covering for someone and I have some independent evidence who. If you don’t come out with all you know right now, I swear you’re going to take the fall, with or without your friend. You know as well as I that the crew at this base is just itching for someone to burn.”

Martine wavered. Her hand went to her head.

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

Jacob maneuvered her into a chair. Then he closed and locked the door.

Hey, take it easy, a part of him said. He closed his eyes for a moment and counted to ten. Slowly, a brutal itch in Jacob’s hands ebbed.

Martine held her face in her hands. Jacob caught a glimpse of Donaldson, peeking around the darkroom door. He jerked his hand and the chief engineer’s head darted out of sight.

Jacob pulled open the filing cabinet the woman had been examining.

Aha. Here it is.

He picked up the steno-camera and carried it back to the bench,-plugged the readout jack into one of the viewers and turned both machines on.

Most of the material was quite uninteresting, LaRoque’s notes on events between the landing on Mercury and the morning that he took the camera to the Sunship Cavern, just before the fateful tour of Jeffrey’s ship. Jacob ignored the audio portion. LaRoque tended to be even more wordy in leaving notes to himself than he was in his published prose. But suddenly the character of the visual portion changed, just after a panorama shot of the exterior of the Sunship.

For a moment he was puzzled as the pictures moved past. Then he laughed out loud.

Millie Martine was so surprised by this that she raised her red eyes from her misery. Jacob nodded to her genially.

“Did you know what you were fetching down here?”

“Yes,” her voice was husky. She nodded slowly. “I wanted to get Peter’s camera back to him so he could write up his story. I thought that after the Solarians had been so cruel to him… using him so…”

“He’s still in confinement, isn’t he?”

“Yes. They figured it’s safest that way. The Solarians manipulated him once before, you see. They could do it again.”

“And whose idea was it to return his camera?”

“His, of course. He wanted the recordings and I didn’t think it would hurt…”

“To let him get his hands on a weapon?”

“No! The stunner would be put out of comm… commission. Bubb…” Her eyes widened and her voice trailed off.

“Go ahead and say it. I already know.”

Martine lowered her gaze.

“Bubbacub said he’d meet me at Peter’s quarters and put the stunner out of commission, as a favor and to prove he had no hard feelings.”

Jacob sighed. “That tears it,” he muttered.

“What… ?”

“Let me see your hands.” He motioned peremptorily when she hesitated. The long slender fingers trembled as he examined them.

“What is it?”

Jacob ignored her. He paced slowly up and back down the narrow room.

The symmetry of the trap appealed to him. If it carried through there wouldn’t be a human left on Mercury with an unsullied reputation. He couldn’t have done better himself. The only question now was, when was it supposed to be sprung?

He turned and looked back at the darkroom entrance. Again, Donaldson’s head flicked back out of sight.

“It’s all right. Chief. Come on out. You’re going to have to help Dr. Martine clean this place of her fingerprints.”

Martine gasped as the portly chief engineer emerged, smiling sheepishly.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Instead of answering, Jacob picked up the voice-phone by the inner door and dialed.

“Hello, Fagin? Yes. I’m ready for a ‘parlor scene’ now. Oh yeah… ? Well, don’t be so sure yet. It will depend on how lucky I can get in the next few minutes.

“Would you please invite the core group down to LaRoque’s detention quarters for a meeting in five minutes? Yes, right away, and please insist. Don’t bother with Dr. Martine, she’s right here.”

Martine looked up from wiping the handle of a filing cabinet, amazed by the tone of Jacob Demwa’s voice.

“That’s right,” Jacob went on. “And please invite Bubbacub first and Kepler as well. Get them moving the way we both know you can. I’ll have to run as it is. Yeah, thanks.”

“So now what?” Donaldson said on their way out the door.

“Now you two apprentices graduate to first-class burglarhood. And you’ve got to make it snappy. Dr. Kepler will be leaving his rooms shortly and you’d better not be too long following him to the meeting.”

Martine stopped in her tracks. “You’re kidding. You don’t seriously expect me to help ransack Dwayne’s apartment!”

“Why not?” Donaldson growled. “You’ve been giving him rat poison! You stole his keys to break into the Photo Lab.”

Martine’s nostrils flared. “I have not been giving him rat poison! Who told you that?”

Jacob sighed. “Warfarin. It was used as a rat poison in the old days. Before the rats got immune to it and nearly everything else.”

“I told you before, I never heard of Warfarin! First the Doctor and then you on the Sunship. Why does everybody think I’m a poisoner!”

