Vulcan's Hammer

  Larson, with no change of expression, said in a firm voice, “This particular form was sent in by a Director. That’s why I feel—”

  “Give it to me, then,” Jason Dill said, accepting it.

  The form was from the North American Director, William Barris. Jason Dill had met the man any number of times; in his mind he retained an impression of a somewhat tall individual, with a high forehead . . . in his middle thirties, as Dill recalled. A hard worker. The man had not gotten up to the level of Director in the usual manner—by means of personal social contacts, by knowing the right persons—but by constant accurate and valuable work.

  “This is interesting,” Jason Dill said aloud to Larson; he put the form aside for a moment. “We ought to be sure we’re publicizing this particular Director. Of course, he probably does a full public-relations job in his own district; we shouldn’t worry.”

  Larson said, “I understand he made it up the hard way. His parents weren’t anybody.”

  “We can show,” Jason Dill said, “that the ordinary individual, with no pull, knowing no one in the organization, can come in and take a regular low-grade job, such as clerk or even maintenance man, and in time, if he’s got the ability and drive, he can rise all the way up to the top. In fact, he might get to be Managing Director.” Not, he thought to himself wryly, that it was such a wonderful job to have.

  “He won’t be Managing Director for a while,” Larson said, in a tone of certitude.

  “Hell,” Jason Dill said wearily. “He can have my job right now, if that’s what he’s after. I presume he is.” Lifting the form he glanced at it. The form asked two questions.

  ARE THE HEALERS OF REAL SIGNIFICANCE?

  WHY DON’T YOU RESPOND TO THEIR EXISTENCE?

  Holding the form in his hands, Jason Dill thought, One of the eternal bright young men, climbing rapidly up the Unity ladder. Barris, Taubmann, Reynolds, Henderson—they were all making their way confidently, efficiently, never missing a trick, never failing to exploit the slightest wedge. Give them an opportunity, he thought with bitterness, and they’ll knock you flat; they’ll walk right on over you and leave you there.

  “Dog eat dog,” he said aloud.

  “Sir?” Larson said at once.

  Jason Dill put down the form. He opened a drawer of his desk and got out a flat metal tin; from it he took a capsule which he placed against his wrist. At once the capsule dissolved through the dermal layers; he felt it go into his body, passing into his blood stream to begin work without delay. A tranquilizer . . . one of the newest ones in the long, long series.

  It works on me, he thought, and they work on me; it in one direction, their constant pressure and harassment in the other.

  Again Jason Dill picked up the form from Director Barris. “Are there many DQ’s like this?”

  “No, sir, but there is a general increase in tension. Several Directors besides Barris are wondering why Vulcan 3 gives no pronouncement on the Healers’ Movement.”

  “They’re all wondering,” Jason Dill said brusquely.

  “I mean,” Larson said, “formally. Through official channels.”

  “Let me see the rest of the material.”

  Larson passed him the remaining DQ forms. “And here’s the related matter from the data troughs.” He passed over a huge sealed container. “We’ve weeded all the incoming material carefully.”

  After a time Jason Dill said, “I’d like the file on Barris.”

  “The documented file?”

  Jason Dill said, “And the other one. The unsub-pak.” Into his mind came the full term, not usually said outright. Unsubstantiated. “The worthless packet,” he said. The phony charges, the trumped-up smears and lies and vicious poison-pen letters, mailed to Unity without signature. Unsigned, sometimes in the garbled prose of the psychotic, the lunatic with a grudge. And yet those papers were kept, were filed away. We shouldn’t keep them, Jason Dill thought. Or make use of them, even to the extent of examining them. But we do. Right now he was going to look at such filth as it pertained to William Barris. The accumulation of years.

  Presently the two files were placed before him on his desk. He inserted the microfilm into the scanner, and, for a time, studied the documented file. A procession of dull facts moved by; Barris had been born in Kent, Ohio; he had no brothers or sisters; his father was alive and employed by a bank in Chile; he had gone to work for Unity as a research analyst. Jason Dill speeded up the film, skipping about irritably. At last he rewound the microfilm and replaced it in the file. The man wasn’t even married, he reflected; he led a routine life, one of virtue and work, if the documents could be believed. If they told the full story.

  And now, Jason Dill thought, the slander. The missing parts; the other side, the dark shadow side.

  To his disappointment, he found the unsub-pak on William Barris almost empty.

  Is the man that innocent? Dill wondered. That he’s made no enemies? Nonsense. The absence of accusation isn’t a sign of the man’s innocence; to rise to Director is to incur hostility and envy. Barris probably devotes a good part of his budget to distributing the wealth, to keeping everybody happy. And quiet.

  “Nothing here,” he said when Larson returned.

  “I noticed how light the file felt,” Larson said. “Sir, I went down to the data rooms and had them process all the recent material; I thought it possible there might be something not yet in the file.” He added, “As you probably know, they’re several weeks behind.”

  Seeing the paper in the man’s hand, Jason Dill felt his pulse speed up in anticipation. “What came in?”

  “This.” Larson put down a sheet of what appeared to be expensive watermarked stationery. “I also took the measure, when I saw this, of having it analyzed and traced. So you’d know how to assess its worth.”

  “Unsigned,” Dill said.

