The Two Worlds Page 13

  Sobroskin was not really interested in Malliusk's jealousies, and he didn't particularly want to stir up things in Moscow over something like this; too many people would want to know what the delegation was doing on Farside in the first place, and that would invite all kinds of questions and poking around. On the other hand, Malliusk obviously wanted something done, and if Sobroskin declined there was no telling whom the professor might be on the phone to next. There really wasn't a lot of choice. "Very well," he agreed with a sigh. "Leave it with me. I'll see if I can talk to Sverenssen today, or maybe tomorrow."

  "Thank you," Malliusk acknowledged formally, then marched out of the office.

  Sobroskin sat there thinking for a while, then reached behind himself to unlock a safe, from which he took a file that an old friend in Soviet military intelligence had sent up to Bruno unofficially at his request. He spent some time thumbing through its contents to refresh his memory, and as he thought further, he changed his mind about what he was going to do.

  There were a number of strange things recorded in the file on Niels Sverenssen—the Swede, supposedly born in Malmo in 1981, who had vanished while serving as a mercenary in Africa in his late teens and then reappeared ten years later in Europe with inconsistent accounts of where he had been and what he had been doing. How had he suddenly reemerged from obscurity as a man of considerable wealth and social standing with no record of his movements during that time that could be traced? How had he established his international connections without it being common knowledge?

  The pattern of womanizing was long and clear. The affair with the German financier's wife was interesting . . . with the rival lover who had publicly sworn vengeance and then met with a skiing accident less than a month later in dubious circumstances. A lot of evidence implied people had been bought off to close the investigation. Yes, Sverenssen was a man with connections he would not like to see aired publicly and the ruthlessness to use them without hesitation if need be, Sobroskin thought to himself.

  And more recently—within the last month, in fact—why had Sverenssen been communicating regularly and secretly with Verikoff, the space-communications specialist at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow who was intimately involved with the top-secret Soviet channel to Gistar? The Soviet Government did not comprehend the UN's apparent policy but it suited them, and that meant that the existence of the independent channel had to be concealed form the UN more than from anybody else; the Americans had doubtless deduced what was happening, but they were unable to prove it. That was their loss. If they insisted on tying themselves down with their notions of fair play, that was up to them. But why was Verikoff talking to Sverenssen?

  And finally, in years gone by Sverenssen had always been a prominent figure in leading the UN drive for strategic disarmament, and a champion of world-wide cooperation and increased productivity. Why was he now vigorously supporting a UN policy that seemed opposed to seizing the greatest opportunity the human race had ever had to achieve those very things? It seemed strange. Everything to do with Sverenssen seemed strange.

  Anyhow, what was he going to do about Malliusk's assistant? She was an American girl, Malliusk had said. Perhaps there was a way in which he could clear this irritating business up without inviting Sverenssen's close attention at a time when he was particularly anxious to avoid it. Their national loyalties aside, he admired the way in which Pacey had continued battling to promote his country's views after Heller left, and he had got to know the American quite well socially. In fact it was a shame in some ways that over this particular issue the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. were not together on the same side of the table; at heart they seemed to have more in common with each other than with the rest of the delegation. Very probably it wouldn't make much difference for a lot longer anyway, he admitted to himself. As Karen Heller had said on one occasion, it was the future of the whole race they should be thinking about. As a man he tended to agree with her; if the contact with Gistar meant what he thought it meant, there would be no national differences to worry about in fifty years' time, nor maybe even any nations. But that was as a man. In the meantime, as a Russian, he had a job to do.

  He nodded to himself as he closed the file and returned it to the safe. He would talk to Norman Pacey and see if Pacey would talk to the American girl quietly. Then, with luck, the whole thing would resolve itself with no more than a few ripples that would soon die away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Framed in the screen that took up most of one wall of the room was the image of a planet, captured from several thousand miles out in space. Most of its surface was ocean blue or stirred into spirals of curdled clouds through which its continents varied from yellowy browns and greens at its equator to frosty white at the poles. It was a warm, sunny, and cheerful world, but the image failed to re-create the sense of wonder at the energy of the life teeming across its surface that Garuth had felt at the time the image was captured months earlier.

  As Garuth, commander of the long-range scientific mission ship Shapieron, sat in his private stateroom staring at the last view to be obtained of Earth, he pondered on the incredible race of beings that had greeted the return of his ship from its long exile in the mysterious realm of compoundly dilated time. Twenty-five million years before, although only a little over twenty by the Shapieron's clocks, Garuth and his companions had left a flourishing civilization on Minerva to conduct a scientific experiment at a star called Iscaris; if the experiment had gone as planned, they would have been gone for twenty-three years of elapsed time back home, having lost less than five years from their own lifetimes. But the experiment had not gone as planned, and before the Shapieron was able to return, the Ganymeans had vanished from Minerva; the Lunarians had emerged, built their civilization, split into opposing factions, and finally destroyed themselves and the planet; and Homo sapiens had returned to Earth and written several tens of thousands of years of history.

