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CITADEL
BY ALGIS BUDRYS
Illustrated by van Dongen
_He was looking for a privacy his strange personality needed. And--never quite seemed to achieve it. All his efforts were, somehow--great triumphs of the race, and great failures for him!_
I.
The aging man was sweating profusely, and he darted sidelong glances atthe windowless walls of the outer office. By turns, he sat stiffly in acorner chair or paced uneasily, his head swiveling constantly.
His hand was clammy when Mead shook it.
"Hello, Mr. Mead," he said in a husky, hesitant voice, his eyes neverquite still, never long on Mead's face, but darting hither and yon, hisglance rebounding at every turn from the walls, the floor, the ceiling,the closed outer door.
Christopher Mead, Assistant Undersecretary for External Affairs,returned the handshake, smiling. "Please come into my office," he saidquickly. "It's much more spacious."
"Thank you," the aging man said gratefully and hurried into the nextroom. Mead rapidly opened the windows, and some of the man's nervousnessleft him. He sank down into the visitor's chair in front of Mead's desk,his eyes drinking in the distances beyond the windows. "Thank you," herepeated.
Mead sat down behind the desk, leaned back, and waited for the man'sbreathing to slow. Finally he said, "It's good to see you again, Mr.Holliday. What can I do for you?"
Martin Holliday tore his glance away from the window long enough toraise his eyes to Mead's face and then drop them to the hands he hadfolded too deliberately in his lap.
"I'd--" His voice husked into unintelligibility, and he had to beginagain. "I'd like to take an option on a new planet," he finally said.
Mead nodded. "I don't see why not." He gestured expressively at the starchart papered over one wall of his office. "We've certainly got plentyof them. But what happened with your first one?"
"It d-d-duh--"
"Mr. Holliday, I certainly won't be offended if you'd prefer to look outthe window," Mead said quickly.
"Thank you." After a moment, he began again. "It didn't work out," hesaid, his glance flickering back to Mead for an instant before he had tolook out the window again.
"I don't know where my figuring went wrong. It _didn't_ go wrong. It wasjust ... just _things_. I thought I could sell enough subdivisions tocover the payments and still keep most of it for myself, but it didn'twork out."
He looked quickly at Mead with a flash of groundless guilt in his eyes."First I had to sell more than I'd intended, because I had to lower theoriginal price. Somebody'd optioned another planet in the same system,and I hadn't counted on the competition. Then, even after I'd coveredthe option and posted surety on the payments, there were all kinds ofexpenses. Then I couldn't lease the mineral rights--" He looked at Meadagain, as though he had to justify himself. "I don't know how that dealfell through. The company just ... just _withdrew_, all of a sudden."
"Do you think there might have been anything peculiar about that?" Meadasked. "I mean--could the company have made a deal with the colonistsfor a lower price after you'd been forced out?"
Holliday shook his head quickly. "Oh, no--nothing like that. Thecolonists and I got along fine. It wasn't as though I hadn't put thebest land up for sale, or tried to make myself rich. Why, after I'd hadto sell some of the remaining land, and I knew it wasn't worth staying,any more, some of them offered to lend me enough money to keep fiftythousand square miles for myself." He smiled warmly, his eyes blankwhile he focused on memory.
"But that wasn't it, of course," he went on. "I had my originalinvestment back. But I couldn't tell them why I couldn't stay. It was_people_--even if I never saw them, it was the thought of people, withaircraft and rockets and roads--"
"I understand, Mr. Holliday," Mead said in an effort to spare himembarrassment.
Holliday looked at him helplessly. "I couldn't tell them that, could I,Mr. Mead? They were good, friendly people who wanted to help me. Icouldn't tell them it was people, could I?"
He wet his dry lips and locked his eyes on the view outside the window."All I want, Mr. Mead, is half a planet to myself," he said softly.
