“Yes, you do. You set an excellent table, and I’m sure your conversation is almost as cultural as you believe. But it’s hard for me to expand like a little flowerbud when I don’t know What’s happening to my friends.”
Warouw stiffened, it was barely perceptible, and the first syllable or two of his answer was ever so faintly off key. However, it came smoothly enough, with an amiable chuckle: “You must allow me a few items in reserve, Captain. Accept my word that they are not at the moment suffering at the hands of my department, and let us discuss other things.”
Flandry didn’t press his point. It would only chill the atmosphere. And he wanted to do as much probing as he could while Warouw was still trying the benevolent uncle act.
Not that anything he learned would help him much. He was thoroughly trapped, and in a while he might be thoroughly destroyed. But action, any action, even this verbal shadowboxing, was one way to avoid thinking about such impolite details.
“Professionally speaking,” he said, “I’m interested to know how you trapped me.”
“Ah.” Warouw gestured with his own cigarillo, not at all loath to expound his cleverness. “Well, when you made your… eh… departure in Kompong Timur, it might have been the hysterical act of a fool who had simply blundered onto us. If so, you were not to be worried about. But I dared not assume it. Your whole manner indicated otherwise-not to mention the documents, official and personal, which I later studied on your ship. Accordingly, my working hypothesis was that you had some plan for surviving beyond the period in which your first antitoxin dose would be effective. Was there already an underground organization of extraplanetary agents, whom you would seek out? I admit the search for such a group took most of my time for numerous days.”
Warouw grimaced. “I pray your sympathy for my plight,” he said. “The Guards have faced no serious task for generations. No one resists Biocontrol! The Guards, the entire organization, are escorts and watchdogs at best, idiots at worst. Ignoring the proletariat as they do, they have no experience of the criminal subtleties developed by the proletariat. With such incompetents must I chase a crafty up-to-date professional like yourself.”
Flandry nodded. He’d gotten the same impression. Modern police and intelligence methodology-even military science-didn’t exist on Unan Besar. Poor, damned Nias Warouw, a born detective forced to re-invent the whole art of detection!
But he had done a disquietingly good job of it.
“My first break came when a district boss named Sumuah, you remember?” Warouw grinned. “My congratulations, Captain. He was unwilling to admit how you had taken him, but afraid not to report that he had unwittingly entertained a man of your description. I forced the whole tale from him. Delicious! But then I began to think over the datum it presented. It took me days more; I am not used to such problems. In the end, however, I decided that you would not have carried out so risky an exploit except for money, which you doubtless needed to buy illegal antitoxin. (Oh, yes, I know there is some. I have been trying to tighten up controls on production and distribution. But the inefficiency of centuries must be overcome.) Well, if you had to operate in such fashion, you were not in touch with a secret organization. Probably, no such organization existed! However, you must have made some contacts in Swamp Town.”
Warouw blew smoke rings, cocked his head at the trill of a songbird, and resumed: “I called for the original reports on the case. It was established that in fleeing us you had broken into the establishment of a certain courtesan. She had told the Guards that she fled in terror and knew nothing else. There had been no reason to doubt her. Nor was there now, a priori, but I had no other lead. I ordered her brought in for questioning. My squad was told she had left several days before, destination unknown. I ordered that a watch be kept on her antitoxin record. When she appeared at Gunung Utara, I was informed. I flew there within the hour.
“The local dispenser remembered her vividly, and had a recollection of a tall man with her. She had told him where she was staying, so we checked the inn. Yes, she had been careless enough to tell the truth. The innkeeper described her companions, one of whom was almost certainly you. We arrested her and the other man in their rooms and settled back to await you.”
Flandry sighed. He might have known it. How often had he told cubs in the Service never to underestimate an opponent?
“You almost escaped us again, Captain,” said Warouw. “A dazzling exhibition, though not one that I recommend you repeat. Even if, somehow, you broke loose once more, all aircars here are locked. The only other way to depart is on foot, with 400 kilometers of dense rainforest to the nearest village. You would never get there before your antitoxin wore off.”
Flandry finished his cigarillo and crushed it with regret. “Your only reason for isolating this place that much,” he said, “is that you make the pills here.”
Warouw nodded. “This is Biocontrol Central. If you think you can steal a few capsules for your jungle trip, I suppose you can try. Pending distribution, they are kept in an underground vault protected by identification doors, automatic guns, and-as the initial barrier-a hundred trusted Guards.”
“I don’t plan to try,” said Flandry.
Warouw stretched; muscles flowed under his hairless brown skin. “There is no harm in showing you some of the other sections, though,” he said. “If you are interested.”
I’m interested in anything which will postpone the next round of unfriendliness, acknowledged Flandry. Aloud: “Of course. I might even talk you into dropping your isolationist policy.”
Warouw’s smile turned bleak. “On the contrary, Captain,” he said, “I hope to prove to you that there is no chance of its being dropped, and that anyone who tries to force the issue is choosing a needlessly lingering form of suicide. Come, please.”
XI
Two Guards padded silently behind, but they were no more heeded than Warouw’s blaster. The chief took Flandry’s arm with a delicate, almost feminine gesture and led him down a hall and a curving ramp to the garden. Here it was cool and full of green odors. Immense purple blooms drooped overhead, scarlet and yellow flowerbeds lined the gravel walks like a formal fire, water plashed high out of carved basins and went rilling under playfully shaped bridges, ketjils were little gold songsparks darting in and out of willow groves. Flandry paid more attention to the building. He was being led across from one wing to the center. It reared huge, the changing styles of centuries discernible in its various parts. Warouw’s goal was obviously the oldest section: a sheer black mountain of fused stone, Guards at the doors and robot guns on the battlements.
An attendant in an anteroom bowed low and issued four suits. They were coveralls, masked and hooded, of a transparent flexiplast which fitted comfortably enough, though Warouw must leave off his robe. Gloves, boots, and snouted respirators completed the ensemble.
“Germs in there?” asked Flandry.
“Germs on us.” For a moment, the nightmare of a dozen generations looked out of Warouw’s eyes. He made a sign against evil. “We dare not risk contaminating the vats.”
“Of course,” suggested Flandry, “you could produce a big enough reserve supply of antitoxin to carry you through any such emergency.”
Warouw’s worldliness returned. “Now, Captain,” he laughed, “would that be practical politics?”
“No,” admitted Flandry. “It could easily lead to Biocontrol having to work for a living.”
“You never gave the impression of possessing any such peasantish ideal.”
“Fate forbid! My chromosomes always intended me for a butterfly, useful primarily as an inspiration to others. However, you must admit a distinction between butterflies and leeches.”