Vulcan's Hammer

CHAPTER 5

There it was. Vulcan 2, or what remained of Vulcan 2-heaps of twisted debris; fused, wrecked masses of parts; scattered tubes and relays lost in random coils that had once been wiring. A great ruin, still smoldering. The acrid smoke of shorted transformers drifted up and hung against the ceiling of the chamber. Several technicians poked morosely at the rubbish; they had salvaged a few minor parts, nothing more. One of them had already given up and was putting his tools back in their case.

Jason Dill kicked a shapeless blob of ash with his foot. The change, the incredible change from the thing Vulcan 2 had been to this, still dazed him. No warning-he had been given no warning at all. He had left Vulcan 2, gone on about his business, waiting for the old computer to finish processing his questions ... and then the technicians had called to tell him.

Again, for the millionth time, the questions scurried hopelessly through his brain. How had it happened? How had they gotten it? And why? It didn't make sense. If they had managed to locate and penetrate the fortress, if one of their agents had gotten this far, why had they wasted their time here, when Vulcan 3 was situated only six levels below?

Maybe they made a mistake; maybe they had destroyed the obsolete computer thinking it was Vulcan 3. This could have been an error, and, from the standpoint of Unity, a very fortunate one.

But as Jason Dill gazed at the wreckage, he thought, It doesn't look like an error. It's so damn systematic. So thorough. Done with such expert precision.

Should I release the news to the public? he asked him­self. I could keep it quiet; these technicians are loyal to me completely. I could keep the destruction of Vulcan 2 a secret for years to come.

Or, he thought, I could say that Vulcan 3 was demol­ished; I could lay a trap, make them think they had been successful. Then maybe they would come out into the open. Reveal themselves.

They must be in our midst, he thought frantically. To be able to get in here-they've subverted Unity.

He felt horror, and, in addition, a deep personal loss. This old machine had been a companion of his for many years. When he had questions simple enough for it to answer he always came here; this visit was part of his life.

Reluctantly, he moved away from the ruins. No more coming here, he realized. The creaking old machine is gone; I'll never be using the manual punch again, labor­iously making out the questions in terms that Vulcan 2 can assimilate.

He tapped his coat. They were still there, the answers that Vulcan 2 had given him, answers that he had puzzled over, again and again. He wanted clarification; his last visit had been to rephrase his queries, to get amplification. But the blast had ended that.

Deep in thought, Jason Dill left the chamber and made his way up the corridor, back to the elevator. This is a bad day for us, he thought to himself. We'll remember this for a long time.

Back in his own office he took time to examine the DQ forms that had come in. Larson, the leader of the data-feed team, showed him the rejects.

"Look at these." His young face stern with an ever-present awareness of duty, Larson carefully laid out a handful of forms. "This one here-maybe you had better turn it back personally, so there won't be any trouble."

"Why do I have to attend to it?" Jason Dill said with irritation. "Can't you handle it? If you're overworked, hire a couple more clerks up here, from the pool. There's al­ways plenty of clerks; you know that as well as I. We must have two million of them on the payrolls. And yet you still have to bother me." His wrath and anxiety swept up involuntarily, directed at his subordinate; he knew that he was taking it out on Larson, but he felt too depressed to worry about it.

Larson, with no change of expression, said in a firm voice, "This particular form was sent in by a Director. That's why I feel-"

"Give it to me, then," Jason Dill said, accepting it.

The form was from the North American Director, Wil­liam Barris. Jason Dill had met the man any number of times; in his mind he retained an impression of a some­what tall individual, with a high forehead ... in his middle thirties, as Dill recalled. A hard worker. The man had not gotten up to the level of Director in the usual manner-by means of personal social contacts, by knowing the right persons-but by constant accurate and valuable work.

"This is interesting," Jason Dill said aloud to Larson; he put the form aside for a moment. "We ought to be sure we're publicizing this particular Director. Of course, he probably does a full public-relations job in his own dis­trict; we shouldn't worry."

Larson said, "I understand he made it up the hard way. His parents weren't anybody."

"We can show," Jason Dill said, "that the ordinary indi­vidual, with no pull, knowing no one in the organization, can come in and take a regular low-grade job, such as clerk or even maintenance man, and in time, if he's got the ability and drive, he can rise ail the way up to the top. In fact, he might get to be Managing Director." Not, he thought to himself wryly, that it was such a wonderful job to have.

"He won't be Managing Director for a while," Larson said, in a tone of certitude.

"Hell," Jason Dill said wearily. "He can have my job right now, if that's what he's after. I presume he is." Lift­ing the form he glanced at it. The form asked two ques­tions.

a) are the healers of real significance?

b) why don't you respond to their existence?

