Three days later, Alak’s agreed code call went over the Luanian telescreens. Slinh received it and lifted the stolen car into the air. «Now be quiet,» he told the dirty, tear-faced child with him. «We’re going back to Daddy.» He added to himself, «Of course, it’s possible that Daddy had Alak drugged or tortured to give the signal. That’s what I’d have tried. But if so, it’s only what the Patrolman deserves for leaving me in charge of this brat.»
For fear of its radiations revealing his hidden car to searchers—metal detectors were dangerous enough—Slinh had only turned the televisor on for a few seconds at the agreed hours. Now, as he listened to the newscasts, a dawning amazement held him motionless. «Marhal has offered compromise—Premier Voal in secret conference—Secession from League being reconsidered—»
Holy Galaxy! Had Alak really pulled it off? If a crook like that Patrolman, hunted and alone, could overturn a planet—
Slinh set his vehicle down on the lawn of the Premier’s city residence. The force dome was down and only a few military craft were in sight. Peace—
Tranis Voal stood before the house with his arm about his wife’s shoulders. There were no other officials in sight, with the possible exception of Alak. The Patrolman stood to one side, his hair like coppery fire in the sun, the look of a fox who has just raided a chicken coop on his sharp face; but there was somehow a loneliness over him. Though he was the conqueror he was still one man against a world.
Slinh led the child outside. Voal uttered a queer little choking cry and fell on his knees before her. When he looked up, tears gleamed in his eyes and ran down his haggard cheeks. «She’s all right,» he choked. «She’s all right—»
«Of course she’s all right,» said Alak impatiently. «Now that your government has gone too far toward peace to back down, I don’t mind telling you that no matter what your attitude would have been, she wouldn’t have been harmed. Patrolmen may have no scruples, but we aren’t fiends.» He added slowly, somewhat bitterly, «Only a completely honest man, a fanatic or a fool, can be really fiendish.»
Slinh tugged at Alak’s sleeve. «Now will you tell me just what happened?» he hissed.
«What I hoped for,» said Alak. «After you left me on the island and took the kid into hiding, I just waited. That night Voal showed up with the money.»
«Hm-m-m—so you also got a little personal profit out of it,» said the Rassalan slyly.
«I didn’t want his money, I didn’t take it,» said Alak wearily. «The ransom demand was simply a device to make him think a gang of ordinary kidnapers had taken the girl. If he’d known it was the hated and untrustworthy Patrolman who had her, he’d probably have been out of his head with fear and loathing, have brought all the cops on the planet down on me, and… well, this way I got him alone and I had a club over his head. I told him the Patrol couldn’t weigh the life of one child against several million, perhaps billion, and that we’d kill the kid if he didn’t listen to reason. He did. I came here with him, secretly, and used him as my puppet. With his emergency powers, he was able to stop the scheduled assault on Marhal and swing the government toward conciliation. A truce has been declared, and a League mediator is on the way.»
Voal came over. The wrath that had ravaged his face still smoldered sullenly in his eyes. «Now that I have her back,» he said, «how do you know I’ll continue to follow your dictates?»
«I’ve come to know you in the last few days,» answered Alak coolly. «One thing I’ve found out is that, unlike me, you’re a perfectly honest man, and you want to do what you think is right. That makes it possible for me to take an oath of secrecy from you and reveal something which will—I hope—change your attitude on this whole matter.»
«That will have to be something extraordinary,» said Voal icily.
«It is. If we could find a private place—?»
Slinh looked wistfully after the two men as they entered the house. He’d give a lot to eavesdrop on that conference. He had a shrewd suspicion that the greatest secret in the Galaxy was about to be revealed—which could have been useful to him.
They were in Voal’s study before Alak said: «I want to get over that barrier of hostility to me you still have. I think you’re objective enough to have seen in the last few days that the Patrol has no desire to oppress Luan or discriminate against it. Our job is to keep the peace, no more and no less, but that involves a paradox which we have only been able to resolve by methods unknown to policemen of any other kind. You can’t forgive my murderousness toward your child—but I repeat that there never was any. We would not have harmed her under any circumstances. But we had to make you think otherwise till my job was done.»
«I can stand it myself,» said Voal grimly. «But what my wife went through—»
«That was tough, wasn’t it?» Suddenly the bitterness was alive and corrosive on Alak’s face. Contempt twisted his thin lips. «Yes, that was really rugged, all three days of it. Have you ever thought how many millions of mothers this holy war of yours would have left without any prospect of getting their children back?»
Voal looked away from his bleak eyes and, for lack of better occupation, began to fumble with bottles and glasses. Alak accepted his drink but went on speaking:
«The basic secret of the League Patrol—and I want your solemn oath you will never breathe a word of it to anyone—» he waited till Voal gave agreement, «is this: The Patrol may under no circumstances take life. We may not kill.»
He paused to let it sink in, then added; «We have a few impressive-looking battleships to show the Galaxy and overawe planets when necessary, but they have never fought and never will. The rest of the mighty fleet is—nonexistent! Faked pictures and cooked news stories! Patrolmen may have occasion to carry lethal weapons, but if they ever use them it means mnemonic erasure and discharge from the service. We encourage fiction about the blazing guns of the Patrol—we write quite a bit ourselves and call it news releases—but it has absolutely no basis in fact.»
He smiled. «So, though we might kidnap your daughter, we would certainly never kill her,» he finished.
Voal sat down. His knees seemed suddenly to have failed him. But he looked up, it was with an expression that Alak found immensely cheering. He spoke slowly: «I can see why a reputation as formidable fighters would be a great asset to you—but why stop there? Why can’t you stand up and fight honestly? Why have you, instead, built up a record of such incredible villainy that the worst criminals of the Galaxy could not equal it?»
Alak relaxed into a chair and sipped his cocktail. «It’s a long story,» he said. «It goes right back to the beginning of interstellar travel.»
He searched for words a moment, then began: «After about three centuries of intercourse between the stars, it became plain that an uncoordinated Galactic civilization would inevitably destroy itself. Consider the problems in their most elementary form. Today there are over a million civilized stars, with a population running up over ten to the fifteenth, and exploration adds new ones almost daily. Even if that population were completely uniform, the sheer complexity of administrative detail is inconceivable—why, if all government services from legislators to postmen added up to only one percent of the total, and no government has ever been that efficient, that would be some ten to the thirteenth individual beings in government! Robocomputers help some, but not much. You run a system with a population of about two and a half billion, and you know yourself what a job that is.
«And then the population is not uniform, but fantastically diverse. We are mammals, warm-blooded, oxygen breathing—but there are intelligent reptiles, birds, fish, cephalopods, and creatures Earth never heard of, among the oxygen breathers alone—there are halogen breathers covering as wide a range, there are eaters of raw energy, there are creatures from worlds almost next to a sun and creatures from worlds where oxygen falls as snow. Reconciling all their needs and wants—