The Astral Mirror (25 page)

An aide, who had been following the Commander at a respectful distance, suddenly intruded himself in the old man’s reverie.

“Sir, a message for you.”

The Commander scowled at the young officer. “Didn’t I give express orders that I was not to be disturbed?”

The officer, slim and stiff in his black-and-silver uniform, replied, “Your chief of staff passed the message on to you, sir. It’s from Dr. Leoh of Carinae University. Personal and urgent, sir.”

The old man grumbled to himself, but nodded. The aide placed a small crystalline sphere on the grass before the Commander. The air above the sphere started to vibrate and glow.

“Sir Harold Spencer here,” the Commander said.

The bubbling air seemed to draw in on itself and take solid form. Dr. Leoh sat at a desk chair and looked up at the standing Commander.

“Harold, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Leoh said, getting up from the chair.

Spencer’s stern eyes softened and his beefy face broke into a well-creased smile. “Albert, you ancient sorcerer. What do you mean by interrupting my first visit home in fifteen years?”

“It won’t be a long interruption,” Leoh said. “I merely want to inform you of something...”

“You told my chief of staff that it was urgent,” Sir Harold groused.

“It is. But it’s not the sort of problem that requires much action on your part. Yet. Are you familiar with recent political developments on the Kerak Worlds?”

Spencer snorted. “I know that a barbarian named Kanus has taken over as dictator. He’s a troublemaker. I’ve been trying to get the Commonwealth Council to let us quash him before he causes grief, but you know the Council... first wait until the flames have sprung up, then wail at the Star Watch to do something!”

Grinning, Leoh said, “You’re as irascible as ever.”

“My personality is not the subject of this rather expensive discussion. What about Kanus? And what are you doing, getting yourself involved in politics? About to change your profession again?”

“No, not at all,” Leoh answered with a laugh. Then, more seriously, “It seems that Kanus has discovered a method of using the dueling machine to achieve political advantages over his neighbors.”

Leoh explained the circumstances of Odal’s duels with Dulaq and the Szarno industrialist.

“Dulaq is completely incapacitated and the other poor fellow is dead?” Spencer’s face darkened into a thundercloud. “You were right to call me. This is a situation that could quickly become intolerable.”

“I agree,” said Leoh. “But evidently Kanus hasn’t broken any laws or interstellar agreements. All that meets the eye is a disturbing pair of accidents, both of them accruing to Kanus’ benefit.”

“Do
you
believe they were accidents?”

“Certainly not. The dueling machine can’t cause physical or mental harm... unless someone’s tampered with it in some way.”

Spencer was silent for a moment, weighing the matter in his mind. “Very well. The Star Watch cannot act officially, but there’s nothing to prevent me from dispatching an officer to the Acquataine Cluster on detached duty, to serve as liaison between us.”

“Good. I think that will be the most effective way of handling the situation, at present.”

“It will be done.”

Sir Harold’s aide made a mental note of it.

“Thanks very much,” Leoh said. “Now go back to enjoying your vacation.”

“Vacation? This is no vacation. I happen to be celebrating my birthday.”

“So? Well, congratulations. I try not to remember mine,” said Leoh.

“Then you must be older than I,” Spencer replied, allowing only the faintest hint of a smile to appear.

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“But not very likely, eh?”

They laughed together and said good-by. The Star Watch Commander tramped through the grassland until sunset, enjoying the sight of the greenery and the distant purple mountains he had known from childhood. As dusk closed in, he told the aide he was ready to leave.

The aide pressed a stud on his belt and a two-place air car skimmed silently from the far side of the hills and hovered beside them. Spencer climbed in laboriously while the aide stayed discreetly at his side. As the Commander settled his bulk into his seat the aide hurried around the car and hopped into his place. The car glided off toward Spencer’s planet ship, waiting for him at a nearby field.

“Don’t forget to assign an officer to Dr. Leoh,” Spencer muttered to his aide. Then he turned to watch the unmatchable beauty of an Earthly sunset.

The aide did not forget the assignment. That night, as Sir Harold’s ship spiraled out to a rendezvous with a star ship, the aide dictated the necessary order to an autodispatcher that immediately beamed it to the Star Watch’s nearest communications center, on Mars.

