Planet in Peril Read online

  “Official Grayner? For the Manager. You’re to go down right away.”

  Ledbetter rose to meet him as he entered the room, waved him to a chair, and said: “Well, for such a short stay, you’ve managed to run into plenty of trouble.”

  “A certain amount of death and vanishment.” Ledbetter looked startled. “What? Oh, I see. No, I wasn’t thinking of that” He held up a couple of reports. “I meant these. ‘Failure to comply with Regulations twenty-nine (iii) and forty-two (vii). Breach of Regulation twenty-nine (ix). Unnecessary invocation of Regulation one hundred and twelve (i).’ Shall I translate? You notified the fact of your assistant being missing to an outside source before getting in touch with Mettrill, after previously giving her the use of your gyro, again without higher confirmation. You left your lab without getting in touch with Mettrill. And you insisted on bypassing Mettrill to give me your views on the situation, a course which is only justifiable in Regulations when a real suspicion of victimization can be established.” Ledbetter put down the reports and looked at Charles across the desk. His face was expressionless.

  “There’s another report from Contact which refers to your mental attitude; I gather that at least some of this has already been explained to you.”

  Ledbetter paused; there was an obvious implication that Charles should launch into some kind of explanation or defense. He refused the chance, and remained silent. Ledbetter gave him a little longer, while he tossed the reports back into his file tray. Then his blank expression broke, and he grinned.

  “I told you you would like Mettrill. No reason why you two shouldn't have got on together, except that a minor crisis blew up. Mettrill isn't good in a crisis. You did the right thing in coming to me. I can sort this lot out fairly easily."

  Ledbetter leaned back and looked at his cigarette. “It's the future we have to consider. I’m not promising anything, but there's a chance I may be able to swing something useful there."

  Charles said: “Useful?"

  “It's a little out of the ordinary, but there's a chance I may be able to acquire extraterritorial rights in your Pacific Coast place. That would make you directly answerable to me for admin—reports would go through to Nikko-Tsi, of course, as before." Ledbetter grinned again. “There's an incidental advantage—I could use that tie-up for the odd trip to see you out there, and get a little yachting in. Well? How does it strike you?"

  Charles said: “Favorably. You're being very helpful. But it wasn't precisely my future that I came to talk about—my future in that sense, anyway.”

  “No?" Ledbetter said. “All right. I've had Stenner's report. I’ve got some of it. You might as well let me have the rest."

  Charles went through it for him, carefully and slowly, detailing Sara's original dissatisfaction with the result of the inquiry on Humayun's supposed death, and his own growing awareness that something was wrong with the superficial appearances of Sara's own disappearance and her father's suicide. When he had finished, Ledbetter commented: “That's all?"

  “That's all."

  “Now I've heard your interpretation of the facts. Will you take me as impartial?"

  Charles said warily: “I’ve no reason to suspect you of not being impartial."

  “I've thought a good deal about this. I had Stenner's report in last night; as you may guess, he mentions your theory only to damn it. That's a thing that always gets my back up. I began with a prejudice in favor of your views. The case you have just stated would have confirmed that.”

  Charles caught at a phrase. “Would have confirmed it?”

  Ledbetter nodded. “There are some inconsistencies in your theory. I imagine Stenner has pointed them out already. The odd time intervals between the ‘kidnappings’, especially in relation to the Koupal girl and her father. The failure to take Humayun and the girl at the same time, presuming they were both wanted/ But those are mechanical objections, and I don't propose making them.

  “No, it’s the picture as a whole that I’m inclined to accept or reject, and I find it very difficult to accept it You say that your predecessor, your assistant and her father have been abducted by Contact Section or some other managerial. My automatic reaction is to look for motive. If it were true it would represent a large-scale measure in any managerial’s terms. Then, why? What reason could there be that would justify the risks involved?”

  Charles studied Ledbetter closely. His lanky form was stretched back now in his chair, and he looked entirely and genuinely curious as to the answer to his question.

  Charles said: “When I was here before, you seemed very uncertain as to the kind of work I would be called on to do at the new place. Are you still as uncertain?”