He shook his head. "Well, it'll work out this time. This time, I won'thave to sell so much, and I'll have a place to spend what time I've gotleft in peace, without this ... this--" He gestured helplessly in aneffort to convey his tortured consciousness of his own fear.
Mead nodded quickly as he saw his features knot convulsively. "Ofcourse, Mr. Holliday. We'll get you an option on a new planet as quicklyas we can."
"Thank you," Holliday said again. "Can we ... can we handle it today?I've had my credit transferred to a local bank."
"Certainly, Mr. Holliday. We won't keep you on Earth a moment longerthan absolutely necessary." He took a standard form out of a desk drawerand passed it to Holliday for his signature.
"I'll be smarter this time," the aging man said, trying to convincehimself, as he uncapped his pen. "This time, it'll work out."
"I'm sure it will, Mr. Holliday," Mead said.
II.
Marlowe was obese. He sat behind his desk like a tuskless sea lioncrouched behind a rock, and his cheeks merged into jowls and obliteratedhis neck. His desk was built specially, so that he could get his thighsunder it. His office chair was heavier and wider by far than anystandard size, its casters rolling on a special composition base thathad been laid down over the carpeting, for Marlowe's weight would havecut any ordinary rug to shreds. His jacket stretched like pliofilm toenclose the bulk of his stooped shoulders, and his eyes surveyed hisworld behind the battlemented heaviness of the puffing flesh that filledtheir sockets.
A bulb flickered on his interphone set, and Marlowe shot a glance at theswitch beneath it.
"Secretary, quite contrary," he muttered inaudibly. He flicked theswitch. "Yes, Mary?" His voice rumbled out of the flabby cavern of hischest.
"Mr. Mead has just filed a report on Martin Holliday, Mr. Secretary.Would you like to see it?"
"Just give me a summary, Mary."
Under his breath he whispered, "Summary that mummery, Mary," and a thinsmile fell about his lips while he listened. "Gave him Karlshaven IV,eh?" he observed when his secretary'd finished. "O.K. Thanks, Mary."
He switched off and sat thinking. Somewhere in the bowels of the BodyAdministrative, he knew, notations were being made and cross-filed. Theaddition of Karlshaven IV to the list of planets under colonizationwould be made, and Holliday's asking prices for land would be postedwith Emigration, together with a prospectus abstracted from the GeneralGalactic Survey.
He switched the interphone on again.
"Uh ... Mary? Supply me with a copy of the GenSurv on the entireKarlshaven system. Tell Mr. Mead I'll expect him in my office sometimethis afternoon--you schedule it--and we'll go into it further."
"Yes, Mr. Secretary. Will fifteen-fifteen be all right?"
"Fifteen-fifteen's fine, uh ... Mary," Marlowe said gently.
"Yes, sir," his secretary replied, abashed. "I keep forgetting aboutproper nomenclature."
"So do I, Mary, so do I," Marlowe sighed. "Anything come up that wasn'tscheduled for today?"
It was a routine question, born of futile hope. There was alwayssomething to spoil the carefully planned daily schedules.
"Yes and no, sir."
Marlowe cocked an eyebrow at the interphone.
"Well, that's a slight change, anyway. What is it?"
"There's a political science observer from Dovenil--that's Moore II onour maps, sir--who's requested permission to talk to you. He's here onthe usual exchange program, and he's within his privileges in asking, ofcourse. I assume it's the ordinary thing--what
's our foreign policy,how do you apply it, can you give specific instances, and the like."
Precisely, Marlowe thought. For ordinary questions there were standardanswers, and Mary had been his secretary for so long that she couldsupply them as well as he could.
Dovenil. Moore II, eh? Obviously, there was something special about thesituation, and Mary was leaving the decision to him. He scanned throughhis memorized star catalogues, trying to find the correlation.
"Mr. Secretary?"
Marlowe grunted. "Still here. Just thinking. Isn't Dovenil that nationwe just sent Harrison to?"
"Yes, sir. On the same exchange program."
