Citadel by Algis Budrys (free ebook reader txt) 📖

Marlowe grunted. Journalese was getting out of hand again. That last rhyming sentence was sure to stick in the audience's brains. It might be only another advertising gimmick, but if they started doing it with the body of the news itself, it might be well to feed Topical enough false leads to destroy what little reputation for comprehensibility they had left.

He touched his interphone switch.

"Uh ... Mary, what was the hooper on that broadcast?"

"Under one per cent, sir."

Which meant that, so far, the Body Politic hadn't reacted.

"Thank you. Is there anything else coming in?"

"Not at the moment, sir."

"What's—" Cabbage. "What's Dalish ud Klavan doing?"

"His residence is the Solar Hostel, sir. The management reports that he is still in his room, and has not reserved space on any form of long-distance transportation. He has not contacted us, either, and there is a strong probability that he may still be unaware of what's happened."

"How many calls did he make yesterday, either before or after he was here, and to whom?"

"I can get you a list in ten minutes, sir."

"Do that, Mary."

He switched off, sat slapping the edge of his desk with his hand, and switched on again.

"Mary, I want the GenSurvs on the Dovenil area to a depth of ten cubic lights."

"Yes, sir."

"And get me Mr. Mead on the phone, please."

"Yes, sir."

Marlowe's lips pulled back from his teeth as he switched off. He snatched a candy bar out of his drawer, tore the film part way off, then threw it back in the drawer as his desk phone chimed.

"Here, Chris."

"Here, Mr. Marlowe."

"Look, Chris—has Holliday left Earth yet?"

"Yes, sir. Yes, Dave."

"Where is he?"

"Luna, en route to Karlshaven. He was lucky enough to have me arrange for his accidentally getting a ride on a GenSurv ship that happened to be going out that way, if you follow me." Mead grinned.

"Get him back."

The smile blanked out. "I can't do that, Mr. Marlowe! He'd never be able to take it. You should have seen him when I put him on the shuttle. We doped him up with EasyRest, and even then his subconscious could feel the bulkheads around him, even in his sleep. Those shuttles are small, and they don't have ports."

"We can't help that. We need him, and I've got to talk to him first. Personally."

Mead bit his lip. "Yes, sir."

"Dave."

"Yes ... Dave."

VII.

Dalish ud Klavan sat easily in his chair opposite Marlowe. He rested one digit on his notebook and waited.

"Ud Klavan," Marlowe said amiably, "you're undoubtedly aware by now that your opposite number on Dovenil has been charged with a civil crime and deported."

The Dovenilid nodded. "An unfortunate incident. One that I regret personally, and which I am sure my own people would much rather not have had happen."

"Naturally." Marlowe smiled. "I simply wanted to reassure you that this incident does not reflect on your own status in any way. We are investigating our representative, and will take appropriate action, but it seems quite clear that the fault is not with your people. We have already forwarded reparations and a note of apology to your government. As further reparation, I wish to assure you personally that we will coöperate with your personal observations in every possible way. If there is anything at all you wish to know—even what might, under ordinary conditions, be considered restricted information—just call on us."

Ud Klavan's crest stirred a fraction of an inch, and Marlowe chuckled inwardly. Well, even a brilliant spy might be forgiven an outward display of surprise under these circumstances.

The Dovenilid gave him a piercing look, but Marlowe presented a featureless facade of bulk.

The secretary chuckled in his mind once more. He doubted if ud Klavan could accept the hypothesis that Marlowe did not know he was a spy. But the Dovenilid must be a sorely confused being at this point.

"Thank you, Marlowe," he said finally. "I am most grateful, and I am sure my people will construe it as yet another sign of the Union's friendship."

"I hope so, ud Klavan," Marlowe replied. Having exchanged this last friendly lie, they went through the customary Dovenilid formula of leave-taking.

Marlowe slapped his interphone switch as soon as the alien was gone. "Uh ... Mary, what's the latest on Holliday?"

"His shuttle lands at Idlewild in half an hour, sir."

"All right, get Mr. Mead. Have him meet me out front, and get an official car to take us to the field. I'll want somebody from Emigration to go with us. Call Idlewild and have them set up a desk and chairs for four out in the middle of the field. Call the Ministry for Traffic and make sure that field stays clear until we're through with it. My Ministerial prerogative, and no back-talk. I want that car in ten minutes."

"Yes, sir."

Mary's voice was perfectly even, without the slightest hint that there was anything unusual happening. Marlowe switched off and twisted his mouth.

He picked up the GenSurv on the Dovenil area and began skimming it rapidly.

He kept his eyes carefully front as he walked out of his office, past the battery of clerks in the outer office, and down the hall. He kept them rigidly fixed on the door of his personal elevator which, during the day, was human-operated under the provisions of the Human Employment Act of 2302. He met Mead in front of the building and did not look into the eyes of Bussard, the man from Emigration, as they shook hands. He followed them down the walk in a sweating agony of obliviousness, and climbed into the car with carefully normal lack of haste.