  “It’s interesting you should say that. Naturally the report from Stenner made me curious about the set-up. I sent a flip to Nikko-Tsi. I explained the situation briefly, and put a question to him: could I be told what work it was Humayun had been doing and which you were to continue—or if the information was top restricted, could I pass you on to Graz for their handling as I did not feel I would be competent to handle things myself. I had the reply printed. Would you care to see it?”

  Charles nodded. Ledbetter brought out a sheet of paper, and passed it across the desk. Charles took it. It ran:

  REFERENCE LABORATORY 719, SAN MIGUEL. ESTABLISHMENT ENGAGED ON ROUTINE WORK INTO POSSIBILITY OF NEW POWER SOURCE CONNECTED WITH IRRADIATED DIAMOND. RESTRICTED ON BASIS OF INITIAL REPORTS FROM HUMAYUN. SUBSEQUENT REPORTS HAVE NOT DEVELOPED PROMISE OF FIRST. QUESTION OF CONTINUANCE OR RE-ROUTING OF THIS RESEARCH WILL COME UP AT NEXT APPROPRIATE COUNCIL MEETING. GRAYNER TO BE RETURNED TO POST PENDING FULL CONSIDERATION OF POSITION. YOUR DISCRETION TO HANDLE. NIKKO-TSI FOR PRESTON.

  Charles read the message through two or three times, while he collected his thoughts. “Subsequent reports have not developed promise of first.” Something was wrong; badly wrong. There were three possibilities. That Humayun had somehow, for some reason, not submitted correct reports to Graz. That Graz was engaged in some tortuous course of deceit which involved putting one of their own Managers off the scent. Or that the flip from Nikko-Tsi was a private forgery of Ledbetter’s. The second possibility seemed much the most likely. In any case, since two out of the three possibilities involved trickery within United Chemicals, the obvious thing for him to do was to watch his step. He pushed the message back to Ledbetter.

  Ledbetter said: "Well?”

  And something else was wrong. Ledbetter was too amiable, too anxious not to embarrass him. He tried fitting himself into Ledbetter’s position, an imaginative exercise more difficult for him than it would have been for many others, because so infrequently practiced. Ledbetter had wondered whether there might not be some truth in his suspicions, and had got in touch with Graz— with the clear intention of ducking the problem should it offer any major difficulties. Having got this kind of reply it was reasonable enough that he should have rejected Charles’ theory, but surely there was another implication to be drawn as well? Immediately before 41

  Ledbetter showed him the message from Graz, Charles had referred to the work of the laboratory in veiled but portentous terms. Ledbetter had known—on the basis of his information—that there could be nothing in such a claim. His obvious move should be to put a disaffected and self-important subordinate in his place. Instead, he was watching Charles with friendly sympathy.

  Charles said, striving to be noncommittal: “The flip seems clear enough. Your view then is—”

  Ledbetter shrugged. “You’ve seen something of one of the missing three, so you’re at an advantage there. But in my experience human beings can be very deceptive in that respect. I prefer to stick to the big picture. And that takes me back to the original question—what reason could there be to justify the kind of thing you have suggested? I’m not blinking the fact that there are several managerials who would stick at very little if they thought there really was something that would give them the advantage. I haven’t forgotten the little shot Atomics had
at—shall we say, centralization?—a few years ago. Or the Hydroponics—Agriculture combination in the ’Thirty-six famine. But what is there in this for anyone? Can you see anything?”

  The solicitude was wrong, altogether wrong. There was one possibility, he reflected wryly, that might account for it. Stenner seemed to have had some doubts as to his mental balance. It might be that Ledbetter had them, to an even greater degree. Some people were naturally polite and considerate to the insane.

  Temporizing, he said: “I suppose you must be right” He hesitated, summoning up words that would deceive the tall friendly man opposite him. “I won’t conceal the fact that my assistant—Sara Koupal—made a very great impression on me.” He smiled. “I couldn’t conceal it, anyway, could I? It’s in Stenner’s report. There is no doubt in my mind that I love her. I found it hard to recognize that she might be dead; harder that her death had been of her own volition.” He looked at Ledbetter, 42 his embarrassment producing a good effect of honesty. “I still do.”

