The Ganymede Takeover

VI

Marshal Koli’S private secretary crept toward him, stood on tip-tail and delivered a confidential message. “Sir, there is a person named Mekkis, a Ganymedian, who claims to be the civilian adminis­trator who is to relieve you.”

Time, evidently, had run out—and sooner than he had expected. But perhaps with a little adroit stalling he could gain a few extra hours enough to com­plete Operation Cat Droppings. Koli slid his way across the office, opened the door to the waiting room—using the low-placed tongue switch that re­sponded to no tongue but his—and surveyed his replacement.

Outside reposed a gray, somber-looking compa­triot, a man of obvious and durable ability; much older, in fact, than the Marshal himself. He reposed well: with dignity, and did not bother to notice the existence of the spools of FUN-E tapes available for the visitor; nor did he gaze at the several attractive, well-groomed secretaries at work. Beside him lay a thick briefcase with leather neck strap for carrying. And outdoors in the well-lit courtyard waited a team of flyers, their wings rising and falling rhythmically in a semi-doze.

Well-trained, Koli reflected. Their master is a good one; they don’t flap about causing a disturbance. Clearly a high genetic breed. Undoubtedly costing their owner a fortune. Therefore this indubitably was Koli’s civilian replacement. “Mr. Mekkis?” Marshal Koli inquired.

The head whipped; the tongue protruded, licking the air with intensity as the wide-set eyes flamed, a dismal and perplexing glance, as if Mekkis did not quite see him, saw instead beyond—and yet not spa- cially. It was, he realized, as if this man possessed the capacity to imagine one’s entire life-track, one’s full destiny; perhaps, he decided, age had something to do with it. Wisdom, he thought. There is wisdom, not sheer knowledge as on the memory spools of a computer, lying behind these green, faceted eyes. He felt uncomfortable.

“Do you intend to take possession of the desk immediately?” Koli inquired. He thought once more of Percy X’s rich, thick, virgin-fur pelt; it had now faded to the dimensions of a dream.

“Frankly,” Mekkis said, “I’d like to get the trans­fer of authority over right now, so I can get some rest. I didn’t sleep well on the ship.”

“Come into my office,” Koli said, leading the way. “A dish of authentic Spanish sherry.” As one of his batmen poured the two saucers full he ex­plained, “From Puerto Santa Maria, Spain. A nina—light golden and medium dry.” He added, be­tween laps, “I consume it at room temperature, but it can also—”

“Your hospitality,” Mekkis said after a few polite laps at the dish of sherry, “is singular. Now, as to the transfer of authority.”

“There are the fighter planes.”

Mekkis, astonished, said, “My briefing didn’t mention any fighter planes.”

“Well, they’re not real fighter planes: they’re models, you see. World War One.”

“What is ‘World War One’?” Mekkis asked. Slithering to a long low polished wood table, Marshal Koli said, “These are of a rare twentieth century plastic, injection productions which repro­duced details so minutely as to be beyond compare.” As he bade an attendant to pick up a model he said, “Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to manufac­ture this plastic has died out. Allow me to trace the development of fighter aircraft during the First World War.” He flicked his tongue at the first model, held up to Mekkis for inspection by the assistant. “This was first true fighter, the Fokker Eindekker. One wing, you see?” He showed the wing, with its sup­porting struts.

“Hmm,” Mekkis said, in a neutral tone; he had been trying for a telepathic scan of the Marshal but a scramble pattern blocked the view. Nothing could be made out except a vague jumble of airplane images. Maybe, Mekkis thought, it’s not a scramble pattern; maybe that’s how he really thinks.

“The Allies had nothing to match the Fokker Ein­dekker I, II or III until December of 1915.”

“How,” Mekkis asked, “do they arrive at dates here?”

“It is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, the Sole Begotten Son of God.”

“The way you talk,” Mekkis said dryly, “one would think you’d gone native. Do you believe in this God business?”

Marshal Koli drew himself up to half-height, wove back and forth with dignity and said, “Sir, for the last two years living here on Terra I have been an Anglo-Catholic. I take communion once a month.” Mekkis quickly turned the conversation back to the relatively safe topic of model airplanes. New converts to these native mystery cults could some­times wax quite fanatical. “What’s this plane here?” he asked, closing his jaws over the tail-section of a biplane.

Marshal Koli shut his eyes and said, “Would you allow my trained assistant to handle the items of this rare, even unique, collection, sir? By wousling them you cause me great mental anguish.”

“My pardons, of course.” Mekkis set the biplane down carefully, and there was not a toothmark on it.

The Marshal launched out on the subject of World War One aircraft once again, and half an hour passed before Mekkis managed to break into the flow long enough to reintroduce the topic of transfer of au­thority.