The order was scanned and routed automatically and finally beamed to the Star Watch unit commandant in charge of the area closest to the Acquataine Cluster, on the sixth planet circling the star Perseus Alpha. Here again the order was processed automatically and routed through the local headquarters to the personnel files. The automated files selected three microcard dossiers that matched the requirements of the order.

The three microcards and the order itself appeared simultaneously on the desk-top viewer of the Star Watch personnel officer at Perseus Alpha VI. He looked at the order, then read the dossiers. He flicked a button that gave him an updated status report on each of the three men in question. One was due for leave after an extended period of duty. The second was the son of a personal friend of the local commandant. The third had just arrived a few weeks ago, fresh from the Star Watch Academy.

The personnel officer selected the third man, routed his dossier and Sir Harold’s order back into the automatic processing system, and returned to the film of primitive dancing girls that he had been watching before this matter of decision had arrived at his desk.

The space station that orbited Acquatainia’s capital planet served simultaneously as a transfer point from star ships to planet ships, a tourist resort, meteorological station, scientific laboratory, communications center, astronomical observatory, medical haven for allergy and cardiac patients, and military base. It was, in reality, a good-sized city with its own markets, government, and way of life.

Dr. Leoh had just stepped off the debarking ramp of the star ship from Szarno. The trip there had been pointless and fruitless. But he had gone anyway, in the slim hope that he might find something wrong with the dueling machine that had been used to murder a man. A shudder went through him as he edged through the automated customs scanners and identification checkers. What kind of people could these men of Kerak be? To actually kill a human being deliberately. To purposely plan the death of a fellow man. Worse than barbaric. Savage.

He felt tired as he left customs and took the slideway to the planetary shuttle ships. Even the civilized hubbub of travelers and tourists was bothering him, despite the sound-deadening plastics of the slideway corridor. He decided to check at the communications desk for messages. That Star Watch officer that Sir Harold had promised him a week ago should have arrived by now.

The communications desk consisted of a small booth that contained the output printer of a computer and an attractive dark-haired girl. Automation or not, Leoh decided, no machine can replace a girl’s smile.

A lanky, thin-faced youth was half-leaning on the booth’s counter, his legs crossed nervously. He was trying to talk to the girl. He had curly blond hair and crystal blue eyes; his clothes consisted of an ill-fitting pair of slacks and a tunic. A small traveler’s kit rested on the floor by his feet.

“So, I was sort of, well, thinking... maybe somebody might, uh, show me around... a little,” he was stammering to the girl. “I’ve never been, uh here... I mean, on Acquatainia, that is... before...”

“It’s the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” said the girl. “Its cities are the finest.”

“Yes... well, I was sort of thinking... that is, maybe you... eh...”

She smiled coolly. “I very seldom leave the station. There’s so much to see and do here.”

“Oh...”

“You’re making a mistake,” Leoh interrupted. “If you have such a beautiful planet for your home world, why in the name of the gods of intellect don’t you go down there and enjoy it? I’ll wager you haven’t been out in the natural beauty and fine cities you spoke of since you started working here at the station.”

“Why, you’re right,” she said, surprised.

“You see? You youngsters are all alike. You never think further than the ends of your noses. You should return to the planet, young lady, and see the sunshine again. Why don’t you visit the university at the capital city? Plenty of open space and greenery, lots of sunshine and available young men!”

Leoh was grinning broadly and the girl smiled back at him. “Perhaps I will,” she said.

“Ask for me when you get to the university. I’m Dr. Leoh. I’ll see to it that you’re introduced to some of the students.”

“Why... thank you, Doctor. I’ll do it this weekend.”

“Good. Now then, any messages for me? Anyone aboard the station looking for me?”

The girl turned and tapped a few keys on the computer’s control desk. A row of lights flicked briefly across the console’s face. She turned back to Leoh:

“No, sir, I’m sorry. Nothing.”

“Hmp. That’s strange. Well, thank you... And I’ll expect to see you this weekend.”

