War Against the Rull (11 page)

The great city was visible now in the mist ahead. The city of the Ship. Earlier, Jamieson had phoned his wife from the plane, and that was her first knowledge that he was back. But she had hurriedly brought Diddy from the Play Square, and there had been an excited three-way conversation.

Their eagerness made him feel guilty, for he should have called her on his return. He had been four and a half months absent in space and he knew it would disturb her if she discovered he had spent additional weeks saving the li
f
e of an ezwal cub. He had already decided not to tell her.

Sitting now in his plane seat, Jamieson shook his head at the problems which confronted men and women of this age. Everything—family life, child care, love and personal desires— came second to the all-consuming demand of the century-long
war with the Rull enemy. In less than an hour he would be home. There would be kisses intermingled with tears; for Veda was a woman of intense emotion. For a while, he knew, she would match his ardor; then for a time her demand would exceed his; and then the flame would gradually dim. Meanwhile, he would quickly become immersed in his great adminstrative position, which he deserted less and less often these days. He could count on the fingers of one hand the kind of problem that would take him from his desk. One was the kind of idea that had come to him about the ezwals.

Two facts had made that a matter for the head of the Science Department. No one else would have generated any enthusiasm about ezwals possibly being intelligent, and so he could not trust anyone to take seriously the project of capturing one or more of the beings. And, secondly, the fact that it had to do with Carson's Planet, one of the three pivots of man's defense against the Rulls. Under such circumstances, to have a new thought about ezwals had made action mandatory. There were a few other possibilities, but for the most part, there was no necessity for him to do "field" work any more.

And so, one day, not long after the young ezwal was captured, he sat in his office conducting an interview important enough to require the attention of the "boss." It was a top-priority interview, but nothing that would take him from Earth.

"Here!" said Trevor Jamieson. He put the point of his pencil down in the center of a splotch of green on the map before him. He looked up at the wiry man opposite him. "Right here, Mr. Clugy," he said, "is where the camp will be built."

Ira Clugy leaned forward and gazed at the spot. He seemed puzzled, and there was the beginning of irritation in his voice as he asked, "Why that particular spot?"

"It's very simple," said Jamieson. It disturbed him to treat a mature man as if he were a child. But the Rull-human war required administrators to play many games. "The whole purpose of the project," he continued, "is to get fluid from the progeny of these Mira lymph beasts for our laboratories— quickly and in quantity. This forest area is their main habitat. Therefore the camp should be located in it, for quickest results."

He could not help but approve of Clugy's exasperated reaction. He would be lucky not to receive a punch in the nose, Jamieson thought ruefully. The spaceman's oversized hands clenched in an effort at self-control, and he swallowed hard.

"Mr. Jamieson," he said quietly, "as you know, we have already made a preliminary survey. There's never been a forest like
that in man's experience. It swarms with the young of the lymph beast and with a thousand other deadly creatures." He stood up and bent over the topographical map of the Mira planet. "Now here," he said briskly, "in this mountain country it's bad enough, but the animal and plant life can be fought off, and the climate is bearable. We can situate there, shuttle back and forth in alternating shifts and get all the juice you want. And more cheaply, too, when you consider the cost of clearing and maintaining a forest site."

It was as sensible an analysis as Jamieson had heard. If Clugy were Rull-controlled, he was doing very well indeed. Jamieson knew that Clugy's reactions were being studied by a psychotechnic team in another room, where this scene was being projected. If he struck a false note, a warning light not visible to Clugy would show on the panel on Jamieson's desk. But the panel remained dark.

Jamieson persisted: "For reasons which we are not free to discuss, the lymph fluid is too vital to worry about the expense of obtaining it. We must have it and have it fast. Besides, the contract, if you get it, will be cost-plus—subject to our audit, of course. Therefore—"

"Hang the cost!" said Clugy, and he rasped the words. "I shouldn't have mentioned it! What really matters is exposing several hundred good men to unnecessary hazards."

"I disagree that the hazards are unnecessary," said Jamieson. He was pushing hard now, anxious to force a crisis. "And I take full responsibility for my decision."

Clugy sank slowly back into his chair. The tan of many suns on his face was matched by a flush of anger. But again he visibly held himself in check.

"Listen, Mr. Jamieson," he said finally, "there is a small mountain—a large hill—on the edge of that jungle area. It's mentioned in my report. It's not what I'd call a good site but it lacks some of the worst features of the lowlands. If the government insists on a camp close to the source of supply— or, rather if
you
insist, since you have full authority—we'll build it on that hill. But I'm telling you straight: that's as close as I'll ask my men to stay, if it costs me the contract."

Jamieson was distinctly unhappy now. He was conscious of how irrational he must seem to this practical engineer. But his pencil point went back to the middle of the green splotch and pressed there firmly. "Here," he said with finality.

That was the straw. Clugy's wiry body uncoiled from his chair like a steel spring. His fist came down on Jamieson's desk hard enough to make it vibrate.

"Damn it all," he raged, "you're like a lot of other swivel-chair tin gods I've met! You've sat behind that desk for so long you've lost touch with reality, but you figure you can maintain a reputation for being tough just by ordering everything done the hardest possible way—even if it endangers the lives of better men than yourself! Brother, if I could just put you down for five minutes in that green hell right where the point of your pencil is resting, then we'd see where you wanted the camp
built!"

It was the outburst Jamieson had been working for, and still there was no warning signal. He felt relieved. It remained now to end the interview without revealing that it had been a test.

"Really, Mr. Clugy," he said soberly, "I'm surprised that you introduce personalities into this purely governmental affair."