“I don’t. But I do think that you’d better cooperate if you want to help us get to the bottom of this. Now you’ve got the keys to Kepler’s rooms, right?”

Martine bit her lip, then nodded once.

Jacob told Donaldson what to look for and what to do with it when he found it. Then he was off, running in the direction of the E.T. Quarters.

19. IN THE PARLOR

“You mean Jacob called this meeting and he isn’t even here?” Helene deSilva asked from the doorway.

“I should not be concerned, Commandant deSilva. He shall arrive. I have never known Mister Demwa to call a meeting that was not well’ worth the time of attending.”

“Indeed!” LaRoque laughed from one end of the large sofa, with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He spoke sarcastically around the stem of his pipe, and through a haze of smoke. “And why not? What else have we to do here? The ‘research’ is over, and the studies are done. The Ivory Tower has collapsed in arrogance and it is the month of the long knives. Let Demwa take his time. Whatever he has to say will be more amusing than watching all these serious faces!”

Dwayne Kepler grimaced from the other end of the sofa. He sat as far from LaRoque as he possibly could. Nervously, he twitched aside the lap blanket a med-aid had just finished adjusting. The med-aid looked up to the physician, who just shrugged.

“Shut up, LaRoque,” Kepler said.

LaRoque merely grinned and took out a tool to work on his pipe. “I still think I should have a recording device. Knowing Demwa, this may be historic.”

Bubbacub snorted and turned away. He had been pacing. Uncharacteristically he hadn’t gone near any of the cushions scattered around the carpeted room. The Pil stopped in front of Culla, standing by the wall, and clicked his quadrilaterally symmetric fingers in a complicated pattern. Culla nodded.

“I am instructed to shay that enough tragedy has occurred because of Mishter LaRoquesh recording de-vishesh. Also Pil Bubbacub hash indicated that he will not remain pasht another five minutes.”

Kepler ignored the statement. Methodically, he rubbed his neck as if searching for an itch. A lot of the fleshiness had departed in recent weeks.

LaRoque raised his shoulders once in a gallic shrug. Fagin was silent. Not even the silvery chimes moved at the ends of his blue-green branches.

“Come on in and sit down, Helene,” the physician said. “I’m sure the others will be here soon.” With his eyes he commiserated. Walking into this room was like wading into a pool of very cold and not very clean water.

She found a seat as far from the-others as possible. Unhappily, she wondered what Jacob Demwa was up to.

I hope it’s not the same thing, she thought. If this group in here has anything in common, it’s the fact that they don’t even want the word “Sundiver” mentioned. They’re just on the edge of tearing each others’ throats out, but all the same there’s this conspiracy of silence. She shook her head. I’m glad this tour is over soon. Maybe things will be better in another fifty years.

She didn’t hold out much hope for that. Already the only place you could hear a Beatles tune performed was by a symphony orchestra, of all the monstrosities. And good jazz didn’t exist outside of a library. Why did I ever leave home?

Mildred Martine and Chief Donaldson entered. To Helene, their attempts to look nonchalant were pathetic, but no one else seemed to notice.

Interesting. I wonder what those two have in common? They looked around the room and then edged toward a corner behind the only sofa, where Kepler and LaRoque and the tension between them occupied all of the space. LaRoque looked up at Martine and smiled. Was that a conspirational wink? Martine avoided his eye and LaRoque looked disappointed. He returned to lighting his pipe.

“I have had e-nough!” Bubbacub announced finally, and he turned for the door. But before he got there it swung open, apparently on its own. Then Jacob Demwa appeared in the doorway, a white canvas sack over his shoulder. He entered the room whistling softly. Helene blinked unbelievingly. The tune sounded awfully like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” But surely…

Jacob swung the bag into the air. It came down on the coffee table with a bang that made Dr. Martine jump halfway out of her chair. Kepler’s frown deepened and he gripped the arm of the sofa.

Helene couldn’t help it. The anachronistic, homely old tune, the loud noise, and Jacob’s demeanor broke the wall of tension like a custard pie in the face of someone you didn’t particularly like. She laughed. Jacob winked once. “Ho ho.”

“Are you here to play?” Bubbacub demanded. “You steal my time! Comp-en-sate!”

Jacob smiled. “Why certainly, Pil Bubbacub. I hope that you will be edified by my demonstration. But first, won’t you please be seated?”

Bubbacub’s jaws snapped together. The small black eyes seemed to burn for a moment, then he snorted and threw himself onto a nearby cushion.

Jacob studied the faces in the room. The expressions were mostly confused or hostile, except for LaRoque, who remained pompously aloof, and Helene, who smiled uncertainly. And Fagin, of course. For the thousandth time he wished the Kanten had eyes.