Holding the form in his hands, Jason Dill thought, One of the eternal bright young men, climbing rapidly up the Unity ladder. Barris, Taubmann, Reynolds, Henderson- they were all making their way confidently, efficiently, never missing a trick, never failing to exploit the slightest wedge. Give them an opportunity, he thought with bitter­ness, and they'll knock you flat; they'll walk right on over you and leave you there.

"Dog eat dog," he said aloud.

"Sir?" Larson said at once.

Jason Dill put down the form. He opened a drawer of his desk and got out a flat metal tin; from it he took a cap­sule which he placed against his wrist. At once the capsule dissolved through the dermal layers; he felt it go into his body, passing into his blood stream to begin work without delay. A tranquilizer... one of the newest ones in the long, long series.

It works on me, he thought, and they work on me; it in one direction, their constant pressure and harassment in the other.

Again Jason Dill picked up the form from Director Barris. "Are there many DQ's like this?"

"No, sir, but there is a general increase in tension. Sev­eral Directors besides Barris are wondering why Vulcan 3 gives no pronouncement on the Healers' Movement."

"They're all wondering," Jason Dill said brusquely.

"I mean," Larson said, "formally. Through official channels."

"Let me see the rest of the material."

Larson passed him the remaining DQ forms. "And here's the related matter from the data troughs." He passed over a huge sealed container. "We've weeded all the incoming material carefully."

After a time Jason Dill said, "I'd like the file on Barris."

"The documented file?"

Jason Dill said, "And the other one. The unsub-pak." Into his mind came the full term, not usually said outright. Unsubstantiated. "The worthless packet," he said. The phony charges, the trumped-up smears and lies and vicious poison-pen letters, mailed to Unity without signature. Un­signed, sometimes in the garbled prose of the psychotic, the lunatic with a grudge. And yet those papers were kept, were filed away. We shouldn't keep them, Jason Dill thought. Or make use of them, even to the extent of ex­amining them. But we do. Right now he was going to look at such filth as it pertained to William Barris. The accumu­lation of years.

Presently the two files were placed before him on his desk. He inserted the microfilm into the scanner, and, for a time, studied the documented file. A procession of dull facts moved by; Barris had been born in Kent, Ohio; he had no brothers or sisters; his father was alive and employed by a bank in Chile; he had gone to work for Unity as a research analyst. Jason Dill speeded up the film, skip­ping about irritably. At last he rewound the microfilm and replaced it in the file. The man wasn't even married, he reflected; he led a routine life, one of virtue and work, if the documents could be believed. If they told the full story.

And now, Jason Dill thought, the slander. The missing parts; the other side, the dark shadow side.

To his disappointment, he found the unsub-pak on Wil­liam Barris almost empty.

Is the man that innocent? Dill wondered. That he's made no enemies? Nonsense. The absence of accusation isn't a sign of the man's innocence; to rise to Director is to incur hostility and envy. Barris probably devotes a good part of his budget to distributing the wealth, to keeping everybody happy. And quiet.

"Nothing here," he said when Larson returned.

"I noticed how light the file felt," Larson said. "Sir, I went down to the data rooms and had them process all the recent material; I thought possibly there might be some­thing not yet in the file." He added, "As you probably know, they're several weeks behind."

Seeing the paper in the mans' hand, Jason Dill felt his pulse speed up in anticipation. "What came in?"

"This." Larson put down a sheet of what appeared to be expensive watermarked stationery. "I also took the measure, when I saw this, of having it analyzed and traced. So you'd know how to assess its worth."

"Unsigned," Dill said.

"Yes, sir. Our analysts say that it was mailed last night, somewhere in Africa. Probably in Cairo."

Studying the letter, Jason Dill murmured, Here's some­one who Barris didn't manage to get to. At least not in time."

Larson said, "It's a woman's writing. Done with an an­cient style of ball-point pen. They're trying to trace the make of pen. What you have there is actually a copy of the letter; they're still examining the actual document down in the labs. But for your purposes-"

"What are my purposes?" Dill said, half to himself. The letter was interesting, but not unique; he had seen such ac­cusations made toward other officials in the Unity organi­zation.

To whom it may concern:

This is to notify you that William Barris, who is a Director, cannot be trusted, as he is in the pay of the Healers and has been for some time. A death that oc­curred recently can be laid at Mr. Barris' door, and he should be punished for his crime of seeing to it that an innocent and talented Unity servant was vic­iously murdered.

"Notice that the writing slopes down," Larson said. "That's supposed to be an indication that the writer is mentally disturbed."

