Between Planets (22 page)

Don made no comment. There was silence for some moments which Costello broke by saying, “Well? Do you want to ask anything? I do not know quite what you do know; I hardly know what to volunteer.”

“Mr. Costello, when I talked to you in New London, did you know about this message?”

Costello shook his head. “I knew that our organization had great hopes from an investigation going on on Earth. I knew that it was intended to finish on Mars—you see, I was the key man, the ‘drop box,’ for communication to and from Venus, because I was in a position to handle interplanetary messages. I did not know that you were a courier—and I certainly did not know that you had entrusted an organization message to my only daughter.” He smiled wryly. “I might add that I did not even identify you in my mind as the son of two members of our organization, else there would have been no question about handling your traffic whether you could pay for it or not. There were means whereby I could spot organization messages—identifications that your message lacked. And Harvey is a fairly common name.”

“You know,” Don said slowly, “it seems to me that if Dr. Jefferson had told me what it was I was carrying—and if you had trusted Isobel here with some idea of what was going on, a lot of trouble could have been saved.”

“Perhaps. But men have died for knowing too much. Conversely, what they don’t know they can’t tell.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But there ought to be some way of running things so that people don’t have to go around loaded with secrets and afraid to speak!”

Both the dragon and the man inclined their heads. Mr. Costello added, “That’s exactly what we’re after—in the long run. That sort of a world.”

Don turned to his host. “Sir Isaac, when we met in the
Glory Road
, did you know that Dr. Jefferson was using me as a messenger?”

“No, Donald—though I should have suspected it when I learned who you were.” He paused, then added, “Is there anything more you wish to know?”

“No, I just want to think.” Too many things had happened too fast, too many new ideas—Take what Mr. Costello had said about what was in the ring, now—he could see what that would mean—if Costello knew what he was talking about. A fast space drive, one that would run rings around the Federation ships…a way to guard against atom bombs, even fusion bombs—why, if the Republic had such things they could tell the Federation to go fly a kite!

But that so-and-so Phipps had admitted that all this hanky-panky was not for the purpose of fighting the Greenies. They wanted to send the stuff to Mars, whatever it was. Why Mars? Mars didn’t even have a permanent human settlement—just scientific commissions and expeditions, like the work his parents did. The place wasn’t fit for humans, not really. So why Mars?

Whom could he trust? Isobel, of course—he had trusted her and it had paid off. Her father? Isobel and her father were two different people and Isobel didn’t know anything about what her father was doing. He looked at her; she stared back with big, serious eyes. He looked at her father. He didn’t know, he just didn’t know.

Malath? A voice out of a tank! Phipps? Phipps might be kind to children and have a heart of gold, but Don had no reason to trust him.

To be sure, all these people knew about Dr. Jefferson, knew about the ring, seemed to know about his parents—but so had Bankfield. He needed
proof
, not words. He knew enough now, enough had happened now, to prove to him that what he carried was of utmost importance. He
must not
make a mistake.

It occurred to him that there was one possible way of checking: Phipps had told him that Malath carried the other half of the same message—that the ring carried only one half. If it turned out that his half fitted the part that Malath carried, it would pretty well prove that these people had a right to the message.

But, confound it all!—that test required him to break the egg to discover that it was bad. He had to know before he turned it over to them. He had met the two-piece message system before; it was a standard military dodge—but used and used
only
when it was so terribly, terribly important not to let a message be compromised that you would rather not have it delivered than take any risk at all of having it fall into the wrong hands.

He looked up at the dragon. “Sir Isaac?”

“Yes, Donald?”

“What would happen if I refused to give up the ring?”

Sir Isaac answered at once but with grave deliberation. “You are my own egg, no matter what. This is your house—where you may dwell in peace—or leave in peace—as is your will.”

“
Thank you, Sir Isaac
.” Don trilled it in dragon symbols and used “Sir Isaac’s” true name.

Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey—”

“Yes?”

“Do you know
why
the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true speech’?”

“Uh, why, no, not exactly.”