  And so the Shapieron had found them. What had been a pathetically deformed mutant left by the Ganymeans to fend for itself against hopeless odds in a harsh and uncompromising environment had transformed itself into a creature of pride and defiance that had not only survived, but laughed its contempt at every obstacle that the universe had tried to throw in its path. The Solar System, once the exclusive domain of the Ganymean civilization, had become rightfully the property of the human race. And so the Shapieron had departed once more into the void on a forlorn quest to reach the Giant's Star, the supposed new home of the Ganymeans.

  Garuth sighed. Supposed for what reasons? Speculations based upon nothing that even the most elementary student of logic would accept as evidence; a frail straw of possibility clutched at to rationalize a decision taken in reality for reasons that only Garuth and a few of his officers knew about; a fabrication in the minds of Earthmen, whose optimism and enthusiasm knew no bounds.

  The incredible Earthmen . . .

  They had persuaded themselves that the myth of the Giants' Star was true and gathered to wish the Ganymeans well when the ship departed, believing, as most of Garuth's own people still believed, the reason he had stated—that Earth's fragile civilization was still too young to withstand the pressures of coexistence with an alien population that would have grown in numbers and influence. But there must have been a few, like the American biologist Danchekker, and the Englishman Hunt, who had guessed the real reason—that long ago the Ganymeans had created the ancestors of Homo sapiens. The human race had survived and flourished in spite of all the handicaps that the Ganymeans had inflicted upon them. Earth had earned its right to freedom from Ganymean interference; the Ganymeans had already interfered enough.

  And so Garuth had allowed his people to believe the myth and follow him into oblivion. The decision had been hard, but they deserved the comfort of hope, at least for a while, he told himself. Hope had sustained them through the long voyage from Iscaris; they trusted him again now as they had then. Surely it was not wrong to allow them that until the time came when th
ey would have to know what only Garuth and a select few knew at present, and probably what Earthmen like Danchekker and Hunt already knew. But he would never be certain how much those two friends from that astounding race of impetuous and at times aggressively inclined dwarves had really known. He would never see them again.

  Garuth had stared silent and alone at this image many times since the ship's departure from Earth, and at the star maps showing its distant destination, still many years away and gleaming as just another insignificant pinpoint among millions. There was a chance, of course, that the scientists of Earth had been right. There was always a shred of hope that. . . . He checked himself abruptly. He was allowing himself to slip into wishful thinking. It was all nothing but wishful thinking.

  He straightened up in his chair and returned from his reverie. There was work to do. "zorac," he said aloud. "Delete the image. Inform Shilohin and Monchar that I would like to see them later today, immediately after this evening's concert if possible." The image of Earth disappeared. "Also I'd like to have another look at the proposal for revising the Third Level Educational curriculum." The screen came to life at once to present a table of statistics and some text. Garuth studied it for a while, voiced some comments for zorac to record and append, then called up the next screen in the sequence. Why was he worried at all about an educational curriculum that was nothing more than part of a pattern of normality that had to be preserved? Condemned by his decision along with the rest of his people, the children were destined to perish ignominiously and unmourned in the emptiness between the stars, knowing no home other than the Shapieron. Why did he concern himself with details of an educational curriculum that would serve no purpose?

  He pushed the thought from his mind and returned his attention fully to the task.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Look, I know I don't have any right to interfere in your private life, and I'm not trying to," Norman Pacey said from an armchair in his private room at Bruno some hours after Sobroskin had talked to him about Janet. He tried to make his voice reasonable and gentle, but at the same time firm. "But when it gets to the point where I get dragged in and it affects the delegation's business, I have to say something."

  From the chair opposite, Janet listened without changing expression. There was just a trace of moisture in her eyes, but whether that was due to remorse, anger, or to a sinus condition that had nothing to do with either, Pacey couldn't tell. "I suppose it was a bit silly," she said at last in a small voice.

  Pacey sighed inwardly and did his best not to show it. "Sverenssen should have known better anyway," he said, hoping that it might be a consolation. "Hell—look, I can't tell you what to do, but at least be smart. If you want my advice for what it's worth, I'd say forget the whole thing and concentrate on your job here. But it's up to you. If you decide not to, then keep things so that they don't give Malliusk anything to come bitching about to us. There—that's as frank as I can be."

  Janet stroked her lip with a knuckle and smiled faintly. "I'm not sure if that would be possible," she confided. "If you want the real reason why it's bugging him, it's because he's had this thing about me ever since I came up here."

  Pacey groaned under his breath. He had felt himself slipping into a father role, and her responding to it. Now her whole life story was about to come pouring out. He didn't have the time. "Oh Jesus . . ." He spread his hands appealingly. "I really don't want to get too involved in your personal life. I just felt there was an aspect that I ought to say something about purely as the U.S. member of the delegation. Suppose we simply leave it at that and stay friends, huh?" He pushed his mouth into a grin and looked at her expectantly.

