The first QCA man said, "There isn't anything legal that you could do to get paid thirty-five thousand Plabkian crumbles, Mr. Fernwright. It has to be illegal. That's how we see it."
"Maybe there're a hell of a lot of broken pots on Sirius five," Joe said.
"Bit of humor, there," the first QCA man said tartly. He nodded to his companion, and the two of them opened the door and departed from his room. The door closed behind them.
"Maybe it's one gigantic pot," Joe said loudly. "A pot the size of a planet. With fifty glazes and—" He gave up; they probably couldn't hear him anyhow. And originally ornamented by the greatest graphic artist in Plabkian history, he thought. And it's the only product of his genius left, and an earthquake has broken the pot, which is locally worshiped. So the whole Plabkian civilization has collapsed.
Plabkian civilization. Hmm, he thought. Just how far developed are they on Sirius five? he asked himself. A good question.
Going to the phone he dialed the encyclopedia number.
"Good evening," a robotic voice said. "What info do you require, sir or madam?"
Joe said, "Give me a brief description of the social development on Sirius five."
Without the passing of even a tenth second the artificial voice said, "It is an ancient society which has seen better days. The current dominant species on the planet consists of what is called a Glimmung. This shadowy, enormous entity is not native to the planet; it migrated there several centuries ago, taking over from the feeble species such as wubs, werjes, klakes, trobes, and printers left over when the once-ruling master species, the so-called Fog-Things of antiquity, passed away."
"Glimmung—the Glimmung—is all-powerful?" Joe asked.
"His power," the encyclopedia's voice said, "is sharply curtailed by a peculiar book, probably nonexistent, in which, it is alleged, everything which has been, is, and will be, is recorded."
Joe said, "Where did this book come from?"
"You have used up your allotted quantity of information," the voice said. And clicked off.
Joe waited exactly three minutes and then redialed the number.
"Good evening. What info do you require, sir or madam?"
"The book on Sirius five," Joe said. "Which is alleged to tell everything that has been—"
"Oh, it's you again. Well, your trick won't work anymore; we store voice patterns now." It rang off.
That's right, Joe realized. I remember reading in the newspaper about that. It was costing the government too much money the way it was—when we did what I tried to do just now. Nuts, he said to himself. Twenty-four hours before he could get any more free information. Of course, he could go to a private enterprise encyclopedia booth, to Mr. Encyclopedia. But it would cost as much as he had stored in his asbestos bag: the government, when licensing the nonstateowned enterprises such as Mr. Attorney and Mr. Encyclopedia and Mr. Job, had seen to that.
I think I got aced out, Joe Fernwright said to himself. As usual.
Our society, he thought broodingly, is the perfect form of government. Everyone is aced out, in the end.
3
When he reached his work cubicle the next morning he found a second special delivery letter waiting for him.
SHIP OUT TO PLOWMAN'S PLANET, MR. FERNWRIGHT, WHERE
YOU ARE NEEDED. YOUR LIFE WILL SIGNIFY SOMETHING; YOU
WILL CREATE A PERMANENT ENDEAVOR WHICH WILL OUTLAST
ME AS WELL AS YOU.
Plowman's Planet, Joe reflected. It rang a bell, although dimly. Absentmindedly, he dialed the encyclopedia's number.
"Is Plowman's Planet—" he began, but the artificial voice interrupted him.
"Not for another twelve hours. Goodby."
"Just one fact?" he said angrily. "I just want to find out if Sirius five and Plowman's—" Click. The robot mechanism had rung off. Bastards, he thought. All robot servo-mechanisms and all computers are bastards.
Who can I ask? he asked himself, that would know, offhand, if Plowman's Planet is Sirius five? Kate. Kate would know.
But, he thought as he started to dial her office number, if I'm going to emigrate to Plowman's Planet I don't want her to know; she'll be able to trace me re my back alimony payments.
Once more he picked up the unsigned note, studied it. And, in a gradual, seeping fashion, a realization concerning it suffused his mind and entered into his field of awareness. There were more words on the note in some kind of semiinvisible ink. Runic writing? he wondered; he felt a sort of wicked, animal excitement, as if he had found a carefully protected trail.
He dialed Smith's number. "If you got a letter," Joe said, "with semi-invisible runic writing on it, how would you—you in particular—go about making it visible?"
"I'd hold it over a heat source," Smith said.
"Why?" Joe said.
"Because it's most likely written in milk. And writing in milk turns black over a heat source."
"Runic writing in milk?" Joe said angrily.
"Statistics show—"
"I can't imagine it. I simply can't imagine it. Runic writing in milk." He shook his head. "Anyway, what statistics are there on runic writing? This is absurd." He got out his cigarette lighter and held it beneath the sheet of paper. At once, black letters became visible.
WE SHALL RAISE HELDSCALLA.
"What's it say?" Smith asked.
Joe said, "Listen, Smith; you haven't used the encyclopedia in the last twenty-four hours, have you?"
"No," Smith said.
Joe said, "Call it. Ask it if Plowman's Planet is another name for Sirius five. And ask it what ‘Heldscalla' consists of." I guess I could ask the dictionary that, he said to himself. "What a mess," he said. "Is this any way to conduct business?" He felt fear overlaid with nausea; it did not appeal to him. It did not seem effective nor funny; it was merely strange. And, he thought, I have to report this to the police, so I'll be back cloistered with them again, and now there's probably already a file on me—hell, he thought, there has been since my birth—but now the file has new entries. Which always was bad. As every citizen knew.
Heldscalla, he thought. An odd and somehow impressive verbal integer. It appealed to him; it seemed totally opposed to such conditions as cubicles, phones, walking to work through endless crowds, fiddling his life away on the veterans' dole, meanwhile playing The Game. I am here, he thought, when I should be there.
"Call me back, Smith," he said into the phone. "As soon as you've talked to the encyclopedia. Bye." He rang off, paused, then dialed the dictionary. "Heldscalla," he said. "What does it mean?"
The dictionary—or rather its artificial voice—said, "Heldscalla is the ancient cathedral of the once-ruling Fog-Things of Sirius five. It sank under the sea centuries ago and has never been placed back, intact and functioning, with its old, holy artifacts and relics, on dry land."
"Are you hooked into the encyclopedia right now?" Joe asked. "That's an awful lot of definition."
"Yes, sir or madam; I am hooked into the encyclopedia."
"Then can you tell me any more?"
"No more."
"Thank you," Joe Fernwright said huskily. And hung up.
He could see it. Glimmung—or the Glimmung, if that was correct; evidently there was only one of them—intended to raise the ancient cathedral Heldscalla, and to do so, the Glimmung needed a wide span of skills. Such as his own, for example; his ability to heal ceramic ware. Heldscalla obviously contained pots—enough of them to cause the Glimmung to approach him... and to offer him a good sum for his work.
By now he's probably recruited two hundred skills from two hundred planets, Joe realized. I'm not the only one getting peculiar letters et cetera. He saw in his mind a great cannon being fired, and out of it special delivery letters, thousands of them, addressed to various life-form individuals throughout the galaxy.