Marlowe chuckled. "Well, if we've got _Harrison_ down there, it's onlyfair to let their fellow learn something in exchange, isn't it? What'shis name?"
"Dalish ud Klavan, sir."
Marlowe muttered to himself: "Dalish ud Klavan, Irish, corn beef andcabbage." His mind filed it away together with a primary-color pictureof Jiggs and Maggie.
"All right, Mary, I'll talk to him, if you can find room in the schedulesomewhere. Tell you what--let him in at fifteen-thirty. Mead and I canfurnish a working example for him. Does that check all right with yourbook?"
"Yes, sir. There'll be time if we carry over on the Ceroii incidents."
"Ceroii's waited six years, four months, and twenty-three days. They'llwait another day. Let's do that, then, uh ... Mary."
"Yes, sir."
Marlowe switched off and picked up a report which he began to read bythe page-block system, his eyes almost unblinking between pages."Harrison, eh?" he muttered once, stopping to look quizzically at hisdesktop. He chuckled.
III.
At fifteen-fifteen, the light on his interphone blinked twice, andMarlowe hastily initialed a directive with his right hand while touchingthe switch with his left.
"Yes, Mary?"
"Mr. Mead, sir."
"O.K." He switched off, pushed the directive into his OUT box, andpulled the GenSurv and the folder on Martin Holliday out of the HOLDtray. "Come in, Chris," he said as Mead knocked on the door.
"How are you today, Mr. Marlowe?" Mead asked as he sat down.
"Four ounces heavier," Marlowe answered dryly. "I presume you're not.Cigarette, Chris?"
Apparently, the use of the first name finally caught Mead's notice. Helooked thoughtful for a moment, then took a cigarette and lit it."Thanks--Dave."
"Well, I'm glad that's settled," Marlowe chuckled, his eyes almostdisappearing in crinkles of flesh. "How's Mary?"
Mead grinned crookedly. "_Miss Folsom_ is in fine fettle today, thankyou."
Marlowe rumbled a laugh. Mead had once made the mistake of addressingthe woman as "Mary," under the natural assumption that if Marlowe coulddo it, everyone could.
"Mary, I fear," Marlowe observed, "lives in more stately times thanthese. She'll tolerate informality from me because I'm in directauthority over her, and direct authority, of course, is Law. But you,Mead, are a young whipper-snapper."
"But that's totally unrealistic!" Mead protested. "I don't respect herless by using her first name ... it's just ... just friendliness, that'sall."
"Look," Marlowe said, "it makes sense, but it ain't logical--not on herterms. Mary Folsom was raised by a big, tough, tight-lippedauthoritarian of a father who believed in bringing kids up by the book.By the time she got tumbled out into the world, all big men wereunquestionable authority and all young men were callow whipper-snappers.Sure, she's unhappy about it, inside. But it makes her a perfectsecretary, for me, and she does her job well. We play by her rules onthe little things, and by the world's rules on the big ones. Kapish?"
"Sure, Dave, but--"
Marlowe picked up the folder on Holliday and gave Mead one weighty butunderstanding look before he opened it.
"Your trouble, Chris, is that your viewpoint is fundamentally sane," hesaid. "Now, about Holliday, Martin, options 062-26-8729, 063-108-1004. Ididn't get time to read the GenSurv on the Karlshaven planets, so I'llask you to brief me."
"Yes, sir."
"What's IV like?"
"Good, arable land. A little mountainous in spots, but that's good.Loaded with minerals--industrial stuff, like silver. Some tin, but notenough to depress the monetary standard. Lots of copper. Coal beds,petroleum basins, the works. Self-supporting practically from the start,a real asset to the Union in fifty-six years."
Marlowe nodded. "Good. Nice picking, Chris. Now--got a decoy?"
"Yes, sir. Karlshaven II's a False-E. I've got a dummy option on it inthe works, and we'll be able to undercut Holliday's prices for his landby about twenty per cent."
