Another barrier went up between Donald and the man he had believed himself to be. It made no real difference—the past was already out of reach. But he had always cherished that talent as something particularly his own, and in a ghostly fashion he was hurt to find it was well enough known to have a nickname.
“What is it I’m not supposed to do again, sir?” he demanded.
“Jump to conclusions, of course!” the colonel rapped. “I guess you decided it was a foregone conclusion that your mission was connected with this new genetics programme, but you sheeting well shouldn’t have pre-guessed an official decision to shed the cover Delahanty gave you.”
Shed?… Oh. He means tell Norman and the others that I’d been instructed to leave New York.
Donald shrugged and remained silent.
“You have your sealed orders with you?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Give them here.”
Donald handed over the package. The colonel scanned the documents it contained and placed them in a chute alongside his desk labelled Destruct Secret Material. Pressing a button, he sighed.
“I don’t yet have the full details of your revised cover,” he said. “As I understand it, though, the official announcement from Yatakang means that more foreign visitors than usual can be fed into the country convincingly by the regular channels. You’ll find them a sight easier than the irregular ones.” His eyes wandered to the office’s single window, which overlooked a parade-floor where a group of raw draftees were doubling to and fro.
“Broadly, at all events, you’re to be sent in openly as a freelance scientific reporter accredited to SCANALYZER and Engrelay Satelserv. It’s perfectly authentic, and before you raise the point I’ll say that your lack of experience is of no consequence. You need only ask the kind of questions legitimate journalists will be asking about the eugenics programme. You’ll be given a certain amount of additional information, however. Most importantly, you will be the only foreign reporter in Yatakang with facilities for contacting Jogajong.”
Donald stiffened and his scalp began to crawl.
I didn’t know he was back there! If he’s what they claim him to be I’m liable to walk into a civil war!
Mistaking Donald’s dismay for incomprehension, the colonel rasped, “Don’t you know who I mean?”
“Yes, sir,” Donald muttered. Nobody who had had to learn contemporary idiomatic Yatakangi could have avoided mention of Jogajong. Jailed four times by the Solukarta government, banned titular head of the Yatakangi Freedom Party, leader of an abortive revolt after which he had had to flee the country, author of books and pamphlets which still circulated despite police seizures and public burnings …
“Any questions?” the colonel said suddenly, sounding bored.
“Yes, sir. Several.”
“Hah! Very well, let’s hear them. But I warn you, I’ve told you as much as you’re supposed to know at this stage.”
That disposed of about four questions immediately. Donald hesitated.
“Sir, if I’m going to be sent openly to Yatakang, why was I told to come to Boat Camp? Won’t they be suspicious if they find out I’ve been at a military establishment?”
The colonel thought that over. He said at length, “I believe that’s answerable on current terms of reference. It’s a question of security. Boat Camp is secure. Land-based installations often aren’t. Come to think of it, I’ll tell you an educational story which may drive home what you’re up against.
“A certain base on shore was overlooked from a hillside which was good for flying kites. One boy about fourteen or fifteen used to go up there to fly a specially fine box-kite he’d built himself, about five feet high. And he’d been doing this daily for two mortal months before one of the base officers wondered how come he never spent his vacation from school doing anything but play with a kite. He went up and on the end of that kite’s cord he found a recorder, and on the kite itself a miniature TV camera. And this kid—no more than fifteen, mind—threw a knife, took him in the thigh, and tried to strangle him. Point made?”
Donald agreed with a slight shudder.
“And there’s a further reason, of course. It’s the best place to eptify you for your mission.”
“Major Delahanty told me about that,” Donald said slowly. “It’s still not quite clear to me.”
“Eptification is derived from an acronym—EPT stands for ‘education for particular tasks’. Most softasses don’t take the idea seriously. To them it’s just one more among a horde of commercial panaceas which conmen are using to part the marks from their money. And that’s partly true, of course, because to use the technique properly you more or less have to have had it done to you, and we don’t turn many people we’ve done it to back into civilian life.”
“You mean that afterwards I’m not going to—?”
“I’m not talking about you specifically,” the colonel cut in. “I’m saying that in principle there’s not much application for it outside the service!”
“But if I’m going to be required to pose as a reporter—”
“What’s that got to do with it? You only need to feed back facts. They’ll be monitored and edited in this country. Engrelay Satelserv has a staff of experts to look after that end of the problem.”
Confused, Donald said, “I seem to have missed the point somewhere. When you said lack of experience as a reporter didn’t matter, I naturally assumed…”
He broke off. The colonel was regarding him with mingled amusement and contempt.
“Yes, you do make a lot of assumptions, don’t you? We’re not in business to provide the beam agencies with star talent, though—as you’d have figured out if you’d stopped to think! Anyhow, that’s not what you need eptification in.”
“What, then?”
“In four short days,” the colonel said, “you’re going to be eptified to kill.”
tracking with closeups (14)
LIGHT THE TOUCHPAPER AND RETIRE
There were still a few openings left for one-man businesses even in this age of automation, computers and the grand cartel. Jeff Young had found one.
Whistling, he limped down the narrow alley between two rows of tape-controlled machine-tools, a lean man in his early forties with receding dark hair and heavy rings under his eyes suggesting a slight, not socially reprehensible habit—possibly a stimulant like Procrozol with a strong insomniac side-effect. He did in fact get less sleep than most people; furthermore he acted as though he was always a trifle pepped. But it wasn’t due to any kind of drug.
He carried a small plastic sack. At one of the whining lathes he halted and set the neck of the sack against the swarf-hopper. From it he spilled half a pound of fine magnesium chips and curls.
Then he crossed to a sander which was buffing the grey surface of a piece of cast iron into mirror smoothness and added a dredging of iron filings.
Still whistling, he hobbled out of the machine-shop and closed the doors. The lighting went off automatically—tape-controls didn’t need to see what they were doing.
The only other member of his staff, a shiggy who sometimes struck customers as too stupid even to act as mouthpiece for a gang of lathes and mills, had already left the front office for home. Nonetheless he called her name and listened for a reply before approaching a row of shallow aquaria ranged along the room’s rear wall. Small bright fish gazed uncomprehendingly as he dipped a hook into the water of each in turn and withdrew from concealment in the fine white sand at the bottom a series of plastic globes half-full of something cloudy and brown.
Satisfied, he replaced the globes, set the burglar alarms, and turned on the lumino sign identifying this as the home of Jeff Young Custom Metalwork—Functional and Artistic Designs Executed.