“Because it
is
true speech. See here—I’ve studied comparative semantics—the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the concept of falsehood.
And what a person does not have symbols for he can’t think about!
Ask him, Mr. Harvey! Ask him
in his own speech
. If he answers at all, you can believe him.”

Donald looked at the old dragon. The thought went racing through his mind that Costello was right—there was no symbol in dragon speech for “lie,” the dragons apparently never had arrived at the idea—or the need. Could Sir Isaac tell a lie? Or was he so far humanized that he could behave and think like a man? He stared at Sir Isaac and eight blank, oscillating eyes looked back at him. How could a man know what a dragon was thinking?

“Ask him!” insisted Costello.

He didn’t trust Phipps; he couldn’t logically trust Costello—he had no reason to. And Isobel didn’t figure into it.

But a man had to trust somebody, some time! A man couldn’t go it alone—all right, let it be this dragon who had “shared mud” with him. “It isn’t necessary,” Don said suddenly. “Here.” He reached into his pocket, took out the ring and slipped it over one of Sir Isaac’s tentacles.

The tentacle curled through it and withdrew it into the slowly writhing mass. “
I thank you, Mist-on-the-Waters
.”

D
ONALD
looked at Isobel and found her still solemn, unsmiling, but she seemed to show approval. Her father sat down heavily in the other chair. “Phew!” he sighed “Mr. Harvey, you are a hard nut. You had me worried.”

“I’m sorry. I had to think.”

“No matter now.” He turned to Sir Isaac. “I guess I had better dig up Phipps. Yes?”

“It won’t be necessary.” The voice came from behind them; they all turned—all but Sir Isaac who did not need to turn his body. Phipps stood just inside the door. “I came in on the tail end of your remark, Jim. If you want me, I’m here.”

“Well, yes.”

“Just a moment, then. I came for another reason.” He faced Don. “Mr. Harvey, I owe you an apology.”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

“No, let me say my say. I had no business trying to bully-rag you into cooperating. Don’t mistake me; we want that ring—we
must
have it. And I mean to argue until we get it. But I’ve been under great strain and I went about it the wrong way. Very great strain—that’s my only excuse.”

“Well,” said Don, “come to think about it, so have I. So let’s forget it.” He turned to his host. “Sir Isaac, may I?” He reached toward Sir Isaac’s handling tentacles, putting out his palm. The ring dropped into it; he turned and handed it to Phipps.

Phipps stared at it stupidly for a moment. When he looked up Don was surprised to see that the man’s eyes were filled with tears. “I won’t thank you,” he said, “because when you see what will come of this it will mean more to you than any person’s thanks. What is in this ring is of life and death importance to many, many people. You’ll see.”

Don was embarrassed by the man’s naked emotion. “I can guess,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Costello told me that it meant bomb protection and faster ships—and I bet on my hunch that you people and I are on the same side in the long run. I just hope I didn’t guess wrong.”

“Guess wrong? No, you haven’t guessed wrong—and not just in the long run, as you put it, but
right now!
Now that we have this—” he held up the ring, “we stand a fighting chance to save our people on Mars.”

“Mars?” repeated Don. “Hey, wait a minute—what’s this about Mars? Who’s going to be saved? And from what?”

Phipps looked just as puzzled. “Eh? But wasn’t that what persuaded you to turn over the ring?”

“Wasn’t
what
persuaded me?”

“Didn’t Jim Costello—” “Why, I thought of course you had—” and Sir Isaac’s voder interrupted with, “Gentlemen, apparently it was assumed that…”

“
Quiet!
” Don shouted. As Phipps opened his mouth again Don hurriedly added, “Things seem to have gotten mixed up again. Can somebody—just one of you—tell me what goes on?”

Costello could and did. The Organization had for many years been quietly building a research center on Mars. It was the one place in the system where the majority of humans were scientists. The Federation maintained merely an outpost there, with a skeleton garrison. Mars was not regarded as being of any real importance—just a place where harmless longhairs could dig among the ruins and study the customs of the ancient and dying race.

