Entoverse

CHAPTER SIX

The window behind the desk looked out over the bronzed-glass office towers, concrete experimental buildings, and tree-lined avenues of the UN Space Arm’s Goddard Space Center. At the desk in front of it, a stockily built figure with a craggy face and close-cropped, steel gray hair drummed a tattoo on the leather top with his fingers. “What did they want?” Gregg Caldwell, director of UNSA’s recently formed Advanced Sciences Division, demanded in his gravelly, bass baritone voice.

The Thurien contact had made nonsense of all the plans for Man’s expansion into space, just when those plans had at last begun taking shape as a united effort by the entire race. Accepting the pointlessness of preserving forms that even its bureaucrats were unable to deny now served no sensible purpose, UNSA had scrapped most of its previous organizational structure to clear the decks for the new challenges. This had included wrapping up Caldwell’s former Navigation and Communications Division, which would have had about as much relevance to the changed circumstances as an astrolabe on the command deck of one of the Jupiter mission ships. Caldwell had moved to Washington to set up a new division charged with assimilating as much of the alien technology into Earth’s space program as was practicable and desirable, and Hunt had moved with him to become deputy director.

Hunt answered from a leather-upholstered easy chair in front of a battery of display screens on the opposite wall. Caldwell had always liked big windows and lots of screens. His old office at Navcomms HQ in Houston had been fitted the same way.

“Garuth’s realizing that he bit off more than he could chew when he agreed to take charge on Jevlen. Let’s be frank, Gregg-it was a daft idea in the first place. Ganymeans aren’t cut out to be planetary overlords. We should have put our foot down harder when Calazar and the rest of the Thuriens came up with it. Neither of us was happy about it at the time.”

Caldwell shrugged. In the headiness of those times, everyone’s judgment had been affected. Nothing could be done about it now. “You can’t miss if you never shoot at anything,” he replied. “What kind of problems are they having with the Jevlenese?”

“Nothing that would seem especially strange to us: civil disturbances and agitation. But to Ganymean minds it doesn’t make any sense. They don’t know how to handle the illogic of it.”

“They still don’t know what to make of people acting normal, eh?”

“I’m not sure they ever will-completely.”

“What kind of illogic are we talking about? Give me a specific.” Hunt spread his hands for an instant. “Oh, keeping JEVEX shut down means that the Jevlenese can’t function without Ganymean help-at least, so some of them say. Therefore the situation equates to forced subjugation and violates their rights of self-determination. And then the standard terrorist line: If we end up killing each other because we don’t like it, it will be your responsibility.”

“Which the Ganymeans buy, right?”

“They believe it, but they don’t understand it.”

“It sounds as if the leash is on the wrong way round, all right,” Caldwell agreed.

“Yes… but what’s making matters worse is the withdrawal symptoms of unhooking them from JEVEX, which it seems everyone underestimated. Garuth says the number of headworld junkies there was epidemic. You have to admit, it is the ultimate in escapism. People could get into it in a big way-even the Thuriens admit they sometimes have problems with it. But in the case of the Jevlenese, it’s left half the population with no idea of how to cope. They’ve been conditioned to be totally, uncritically receptive, which makes them complete suckers for anyone with a message to put in their heads.”

“Hmm.” Caldwell drummed on the desk again for a second. “I thought the UN sent a bunch of sociologists and psychiatrists there who were supposed to know about how to deal with that kind of thing. How come they’re not handling it?”

Hunt made a you-know-how-it-is gesture. “They’re out-of-work social engineers looking for new places to take their theories now that people here are managing their own lives instead of expecting governments to do everything for them. Apparently the experts are producing lots of reports and statistics, but when anything serious happens they head for cover and leave it to the riot police.”

“So why is Garuth coming to us? Our business is Ganymean physics, not Jevlenese psychology.” Caldwell already had a pretty good idea of the reason; he just wanted to hear Hunt’s reading of it.

“He’s worried that if things get worse and JPC starts to panic, he might be pulled out and replaced by a Terran military administration. They’ve been putting in a lot of work there, Gregg.”

Caldwell nodded. “Garuth doesn’t want to see it all go to waste,” he guessed, saving Hunt the need to spell it out. “Just when they might have been about to see some results?”

“That-and more.” Hunt motioned briefly with a hand. “He sounded as if he thought they were close to discovering something important about what’s screwing up the Jevlenese-more than their simply being JEVEX cabbages. But putting in a Colonel Blimp-style board of governors there would blow any chance of getting to the bottom of it.” Hunt shook his head before Caldwell could ask. “He didn’t go into any more details.”