"Superstition," Dill said. "I wonder if this is referring to the murder of that field worker, Pitt. That's the most recent. What connection does Barris have with that? Was he Pitt's Director? Did he send him out?"

"I'll get all the facts for you, sir," Larson said briskly.

After he had reread the unsigned letter, Jason Dill tossed it aside and again picked up the DQ form from Di­rector Barris. With his pen he scratched a few lines on the bottom of the form. "Return this to him toward the end of the week. He failed to fill in his identification numbers; I'm returning it to be corrected."

Larson frowned. "That won't delay him much. Barris will immediately return the form correctly prepared."

Wearily, Jason Dill said, "That's my problem. You let me worry about it. Tend to your own business and you'll last a lot longer in this organization. That's a lesson you should have learned a long time ago."

Flushing, Larson muttered, "I'm sorry, sir."

"I think we should start a discreet investigation of Director Barris," Dill said. "Better send in one of the police secretaries; I'll dictate instructions."

While Larson rounded up the police secretary, Jason Dill sat gazing dully at the unsigned letter that accused Director Barris of being in the pay of the Healers. It would be interesting to know who wrote this, he thought to himself. Maybe we will know, someday soon.

In any case, there will be an investigation-of William Barris.

After the evening meal, Mrs. Agnes Parker sat in the school restaurant with two other teachers, exchanging gossip and relaxing after the long, tense day.

Leaning over so that no one passing by could hear, Miss Crowley whispered to Mrs. Parker, "Aren't you fin­ished with that book, yet? If I had known it would take you so long, I wouldn't have agreed to let you read it first." Her plump, florid face trembled with indignation. "We really deserve our turn."

"Yes," Mrs. Dawes said, also leaning to join them. "I wish you'd go get it right now. Please let us have it, won't you?"

They argued, and at last Mrs. Parker reluctantly rose to her feet and moved away from the table, toward the stair­way. It was a long walk up the stairs and along the hall to the wing of the building in which she had her own room, and once in the room she had to spend some time digging the book from its hiding place. The book, an ancient liter­ary classic called Lolita had been on the banned list for years; there was a heavy fine for anyone caught possessing it-and, for a teacher, it might mean a jail term. However, most of the teachers read and circulated such stimulating books back and forth among them, and so far no one had been caught.

Grumbling because she had not been able to finish the book, Mrs. Parker placed it inside a copy of World Today and carried it from her room, out into the hall. No one was in sight, so she continued on toward the stairway.

As she was descending she recalled that she had a job to do, a job that had to be done before morning; the old Fields girl's quarters had not been emptied, as was re­quired by school law. A new pupil would be arriving in a day or so and would occupy the room; it was essential that someone in authority go over every inch of the room to be certain that no subversive or illicit articles belonging to the Fields girl remained to contaminate the new child. Con­sidering the Fields girl's background, this rule was par­ticularly Important. As she left the stairway and hurried along a corridor, Mrs. Parker felt her heart skip several beats. She might get into a good deal of trouble by being forgetful in this area... they might think she wanted the new child contaminated.

The door to Marion Fields' old room was locked. How could that be? Mrs. Parker asked herself. The children weren't permitted keys; they could not lock any doors any­where. It had to be one of the staff. Of course she herself had a key, but she hadn't had time to come down here since Managing Director Dill had taken custody of the child.

As she groped in her pocket for her master key, she heard a sound on the other side of the door. Someone was in the room.

"Who's in there?" she demanded, feeling frightened. If there was an unauthorized person in the room, she would get into trouble; it was her responsibility to maintain this dorm. Bringing her key out, she took a quick breath and then put the key into the lock. Maybe it's someone from the Unity offices checking up on me, she thought. Seeing what I let the Fields girl have in the way of possessions. The door opened and she switched on the light.

At first she saw no one. The bed, the curtains, the small desk in the corner... the chest of drawers!

On the chest of drawers something was perched. Some­thing that gleamed, shiny metal, gleamed and clicked as it turned toward her. She saw into two glassy mechanical lenses; something with a tubelike body, the size of a child's bat, shot upward and swept toward her.

She raised her arms. Stop, she said to herself. She did not hear her voice; all she heard was a whistling noise in her ears, a deafening blast of sound that became a squeal. Stop! she wanted to scream, but she could not speak. She felt as if she were rising; now she had become weightless, floating. The room drifted into darkness. It fell away from her, farther and farther. No motion, no sound... just a single spark of light that flickered, hesitated, and then winked out.

Oh dear, she thought. I'm going to get into trouble. Even her thoughts seemed to drift away; she could not maintain them. I've done something wrong. This will cost me my job.

She drifted on and on.