Star Science Fiction 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  He looked directly at the AG and continued.

  * * * *

  You know what it was like in the days before our profession, sir. Especially in the days when the ships were surface-bound and rode only the surface of the waters or lightly beneath it. They needed us then, too. But they didn’t know that they needed us, and so—well, sometimes the commander did it, sometimes one of the lesser officers and sometimes it was even a member of the crew. If there was someone filling the need, it was a happy ship. If no one did . . . look how bad things were for a while when we went out into deep space, how many planets were colonized by mutinous crews.

  That’s why I said, we’re needed. We’re the governors, the balance wheels, the gyroscopes. We’re not engineers, always trying to build more safety into our machines. We’re psychologists, who believe that too much safety is dangerous for people.

  And that’s why there’s only one of us on each ship. That is, there’s only one that the crew knows about, only one in charge. Each of us has to work individually, adjusting the people to a friction-free performance in his own way. Sure, another psych-mech could get the same results if he were alone with the same group. And of course we need a substitute ready on ships as big as a cruiser. After all, even gyros die.

  But the crew shouldn’t know who the substitute is! If they do know and even if the substitute doesn’t practice his trade, still they try to adjust two ways and end up adjusted neither way.

  Which is one of the things that went wrong on the Holoman.

  * * * *

  Croyden paused, suddenly aware that he had been spouting words at light-stream speed. “Sire, I crave pardon. I talk too much.”

  “Continue, Loytenant. You are giving us what we need.”

  “One question, Sire.” Gludo again.

  “You may question the Loytenant, General.”

  “I am interested in your reaction to your On-Duty orders, Loytenant. Isn’t it true that you resented your first assignment and so went on board the holomanin a very disturbed state of mind?”

  Croyden weighed his answer, chose the truth. “General, I felt personally assaulted when I read my orders. I had stood first in my class. My research project had been highly acclaimed at the University. I expected and wanted an assignment in Research. When I was told that I would report to Satellite Base for deep-space duty, I was bitterly resentful.”

  “And you boarded the holoman with that attitude?”

  “No, General, I did not. Boarding the holoman, Iwas the happiest gyro-in-training anywhere in our fleet.”

  “Why?”

  Croyden could answer that both quickly and honestly, hoping they would understand. “General, I have kept and intend to keep as long as possible, a copy of my original assignment orders. . . “

  He was surprised when they interrupted him with laughter. Even the face of the thick-set man had creased into the semblance of a grin.

  Apparently even these rulers of the Combined Services had also once received assignments that they treasured.

  “Gludo, I think you are answered. Continue, Loytenant, speaking as freely as you have so far.”

  Croyden bowed his head in the seated abasement. . . .

  * * * *

  My University Orders were to report immediately to Ocean Take-Off and pick up a group of drafted people. I shepherded them through the routines until I checked them over to Replacement Personnel on Satellite Base. Then I went to Officer Assignment for my own orders.

  I couldn’t believe them when I read them. Sure, I was assigned to a cruiser. But—my boss was Foster! .

  I knew as soon as I read his name that this was no ordinary space-trip. Foster would be there and he was everything in Psycho-Research.

  My cover for the trip was an assignment as events-recorder. That’s good hiding for the sub-gyro, because in that job you naturally know what goes on everywhere else in the ship. I got myself ready for my job by going to my quarters and running a fifteen-minute sleeptape on my duties. I followed up the tape, went to Supply and checked the requisition and delivery vouchers for the Holoman against the scale model of her cruiser type. From there I went to Personnel. I identified myself to the Officer-in-Charge with my green seal key. He gave me the graphs of the drafted personnel and commissioned persons on board. I hypnoed the facts concerning their placement and potential into ready subconscious.

  I was ready for duty—and my third shock.

  When I had briefed myself, I naturally reported back to Personnel. They followed through, vized theHoloman that I was coming, got me transport clearance across the field for alien check and fitting into ship psychology on the Holoman itself.

  Well, I got one, but I didn’t get the other.

  Foster shouldn’t have been waiting at ship-entrance for me.

  * * * *

  His Supremacy’s voice was mild but cold. “You had better explain yourself, Loytenant. Do you mean that you did not get an alien check test?”

  “No, Sire, I did not mean that. He checked me with a Roehman’s. He made me account for every minute since I had left the University while I was under the scop and accelator drug.”

  Gludo stirred and His Supremacy glanced at his little Intelligence Officer. “You have another question?”

  “Yes, Sire, I do. Loytenant, did Foster tell you why he made the back-check only as far as the University?”

  “Foster explained his tests to me after he had finished, Sir. He said the time check was a necessity, that it took at least fifteen minutes to substitute an alien for one of us and if there had been any time-gap in my story, he would have killed me.”

