"The Mind Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sheffield Charles)

Chapter 2

Mondrian and Brachis had clearly been excluded from the Ambassadorial meeting. Just as clearly, they had not been given permission to leave the Star Chamber. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.

That should have been no problem. With overlapping areas of jurisdiction, the two men had a thousand points of shared responsibility and a hundred disputes to settle.

But not today. They remained speechless, Brachis pacing and Mondrian sitting in brooding silence, until after two long hours the opaque screen shivered away. The atrium mat it revealed had only two places occupied. The Pipe-Rilla and Dougal MacDougal were still in position, but the Angel and the Tinker Composite had vanished. Even MacDougal’s presence was debatable. He sat crumpled in his seat, like an empty bag of clothes from which the occupant had been spirited away.

The Pipe-Rilla gestured to Brachis and Mondrian to step forward. “We have reached agreement.” The high-pitched voice was as cheerful as ever, but that was no more than an accident of the production mechanism. The Pipe-Rillas always sounded cheerful. The nervous rubbing of forelimbs told a different story. “And since the others are gone, and your own Ambassador appears to be indisposed, it is left to me to tell you the results of our discussions.” The Pipe-Rilla gestured around her, at the two empty places and then at the shrunken, miserable figure of Dougal MacDougal.

“What happened to him?” asked Brachis.

“There was a point of dispute between your Ambassador and the Ambassador for the Angels. The Angel has forceful means of persuasion, even from a distance of many lightyears. I do not understand them, but Ambassador MacDougal will — I trust — recover in just a few of your hours.” The Pipe-Rilla waved a clawed forelimb to dismiss the subject. “Commanders Brachis and Mondrian, please give me your closest attention. I must summarize our deliberations, and our conclusions. First, on the subject of your own blame …”

Mondrian and Brachis froze while the Pipe-Rilla stood, head bowed, for an interminable period. If a human had done such a thing, it would have been by design. But with a Pipe-Rilla …

“All the Ambassadors agree,” said the Pipe-Rilla at last. “You are both responsible in this matter. Commander Mondrian for initiating a project with such enormous potential for danger. Commander Brachis, for failing to make sure that the monitoring for which he had responsibility was suitably carried out. You, and Livia Morgan herself, are culpable in high degree. The willingness of both of you to accept responsibility does you credit, but it is not ultimately relevant. You are guilty. The suggestion of your own Ambassador was that you should be relieved of all duties, dismissed from security service, and stripped of all privileges.”

Brachis glanced at Mondrian. Their Ambassador! He held up his hand, palm outward. “If I could be permitted a comment — ”

“No.” There was a barely discernible tremor in the Pipe-Rilla’s voice. “I must proceed, and as rapidly as p-possible. If this discussion was impossible for the others, can you not see that it is far from easy for me? Ambassador MacDougal’s proposal was of course unacceptable. As the Angel Ambassador pointed out to him, we hold you, Commander Mondrian, more to blame than Commander Brachis, since you initiated the project, but it would be preposterous to dismiss either of you, or relieve either of you of your duties. In any civilized society, it is the individual or group who creates a problem that must have responsibility for solving it. The cause must become the cure. The creation of the Morgan Constructs, and the subsequent escape of one of them, came from your actions and inactions. Livia Morgan, who made the Constructs, is d-dead. And therefore the seeking out and d-disposal of that escaped Morgan Construct must be in your hands. We recognize that humans follow codes of behavior quite different from the rest of the Stellar Group, but in this case there is n-nothing to d-discuss. We are … adamant.”

There had been a shift in the Pipe-Rilla’s posture, and its voice reflected the change. It was too gabbling and jerky to be understood without translation, and Dominus had cut in to provide computer support.

“Ambassador MacDougal has agreed,” went on the Pipe-Rilla. “B-beginning at once, there will be created a new group within the department of Human System Security. It will be of a form peculiar to human history … a military expedition …. what your species knows as” — there was an infinitesimal pause, while Dominus selected and offered for Pipe-Rilla approval a variety of words — “as an Anabasis.”