"False-E, huh? How long do you figure until the colony can't stick on itany longer?"
"A fair-sized one, with lots of financial backing, might even make itpermanently. But we won't be able to dig up that many loafers, and,naturally, we can't give them that big a subsidy. Eventually, we'll haveto ferry them all out--in about eight years, say. But that'll give ustime enough to break Holliday."
Marlowe nodded again. "Sounds good."
"Something else," Mead said. "II's mineral-poor. It's near to beingsolid metal. That's what makes it impossible to really live on, but Ifigure we can switch the mineral companies right onto it and off IV."
Marlowe grinned approvingly. "You been saving this one for Holliday?"
"Yes, sir," Mead said, nodding slowly. He looked hesitantly at Marlowe.
"What's up, Boy?"
"Well, sir--" Mead began, then stopped. "Nothing important, really."
Marlowe gave him a surprising look full of sadness and broodingunderstanding.
"You're thinking he's an old, frightened man, and why don't we leave himalone?"
"Why ... yes, sir."
"Dave."
"Yes, Dave."
"You're quite right. Why don't we?"
"We can't, sir. I know that. But it doesn't seem fair--"
"Exactly, Chris. It ain't right, but it's correct."
The light on Marlowe's interphone blinked once. Marlowe looked at it inmomentary surprise. Then his features cleared, and he muttered"Cabbage." He reached out toward the switch.
"We've got a visitor, Chris. Follow my lead." He reviewed hisinformation on Dovenilid titular systems while he touched the switch."Ask ud Klavan to come in, uh ... Mary."
IV.
Dalish ud Klavan was almost a twin for the pictured typical Dovenilid inMarlowe's library. Since the pictures were usually idealized, itfollowed that Klavan was an above-average specimen of his people. Hestood a full eight feet from fetters to crest, and had not yet begun tothicken his shoes in compensation for the stoop that marked advancingmiddle age for his race.
Marlowe, looking at him, smiled inwardly. No Dovenilid could be soobviously superior and still only a lowly student. Well, consideringHarrison's qualifications, it might still not be tit for tat.
Mead began to get to his feet, and Marlowe hastily planted a foot atophis nearest shoe. The assistant winced and twitched his lips, but atleast he stayed down.
"Dalish ud Klavan," the Dovenilid pronounced, in good English.
"David Marlowe, Secretary for External Affairs, Solar Union," Marlowereplied.
Ud Klavan looked expectantly at Mead.
"Christopher Mead, Assistant Undersecretary for External Affairs," theassistant said, orientating himself.
"If you would do us the honor of permitting us to stand--" Marlowe askedpolitely.
"On the contrary, Marlowe. If you would do me the honor of permitting meto sit, I should consider it a privilege."
"Please do so. Mr. Mead, if you would bring our visitor a chair--"
They lost themselves in formalities for a few minutes, Marlowe beingurbanely correct, Mead following after as best he could through the mazeof Dovenilid mores. Finally they were able to get down to the businessat hand, ud Klavan sitting with considerable comfort in the carefullydesigned chair which could be snapped into almost any shape, Marlowebulking behind his desk, Mead sitting somewhat nervou
sly beside him.
"Now, as I understand it, ud Klavan," Marlowe began, "you'd like tolearn something of our policies and methods."
"That is correct, Marlowe and Mead." The Dovenilid extracted a block ofopaque material from the flat wallet at his side and steadied it on hisknee. "I have your permission to take notes?"
"Please do. Now, as it happens, Mr. Mead and I are currently consideringa case which perfectly illustrates our policies."
Ud Klavan immediately traced a series of ideographs on the note block,and Marlowe wondered if he was actually going to take their conversationdown verbatim. He shrugged mentally. He'd have to ask him, at some laterdate, whether he'd missed anything. Undoubtedly, there'd be a sparerecording of the tape he himself was making.
"To begin: As you know, our government is founded upon principles