Caldwell paused a shade longer than would have been natural before speaking-just enough to impart more currency into his question than its face value. “What do you think we should do?”

Properly speaking, there should have been no question. By all the formal rules and demarcation lines, it was none of Advanced Sciences’ business. Hunt knew that, Caldwell knew that, and both of them knew that Garuth did, too. The department had close working relationships with plenty of influential figures in both political hemispheres, and all that the situation called for was a friendly word to refer the matter to them.

But as Hunt wasn’t saying and Caldwell understood, there was more to it in reality. This was old friends appealing for help, and it couldn’t be let go at that. The first encounter with Garuth and the Ganymeans at Jupiter had been, strictly speaking, a “political” problem, too; yet the UNSA scientists on the spot had achieved a common understanding without complications while the professional diplomats on Earth were still conferring about protocols and arguing over rivalries of precedence. That was why Hunt had raised the matter in the way he had. Caldwell was very good at interpreting his terms of authority creatively. Properly speaking, even before the Ganymeans appeared, getting involved with the Lunarian mystery when it had first surfaced should not have been any of Navcomms’s business, either.

Hunt rubbed his chin and adopted an expression appropriate to weighing up a matter of considerable gravity. “You know, there could be a lot at stake here, Gregg… when you think about it. Our whole future relationship with what’s shown itself to be an erratic and temperamental alien culture. Even with the best of intentions, the wrong people could get things into a big mess.”

“I think so, too,” Caldwell agreed, nodding solemnly.

Hunt shifted in the chair and recrossed his legs the other way. “It’s not a time for taking risks with untried procedures. Tested methods would be safer, even if a little… irregular?”

“It ought to be played safe,” Caldwell affirmed.

“It wouldn’t be violating any precedent. In fact, it would be fully in accordance with the only precedent we’ve got.”

“Exactly.”

Hunt had wondered on and off whether Caldwell’s promotion to Washington might spell the beginnings of a slow ossification into the role of dedicated administrator, and a waning of the dynamism that had helped fling humanity across the Solar System. But as he stared back across the desk, he saw the old light that came with anticipation of a challenge, still there as bright as ever beneath the bushy brows. Hunt dropped the pretense. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

Caldwell’s manner became businesslike. “Garuth says he needs help. So see what you can do to help. Your job is to look into Ganymean science. Well, he’s right in the middle of a whole civilization based on it. You’ll find more there than you will from the scraps we’ve been sent here.”

“There?” Hunt blinked. “You want me to go there-to Jevlen?” Caldwell shrugged.

“That’s where the problem is. You don’t expect Garuth to bring the planet here. The Vishnu will be going back to Thurien before very much longer, with a stop on the way at Jevlen. I’ll get you a slot on board.”

Hunt found himself with his usual feeling of already being left behind in seconds once Caldwell had made a decision. “Washington hasn’t changed you, Gregg,” he said resignedly.

“I know when you’re curious, and I trust your instincts. You’ve never failed to come back with something better than we hoped for, yet. I sent you off to Ganymede to look into some relics of defunct aliens, and you came back with a shipload of live ones. You went up to Alaska to meet a starship, and discovered an interstellar civilization.” Caldwell tossed out a hand. “Okay, I’ll buy in again. I’m curious, too.”

Caldwell wasn’t missing any tricks of his own, either, Hunt realized. Already he had spotted territory for sending out feelers to explore growth potential for his new, embryonic empire. It was the old Gregg, as opportunistic as ever. And Hunt had one of his fuzzily defined, free-ranging assignments again.

“You’d better start giving some thought to who else you might need along,” Caldwell said. He almost managed to sound as if Hunt had been dragging his heels over it.

“Well, Chris Danchekker for a start, I suppose-especially if it’s going to involve alien psychology.”

“I’d already assumed that.”

“And Duncan’s been agitating for a chance to do a spell off-planet. I think he should get it, too. He’s been doing a great job.” Hunt was referring to his assistant, Duncan Watt, who had moved with him from Houston. Duncan always ended up holding the fort whenever Hunt went away.

“Okay.”

“Chris might want to bring one of his people, too.”

“I’ll let you take that up with him,” Caldwell said.

Hunt sat back, rubbing his lower lip with a knuckle and eyeing Caldwell hesitantly. “There, er… there was one other small thing,” he said finally.

“Oh, yes?” Caldwell sounded unsurprised, but in his preoccupation of the moment, Hunt missed it.

“It just occurred to me… There’s a journalist that I happened to run into, who wants to write a book on some of the possible Jevlenese agents in history that people aren’t talking about.”