“As a what ?” The grunted question from Brachis to Mondrian was nothing like a whisper. “What’s she mean?”

“Anabasis,” said Mondrian softly. “We need to review our translation boxes. I don’t know what she means, but I’ll bet that’s not it — the original Anabasis was a military expedition, one that turned into defeat and retreat. Not a good omen.”

The Pipe-Rilla took no notice of their exchange. She was in serious trouble of her own, limbs moving spastically and her narrow thorax fluttering. “The Anabasis,” she whistled, on a rising note. “It will be headed by Commander Mondrian, who has principal responsibility for the problem, assisted by Commander Brachis. Your t-task will be simple. You will s-select and t-train Pursuit Teams, to find the — location of — the Morgan Construct. You will follow it to — wherever it is hi — ding.” Now even Dominus could not help. The speech pattern of the Pipe-Rilla was becoming more and more disorganized as its voice rose past the range of human ears. It became a great, shivering whistle, matching the shake of the giant body. “Each pursuit team must contain one — trained — member of — each intelligent species. Tinker — Angel — Human — and … and Pipe-Rilla.” The voice became a supersonic shriek. “The Pursuit Teams will find the Morgan Construct and — they will — destroy it. DESTROY IT!”

The Pipe-Rilla was gone. The Link was broken, the Star Chamber atrium empty except for the huddled form of Dougal MacDougal.

Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian. “What in the name of living hell was all that about?”

Mondrian was rubbing his cheek and staring at the chromatic flicker of the dying Link connection. “I guess she couldn’t stand it. None of them can. No wonder they had to have a Closed Session, and a secret vote.”

“Couldn’t stand what?” Brachis was scowling. It had just occurred to him that according to the Pipe-Rilla’s edict, he now reported to Mondrian. “You’re as bad as they are.”

“Come on, Brachis. You know the prime rule of the rest of the Stellar Group as well as I do. Intelligent life must be preserved. It’s not to be destroyed ever, for any reason.”

“Yeah. As stupid a damned rule as I ever heard.”

“Maybe. But that’s the way they think of it — true at the individual level, and even more true at the species level.”

“So?”

“So they want us to find the Morgan Construct — and destroy it. Suppose it’s really an intelligent living form?”

“Tough. Happens all the time. Hell, I just lost twenty of my best guards.”

“That’s individuals. This Construct is the only one of its kind in the whole universe. Livia Morgan is dead, and we didn’t find her records. Without them we don’t know how to make a Construct. The ambassadors must have gone through agony to make that ruling — you saw them when they were looking at the images from the Cobweb Station probe. They told us we’re the most aggressive species they know — but they must be afraid that the Construct is a lot worse than us.”

“But if they can’t stand the thought of violence, why did they come up with that dumb idea about a member of each Stellar Group on every Pursuit Team? You can see what will happen when a Pursuit Team gets to the Construct and has to wipe it out. The other species will just fall apart.”

“Maybe they will. But that’s consistent, too, with their way of thinking. It’s the old idea of the firing squad, where one man gets a blank instead of a live bullet. Each species won’t know for sure that it was the one responsible for the death of the Morgan Construct.”

“Big deal.” Brachis stared down at the zombie figure of Dougal MacDougal. “I guess we’re dismissed. I don’t see him giving us orders for a while. If I’d been in that meeting, I’d have told us humans to go ahead and catch the Construct for ourselves. I care about intelligent species, too, but I’d blow away a thousand of ’em, and not think twice about it, for solar system security.”

“You’re proving the ambassadors’ point.”

“So what? Even you’ve got more in common with me than any one of them. They’re all less human than a damned jellyfish.” Brachis frowned. “Know what really pisses me off about this whole thing, apart from losing my guards? You screw up a lot worse than me, so the bug puts you in charge of me. Did you ever run across a more ass-backwards logic in your life? You’ve come out a winner! You ought to be in the worst trouble, instead you can sit there grinning all over your face. Though I must say, I don’t see you smiling much.”