  “Naturally you do,” Ledbetter said. “I don’t think we need to call in Stenner’s amateur psychoanalysis. Whether the affections are conditioned or free, one feels them—and damned painfully at times. This has been a bad business, even if an innocent one. Of course you would be inclined to see things the way you did. Anyone would. And it can’t be much consolation to you now to be told that you will get over it—though you will. Work is a useful thing in that respect. I hope the flip I showed you won’t put off the work, just because it hints at the possibility of things being changed. Actually, they will probably carry on under their inertia; you would be surprised if you knew some of the lines of research that have been automatically O.K.’d, year after year.”

  Charles said: “You want me to go back to the lab?” Ledbetter said: ‘I’m pretty sure I can swing you under my jurisdiction. Mettrill is not the kind to stand on a question of prestige if he sees a chance of less work or less trouble. You will be O.K.”

  “Stenner’s advice,” Charles said, “was to visit Psycho and Med. He went so far as to suggest the prescription, too—a high-mesc course and a holiday trip.”

  “You can disregard Stenner. You are as sane as he is, and considerably more intelligent.”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t find the suggestion altogether repulsive. I could do without the mesc, but there is something about the holiday trip that appeals.” Ledbetter said emphatically: “Take my advice—work is the best remedy. A holiday trip is no good except to a mind already contented. You’ve got to learn to live with things. Work provides the best way of doing that.” There was an emphasis behind his words which it was difficult to believe stemmed entirely from his concern for Charles. Ledbetter wanted him back at the lab.

  Charles said: “I guess it takes different people different ways. I’m not sure that it takes me that way. I have an idea a holiday trip would be quite attractive.” He glanced across at Ledbetter. “The change of scene, for one thing. The lab has acquired a few memories even in so short a time.”

  “Face them,” Ledbetter said. ‘It's the only way to get on top of them; they would hit you with much more force when you finally got back.”

  “But then,” Charles said, “I would be better able to cope with them. Or so I think. I take it there wouldn’t be any actual objection to my consulting P and M and asking for the break?”

  Ledbetter said, with obvious reluctance: “No. Of course you can. How long had you thought of asking for?”

  “I hadn’t thought. But with my grade and record, and with Stenner’s report, I think I could probably get six months if I asked, don’t you? And it happens that I have another six months’ holiday furlough to my credit. I could take a year off.”

  Ledbetter was startled. “A year? What about the work?”

  Charles shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to have any urgency, as you and Nikko-Tsi have both pointed out.” Ledbetter looked as though he were going to say something, and then thought better of it. Charles let a pause rest between them, to encourage him, but without effect. Then he relented. “I don’t imagine I should want anything like that time, though. I’ve never had much pleasure out of furloughs in the past, and I don’t suppose this will be any exception.”

  Ledbetter looked as though he had just thought of something. He said brightly: “I hope you won’t take too long, for personal reasons. I’m looking forward to your hospitality to let me get those yachting trips in.”

  The KF studio had at one time been a brewery; long low-ceilinged rooms were broken at intervals by peculiar vertical shafts. Charles found Dinkuhl watching the interior of Room 17 through the glass partition.

  He touched his arm; Dinkuhl looked round.

  “Charlie! I heard you’d joined a procession to the morgue”

  Charles said: "I’ve come for some more of your excellent advice, Hiram. And for permission to listen in on your grapevine.”

  Dinkuhl performed his characteristic mocking grin. "Advice is something we always have available. As for the grapevine, I’m not so sure. Come on upstairs, anyway, and I’ll get you a drink.”

  There were two comfortable chairs in the upstairs room. Dinkuhl directed him to one, and went across to a spindly top-heavy Welsh dresser that just about covered one wall. He opened up a cupboard.

  "Take what comes?”

  "Within reason.” He watched Dinkuhl pour two glasses and bring them over, together with the bottle, on a tray. “Turnip and tomato again?”