“When Dr. Kepler invited me to Mercury,” he began, “I had some doubts about the Sundiver Project, but approved of the idea overall. After that first meeting I expected to become involved in one of the most exciting events since Contact… a complex problem of interspecies relations with our nearest and strangest neighbors, the Sun Ghosts.

“Instead, the problem of the Solarians seems to have taken back burner to a complicated web of interstellar intrigue and murder.”

Kepler looked up sadly. “Jacob, please. We all know you’ve been under a strain. Millie thinks we should be kind to you and I agree. But there are limits.”

Jacob spread his hands. “If kindness is humoring me, then please do so. I’m sick of being ignored. If you don’t listen, I’m sure the Earth authorities will.”

Kepler’s smile froze. He sat back. “Go ahead, then. I’ll listen.”

Jacob stepped onto the broad throw rug in the center of the room.

“First: Pierre LaRoque has consistently denied killing Chimp Jeffrey or using his stunner to sabotage the smaller Sunship. He denies having ever been a Probationer and claims that the records on Earth have somehow been fouled up.

“Yet, since our return from the Sun he has consistently refused to take a P-test, which might go a long way toward proving his innocence. Presumably he expects that the results of the test would also be falsified.”

“That’s right,” LaRoque nodded. “Just another lie.”

“Even if Physician Laird, Dr. Martine and I jointly supervised?”

LaRoque grunted. “It might prejudice my trial, especially if I decide to sue.”

“Why go to trial? You had no motive to kill Jeffrey when you opened the access plate to the R.Q. tuner…”

“Which I deny doing!”

“…and only a Probie would kill a man in a fit of pique. So why stay in detention?”

“Maybe he’s comfortable here,” the med-aid commented. Helene frowned. Discipline had gone straight to hell lately, along with morale.

“He refuses the test because he knows he’ll fail!” Kepler shouted.

“That is why the Sun-Men chose him to do their kill-ing,” Bubbacub added. “That is what they told me.”

“And am I a Probationer? Some people seem to think the Ghosts made me try to commit suicide.”

“You were un-der stress. Doct-or Mar-tin says so.

Yes?” Bubbacub turned to Marline. Her hands gripped each other whitely but she said nothing.

“We’ll get to that in a few minutes,” Jacob said. “But before we start I’d like to have a private word with Dr. Kepler and Mr. LaRoque.”

Dr. Laird and his assistant moved away politely. Bubbacub glared at being forced to move, but followed suit.

Jacob passed around the back of the sofa. As he bent over between the two men his hand went behind his back. Donaldson leaned forward and placed a small object there which Jacob held tightly.

Jacob looked alternately at Kepler and LaRoque.

“I think you two should cut it out. Especially you, Dr. Kepler.”

Kepler hissed. “What in god’s name are you talking about?”

“I think you have some property of Mr. LaRoque’s. No matter that he got it illegally. He wants it badly. Badly enough to temporarily take a rap he knows won’t stick. Maybe enough to change the tone of the articles he’s certain to write about all this.

“I don’t think the deal will hold anymore. You see, I have the item now.”

“My camera!” LaRoque whispered harshly. His eyes shone.

“Quite a little camera, too. A complete little sonic spectrograph. Yes, I have it. I also have the copies of recordings you made that were hidden in Dr. Kepler’s rooms.”

“You t-traitor,” Kepler stammered. “I thought you were a friend…”

“Shut up, you skinny bastard!” LaRoque almost shouted. “You are the one who is a traitor.” Contempt seemed to boil from the little writer like steam over-long contained.

Jacob laid a hand on the back of each man. “Both of you will be on no-return orbits if you don’t keep your voices down! LaRoque can be charged with espionage and Kepler for blackmail and complicity after the fact in espionage!

“In fact, since the evidence of LaRoque’s espionage is also circumstantial evidence that he wouldn’t have had time to sabotage Jeffrey’s ship, the immediate suspicion would fall on the last person to inspect the ship’s generators. Oh I don’t think you did it, Dr. Kepler. But I’d be careful if I were you!”

LaRoque fell silent. Kepler chewed on the end of his moustache.

“What do you want?” he said finally.

Jacob tried to resist but the suppressed side was now too much awake. He couldn’t help making a little dig.

“Why, I’m not sure yet. Maybe I’ll think of something. Just don’t let your imagination go wild. Friends of mine on Earth know everything by now.”

It wasn’t true. But Mr. Hyde did believe in caution.