“Enough Marshal; I would like to take command of this bale—”

“Wait,” Koli touched a wall-stud and a section of the wall rolled aside—revealing further rows of scale model planes. “This section of my collection is de­voted to the famous planes between the First and Second War. Let us intially consider the Ford Tri­motor.”

The attendant, as he showed the Ford Tri-motor to Mekkis, said reverently, “He also has a complete collection of World War Two planes.”

“I—am overwhelmed,” Mekkis managed to say. Matter-of-factly, Koli continued, “I cannot of

course transfer these incredibly valuable models to Ganymede; they would be smashed beyond repair—you know the slipshod way in which our homeostatic unmanned cargo carries land.” He eyed Mekkis. “I am therefore leaving my collection, all of it, even that of the World War One fighters, to you.’’ “But,” Mekkis protested, “suppose I break one of the planes?”

“You will not,” the Marshal said quietly. And that, evidently, was that. There the subject ended.

Telepathically, Mekkis all at once detected some sort of confusion outside. “The creeches have cap­tured someone,” he said. “Better have them bring him in.”

Koli grew pale. The beautiful pelt was now so near, yet still out of reach. “Surely it would be better to wait until—”

“If this is how you habitually act I’ll take authority as of now. Officially I have been in charge here since my arrival.” He sensed that Koli did not wish him to know of the disturbance outside. And for that reason he insisted on knowing.

“Very well,” Koli muttered.

Mekkis had lifted out a model of a 1911 pusher- type biplane when Marshal Koli returned from his errand, breathing erratically. With him appeared a Terran, a dark one, almost black. A Neeg.

“Administrator,” Koli said sharply, “in an opera­tion put into motion by myself before you arrived to relieve me of my desk as supreme authority in the bale of Tennessee I achieved this final, all-out coup, an ensnarement bordering on the divine. Do you know who this Terran is?”

Mekkis made an attempt to tear himself awav from the scale models of antique aircraft. He found him­self unable to. One—not strictly a model but a 2-D photograph, non-color—showed a flimsy, ancient plane landing on the deck of a ship; he read the Terran words beneath it and learned that this, on January 18, 1911, constituted the first landing—

Going to the far side of the office in a furious slithering of almost hoop-like rolling, Marshal Koli touched stud after stud in the cabinets there, cabinets which Mekkis had not even noticed, let alone inves­tigated. “Ancient automobiles,” Koli said savagely. “From the 1898 Peugeot on. Hours, days; and once you finished with these there’s my scale model steam locomotive collection in office 4-A.” He turned, slithered ragingly back; Mekkis had rarely seen a fellow worm so in the grip of his thalamus. “I insist that you make official note of my capture of the leader of the Neeg-parts, Percy X, and that you cer­tify that I am therefore the sole and unqualified owner of this quatropodia Terran entity, to do with as I want!”

Mekkis caught a thought that smacked of treason flashing through Koli’s otherwise carefully scram­bled mind; Koli had wondered who, in the case of a showdown, the troops would obey, Mekkis or him­self. He said aloud, “You may take full credit, Mar­shal. It’s clear to me that you are what is known as a collector a definite sub-variety of individual typology. Even your adoption of this obscure Terran religion could be regarded as a manifestation of the collector instinct. Let me guess, sir. You want the pelt of Percy X. For a wall-hanging. He would indeed make an attractive decoration, teeth and all—right,

Marshal? There is, on many highly masculine, fully- ripened, sexually-endowed Terran males, a vestigial covering of fur, especially on the chest region and—in other areas.”

Everyone in the room stared at him and then, in the silence, Percy X laughed. A hot, rich laugh, devoid of the slighest trace of sardonic or malicious overtones. And at the same time he grinned directly at Mekkis, and it was a personal, shockingly intimate grin; it was a creature-to-creature grin.

For the life of him Mekkis could not imagine what so delighted the captured partisan leader; he felt mystified and at the same time fascinated at an ethnic response both so unexpected and so arcane. He tried to read the human’s mind and found a perfect scram­ble pattern waiting for him. That could only mean that Percy X was one of those very rare types, a Terran telepath.

“Can I have him?” Koli said tensely.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Mekkis said, “I have other plans for this biped, Marshal. Plans that I’m sure you would oppose if you knew about them.” Addressing the guards he con­tinued, “Place this captured Terran in comfortable surroundings where proper interrogation can take place. Tomorrow, when I am rested, I have various matters to talk over with him.”

As Percy X was led out the creech who had made the capture said, “Mr. Administrator, we found an­other Terran with him at the time of capture. A female, of the white strain—that is, of the strain ordinarily hostile to the Neeg-parts. Dermal dye-

codes and other identification make it clear that she is the well-known television personality—”

“Later.” Mekkis said, and felt weary.