  “And the University?”

  “He called that the only uncontaminated spot in the Galaxy, said that no alien could get past their checks. And if they had, it was time for us to quit.”

  His Supremacy and Gludo exchanged glances.

  “Has he answered your question?”

  “Completely, Sire.”

  “Continue, Loytenant.”

  * * * *

  As I said, he was waiting for me at ship-entrance, which was wrong, completely wrong! He should have met me the way he would meet any other new member of the crew. In the green-sealed room, seated behind his desk. But there he was, at the entrance, nervous, off-balance.

  Even before I could salute, he had grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along with him. All the way to the psych-zimmer, he kept babbling, didn’t give me a chance to say anything, just kept repeating, “Where have you been? I need you!”

  But he didn’t tell me why he wanted me until he had green-sealed the room and run through my tests.

  That made it a bad start and it got worse. Foster made it obvious who his replacement was, You know how the crew looks for him anyhow. Eventually things reached the point where I had to take over his work, the biggest part of it, and the crew tried to adjust to both of us. Naturally they ended up thoroughly confused.

  This sounds silly, but sometimes I think even the ship was affected. I had been in deep-space before, on student training trips while at the University, but even in those old crates I had never ridden a deck that felt so unsteady.

  You’ve got to add this to it, and I think it’s important. Foster didn’t trust anyone except me and I don’t think he trusted me completely either. Well, no, maybe that’s not quite right. I guess I was the only one he did trust. At least, every day he gave me a general idea of what he thought he was doing and he’d tell me that the next ship’s day would see the end of it.

  It started to get too much for me. I was doing my job— and there’s only one events-recorder on a cruiser, so I was on constant call—and I was trying to do his. Sire, I wasn’t a gyro in training on that trip, I was the gyro himself!

  It happened at five rotations out, at 1850 hours. I received an emergency: report to Control at once! I ran. The Captain—wrong again, the whole ship was wrong!— pulled me into his private stand. Without saying anything, he flipped the through-seal switch to the psych-zimmer.
>
  Foster’s end of the line was open too.

  First, I couldn’t see, or rather recognize, anything. Then I began to understand and what I saw: a hand in front of the screen. Foster’s hand. Over it I could see the back of his head. The way his head lay on the desk told me that he had probably tried to call and hadn’t made it.

  I could tell by the colors on the wall that the room was still green-sealed.

  From my secret place I took my own green-seal key. The Captain wasn’t in the least surprised—Foster had sure made it clear who I was—and he gave me my To-Duty Command.

  I’ll tell the truth and admit that I didn’t know exactly what to do. There was always the chance that Foster wasn’t dead. But whether he was dead or alive, I had to go into that room. And because the room was under the green seal, I was willing to bet that whoever or whatever had killed him was still in there.

  But I was just as scared to be outside of the room. I was certain that everyone knew I was Foster’s replacement, which meant that outside the psych-zimmer and its protective equipment I was a marked man.

  So I asked for five officers to go with me. Junior officers. Aliens take direct, not subordinate command positions.

  And aliens can’t be everywhere, so I took the officers from each section of ship operation. I was protecting myself by using probability.

  We went to the gyro-office.

  I walked behind them as we went to the office. As I walked, I slipped nasal filters into place, just on the chance that we might hit gas. When we got to the zimmer, I unsealed the door, kept them back while I reached in and checked the switch on the room-conditioner, then motioned them in first.

  I watched them. They lived, so I followed them and re-sealed the room.

  Under the green light—you know how it skips off the walls—they were startled for a moment. But I caught their attention and hypnoed them to make sure that they would remember what they observed.

  I focused myself, too. You have, or you will, check the other officers. These are my observations.

  The room had been sealed, but Foster was alone when we got in. However, his key was gone. I know now that I should have sent one of the officers into the room before I turned on its individual refresher, because now we can’t be sure of gas. But we can be sure that he wasn’t hit through the ship’s unit. I did have one of the officers handle each and every item in the room. He’s still alive, so that eliminates any touch poison. Foster’s body showed no marks, either on his skin or by stereo-screen.

  That was all I could do on ship. The rest had to remain for Base inspection.

  When I had completed what I could do, I re-opened the screen to report to the Captain. And just then the ship seemed to sort of bounce. Hard. Twice.

  * * * *

  “One moment, Loytenant.” His Supremacy glanced at his staff. “I believe my officers have some questions.”

  The thickset man spoke first. “Did Foster tell you why he was on the holoman?”

  “It was the first thing I asked him, sir, after the Roehman. From the time I read his name on my orders, it was something I couldn’t figure out, what our best research man was doing out on just a cruiser.”