“Just occurred to you,” Caldwell repeated.

“Well, sort of.” Hunt made a vague circling motion in the air. “Anyhow, this business on Jevlen could provide a lot of valuable background to what happened here. So, if it looks as if we might end up getting involved in the Jevlenese situation, anyway..

“Why not help the journalist out a little at the same time?” Caldwell completed.

“Well, yes. It occurred to me that…“ Hunt’s voice trailed away as he registered finally that Caldwell had not shown any sign that anything Hunt was saying was especially new. His manner became suspicious as an old, familiar feeling asserted itself. “Gregg, you’re up to something. I can smell it. What’s going on? Come on, give.”

“Unusual kind of journalist, was it?” Caldwell asked nonchalantly. “From Seattle, maybe? Stimulating outlook: not programmed with the canned opinions that you seem to find in most people you meet these days. Quite attractive, too, if I remember.” He grinned at the look on Hunt’s face. Then his manner became more brisk, and he nodded. “She contacted me a little while back, and came here a few days ago.”

Hunt got over his surprise and studied Caldwell with a frown. Gina, going straight to the top in what Hunt had already seen to be her direct, forthright fashion, had gotten in touch with Caldwell to ask if UNSA could help her with the book. And as Hunt thought it through, he could see why that might have posed problems. He knew from his own experience how many major publishers, TV companies, top-line writers, and others were wining and dining, wheeling and wheedling with UNSA’s top executives to try and get a corner on the Jevlen story from the “inside.” In that kind of climate it would have caused endless complications and ructions for UNSA to be seen as giving official backing to a relatively unheard-of free-lancer, and Caldwell was enough of a politician to stay out of it. But he could safely, if he chose to, turn a blind eye to something that Hunt chose to involve himself with privately.

But Gina had made no mention of having been referred to Hunt. That meant that she had let him make his own choice in the matter freely, without mentioning Caldwell’s name, which would have carried the implication that Hunt was being prodded from above. She would have let the project go rather than resort to high-pressure tactics. Not many people would have done that. He felt relieved now that he had brought the matter back to Caldwell instead of burying it.

“I guess it wasn’t something the firm could put its name on,” Hunt said, nodding as it all became clearer. “But you thought she deserved a break all the same, eh?”

“She talks more sense than I hear from geniuses they put on TV screens for ten thousand bucks an hour,” Caldwell replied. He pulled a cigar from a drawer in the desk. “But there’s another side to it. Think of it this way. The kind of dealings that Garuth is talking about are going to require a certain amount of… let’s call it ‘discretion.’ When you get there, situations will quite likely arise in which some kinds of irregularities might be acceptable, while others will not. Or to put it another way, things might need to be done that an independent free-lancer-and especially one with the kind of reputation that she’s no doubt built up-might get away with, but which a deputy director of an UNSA division-” Caldwell pointed at Hunt with the cigar before putting it in his mouth. “-couldn’t be seen to do.”

In other words, Hunt’s team had an unofficial aide to help in potential politically sensitive situations where official UNSA action was precluded. And that, Hunt had to agree, could turn out to be very useful. What impressed him even more was that Caldwell had figured it out in the brief time that had gone by since his decision to send Hunt to Jevlen.

Caldwell was like a chess player, Hunt had noticed, building his winning positions from the accruing of many small advantages, none of them especially significant in itself to begin with, or created with any definite idea at the time of how it would eventually be used. In Gina’s case, he could simply have told her that there was nothing he could do, and sent her away. But instead, he had invested the effort of doing her a small favor, which really had cost him nothing. And as things had turned out, the return had come a lot sooner than anyone could have guessed.

Caldwell read that Hunt had assessed everything accurately, and gave a satisfied nod. “How did you leave things with her?” he asked.

“I said I’d get back. She’s still at the Maddox. I wanted to bring it up with you first.”

“You talk to her, then, and tell her we want to send her to Jevlen. We’ll work out some cover angle for public consumption.” Caldwell waved in the direction of his outer office. “Mitzi has a line to the Vishnu. She’ll fix the details. Then, that’s it, unless you’ve got any other points for now.”

Hunt started to rise, then looked up. “What are you expecting me to come back with this time, Gregg?” he asked.

“How do I know?” Caldwell spread his hands and made a face. “Lost planet, starship, interstellar civilization. What does that leave? The next thing can only be a universe.”

“That’s all? You know, you may have me there, Gregg,” Hunt said, smiling. “There aren’t too many of those left. Where am I supposed to find another universe?”

Caldwell stared at him expressionlessly. “I don’t think anything you did could surprise me anymore,” he replied.