If Koll were Tiberius, Quellen was Claudius; amiable, intelligent, weak to the core. Brogg despised his immediate superior. Quellen struck him as a ditherer, unfit for his post. Now and then Quellen could act with vigour and determination, but it didn’t come naturally to him. Brogg had been doing the legwork for Quellen for years; otherwise, the department would long since have fallen apart.
A surprising thing about Quellen, though: he was capable of criminality. That had startled Brogg. He didn’t think the man had it in him. To obtain a plot of land in Africa by diligently falsifying records, to apply and receive illegal stat service from a Class Seven apartment to the Congo, to live a secret life of ease and even luxury—why, it was an achievement so monstrously bold that Brogg still couldn’t see how Quellen had carried it off. Unless the explanation was that Quellen was so repelled by the harshness of life all about him that he was willing to take any risk to escape from it. Even a coward could rise to what looked like moral grandeur in the interests of his own cowardice. In the same way, a soft, flabby man like the Emperor Nero could transform himself into a demon simply to preserve his own flabbiness. Nero, thought Brogg, hadn’t been innately demonic after the fashion of Caligula; he had drifted into monstrosity in easy stages. In a way it was out of character for him, just as Quellen’s surprising act of boldness jarred with the image of the man that Brogg had constructed.
Brogg had found out Quellen’s great secret purely by accident, though there was some degree of treachery mixed into it. He had suspected for quite a while that Quellen was up to something peculiar, but he had no idea what it was. Deviant religious activity, perhaps; maybe Quellen belonged to one of the proscribed cults, a chaos group perhaps, or one of the rumoured bands that gathered in dark corners to pray to the vicious pyrotic assassin, Flaming Bess.
Not knowing the details, but sensing the defensive wariness in Quellen’s recent behaviour, Brogg sought to turn the situation to his personal profit. He had high expenses. Brogg was a man with pretensions to scholarship; immersed as he was in the study of the ancient Romans, he had surrounded himself with books, authentic Roman coins, scraps of history. It took money to buy anything authentic. Brogg was living to the hilt of his salary now. It had struck him that Quellen might be a fruitful victim for extortion.
First Brogg had spoken to Quellen’s room-mate of the time, Bruce Marok—for Quellen had not yet been promoted to Class Seven, and like any unmarried male of his class he was required to share an apartment. Marok, while confirming that something odd was going on, did not offer any details. He didn’t seem to know much. Then came Quellen’s promotion, and with the uptwitch Marok had dropped out of the picture.
Brogg slapped an Ear on his boss and sat back to listen.
The truth came out soon enough. Quellen had connived to get a chunk of Africa registered under a blind name for which he was the nominee. Much of Africa had been set aside as a private reserve for members of the High Government—the tropical part, particularly, which had been generally depopulated during the Spore War a century and a half back. Quellen had his slice. He had arranged for a house to.be built there, and for unauthorized stat service so that he could pop back and forth across the Atlantic in a twinkling. Of course, Quellen’s little scheme was certain to be exposed eventually by one of the resurvey squads. But that part of the world was not due for a resurvey for some fifty years, by which time Quellen would be in little danger.
Brogg spent a fascinated few weeks tracking Quellen’s movements. He had thought at first that Quellen must take women to the hideaway for participation in illicit cultist activities, but no, Quellen went alone. He simply sought peace and solitude. In a way, Brogg sympathized with Quellen’s need. However, Brogg had needs of his own, and he was not a sentimental man. He went to Quellen.
“The next time you stat to Africa,” he said blandly, “think of me. I envy you, CrimeSec.”
Quellen gasped in shock. Then he recovered. “Africa? What are you talking about, Brogg? Why should I go to Africa?”
“To get away from it all. Yes?”
“I deny all your accusations.”
“I’ve got proof,” said Brogg. “Want to hear?”
In the end, they reached an accommodation. For a generous cash payment, Brogg would keep silent. That had been several months ago, and Quellen had paid regularly. So long as he did, Brogg observed the bargain. He was not really interested in informing on Quellen, who was much more useful to him as a source of money than he would be in an institution for corrective rehabilitation. Pursuing his studies more easily on Quellen’s hush money, Brogg hoped earnestly that no one else would unmask the CrimeSec’s secret. That would mean the loss of his extra income, and might even send him to jail too, as an accomplice after the fact. These days, Brogg watched over Quellen like a guardian angel, protecting him from the prying eyes of others.
Brogg knew that Quellen feared and hated him, of course. It didn’t trouble him. Secreted in various places throughout the vicinity were taped accounts of Quellen’s iniquity, programmed to deliver themselves to High Government authorities in the event of Brogg’s sudden death or disappearance.
Quellen knew that. Quellen wasn’t about to do anything. He was well aware that the moment the sensors of those devilish little boxes ceased to pick up the alpha rhythms of Stanley Brogg, autonomic legs would come forth and the telltales would march down to headquarters to pour forth their accusations. So Quellen and Brogg were at a standstill of mutual benefit.
Neither of them ever mentioned the situation. In the office, work proceeded serenely, though Brogg occasionally allowed himself a veiled reminder to keep Quellen uncomfortable. Generally Brogg took orders and carried them out.
As, for example, on this hopper business.
He had spent the last few days tracking Donald Mortensen, the potential hopper who was due to skip out on 4 May. Quellen had asked Brogg to handle the Mortensen case with the greatest delicacy. Brogg knew why. He was clever enough to foresee the time-paradox consequences that might result if somebody interfered with the departure of Mortensen, who was on the documented hopper list. Brogg had gone over those old lists himself to compile the spool he had labelled Exhibit A. Subtract a man from the old records and the whole world might totter. Brogg knew that. Undoubtedly Quellen knew that too. Why, most likely Kloofman and Danton would have a dozen aneurysms pop in their ageing arteries when they found out that Quellen’s department was monkeying with the structure of the past. Such monkeying jeopardized everybody’s status in the present, and those who had the most status to lose—the Class Ones—were the ones who would get most agitated over the investigation.
So Brogg was careful. He was pretty sure that the High Government would quash the Mortensen investigation once word of it got to Them. In the meanwhile, though, Brogg was merely carrying out his assignment. He could fry Quellen by botching the work and tipping off Mortensen; but Brogg had powerful motives for preserving Quellen from harm.
He found Mortensen easily: a lean, blond man of twenty-eight, with pale blue eyes and eyebrows so white they were virtually invisible. Brushing against him at a quickboat ramp, Brogg managed to affix an Ear to the man, hanging the hooked patch of transponding equipment neatly in Mortensen’s flesh.