“You know me, Luther. I could be laughing my head off inside, and you’d never know it. Come on, let’s go before the ambassador wakes up.”

He led the way out of the Star Chamber.

Esro Mondrian was not laughing, inside or out. He needed to track down the last surviving Morgan Construct. And when he met that Construct, the last thing he wanted around him was members of the other Stellar Groups.

TO: Anabasis (Office of the Director).

FROM: Dougal MacDougal, Solar Ambassador to the Stellar Group.

SUBJECT: Pursuit team selection and assembly.

Item one: Pursuit Teams, General. As agreed in the ambassadorial meeting of 6/7/38, redundancy of Pursuit Teams may be essential. Therefore, a total of ten (10) Pursuit Teams will be established. The final composition of each team will be determined by the Anabasis in consultation with ambassadorial representatives.

Item two: Pursuit Teams, Composition. As agreed in the above meeting, each Pursuit Team must consist of four members: One Human, one Tinker Composite, one Pipe-Rilla, and one Angel. Team members from each species will be proposed by that species. The Anabasis will have the authority to reject candidate team members on the grounds of incompatibility and performance. Any rejection by the Anabasis must be confirmed and approved through the office of the Solar Ambassador.

Captain Kubo Flammarion frowned, reamed at his left ear with the untrimmed nail of a grubby pinkie, and laid down the written document. He ran his right index finger over the last sentence he had read. There it was, Dougal MacDougal pushing into the middle of things. Why should rejections have to go through the Ambassador’s office?

Flammarion sniffed, attacked his waxy left ear again, this time with the point of a writing stylus, and read on.

Item three: Pursuit Teams, General Requirements for Human candidates. Candidates must be unaltered homo sapiens, male or female. Synthetic forms, pan sapiens, delphinus sapiens, and Cap-man modulations are excluded. .

Item four: Pursuit Teams, Selection of Human candidates. Candidates must be less than twenty-four Earth years of age, in excellent physical condition, and unbound by contract commitments. Candidates must also have at least a Class Four education (which may be achieved during training with Anabasis approval).

Item five: Pursuit Teams, Restrictions. Candidates will be excluded if they have military associations, or if they fail standard psychological tests for interaction with aliens.

Item six: Training programs.

Flammarion did a double-take and his eyes skipped back to the previous item. Impossible. What was Mac-Dougal trying to do to him? He jammed his uniform cap onto his bald head and hurried next door to Esro Mondrian’s office. The door received a flat-palmed bang as he went through, but he did not wait for permission to enter.

“Did you see this, sir?” He slapped the sheet on the desk in front of his superior, with the assurance of long familiarity. “Come through less than an hour ago. See what it says about Pursuit Team candidates? That’s my job, but there’s so many conditions tied on to it I bet I won’t find one acceptable candidate in the whole system.”

The road map of wrinkles on his forehead disguised his worried look. A long stint of security service out near the Perimeter had produced three permanent results on Kubo Flammarion: premature aging, a total lack of interest in personal hygiene, and a permanent rage against bureaucratic procedures of all kinds. For the past four years he had been Esro Mondrian’s personal assistant. Others wondered why Mondrian tolerated the scruffy appearance, insubordinate manner, and periodic outbursts, but Mondrian had his reasons. Kubo Flammarion was totally dedicated to his work — and to Esro Mondrian. Best of all, he had a unique knowledge of where the bodies were buried. Flammarion kept no written records, but when Mondrian needed a lever to pry from Transportation a special permit, or force a fast response from Quarantine, Flammarion could invariably deliver the dirt.

Some deputy administrator would receive a quiet, damning call, and the permit magically appeared.

Mondrian sometimes wondered what facts about him were tucked away in Kubo Flammarion’s scurvy, straggly-haired skull. He was too wise to ask, and on the whole he preferred not to know.