Helene deSilva strained to overhear what the three men were saying to each other. If she had been one to believe in possession she would have been sure the “familiar faces were moving at the command of invading spirits. Gentle Dr. Kepler, turned taciturn and secretive since their return from the Sun, muttered like a wrathful sage denied his will. LaRoque — thoughtful, cautious — behaved as if his whole world hinged on a careful assessment of affairs.

And Jacob Demwa… earlier glimpses hinted at a charisma beneath his quiet, sometimes watery thoughtfulness. It had drawn her even as it frustrated in its peek-a-boo appearances. But now, now it radiated. It compelled like a flame.

Jacob stood straight and announced, “For now, Dr. Kepler has kindly agreed to drop all charges against Pierre LaRoque.”

Bubbacub rose from his cushion. “You are mad. If hu-mans condone the kill-ing of their cli-ents, that is their own prob-len?. But the Sun-Men may bend him to do harm a-gain!”

“The Sun-Men never bent him to do anything.” Jacob said slowly.

Bubbacub snapped. “As I said, you are mad. I spoke with the Sun-Men. They did not lie.”

“If you wish,” Jacob bowed. “But I still would like to continue with my synopsis.”

Bubbacub snorted, loudly and threw himself again on the cushion. “Mad!” he snapped.

“First,” Jacob said. “I would like to thank Dr. Kepler for his gracious permission for Chief Donaldson and Dr. Martine and myself to visit the Photo Labs and study the films from the last dive.”

At the mention of Marline’s name, Bubbacub’s expression changed. So that’s what chagrin looks like on a Pil, Jacob thought. He empathized with the little alien. It had been a beautiful trap, now entirely defused.

Jacob told an edited version of their discovery in the Photo Lab, that the flipside spools of the last third of the mission were missing. The only other sound in the room was the tinkling of Fagin’s branches.

“For a while, I wondered where these spools could be. I had an idea who took them, but whether he had destroyed them or taken the chance of hiding them I wasn’t sure. Finally, I decided to gamble that a ‘data-packrat’ never throws anything away. I searched a certain sophont’s quarters and found the missing spools.”

“You dared!” Bubbacub hissed. “If you had prop-er mas-ters I would have you nerve whipped! You dared!”

Helene shook away her surprise. “You mean you admit that you hid Sundiver datatapes, Pil Bubbacub? Why!”

Jacob grinned. “Oh that will become clear. In fact the way this case was going, I thought for sure it would be more complicated than it is. But it’s actually quite simple. You see, these tapes make it very clear that Pil Bubbacub has lied.”

A low rumbling rose in Bubbacub’s throat. The little alien stood very still as if he didn’t trust himself to move.

“Well, where are the tapes?” deSilva demanded.

Jacob picked up the sack from the table.

“I’ve got to give the devil his due, though. It was only luck that I figured the spools would just fit into an empty gas cannister.” He pulled out an object and held it up.

“The Lethani relic!” DeSilva gasped. A small trill of surprise escaped Fagin. Mildred Martine stood up, her hand brought to her throat.

“Yes, the Lethani relic. I’m sure Bubbacub counted on a reaction like yours on the obscure chance that his rooms were searched. Naturally, no one would think of disturbing a semi-religious object-of-reverence of an old and powerful race; particularly one that looked like nothing but a slab of meteoric rock and glass!’”

He turned it over in his hands.

“Now watch!”

The relic opened with a twist. A can of some sort was imbedded in one of the halves. Jacob laid the other half down and tugged at the end of the can. Something inside rattled softly. The can suddenly came loose and a dozen small black objects came rolling out and fell to the floor. Culla’s mashies clacked.

“The spools!” LaRoque nodded with satisfaction as he fumbled with his pipe.

“Yes,” Jacob said. “And on the outer surface of this ‘relic’ you can find the button which released the previous contents of this now-empty canister. There appear to be some traces left inside. I’ll bet anything that they match the substance that Chief Donaldson and I gave Dr. Kepler yesterday when we failed to convince…” Jacob stopped himself. Then he shrugged. “…Traces of an unstable monomolecule which, under a certain sophont’s skillful control, spread out in a ‘burst of light and sound’ to coat the inner surface of the upper hemisphere of the shell of the Sun-ship…”

DeSilva rose to her feet. Jacob had to speak louder to overcome the rising chatter coming from Culla.

“…and to effectively block out all green and blue light — the only wavelengths in which we could pick out the Sun Ghosts from their surroundings!”