He sat sweating, chewing a candy bar, for several minutes before he spoke. Then, slowly, he felt his battered defenses reassert themselves, and he could actually look at Bussard, before he turned to Mead.

"Now, then," he rapped out a shade too abruptly before he caught himself. "Here's the GenSurv on the Dovenil area, Chris. Anything in it you don't know already?"

"I don't think so, sir."

"O.K., dig me up a habitable planet—even a long-term False-E will do—close to Dovenil, but not actually in their system. If it's at all possible, I want that world in a system without any rich planets. And I don't want any rich systems anywhere near it. If you can't do that, arrange for the outright sale of all mineral and other resource rights to suitable companies. I want that planet to be habitable, but I want it to be impossible for any people on it to get at enough resources to achieve a technological culture. Can do?"

Mead shook his head. "I don't know."

"You've got about fifteen minutes to find out. I'm going to start talking to Holliday, and when I tell him I've got another planet for him, I'll be depending on you to furnish one. Sorry to pile it on like this, but must be."

Mead nodded. "Right, Mr. Marlowe. That's why I draw pay."

"Good boy. Now, uh—" Rabbit. "Bussard. I want you to be ready to lay out a complete advertising and prospectus program. Straight routine work, but about four times normal speed. The toughest part of it will be following the lead that Chris and I set. Don't be surprised at anything, and act like it happens every day."

"Yes, Mr. Marlowe."

"Right."

Bussard looked uncomfortable. "Ah ... Mr. Marlowe?"

"Yes?"

"About this man, Harrison. I presume all this is the result of what happened to him on Dovenil. Do you think there's any foundation in truth for what they say he did? Or do you think it's just an excuse to get him off their world?"

Marlowe looked at him coldly. "Don't be an ass," he snorted.

VIII.

Martin Holliday climbed slowly out of the shuttle's lock and moved fumblingly down the stairs, leaning on the attendant's arm. His face was a mottled gray, and his hands shook uncontrollably. He stepped down to the tarmac and his head turned from side to side as his eyes gulped the field's distances.

Marlowe sat behind the desk that had been put down in the middle of this emptiness, his eyes brooding as he looked at Holliday. Bussard stood beside him, trying nervously to appear noncommittal, while Mead went up to the shaking old man, grasped his hand, and brought him over to the desk.

Marlowe shifted uncomfortably. The desk was standard size, and he had to sit far away from it. He could not feel at ease in such a position.

His thick fingers went into the side pocket of his jacket and peeled the film off a candy bar, and he began to eat it, holding it in his left hand, as Mead introduced Holliday.

"How do you do, Mr. Holliday?" Marlowe said, his voice higher than he would have liked it, while he shook the man's hand.

"I'm ... I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Secretary," Holliday replied. His eyes were darting past Marlowe's head.

"This is Mr. Bussard, of Emigration, and you know Mr. Mead, of course. Now, I think we can all sit down."

Mead's chair was next to Holliday's, and Bussard's was to one side of the desk, so that only Marlowe, unavoidably, blocked his complete view of the stretching tarmac.

"First of all, Mr. Holliday, I'd like to thank you for coming back. Please believe me when I say we would not have made such a request if it were not urgently necessary."

"It's all right," Holliday said in a low, apologetic voice. "I don't mind."

Marlowe winced, but he had to go on.

"Have you seen a news broadcast recently, Mr. Holliday?"

The man shook his head in embarrassment. "No, sir. I've been ... asleep most of the time."

"I understand, Mr. Holliday. I didn't really expect you had under the circumstances. The situation is this:

"Some time ago, our survey ships, working out in their usual expanding pattern, encountered an alien civilization on a world designated Moore II on our maps, and which the natives call Dovenil. It was largely a routine matter, no different from any other alien contact which we've had. They had a relatively high technology, embracing the beginnings of interplanetary flight, and our contact teams were soon able to work out a diplomatic status mutually satisfactory to both.

"Social observers were exchanged, in accordance with the usual practice, and everything seemed to be going well."

Holliday nodded out of painful politeness, not seeing the connection with himself. Some of his nervousness was beginning to fade, but it was impossible for him to be really at ease with so many people near him, with all of Earth's billions lurking at the edge of the tarmac.

"However," Marlowe went on as quickly as he could, "today, our representative was deported on a trumped-up charge. Undoubtedly, this is only the first move in some complicated scheme directed against the Union. What it is, we do not yet know, but further observation of the actions of their own representative on this planet has convinced us that they are a clever, ruthless people, living in a society which would have put Machiavelli to shame. They are single-minded of purpose, and welded into a tight group whose major purpose in life is the service of the state in its major purpose, which, by all indications, is that of eventually dominating the universe.

"You know our libertarian society. You know that the Union government is almost powerless, and that the Union itself is nothing but a loose federation composed of a large number of independent nations tied together by very little more than the fact that we are all Earthmen.

"We are almost helpless in