Irene Kasansky went back to her work. “You know the way,” she said.
This time Ronny Bronston pushed open the door to Sid Jakes’ office without knocking. The Section G supervisor was poring over reports on his desk. He looked up and grinned his Sid Jakes grin.
“Ronny!” he said. “Welcome back. You know, you’re one of the quickest men ever to return from a Tommy Paine assignment. I was talking to Lee Chang only a day or so ago. She said you were on your way.”
Ronny grunted, his anger growing within him. He lowered himself into one of the room’s heavy chairs, and glared at the other.
Sid Jakes chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Before we go any further, just to check, who is Tommy Paine?”
Ronny snapped, “You are.”
The supervisor’s eyebrows went up.
Ronny said, “You and Ross Metaxa and Lee Chang Chu—and all the rest of Section G. Section G is Tommy Paine.”
“Good man!” Sid Jakes chortled. He flicked a switch on his order box. “Irene,” he said, “how about clearing me through to the commissioner? I want to take Ronny in for his finals.”
Irene snapped back something and Sid Jakes switched off and turned to Ronny happily. “Let’s go,” he said. “Ross is free for a time.”
Ronny Bronston said nothing. He followed the other. The rage within him was still mounting.
In the months that had elapsed since Ronny Bronston had seen Ross Metaxa the latter had changed not at all. His clothing was still sloppy, his eyes bleary with lack of sleep or abundance of alcohol—or both. His expression was still sour and skeptical.
He looked up at their entry and scowled, and made no effort to rise and shake hands. He said to Ronny sourly, “O.K., sound off and get it over with. I haven’t too much time this afternoon.”
Ronny Bronston was just beginning to feel tentacles of cold doubt, but he suppressed them. The boiling anger was uppermost. He said flatly, “All my life I’ve been a dedicated United Planets man. All my life I’ve considered its efforts the most praiseworthy and greatest endeavor man has ever attempted.”
“Of course, old chap,” Jakes told him cheerfully. “We know all that, or you wouldn’t ever have been chosen as an agent for Section G.”
Ronny looked at him in disgust. “I’ve resigned that position, Jakes.”
Jakes grinned back at him. “To the contrary, you’re now in the process of receiving permanent appointment.”
Ronny snorted his disgust and turned back to Metaxa. “Section G is a secret department of the Bureau of Investigation devoted to subverting Article One of the United Planets Charter.”
Metaxa nodded.
“You don’t deny it?”
Metaxa shook his head.
“Article One,” Ronny snapped, “is the basic foundation of the Charter which every member of UP and particularly every citizen of United Planets, such as ourselves, has sworn to uphold. But the very reason for the existence of this Section G is to interfere with the internal affairs of member planets, to subvert their governments, their economic systems, their religions, their ideals, their very ways of life.”
Metaxa yawned and reached into a desk drawer for his bottle. “That’s right,” he said. “Anybody like a drink?”
Ronny ignored him. “I’m surprised I didn’t catch on even sooner,” he said. “On New Delos Mouley Hassan, the local agent, knew the God-King was going to be assassinated. He brought in extra agents and even a detail of Space Forces guards for the emergency. He probably engineered the assassination himself.”
“Nope,” Jakes said. “We seldom go that far. Local rebels did the actual work, but, admittedly, we knew what they were planning. In fact, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Mouley Hassan provided them with the bomb. That lad’s a bit too dedicated.”
“But why?” Ronny blurted. “That’s deliberately interfering with internal affairs. If the word got out, every planet in UP would resign.”
“Probably no planet in the system that needed a change so badly,” Metaxa growled. “If they were ever going to swing into real progress, that hierarchy of priests had to go.” He snorted. “An immortal God-King, yet.”
Ronny pressed on. “That was bad enough, but how about this planet Mother, where the colonists had attempted to return and live in the manner man did in earliest times.”
“Most backward planet in the UP,” Metaxa said sourly. “They just had to be roused.”
“And Kropotkin!” Ronny blurted. “Don’t you understand, those people were happy there. Their lives were simple, uncomplicated, and they had achieved a happiness that—”
Metaxa came to his feet. He scowled at Ronny Bronston and growled, “Unfortunately, the human race can’t take the time out for happiness. Come along. I want to show you something.”
He swung around the corner of his desk and made his way toward a ceiling-high bookcase.
Ronny stared after him, taken off guard, but Sid Jakes was grinning his amusement.
Ross Metaxa pushed a concealed button and the bookcase slid away to one side to reveal an elevator beyond.
“Come along,” Metaxa repeated over his shoulder. He entered the elevator, followed by Jakes.
There was nothing else to do. Ronny Bronston followed them, his face still flushed with the angered argument.
The elevator dropped—how far, Ronny had no idea. It stopped and they emerged into a plain, sparsely furnished vault. Against one wall was a boxlike affair that reminded Ronny of nothing so much as a deep-freeze.
For all practical purposes, that’s what it was. Ross Metaxa led him over and they stared down into its glass-covered interior.
Ronny’s eyes bugged. The box contained the partly charred body of an animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool-using life form.
Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin on the supervisor’s face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than ever.
Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.
“You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.
“It’s an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept secret?”
“Let’s go back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.
Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for awhile.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two. “Ronny,” he said, “man isn’t alone in the galaxy. There’s other intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”
In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.
Metaxa grunted. “Obviously size means nothing. That little fellow down there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago. How long he’d been drifting through space, we don’t know. Possibly only months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long, he’s proof that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and whoever it was fighting.”
“But,” Ronny protested, “you’re assuming they’re aggressive. Perhaps coming in contact with these aliens will be the best thing that ever happened to man. Possibly that little fellow down there is the most benevolent creature ever evolved.”
Metaxa looked at him strangely. “Let’s hope so,” he said. “However, when found he was in what must have been a one-man scout. He was dead and his craft was blasted and torn—obviously from some sort of weapons’ fire. His scout was obviously a military craft, highly equipped with what could only be weapons, most of them so damaged our engineers haven’t been able to figure them out. To the extent they have been able to reconstruct them, they’re scared silly. No, there’s no two ways about it, our little rabbit sized intelligence down in the vault was killed in an interplanetary conflict. And sooner or later, Ronny, man in his explosion into the stars is going to run into either or both of the opponents in that conflict.”