  Dinkuhl shook his head. “The real stuff. Plum brandy. Well now. How’ve you been missing KF?”

  "To tell you the truth, I hadn’t given it a thought.” "You’re a lucky man.” Dinkuhl let his nose rest for a moment against the edge of his glass. "Ah. That’s a bad business you landed in.”

  "What do you know about it?”

  "Nothing,” Dinkuhl said blandly. “You tell me.”

  Charles told him. When he had finished, Dinkuhl replenished their glasses. Charles looked at him. “Well?” “And your good friends in UC haven’t quite succeeded in persuading you that you are a promising psychotic?” Dinkuhl asked.

  “I had my doubts at times, but I have none now.” "Good boy. It has long been a fixed principle of mine to assume that the world around me was populated by mugs and fleecers; I never take any man’s word unless I know he has an axe to grind, and know just what the axe is. Then I can make allowances.”

  "What axe have you got?”

  "An interesting point. Two, principally—to further anything that looks as though it may sabotage, in the least degree, the managerial world in which we live; and to save my own skin”

  Charles grinned. "All right. I’ll settle for them.”

  "Not yet you won’t. First I have to justify my seditious attitude.” He finished his own glass. “You’re not drinking.”

  "Not at your pace. I don’t think I need the justification. I’m more concerned with getting some advice.”

  Dinkuhl filled his own glass. "The advice can wait. It won’t be of an order to require your urgent attention-urgent within the next half-hour at any rate. Why do I wish to destroy this world-wide fatherly society of managerial in whose bosom we five? Why indeed?”

  Charles resigned himself to the situation. "Because the end is in sight—the end of KF?”

  "Partly, partly. But a few other things as well. Tell me —what anniversary falls two years from now?”

  "I don’t know. Should I?”

  "It’s the anniversary of the War. What do you know about the War—about the way the society of today came into being? I’ll ask you another question. Professor Koupal taught History at Berkeley, one of the very few academic institutions which provide tuition in that subject. How many students did he have?”

  "Before his disappearance? Two.”

  "You surprise me. Yes. Two. I doubt if there are a score of students reading History in continental North America. Although you could not be expected to appreciate it, this is—historically speaking—an extraordinar
y state of affairs. Other decadent periods have misread and distorted the history of their origins; ours is the first to have succeeded in ignoring it altogether.”

  “Decadent?”

  Dinkuhl sighed. “I hoped I shouldn’t have to argue about that. You must have been viewing Red League. Man conquering the last barrier—twenty-first-century Man grasping for a new heritage among the Stars— Conquering the Chill Lunar Wastes. But tell me: how long is it since the lunar base was established? You don't remember. It was there when you were a child. Perhaps you can remember when the last attempts were made at Mars and Venus? You should remember them.”

  Charles thought. “The Del Marro expedition—”

  “Over twenty years ago.” Dinkuhl glanced at him sardonically. “You were a young man, then, settling down into your niche at Saginaw. That was Mars. They had ruled Venus out ten years before that”

  “The difficulties are very great.”

  “Not as great as they were for the first trip to the Moon. But in any case, we aren't trying any longer. The work has been abandoned. Not worth the risk.”

  “The Moon,” Charles pointed out “hasn’t been worth it. Except possibly in terms of astronomical research.” “By which,” Dinkuhl said, “you display yourself as a true child of your age. If you are going to calculate that land of endeavor in terms of profit and loss, then you have failed before you start. No, that is decadence.” “All right,” Charles said. “I see why you would like to put a bomb under it all.”

  Dinkuhl ignored him. “How did things get like this?” He reached for the bottle without pausing and refilled his own glass and—over his gestured protest—Charles'. “In the twentieth century they knew—those of them that could see any further than their noses—that they were heading for a crash. And they got it, of course. They got the lot—atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, breakdown, disease, famine. The world's Dark Age beginning anew.

  “And yet, before they had even had time to attune themselves to the new conditions—while they were still eating each other in order to stay alive and not for any pleasure in the taste of human flesh—the breakdown was over. The incredible was happening, and a new society was rising, lifting itself, as far as they could see, by its own bootstraps.