“The spools!” deSilva cried. “They should show…’”

“They do show toroids, Ghosts… hundreds of them! Interestingly there were no anthropoid shapes, but perhaps they didn’t make them because our psi patterns indicated we weren’t seeing them.

“But oh the confusion in that herd when we blundered right into them without so much as a by-your-leave, toroids and ‘normal’ Ghosts scattering out of our path… all because we couldn’t see that we were right in the middle of them!”

“You crazy Eatee!” LaRoque shouted. He shook his fist at Bubbacub. The Pil hissed back but remained still, the fingers of each hand flexing against one another as he watched Jacob.

“The monomolecule was designed to decay just as we were leaving the chromosphere. It slumped in a thin layer of dust on the force field at the rim of the deck, where no one would notice it until Bubbacub could return with Culla and vacuum it up. That’s right, isn’t it, Culla?”

Culla nodded miserably.

Jacob felt distantly pleased that sympathy came as easily as amoral wrath had earlier. A part of him had begun to get worried. He smiled reassuringly.

“That’s okay, Culla. I have no evidence to connect you with anything else. I watched the two of you when you did it and it was pretty dear you were under duress.”

The Pring’s eyes rose. They were very bright. He nodded once again and the chattering from behind the thick lips subsided slowly. Fagin moved closer to the slender E.T.

Donaldson rose from picking up the recording spools.

“I think we’d better make some provisions for custody.”

Helene had already moved to the telephone. “I’m taking care of that now,” she said softly.

Martine sidled up to Jacob and whispered. “Jacob, this is an External Affairs matter now. We should let them handle it from here.”

Jacob shook his head. “No. Not just yet. There’s a bit more that needs out.”

DeSilva put down the phone. “They’ll be here shortly. Meanwhile, why don’t you go on, Jacob? Is there more?”

“Yes. Two items. One is this.”

From the bag on the table he pulled Bubbacub’s psi helmet. “I suggest this be kept in storage. I don’t know if anyone else remembers, but Bubbacub was wearing it and staring at me when I warped out aboard the Sunship. Being made to do things makes me mad, Bubbacub. You shouldn’t have done it.”

Bubbacub made a gesture with his hand that Jacob didn’t try to interpret.

“Finally, there’s the matter of the death of chimpanzee Jeffrey. Actually, it’s the easiest part.

“Bubbacub knew almost everything there was to know about the Galactic technology in Sundiver; the drives, the computer system, the communications… aspects which Terran scientists haven’t even scratched.

“It’s only circumstantial evidence that Bubbacub was working on the laser communications pylon, spurning Dr. Kepler’s presentation, when Jeff’s largely remote-controlled ship blew up. It wouldn’t convict in a court of law, but that doesn’t matter since Pila have extraterritoriality and all we can do is deport him.

“Another thing that’d be hard to prove would be the hypothesis that Bubbacub planted a false lead in the Space Identification System… a system linked directly to the Library at LaPaz… creating a false report that LaRoque was a Probationer. Still, it’s pretty clear that he did. It was a perfect red herring. With everyone sure that LaRoque did it, nobody bothered to really do a detailed double-check of the telemetry on Jeff’s dive. Right now I believe I recall that Jeff’s ship went into trouble almost exactly when he turned on his closeup cameras, a perfect delayed trigger if that was the technique Bubbacub used. Anyway, we’ll probably never know. The telemetry is probably missing or destroyed by now.”

Fagin fluted. “Jacob, Culla asks that you stop. Please do not embarrass Pil Bubbacub any further. It would serve no purpose.”

Three armed crewmen appeared at the door. They looked at Commandant deSilva expectantly. She motioned for them to wait.

“Just a moment,” Jacob said. “We haven’t dealt with the most important part, Bubbacub’s motives. Why would an important sophont, a representative of a prestigious galactic institution, indulge in theft, forgery, psychic assault, and murder?

“Bubbacub had personal grudges against both Jeffrey and LaRoque, to start with. Jeffrey represented an abomination to him, a species that had been uplifted a mere hundred years before and yet dared to talk back. Jeff’s ‘uppityness’ and his friendship with Culla contributed to Bubbacub’s anger.

“But I think he hated what chimpanzees represent most of all. Along with dolphins, they meant instant status for the crude, vulgar human race. The Pila had to fight for half a million years to get to where they are. I guess Bubbacub resents us having it ‘easy.’

“As for LaRoque, well, I’d say Bubbacub just didn’t like him. Too loud and pushy, I suppose…”

LaRoque sniffed audibly.

“And perhaps he was insulted when LaRoque suggested that the Soro might have once been our Patrons. The ‘upper crust’ in Galactic society frowns on species who abandon their clients.”