The girl smiled a farewell. Leoh started to walk away from the booth, back toward the slideway. The young man took a step toward him, stumbled on his own travel kit, and staggered across the floor for a half-dozen steps before regaining his balance. Leoh turned and saw that the youth’s face bore a somewhat ridiculous expression of mixed indecision and curiosity.

“Can I help you?” Leoh asked, stopping at the edge of the slideway.

“How... how did you do that, sir?”

“Do what?”

“Get that girl to agree to visit the university. I’ve been, well, sort of talking to her for half an hour and she... uh, she wouldn’t even look straight at me.”

Leoh broke into a chuckle. “Well, young man, to begin with, you were much too flustered. It made you appear overanxious. On the other hand, I’m at an age where I can be fatherly. She was on guard against you, but not against me.”

“I see... I think.”

“Yes.” Leoh gestured toward the slideway. “I suppose this is where we go our separate ways.”

“Oh no, sir. I’m going with you. That is, I mean... you
are
Dr. Leoh, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. And you must be...” Leoh hesitated.
Can this be a Star Watch officer?
he wondered.

The youth stiffened to attention and for an absurd flash of a second Leoh thought he was going to salute. “Junior Lieutenant Hector, sir; on special detached duty from cruiser SW4-J188, home base Perseus Alpha VI.”

“I see,” Leoh replied. “Hmm... Is Hector your first name or your last?”

“Both, sir.”

I should have guessed,
Leoh told himself. Aloud, he said, “All right, Lieutenant, we’d better get to the shuttle before it leaves without us.”

They took to the slideway. Half a second later, Hector jumped off and dashed back to the communications booth for his travel kit. He hurried back to Leoh, bumping into seven bewildered citizens of various descriptions and nearly breaking both his legs when he tripped as he ran back onto the moving slideway. He went down on his face, sprawled across two lanes moving at different speeds, and needed the assistance of an elderly lady before he was again on his feet and standing beside Leoh.

“I... I’m sorry to cause all that, uh, commotion, sir.”

“That’s all right. You weren’t hurt, were you?”

“Uh, no.... I don’t think so. Just embarrassed.”

Leoh said nothing. They rode the slideway in silence through the busy station and out to the enclosed berths where the planetary shuttles were docked. They boarded one of the ships and found a pair of seats.

“Just how long have you been with the Star Watch, Lieutenant?”

“Six weeks, sir. Three weeks aboard a star ship bringing me out to Perseus Alpha VI, a week at the planetary base there, and two weeks aboard the cruiser... um, SW4-J188, that is. The crew called her
Old Lardbucket...
after the captain, I think. Oh, I mean, six weeks since I received my commission... I’ve been at the, uh, academy for four years.”

“You got through the academy in four years?”

“That’s the regulation time, sir.”

“Yes, I know.”

The ship eased out of its berth. There was a moment of free fall, then the drive engine came on and weight returned to the passenger cabin.

“Tell me, Lieutenant, how did you get picked for this assignment?”

“I wish I knew, sir,” Hector said, his lean face wrinkling into a puzzled frown. “I was working out a program for the navigation officer... aboard the cruiser. I’m pretty good at that... I can work out computer programs in my head, pretty much. Mathematics was my best subject at the academy.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes, well, anyway, I was working out this program when the captain himself came on deck and started shaking my hand and telling me that I was being sent on special duty at Acquatainia by direct orders of the Commander in Chief. He seemed very happy... the captain, that is.”

“He was probably pleased to see you get such an unusual assignment,” said Leoh, tactfully.

“I’m not so sure,” Hector answered truthfully. “I think he regarded me as... well, some sort of a, um, problem. He had me on a different duty berth practically every day I was aboard the ship.”

“Well now,” Leoh changed the subject, “what do you know about psychonics?”

“About what, sir?”

“Er... electroencephalography?”

Hector looked blank.

“Psychology, perhaps?” Leoh suggested hopefully. “Physiology? Computer molectronics?”

“I’m pretty good at mathematics!”

“Yes, I know. Did you, by any chance, receive any training in diplomatic affairs?”

“At the Star Watch Academy? No, sir.”

Leoh ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Then why did the Star Watch select you for this job? I must confess, Lieutenant, that I can’t understand the workings of a military organization.”