“I saw this,” he said quietly. “Commander Brachis already ran a check. As it happens, it’s not MacDougal’s fault at all. Those conditions were imposed by the other Stellar Group members.”

“Yeah — but did MacDougal protest?” Flammarion jabbed at one point on the page. “There’s the killer. We’re supposed to find Pursuit Team members with no military training. That excludes everybody.”

“Everybody over sixteen years old, Captain.”

“All right. But before they’re sixteen, they’re all protected by parental statute.” Flammarion was angrier by the minute. “We’re scuppered. We can’t touch ’em before they’re sixteen. And at sixteen they go straight to military service. Those instructions make the whole damn thing impossible.”

“Well find the candidates. Trust me.” Mondrian was leaning back in his chair, staring across the room at a three-dimensional model of known space and the Perimeter. The display showed the location and identification of every star, color-coded as to spectral type. Colonies were magenta, stations of the security network highlighted as bright points of blue.

The Perimeter did not form the surface of a true sphere, but for most purposes it was close enough to be treated as one. Its bulges and indents showed where probes had been slowed down in their progress, or had managed to expand the frontier exceptionally fast. Beyond the Perimeter lay the unknown and the inaccessible. Within it, instantaneous transmission of messages and materials could be accomplished. The probes contained their own Mattin Links, and through them more equipment, including Links, could be transferred.

Every century the probes, creeping out at a fraction of light speed, extended the Perimeter by a few light-years. And somewhere near its extreme edge, in the three-lightyears-thick shell that comprised the little-explored Boundary Layer, lurked almost certainly the fugitive Morgan Construct.

“But where, for Shannon’s sake?” Flammarion had followed Mondrian’s look, and thought he understood it. “Maybe we’ll find the Construct out there — but where will we find the candidates? If you’re thinking, the Colonies, J don’t believe it. I’ve tried them before. They need every pair of hands they can get for their own projects.”

“Quite true. I don’t look for assistance from the Colonies.”

“There’s nowhere else.” Flammarion scratched his unshaven chin. “You’re saying what I thought when I read the directive — we’ll never staff the Pursuit Teams. It’s an impossible job.”

But Mondrian had turned to face another wall of his office, where a display showed a view from Ceres looking inward towards Sol. “Not impossible, Captain — just tricky. We tend to forget that one planet of the solar system still refuses to be part of the Federation. And people there seem ready for anything, including trading their offspring … if the price is right.” He pressed a control on his desk, and the display went into high speed zoom.

“Sir!” Kubo Flammarion knew that only one planet lay in that direction. “You don’t really mean it, do you?”

“Why don’t I? Have you ever been there, Captain?”

“Yessir. But it was a long time ago, before I was with the service. Everything I hear, it’s got even worse now than it was. And it was crazy then. You know what Commander Brachis says? He says it’s the world of madmen.”

“Indeed?” Mondrian smiled at Flammarion, but his voice took on a cold, bitter tone. “The world of madmen, eh? That’s the way the Stellar Group views all humans. To them every human world is a world of madmen. And what about you? Do you agree with Commander Brachis?”

“Well, I don’t know. From all I’ve seen — ”

“Of course you do. Don’t start being polite to me now, Captain — you never have before. Now listen closely. You have the memorandum from the Ambassador. I want you to review it in detail, and think about it hard. Then if you can bring me within forty-eight hours a proposal that will provide the necessary human members of the Pursuit Teams, I will consider it. But unless that happens, you will — within seventy-two hours — begin making arrangements for a visit. A visit to Earth. For you, me, and Commander Brachis. We’ll all see his ‘madworld’ at firsthand.”

He turned away, with a gesture of dismissal.

“Yes, sir. As you say, sir.” Kubo Flammarion rubbed his sleeve across his nose and tiptoed from the room. At the door he turned and took a long look at the display, now glowing with the cloudy blue-white ball of Earth at its center.

“Madworld,” he muttered to himself. “We’re going to madworld, are we? God help us all if it comes to that.”