“But those are just personal reasons,” Helene objected. “Haven’t you got anything better?”

“Jacob,” Fagin began. “Please…”

“Of course Bubbacub had another reason,” Jacob said. “He wanted to end Sundiver in a way that would put into disrepute the concept of independent research and boost the status of the Library. He made it seem that he, a Pil, was able to make contact where humans weren’t, concocted a story that made Sundiver out to be a bungled operation. Then he faked a Library report to verify his claims about the Solarians and ensure that there would be no more dives!

“It was the failure of the Library to come up with anything that probably irked Bubbacub the most. And it’s faking that message that’ll get him in the deepest trouble back at home. For that they’ll punish him worse than we ever would for killing Jeff.”

Bubbacub rose slowly. He carefully brushed his fur flat and then clicked his four-fingered hands together.

“You are ver-y smart,” he said to Jacob. “But se-man-tics bad… aim too high. You build too much on small stuff. Hu-mans shall al-ways be small. I shall speak your kaka Terran tongue no more.”

With that he removed the Vodor from around his neck and tossed it idly on the table.

“I’m sorry, Pil Bubbacub,” deSilva said. “But it appears that we’re going to have to restrict your movement until we get instructions from Earth.”

Jacob half expected the Pil to nod or shrug but the alien performed another movement that somehow conveyed the same indifference. He turned away and marched stiffly out the door, a small stubby, proud figure leading the large human guards.

Helene deSilva picked up the bottom of the “Lethani relic.” She weighed it carefully in her hands, thoughtfully. Then her lips tightened and she threw the object with all her might against the door.

“Murderer,” she cursed.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Martine said slowly. “Never trust anyone over thirty million.”

Jacob stood in a daze. The exalted feeling was draining away too quickly. Like a drug, it left behind it an emptiness — a return to rationality but a loss of totality as well. Soon he would begin to wonder if he had done right in releasing everything at once in an orgiastic display of deductive logic.

Martine’s remark made him look up.

“Not anyone?” he asked.

Fagin was nudging Culla into a chair. Jacob went over to him.

“I’m sorry, Fagin,” he said. “I should have warned you, discussed it with you first. There may be… complications to this thing, repercussions that I didn’t think out.” He brought a hand to his forehead.

Fagin whistled softly.

“You unleashed that which you have been restraining, Jacob. I do not understand why you have been so reticent to use your skills, of late, but in this instance justice demanded all of your vigor. It is fortunate that you relented.

“Do not worry too much about what has happened. The Truth was more important than the damage done through minor over-eagerness, or through the, use of techniques too long dormant,”

Jacob wanted to tell Fagin how wrong he was. The “skills” he had unleashed were more than that. They were a deadly force within him. He feared that they had done more harm than good.

“What do you think will happen?” he asked, tiredly.

“Why I believe that humanity will discover that it has a powerful enemy. Your government will protest.How it does so will be of great importance, but it will not change the essential facts. Officially the Pila will disown Bubbacub’s unfortunate actions. But they are peevish and prideful, if you will excuse a painful but necessarily unkind description of a fellow sophont race.

“That is just one result of this event-chain. But do not worry overmuch. You did not do this thing. All that you did was make humanity aware of the danger. It was bound to happen. It always has happened to wolfling races.”

“But why!”

“That, my most esteemed friend, is one of the things I am here to try to discover. Though it may be of little comfort, please note that there are many who would like to see humanity survive. Some of us… care very much.”

20. MODERN MEDICINE

Jacob pressed against the rubber rimmed eyepiece of the Retinal scanner, and once again saw the blue dot dance and shimmer alone in a black background. Now he tried not to focus on it, ignoring its tantalizing suggestion of communion, as he waited for the third tachistoscopic image.

It flashed on suddenly, filling his entire field of view with a 3-D image in dull sepia. The gestalt he got in that first, unfocused instant was of a pastoral scene. There was a woman in the foreground, buxom and well fed, her old-fashioned skirts flying as she ran.

Dark, threatening clouds loomed on the horizon, above farm buildings set on a hill. There were people on the left… dancing? No, fighting. There were soldiers. Their faces were excited and — afraid? The woman was afraid. She fled with her arms over her head as two men in seventeenth-century body armor chased her, holding high their matchlocks with bayonets sharp. Their…

The scene blacked out and the blue dot was back. Jacob closed his eyes and pulled back from the eyepiece.

“That’s it,” Dr. Martine said. She bent over a computer console nearby, next to Physician Laird. “We’ll have your P-test score in a minute, Jacob.”