The security officers of the I.B.I. gave Mars little attention; there seemed no need. The occasional agent who did show up could be led around and allowed to see research of no military importance.

The group on Mars did not have the giant facilities available on Earth—the mastodonic cybernetic machines, the unlimited sources of atomic power, the superpowerful particle accelerators, the enormous laboratories—but they did have freedom. The theoretical ground-work for new advances in physics had been worked out on Mars, spurred on by certain mystifying records of the First Empire—that almost mythical earlier epoch when the solar system had been one political unit. Don was warmly pleased to hear that his parents’ researches had contributed largely at this point in the problem. It was known—or so the ancient Martian records seemed to state—that the ships of the First Empire had traveled between the planets, not in journeys of weary months, or even weeks, but of
days
.

The descriptions of these ships and of their motive power were extensive, but differences in language, in concept, and in technology created obstacles enough to give comparative semanticists nervous breakdowns—had done so, in fact. A treatise on modern electronics written in Sanskrit poetry with half the thoughts taken for granted would have been lucid in comparison.

It had simply been impossible to make fully intelligible translation of the ancient records. What was missing had to be worked out by genius and sweat.

When the theoretical work had been carried as far as it could be the problem was sent to Earth via members of the Organization for
sub rosa
testing and for conversion of theory into present-day engineering. At first there was a steady traffic of information back and forth between planets, but, as the secret grew, the members of the Organization were less and less inclined to travel for fear of compromising what they knew. By the time of the Venus crisis it had been standard practice for some years to send critical information by couriers who knew nothing and therefore could not talk—such as Don—or by non-terrestrials who were physically immune to the interrogation methods of the security police—giving a Venerian dragon the “third degree” was not only impractical, but ridiculous. For different but equally obvious reasons Martians too were safe from the thought police.

Don himself was a last-minute choice, a “channel of opportunity”—the Venus crisis had rushed things. How badly it had rushed things no one knew until after Commodore Higgins’ spectacular raid on Circum-Terra. The engineering data so urgently needed on Mars had gone to Venus instead, there to be lost (Don’s half of it) in the confusion of rebellion and counterblow. The rebelling colonists, driving toward the same goal as the Organization, had unknowingly thwarted their best chance for overthrowing the Federation.

Communication between the Organization members on Venus, on Earth, and on Mars had been precariously and imperfectly reestablished right under the noses of the Federation police. The Organization had members working for I.T.&T. on all three planets—members such as Costello. Costello himself had been helped to make his escape, with Isobel, because he knew too much; they could not afford to have him questioned—but a new “drop box” had been set up at Governor’s Island in the person of a Federation communications technical sergeant. The channel to the sergeant was a dragon who had the garbage disposal contract for the “Greenie” base. The dragon had no voder; the sergeant knew no whistle talk—but a tentacle can pass a note to a human hand.

Communication, though difficult and dangerous, was possible; travel between planets for members of the Organization was now utterly impossible. The only commercial line as yet reestablished was the Earth-Moon run. The group on Venus was attempting the almost impossible task of completing a project all preliminary preparations for which had been made for Mars. The task was not quite impossible—provided they could find the missing half of the message, they might yet outfit a ship, send it to Mars, and finish the job.

So they hoped…and continued to hope until recently, when disastrous news had gotten through to them from Earth—the Organization had been penetrated on Earth; a very senior member, one who knew much too much, had been arrested and had not been able to suicide in time.

And a task force of Federation ships was already on its way to attack the group on Mars.

“Wait a minute!” Don interrupted. “I thought—Mr. Costello, didn’t you tell me, back in New London, that the Federation had already moved in on Mars?”

“Not exactly. I told you that I had inferred…that the Federation had taken over Schiaparelli Station, the I.T.&T. branch there. And so they had—to the extent of censoring all traffic and putting a stop to all traffic with Venus. They could do that with a squad of soldiers from the pint-sized garrison they’ve always had there. But this is an attack in force. They mean to liquidate the Organization.”