“Shoot her,” Marshal Koli rasped.

“No,” Mekkis countermanded. “Place her in the custody of ” He could not remember the name of the counter-intelligence agency operating here on this colony world. “Of the customary bureaus in­volved,” he finished lamely.

“She’s a traitor,” Koli said. “She must be shot.”

“Koli,” Mekkis said, “contain yourself. There is an old saying here on Earth, I understand. ‘A worm which turns once can turn again,’ or something like that. The artful use of traitors is the secret of blood­less conquest, and I am not fond of violence.” He had begun thinking back to his briefing on Terran psychology. A place existed on this planet, if he recalled correctly, which the occupation forces fan­cifully called the “School for Wiks,” run by a Terran psychologist named Balkani. The girl could be sent there right away, and as for Percy—he would talk to him first, scan him, test him out.

Mekkis considered himself a gambler. But he liked to stack the deck.

Later, after he had rested, Admininistrator Mekkis had the Terran brought to his office; he confronted Percy X alone, without the annoying presence of Marshal Koli.

‘‘What do you want out of me?’’ Percy demanded, not seating himself.

“Understanding,” Mekkis said. “You are a tele­path. If any human can bridge the gap between our

two races a telepath should be able to do it.

“I mean specifically,” Percy said tautly. “What do you want me to do?”

The worm made what might have been a shrug, then said, “Join us.”

Percy caught a glimpse, in the worm’s mind, of himself, Percy X. Percy X, the hunted and hated Neeg-part, as Emperor of the whole bale of Tennes­see. There he sat, ruling over all the whites, even over some of the lower caste Gany medians.

It would have been impossible to offer Percy any­thing that more exactly fitted his own ambitions.

“I see that you understand,” Mekkis said with just the right shade of eagerness in his voice. “What is your decision? Remember that you need not make up your mind in haste; you may take days to think it over. Weeks, in fact. I, personally, have plenty of time. But while you wait our forces will have no choice but to continue their police action against your people in the hills. Every day that you delay will mean the unavoidable loss of more lives plus the—” Without warning Percy X leaped.

Mekkis jerked sideways, trying to escape, but it was no use; the great black Terran landed on him with his full weight, almost knocking him unconscious, then Mekkis felt powerful fingers close over his windpipe and squeeze, squeeze the life out of him. A moment before he blacked out the creeches de­scended in a howling, squealing horde on the Earth- man’s back and dragged him off.

“Kill him! Kill him!” the creeches screamed hys­terically, but Mekkis gasped out, “No, just hold him down. It’s all right. He is just a little high-spirited, that’s all.” Though he felt badly bruised by the strug­gle Mekkis managed to retain his composure and slipped back into his niche behind the desk.

“I regret having to do this,” Mekkis said to Percy, his voice shaking only slightly, “but I’m afraid that before we can continue this discussion you will need a little psychotherapy to discourage these violent tendencies. However, you will be happy to learn that you will be treated by a man often regarded by Ter- rans and Ganymedians alike as the greatest analyst of our time, Dr. Rudolph Balkani.”'

For just a fraction of a second Percy X dropped his scramble pattern; Mekkis was able to glimpse a swift flash of terror in the Neeg-part’s mind.

What a pleasant surprise, Mekkis thought with satisfaction. I had begun to believe this brute was afraid of nothing.

In the hushed silence of Paul Rivers’ seedy hotel room Dr. Newkom slowly, carefully lifted the tele­pathic amplifier from Paul’s head. “Did you get through to Percy X?” Newkom asked.

“Yes.” Paul Rivers nodded. “But only to listen; I made no attempt to contact him. That excitement a little while back—creeches brought him in to the Gany military.”

“Too bad,” Newkom said. “We should have started getting to him sooner.”

“This gadget of yours is still too highly selective and directional,” Paul said. “I don’t know why I expected to achieve contact at the first crack.” And now we’ve had it, he thought. If anyone can break a man, it’s Balkani. Rudolph Balkani belongs to a school of therapy I wouldn’t touch with a ten-mile pole, hut I have to admit he gets results. It’s always easier and more impressive to tear things down rather than to build them up or even to sustain them. A human being takes a long time to grow, to mature, but it only takes a moment to damage and destroy him.

And, he thought, a wik Percy will be even worse than a skinned one. When the savior sells out—

“You can’t win them all,” Newkom said. He shut off the power supply of the amplifier and prepared to leave.

“I’m not finished yet,” Paul said.

“But they’ve got Percy.”

Paul said, “Want to go to Norway with me?” Without waiting for an answer he began quickly and efficiently packing his suitcase.