Planet in Peril (9 page)

“That,”
Dinkuhl
said, “is, of course, the crux of the matter. Why are you important—important enough to be treated with such circumspection by your own managerial, to be offered substantial aid and comfort by my own little group of subversives, and now to find yourself benevolently but firmly held as a prisoner by Interplanetary? The answer is: Your mind and its skills.”

“I’m afraid that’s nonsense. Sixteen years of a routine lab job don’t make for indispensability. And it isn’t as though the problem is a particularly stiff one. I can’t see it offering insurmountable difficulties to anyone.”

“Point one,”
Dinkuhl
said. “The sixteen years were an error. I’ll come back to that in a minute. Point two. I could show you a neat little problem in mike and camera handling which would leave you blank and wondering. It’s not an exceptionally difficult problem, but you wouldn’t get to first base on it, because you haven’t got the basic orientation. Problems look easy to those who can see a way of cracking them; if you haven’t the right kind of mind and the right kind of background, they’re insuperable.”

Charles said tolerantly: “And I’m the blue-eyed boy— the only one who can crack the nut? An odd coincidence that there should have been three of us linked together—
Humayun
and Sara and myself.”

“
Humayun
and Sara
Koupal
,”
Dinkuhl
said, “were
Siraqis
. In a way it was a coincidence that you should have been sent to take
Humayun’s
place, but the coincidence was a limited one only. Now we come back to the question of those sixteen years in routine research at Saginaw. The coincidence was that after P and M had made their blunder and routed you into D Squad at graduation—what a lot we all know about you, Charlie! —you should have been shoved, entirely by chance, into work on the substance, diamond, that
Humayun
was going to do big things with fifteen years later.”

Dinkuhl
glanced at him speculatively. “I wonder why you didn’t do anything big yourself?”

Charles said: “My procedure was mapped out for me. As far as I can see,
Humayun
was given a free hand. It’s the only way you can hope to get anything valuable done.”

“And, apart from
Humayun
, do you know of anyone who has been given a free hand in research?”

“I only know Saginaw. There were no free hands there.”

“There are no free hands anywhere, Charlie. But it wouldn’t matter a nickel if they were free, because they would not do anything. Yes, you might have done, but you were the exception—you were P and M’s prize error. If your
psychoplan
had been properly prepared you wouldn’t have been in research in the first place. You would have been fulfilling your rightful duties as an administrator. Along with Ledbetter and the rest of the boys.”

Charles said: “I suppose so. You mean—”

“I’ve been trying to tell you for a long time,”
Dinkuhl
said. “The managerial state is dead. And to a certain extent, killed by its merits. It evolved a neat system for picking out its better brains and giving them the plum jobs, but it broke its neck on a minor anomaly—that the plum jobs, whatever form of society you base your ideas on, are going to be the administrative jobs, the jobs involving power of men over men. Science doesn’t fit into that capitalism, it developed a hierarchy which meshed in with the real society around it. Scientists did their good work while they were young, and landed the plum jobs in later life.

“But observe the managerial arrangements: a basic and largely disciplinary and conditioning training up to the point of graduation. Followed by specialization. Very efficient. Too efficient. Because to the managerial world it would seem pointless to train a man in the sciences unless he were going to spend the remainder of his life in those fields; and once he had been trained in a scientific discipline, then they made sure that he did that, and nothing else. You get it?”

Charles said: “And now they will have to do something about it—about science, anyway?”

“Now,”
Dinkuhl
said, “they are doing only one thing— scrambling for the means of domination that’s been tossed into the arena. What’s the answer? One will get it, or more than one will get it. If the former, you have your centralized world control. If the latter, you either have a smaller, tighter hierarchy, or else a bloody struggle which one may win. Give
managerialism
credit for political astuteness—I think they will arrange it peaceably in the long run.”

“And then?”

“Not much more than a century sees
managerialism
on the way out. I don’t know what comes next. Maybe the deluge.”

“But why destroy, without having anything to offer?” “Some things need destroying. We should put them out of their misery.”
Dinkuhl
smiled. “That’s why I like you, Charlie. You’re the kind of time-bomb they can’t stop happening. You and
Humayun
and Sara
Koupa
l
.
”

“I can think of more comfortable roles to have.”
Dinkuhl
looked round for a moment, and then bent down and stubbed his cigarette out against the TV screen control panel.

“Yes, you do have your personal situation to consider. Well, our Interplanetary friends, who have permitted me to get indignant at such length about the world at large, will presumably be coming through with a nice warm offer for you. You will understand that—could they be sure of knocking out
Humayun
and Sara
Koupal
as well—it might be more convenient for them simply to eliminate you. Shortsighted, but then, they are all incorrigibly myopic, as I have been trying to make clear. Well, they can’t. At the moment, anyway.”

Dinkuhl
glanced thoughtfully in the direction of the TV screen on the near wall. “It would be more cheering, of course, if you could eliminate the possibility that the hierarchy will be formed
before
the weapon materializes. From their point of view—Interplanetary and whoever hold the remaining two—that might be a simpler solution. It must have occurred to them. In that case you would all become
dispens
—”

Dinkuhl
broke off speaking. The TV screen was glowing into life.
Dinkuhl
chuckled.

“I thought that might fetch them.”