  But she had to explain everything. "I guess it was just that everything here was so strange and different . . . you know . . . out here on the back of the Moon." She looked a little sheepish. "I don't know . . . I suppose it was nice to meet someone friendly."

  "I understand." Pacey half-raised a hand. "Don't imagine you're the first—"

  "And he was such a different kind of man to talk to. . . . He understood things too, like you." Her expression changed suddenly, and she looked at Pacey in a strange way, as if unsure about voicing something that was on her mind. Pacey was about to stand up and bring the matter to a close before she turned the room into a private confessional, but she spoke before he could move. "There's something else I've been wondering about . . . whether I ought to mention it to somebody or not. It seemed okay at the time, but . . . oh, I don't know—it's been kind of bothering me." She looked at him as if waiting for a signal to go on. Pacey stared back without the slightest indication of interest. She went on anyway. "He gave me some micromemories with some additional data in for appending to the transmissions that Malliusk has been handling. He said it was just some extra trivial stuff, but . . . I don't know . . . there was something strange about the way he said it." She released her breath sharply and seemed relieved. "Anyhow, there—now you know about it."

  Pacey's posture and manner had changed abruptly. He leaned forward and stared at her, a shocked look on his face. Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized that what she said was more serious than she thought. "How many?" he demanded crisply.

  "Three . . . The last was early this morning."

  "When was the first?"

  "A few days ago . . . more maybe. It was before Karen Heller left."

  "What did they say?"

  "I don't know." Janet shrugged helplessly. "How would I know that?"

  "Aw, come on." Pacey waved a hand impatiently. "Don't tell me you weren't curious. You've got the equipment to read a memory onto a screen."

  "I tried to," she admitted after a few seconds. "But they had a lockout code that wouldn't permit a read from the console routine. They must have had a built-in, one-time activating sequence from the transmission call. They'd self-erased afterward."

  "And that didn't make you suspicious?"

  "At first I thought it was just some kind of routine UN security procedure. . . . Then I wasn't so sure. That was when it started bothering me." She looked across at Pacey nervously for a few seconds, then added timidly, "He did say it was only some trivial additions." Her tone said she didn't believe that now, either. Then she lapsed into silence while Pacey sat back with a distant expression on his face, gnawing unconsciously at the knuckle of his thumb while his mind raced through the possible meaning of what she had said.

  "What else has he said to you?" he asked at last.

  "What else?"

  "Anything. Try and remember anything strange or unusual that he might have done or talked to you about—even things that sound stupid. This is important."

  "Well . . ." Janet frowned and stared at the wall behind him. "He told me about all the work he did for disarmament and how he was mixed up in turning the UN into an efficient global power since then . . . all the people in high places that he knows all over."

  "Uh huh. We know about that. Anything else?"

  A smile flickered on Janet's mouth for a second. "He gets mad because you seem to give him a hard time at the delegation meetings. I get the impression he thinks you're a mean bastard. I can't think why, though."

  "Yes."

  Her expression changed suddenly. "There was something else, not long ago. . . . Yesterday, it was." Pacey waited and said nothing. She thought for a moment. "I was in his quarters—in the bathroom. Somebody else from the delegation came in the front door suddenly, all excited. I'm not sure which one it was. It wasn't you or that little bald Russian guy, but somebody foreign. Anyhow, he couldn't have known I was in there and started talking straight away. Niels shut him up and sounded really mad, but not before this other guy had said something about some news coming in that something out in space a long way off would be destroyed very soon now." She wrinkled her brow for a moment, then shook her head. "There wasn't anything else . . . not that I could make out, anyway."

  Pacey was staring at her incredulously. "You're sure he said that?"

  Janet
shook her head. "It sounded like that . . . I can't be sure. The faucet was running and . . ." She let it go at that.

  "You can't remember hearing anything else?"

  "No . . . sorry."

  Pacey stood up and walked slowly over to the door. After pausing for a while he turned and came back, halting to stand staring down in front of her. "Look, I don't think you realize what you've got yourself into," he said, injecting an ominous note into his voice. She looked up at him fearfully. "Listen hard to this. It is absolutely imperative that you tell nobody else about this. Understand? Nobody! If you're going to start being sensible, the time is right now. You must not let one word of what you've told me go a step further." She shook her head mutely. "I want your word on that," he told her.

  She nodded, then after a second or two asked, "Does that mean I can't see Niels?"

  Pacey bit his lip. The chance to learn more was tempting, but could he trust her? He thought for a few seconds, then replied, "If you can keep your mouth shut about what you heard and what you've said. And if anything else unusual happens, let me know. Don't go playing at spies and looking for trouble. Just keep your eyes and ears open, and if you see or hear anything strange, let me know and nobody else. And don't write anything down. Okay?"