  “Well, what was he doing?” The AG’s voice was querulous. “In view of his reputation, I naturally gave him the assignment when he asked for it. But I didn’t ask why, and when you’ve made as many transfers at the request of Psycho-Research as I have, you just naturally stop asking.”

  “The holoman’s mission was to destroy an alien sneak base ten rotations away from Home Planet.” The thickset general paused, continued. “The fact that the base existed showed its importance. Foster analyzed the mission of the holomanwith me—”

  “And figured that the importance of the base would automatically mean the presence of at least one alien on board ship,” Gludo cut in. “Does that mean what I think it means, Loytenant?”

  “Yes, sir. Foster had devised a practical, simple identification test for aliens, one that could be used by any commander anywhere. A true field test, we call it, to distinguish it from the cumbersome, laboratory technique.”

  “And he was applying it to the crew?” queried the AG, whose prime concern in life was to find reliable personnel.

  “Yes, sir, he was working his way through the roster.”

  “And found what he was looking for,” Gludo commented.

  “Yes, sir, and in that sense he killed himself.”

  His Supremacy’s voice was puzzled. “I think I understand, Loytenant, but—”

  “Foster’s psycho-graph, Sire, shows the pattern. He never told anyone anything they didn’t absolutely need to know until the work was completed. And usually, he overestimated himself and underestimated everyone else.

  “In this case, he made a bad mistake. He happened to meet an alien with a clever, ruthless mind, a sense of values and more courage than I like to think about.

  “Clever, with a sense of values. He saw he had two missions and he completed the important one first.

  “Ruthless. Aliens usually kill selectively, and this one, knowing his time was short after getting Foster, killed an entire shipload to complete his original mission.

  “Courageous. To accomplish his mission, he had to kill himself too.”

  Silence again and the sweat-box was cold.

  “Complete your story, Loytenant.”

  * * * *

  There isn’t much more, Sire, and what there is doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to those five junior officers. Single-handed in their own departments, they still managed to bring the Holoman back to an orbit about Satellite Base. Thanks to them, the cruiser can be salvaged intact.

  But our mission was not completed. The aliens still have their sneak base. And we’ll never know what Foster knew.

  * * * *

  Croyden stopped and waited. The Supreme Co-ordinator glanced at his staff, then said, “Thank you, Loytenant, a most excellent report. Now, if you will excuse us—

  The vision-shield slid between them.

  Croyden stared at it, wishing that he could know what was being decided behind that blankness.

  * * * *

  The Supreme Co-ordinator relaxed his official personality enough to allow himself to study his staff openly.

  His AG was writing carefully-numbered notes.

  Gludo, after staring through the vision-shield, turned to say, “Described himself well, didn’t he?”

  Fanzn, the thickset Chief of Galactic Operations, nodded agreement while scribing for another drink.

  “I find it incredible.” Admiral Persal was committed to caution by the very nature of his work, regulating the flow of supplies through an armed Galaxy.

  “You can be sure to within two per cent of probability,” the AG stated.

  Persal continued to stare through the screen. “He’s the first live one I’ve ever seen and I haven’t seen too many dead ones, either. Where and when did you find time to run that series of tests that make you so sure?”

  “When they orbited about Satellite Base,” Fanzn said. “Five are too few to berth a cruiser safely, too few and they were too tired. The relief ship ordered them to put the Holoman on drone-control and themselves into the rough-landing hammocks, under drugs.

  “They know the dangers of drone-landings better than we can remember and—you should hear the recordings of their conversation with Base—they were all totally exhausted. Especially Croyden. Despite what he told us, he could and did double in brass with the rest of them.

  “So they were even more than drug-asleep when our Base Gyro boarded the landed craft.”

  “Who ordered the inspection?” Gludo asked.

  “Who would have to order it?” AG asked. “You know our psych-mech is like the rest of his breed: he lives only to satisfy his curiosity. Naturally he wanted to examine them to see what traces their experiences had left and they were in the ideal condition for it. With equal naturalness, he chose the other gyro for the first examination. Laying hi
s background, he started with the University. Neuronic gaps showed. He gave them all an extra drugging to make sure they would stay asleep and ran the full series on Croyden.”

  “The University!” Persal, in tones of shocked disbelief.

  “Yes.” The AG suddenly seemed a much older man. “And remember what Foster said about the University.”

  “Gentlemen.” The one word was sufficient, His Supremacy had their attention.

  “I summoned you from your urgent duties because this was an opportunity not to be missed. By considering what to do with the specific case of the alien in the other half of this room, we can better come to grips with the general problem of the doppelganger menace.”