“You’re sure you don’t need any more? That was only three.” Actually, he was relieved.

“No, we took five from Peter to have a double-check. You’re just a control. Why don’t you just sit down and relax now, while we finish up here.”

Jacob walked over to one of the nearby lounge chairs, wiping his left cuff along his forehead to remove a thin sheen of perspiration. The test had been a thirty-second ordeal.

The first image had been, a portrait of a man’s face, gnarled and lined with care, a story of a life-time that he had examined for two, maybe three seconds, before it disappeared again, as seared as any ephemera could be into his memory.

The second had been a confusing jumble of abstract shapes, jutting and bumping in static disarray… somewhat like the maze of patterns around the rim of a sun-torus but without the brilliance or overall consistency.

The third had been the scene in sepia, apparently rendered from an old etching of the Thirty Years War. It was explicitly violent, Jacob recalled, just the sort of thing one would expect in a P-test.

After the overly dramatic “parlor scene” downstairs, Jacob was reluctant to enter even a shallow trance to calm his nerves. And he, found that he couldn’t relax without it. He rose and approached the console. Across the dome, near the stasis shell itself, LaRoque wandered idly as he waited, staring out at the long shadows and blistered rocks of Mercury’s North Pole.

“May I see the raw data?” Jacob asked Martine.

“Sure. Which one would you like to see?”

“The last one.”

Martine tapped on her keyboard. A sheet extruded from a slot beneath the screen. She tore it off and handed it to him.

It was the “pastoral scene.” Of course now he recognized its true content, but the whole purpose of the earlier viewing was to trace his reactions to the image during the first few instants he saw it, before conscious, consideration could come into play.

Across the image a jagged line darted back and forth, up and down. At every vertex or resting point was a small number. The line showed the path of his attention during that first quick glimpse, as detected by the Retinal Reader, watching the movements of his eye.

The number one, and the beginning of the trace, was near the center. Up to number six the focus line just drifted. Then it stopped right over the generous cleavage presented by the running woman’s bosom. The number seven was circled there.

There the numbers clustered, not only seven to sixteen, but thirty through thirty five and eighty two to eighty six, as well.

At twenty the numbers suddenly shifted from the woman’s feet to the clouds over the farmhouse. Then they moved quickly among the people and objects pictured, sometimes circled or squared to denote the level of dilation of the eye, depth of focus, and changes in his blood pressure as measured by the tiny veins in his retina. Apparently the modified Stanford-Purkinje eye scanner he had devised for this test, from Martine’s tachistoscope and other odds and ends, had worked.

Jacob knew better than to be embarrassed or concerned by his reflex reaction to the pictured woman’s breast. If he’d been female his reaction would have been different, spending more time with the woman, overall, but concentrating more on hair, clothes, and face.

What concerned him more was his reaction to the overall scene. Over to the left, near the fighting men, was a starred number. That represented the point at which he realized that the image was violent, not pastoral. He nodded with satisfaction. The number was relatively low and the trace darted immediately away for a period of five beats before returning to the same spot. That meant a healthy dose of aversion followed by direct instead of covert curiosity.

At first glance it looked like he’d probably pass. Not that he ever really doubted it.

“I wonder if anyone will ever learn how to fool a P-test,” he said, handing the copy to Martine.

“Maybe they will, someday,” she said as she gathered her materials. “But the conditioning needed to change a man’s response to instantaneous stimuli… to an image flashed so fast that only the unconscious has time to react… would leave too many side effects, new patterns that would have to show up in the test.

“The final analysis is very simple; does the subject’s mind follow a plus or zero sum game, qualifying him for Citizenship, or is it addicted to the sick-sweet pleasures of a negative sum. That more than any index of violence, is the essence of this test.”

Martine turned to Physician Laird. “That’s right, isn’t it, Doctor?”

Laird shrugged. “You’re the expert.” He had been allowing Martine to slowly win her way back into his good graces, still not quite forgiving her for prescribing to Kepler without consulting him.

After the denunciation downstairs, it became clear that she had never prescribed the Warfarin to Kepler at all. Jacob recalled. Bubbacub’s habit, aboard the Bradbury, of falling asleep on articles of clothing, carelessly left on cushions or chairs. The Pil must have done it as a subterfuge to enable him to plant, in Kepler’s portable pharmacopoeia, a drug that would cause his behavior to deteriorate.

It made sense. Kepler was eliminated from the last dive. With his keen insight he might have detected Bubbacub’s trick with the “Lethani relic.” Also his aberrant actions would have helped in the long run to discredit Sundiver.