Ellecott’s
expression, on the screen, was somewhat ruffled. He made an evident effort at self-control; the same thin smile on the same fat features.

He said: “I may say that my remarks, unless otherwise specified, will be addressed to you, Official
Grayner
. You wanted to see
Dinkuhl
again, and your wishes rank very high on our priority list. It is quite true that you are now in the hands of Interplanetary. You are of very great importance, not only to us in Interplanetary, but to the whole world.”

“Where are
Humayun
and Sara
Koupal
?” Charles asked.

“We don’t know—yet. We have a good Contact Section, and they are working on it. It will be a help when we have you safely at Luna City. We can then allow the rumor that we have you to get around. That may bring in something.”

"I am not impressed by the prospect of Luna City,” Charles said.

"Luna City is our stronghold. We could withdraw our relatively small bases on the planet and destroy every major city within twenty-four hours, from the space stations. It has never been considered.”

Dinkuhl
murmured: ‘1 wonder if the fact that the other
managerials
keep
Interplanetary’s
vital supplies on rather a hand-to-mouth basis could have anything to do with that?”

Ellecott
ignored him. “We have long been perturbed by the trend of events, and we propose to use our influence to change them. But the immediate and urgent problem is the question of the diamond solar power-source. This can be used as a small portable but very powerful battery, as you know. It can also be used as a weapon, with some minor modifications. There are some
managerials
who would misuse such a power source and such a weapon. One of those may have either
Humayun
or Sara
Koupal
, or both. We need your help, Official
Grayner
, to enable us to keep abreast of this other, or others. With your help, we can maintain peace. Without it, there is the prospect of a confused and barbarous civil war, and perhaps at last of tyranny. As far as your future status is concerned, it is proposed to confirm you as a Director of this managerial, and a member of the Board. You will be given a free hand in your work, in the first place on Luna City but before too long, we hope, under your own choice of conditions here on Ear
th
. Once the present crisis has been got under control you will be in charge of scientific development—and it is inevitable, you understand, that Interplanetary will have risen to a commanding position among
managerials
by that time. I think our offer is a fair one, and not unattractive. I hope you will agree to accept it.”

"And if I don’t?”

Ellecott
smiled. "As an academic point, we’ll consider that. You will still go to Luna City, of course, because in addition to our major concern of having you work for us, there is the minor concern of making sure you don’t work for anyone else.”

They didn’t know where Sara was. Doubtless they would promise to get her if he were to co-operate; but they would be putting all their effort into the search for her and
Humayun
anyway, for their own purposes.

Charles hesitated. Presumably it was always a good principle to stall an unpromising situation. “Any reason why I shouldn’t have time to consider things?”

“As long as you like,”
Ellecott
said. He lifted his finger and looked at it. “Purely as a point of information, this ship blasts in three hours. But of course you will have the whole time of the journey to the Moon in which to think things over.”

It was
Ellecott’s
blandness as much as anything else which irritated Charles. They were not going to be budged from the path they had laid out for themselves. And they were certain that, in the end, he would come round.

He said curtly: “Never mind. I don’t need time. The answer is no. I don’t care for being forced into a membership.”

Ellecott
shook his head and shifted his glance. “
Dinkuhl
,” he said “if I were you I should occupy the next few days in using your well-known arts of persuasion on your friend here. For both your sakes.”

“If you were me,”
Dinkuhl
said pleasantly, “you would spit in your eye, given the opportunity.”

Ellecott
was undisturbed, and said: “I propose leaving you alone now. You will be under surveillance, either by me or one of my assistants. You will have food and drink sent along shortly. Anything else?”

Charles patted the fuller cheeks which he now had. “There seems little point in my continuing to look like someone else. Can you send the fixings for Hiram to get these off me, and wash my hair back to normal?”

Ellecott
laughed briefly, his voice rising approximately an octave when he did so.

“We’ll have it done for you; we have a good cosmetics staff.
I’ll
send an escort to pick you up." He smiled.
“This
arrangement is permanent.”

When Charles got back from having his make-up removed,
Dinkuhl
was watching TV. He switched the sound off, but left the pictures flickering on the wall.

Charles looked at his finger-watch. “Were due to blast in an hour and a half. I suppose
Ellecott
will come through and give us some final instructions before then. I don’t even know how to fix those damned hammocks up.”

“Blasting,”
Dinkuhl
said thoughtfully. “I wonder how they will manage that? Tricky.”

Charles echoed: “Tricky? What’s tricky in it? It’s a job they’re used to.”

Dinkuhl
said: “Forget it. Sometimes my mind wanders. Yes, I think
Ellecott
will get through to us in the next ninety minutes. Meanwhile, let’s make the most of things by seeing what Red League has to offer as a valedictory message from the planet Earth.”

He switched the sound up. Then, oddly, the screen clicked off, and
Ellecott’s
face appeared a few seconds later. He looked distraught.

“It’s necessary to make some changes. Blasting will take place sooner than we expected; almost immediately, in fact. Get into your hammocks.”

Charles shook his head. “We don’t know how to rig them.”

“I’ll send someone down to—”

Charles and
Dinkuhl
saw
Ellecott’s
face transfixed, the open mouth, the eyes staring, for some moments before his head slid forward to his desk. The screen showed the top of his head, with an incongruous bald spot in the center.