Clugy's stare was unflinching, though his expression of fury had abated to a black scowl. "Mr. Jamieson," he said harshly, "a man who would send others into an impossible situation on a mere whim has already brought in the personal element If that's where you want the camp built, you can build it there yourself. I'm ordering my crew back to Earth. To hell with the contract— cost-plus or any other kind."

Clugy turned on his heel and strode toward the door. Jamieson made no attempt to stop him. The test was not quite complete. The clincher would be whether Clugy would go through with his threat to call his men back from Mira 23 and thus withdraw all claim to the contract. That was something the Rulls would never do—relinquish control, through Clugy, of a top-priority project like the lymph-fluid one—no matter if the camp had to be built on a volcano. They wouldn't conceivably carry a pretense of concern for human personnel so far as that.

Trevor Jamieson set a dial and flipped a switch on the desk panel. A screen lighted, showing a group of three men. This was the psychotechnic team which had been observing Clugy as minutely as a variety of ultra-sensitive detection instruments would allow them.

"Well," said Jamieson. "Looks as if Clugy's clean, wouldn't you say, gentlemen?"

One of the men smiled. "That fit of temper was pure Clugy. I bet on him."

"If I can win him back to the fold," said Jamieson grimly. "Let's hope the Rulls don't get to him before he leaves for Mira."

That, unfortunately for mankind, was the disastrous part. They could never be sure, particularly here on Man's home planet. Nowhere in the human-controlled sector of the galaxy
was Rull spy activity so well established as on Earth itself, despite the most intensive and unremitting counterespionage. The reasons for this situation went back a hundred years, to the fateful time in human history when the first destroying Rull armada had come from beyond a region of dark obscuring matter stretched across one arm of the galaxy.

A thousand planetary systems were lost to them before humanoids could mobilize their fleets and counterattack in sufficient force to halt the advance. For a few years the far-flung battlefront held fairly steady, the Rulls' cold ruthless tenacity being met by man's sheer, selfless valiance, the older, more evenly balanced science of the enemy being offset by the matchless creativity of the human mind under stress.

Then the Rull tide began to move inexorably forward again, as one after another of human military plans miscarried, and some of the most secret strategy was anticipated. This seemed to mean only one thing. Spies were getting information for the enemy.

The ability of Rulls to control light with the cells of their bodies was not even suspected until one day a "man" was blasted while attempting to escape after being caught rifling the secret files of the Research Council. As the human image dissolved into a wormlike shape with numerous reticulated legs and arms, human beings had their first inkling of the fantastic danger that threatened.

Within a few hours, armed cars and airships were combing every city and every byway of a thousand planets, turning citizens out of all buildings and using radar to silhouette their true shapes.

A hundred thousand Rull spies were found and executed in that one roundup on Earth alone. But since that time the search had never ceased. The Rulls had soon developed a supplemental device which enabled them to foil all but the most complex interlocking radar detector systems.

And thus, decade by decade, the summing up showed the Rulls were gaining. They were a hardy silicon-fluorine life form, almost immune to chemicals and bacteria that affected men. The compelling problem for man had been to find an organism in his own part of the galaxy that would enable him to experiment for bacteriological warfare.

The progeny of the lymph beast was that organism. Even Ira Clugy had been misled regarding the fluid's purpose. He had accepted the idea that it had something to do with air-regeneration plants for large battleships. It was hoped the Rulls had acquired the same false idea.

Jamieson's thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of the intercom from the outer office. He excused himself to the group of psychotechnicians and switched the screen over to the face of his secretary.

"Mr. Caleb Carson calling," said the young woman.

"Put him on," said Jamieson.

The secretary nodded, and her image on the screen was replaced by the serious, intelligent-looking visage of a dark-haired young man. Caleb Carson was the grandson of the discoverer of Carson's Planet and an accomplished student of that primitive world, and of the human-ezwal conflict.

"Ready," he said.

Jamieson felt a surge of eagerness. "I'll be right over," he said, and broke the connection.

To his secretary he said, "I'm going over to the Research Center. If any report comes through on Ira Clugy relay it to me there."

"Yes, sir."

As he left his office, Jamieson congratulated himself once more for the brain storm that had made him appoint the grandson of the founder of Carson's Planet as trainer for the young ezwal. If anyone had a stake in the success of a plan that would stabilize the situation on Carson's Planet it was young, brilliant Caleb Carson.

Jamieson took an elevator to the roof hangar where his aerocar was parked. Two armed guards at the hangar doorway nodded politely, then proceeded to frisk him thoroughly and check his identification. Jamieson submitted patiently to this laying on of hands; it was the surest, simplest way of apprehending Rull agents, and the government offices of this building contained much classified information in their files.

His aerocar, along with several others, was parked on the open door beside the hangar. As he came up to it his eyes were attracted by a peculiar tracery of lines on a small area of siliceous material that made up the surface.

Jamieson blinked, then shook his head. There was an odd sensation in it, a sense of heat, and then—once more he squeezed his eyes shut, but the image of the tracery remained as if the pattern matched some natural pathway inside his brain.

He found himself in the aerocar; and he was guiding it up and toward a distant building before he thought, What in hell was that?

He was still nervous, and strangely frantic, as he put his small craft down on the roof of a tall building. Absently, still introspective, still puzzled and disturbed, he stopped and waited for
the parking attendant to bring him his ticket. As the attendant came toward him, he noticed that it was a new man, one he had not seen before. And then, looking around, he noticed something completely astonishing.

This building was
not
the Research Center!

Not only that, but it bore no particular resemblance to the center. Disconcerted, he turned to the attendant to make an apology. He froze. The man's hand held, not a ticket, but a shiny weapon. Jamieson felt a cold gust of gas in his face and a strangling constriction in his throat. Then there was blackness.