It hung together, but to Jacob all of these deductions tasted like a dinner of protein-flakes. They were enough to persuade but they had no flavor. A bowl full of suppositions.

Some of Bubbacub’s misdeeds were proven. The rest would have to remain speculation since the Library representative had diplomatic immunity.

Pierre LaRoque joined them. The Frenchman’s attitude was subdued. “What is the verdict, Doctor Laird?”

“It’s quite clear that Mr. LaRoque is not an asocially violent personality and that he does not qualify for Probation,” Laird said slowly. “In fact, he betrays a rather high social conscience* index. That may be part of his problem. He’s apparently sublimating something and he would be well-advised to seek the help of a professional at his neighborhood clinic when he gets home.” Laird looked down at LaRoque sternly. LaRoque merely nodded meekly.

“And the controls?” Jacob asked. He had been the last to take the test. Dr. Kepler, Helene deSilva, and three randomly selected crewmen had also taken their turns at the machine. Helene hadn’t given the test a second thought and had taken the crewmen with her when she left to supervise the hurried pre-launch checkout of the Sunship. Kepler had scowled as Physician Laird read him his own results privately, and stalked off in a huff.

Laird reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, just below the eyebrow.

“Oh, there isn’t a Probationer in the bunch, just as we expected after your little show downstairs. But there are problems and things I don’t quite understand, bubbling in the minds of some of the people here. You know, it’s not easy for a country sawbones like me to have to fall back on his internship training and look into people’s souls. I would have missed half a dozen nuances if Dr. Martine hadn’t helped. As it is, I find it hard to interpret these hidden darknesses, especially of men I know and admire.”

“There’s nothing serious, I hope.”

“If there were you wouldn’t be going on this rush-job dive Helene’s ordered! I’m not grounding Dwayne Kepler because he has a cold!”

Laird shook his head and apologized. “Forgive me. I’m just not used to this. There’s nothing to worry about, Jacob. You had some awfully strange quirks in your test but the basic reading is as sane as any I’ve ever seen. Decidedly positive-sum and realistic.

“Still, there are some things that confuse me. I won’t go into specifics that might cause you more worry than they’re worth while you’re on this dive, I’d just appreciate it if you and Helene would each come and see me when you get back.”

Jacob thanked the man and walked with him, Mar-tine, and LaRoque toward the elevator.

High overhead, the communications pylon pierced the stasis dome. All around them, beyond the men and machines of the chamber, the blistered rocks of Mercury sparkled or shone dully. Sol was an incandescent yellow ball above a low range of hills.

When the elevator car arrived, Martine and Laird entered, but LaRoque’s hand on his arm kept Jacob back until the door had dosed, leaving the two of them alone.

Pierre LaRoque whispered to Jacob.

“I want my camera!”

“Sure, LaRoque. Commandant deSilva disarmed the stunner and you can pick it up any time,now that you’re cleared.”

“And the recording?”

“I’ve got it. I’m holding onto it, too.”

“You have no business…”

“Come off it, LaRoque,” Jacob groaned. “Why don’t you just once cut the act and give someone else credit for some intelligence! I want to know why you were taking sonic pictures of the stasis oscillator in Jeffrey’s ship} And I also want to know what gave you the idea my uncle would be interested in them!”

“I owe you a great deal, Demwa,” LaRoque said slowly. The thick accent was almost gone. “But I have to know if your political views are at all like your uncle’s before I answer you.”

“I have a lot of uncles, LaRoque. Uncle Jeremy is in the Confederacy Assembly, but I know you wouldn’t be working with him! Uncle Juan is pretty, big on theory and very down on illegality… my guess is that you mean Uncle James, the family kook. Oh I agree with him about a lot of things, even some things the rest of the family doesn’t. But if he’s involved in some sort of espionage plot, I’m not going to help to dig him deeper… especially in a plot as clumsy as yours appears to be.

“You may not be a murderer or a Probationer, LaRoque, but you are a spy! The only problem is figuring out who you’re spying for. I’ll save that mystery for when we get back to Earth.

“Then, maybe, you can visit me; you and James can both try to talk me out of turning you in. Fair enough?”

LaRoque nodded curtly.

“I can wait, Demwa. Just don’t you lose the recordings, eh? I have been through the very hell to get them. I want to get that chance to persuade you to hand them over.”

Jacob was looking at the Sun.

“LaRoque, spare me your meanings. You haven’t been to hell… yet.”

He turned away and headed for the elevators. There was time enough for a few hours under a sleep machine. He didn’t want to see anyone until it was time to leave.