  “Yes, sir. Our analysts say that it was mailed last night, somewhere in Africa. Probably in Cairo.”

  Studying the letter, Jason Dill murmured, “Here’s someone who Barris didn’t manage to get to. At least not in time.”

  Larson said, “It’s a woman’s writing. Done with an ancient style of ball-point pen. They’re trying to trace the make of pen. What you have there is actually a copy of the letter; they’re still examining the actual document down in the labs. But for your purposes—”

  “What are my purposes?” Dill said, half to himself. The letter was interesting, but not unique; he had seen such accusations made toward other officials in the Unity organization.

  To whom it may concern:

  This is to notify you that William Barris, who is a Director, cannot be trusted, as he is in the pay of the Healers and has been for some time. A death that occurred recently can be laid at Mr. Barris’ door, and he should be punished for his crime of seeing to it that an innocent and talented Unity servant was viciously murdered.

  “Notice that the writing slopes down,” Larson said. “That’s supposed to be an indication that the writer is mentally disturbed.”

  “Superstition,” Dill said. “I wonder if this is referring to the murder of that fieldworker, Pitt. That’s the most recent. What connection does Barris have with that? Was he Pitt’s Director? Did he send him out?”

  “I’ll get all the facts for you, sir?” Larson said briskly.

  After he had reread the unsigned letter, Jason Dill tossed it aside and again picked up the DQ form from Director Barris. With his pen he scratched a few lines on the bottom of the form. “Return this to him toward the end of the week. He failed to fill in his identification numbers; I’m returning it to be corrected.”

  Larson frowned. “That won’t delay him much. Barris will immediately return the form correctly prepared.”

  Wearily, Jason Dill said, “That’s my problem. You let me worry about it. Tend to your own business and you’ll last a lot longer in this organization. That’s a lesson you should have learned a long time ago.”

  Flushing, Larson muttered, “I’
m sorry, sir.”

  “I think we should start a discreet investigation of Director Barris,” Dill said. “Better send in one of the police secretaries; I’ll dictate instructions.”

  While Larson rounded up the police secretary, Jason Dill sat gazing dully at the unsigned letter that accused Director Barris of being in the pay of the Healers. It would be interesting to know who wrote this, he thought to himself. Maybe we will know, someday soon.

  In any case, there will be an investigation—of William Barris.

  After the evening meal, Mrs. Agnes Parker sat in the school restaurant with two other teachers, exchanging gossip and relaxing after the long, tense day.

  Leaning over so that no one passing by could hear, Miss Crowley whispered to Mrs. Parker, “Aren’t you finished with that book, yet? If I had known it would take you so long, I wouldn’t have agreed to let you read it first.” Her plump, florid face trembled with indignation. “We really deserve our turn.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Dawes said, also leaning to join them. “I wish you’d go get it right now. Please let us have it, won’t you?”

  They argued, and at last Mrs. Parker reluctantly rose to her feet and moved away from the table, toward the stairway. It was a long walk up the stairs and along the hall to the wing of the building in which she had her own room, and once in the room she had to spend some time digging the book from its hiding place. The book, an ancient literary classic called Lolita, had been on the banned list for years; there was a heavy fine for anyone caught possessing it—and, for a teacher, it might mean a jail term. However, most of the teachers read and circulated such stimulating books back and forth among them, and so far no one had been caught.

  Grumbling because she had not been able to finish the book, Mrs. Parker placed it inside a copy of World Today and carried it from her room, out into the hall. No one was in sight, so she continued on toward the stairway.

  As she was descending she recalled that she had a job to do, a job that had to be done before morning; the little Fields girl’s quarters had not been emptied, as was required by school law. A new pupil would be arriving in a day or so and would occupy the room; it was essential that someone in authority go over every inch of the room to be certain that no subversive or illicit articles belonging to the Fields girl remained to contaminate the new child. Considering the Fields girl’s background, this rule was particularly important. As she left the stairway and hurried along a corridor, Mrs. Parker felt her heart skip several beats. She might get into a good deal of trouble by being forgetful in this area . . . they might think she wanted the new child contaminated.

  The door to Marion Fields’ old room was locked. How could that be? Mrs. Parker asked herself. The children weren’t permitted keys; they could not lock any doors anywhere. It had to be one of the staff. Of course she herself had a key, but she hadn’t had time to come down here since Managing Director Dill had taken custody of the child.

  As she groped in her pocket for her master key, she heard a sound on the other side of the door. Someone was in the room.

  “Who’s in there?” she demanded, feeling frightened. If there was an unauthorized person in the room, she would get in trouble; it was her responsibility to maintain this dorm. Bringing her key out, she took a quick breath and then put the key into the lock. Maybe it’s someone from the Unity offices checking up on me, she thought. Seeing what I let the Fields girl have in the way of possessions. The door opened and she switched on the light.

  At first she saw no one. The bed, the curtains, the small desk in the corner . . . the chest of drawers!

  On the chest of drawers something was perched. Something that gleamed, shiny metal, gleamed and clicked as it turned toward her. She saw into two glassy mechanical lenses, something with a tubelike body, the size of a child’s bat, shot upward and swept toward her.

  She raised her arms. Stop, she said to herself. She did not hear her voice; all she heard was a whistling noise in her ears, a deafening blast of sound that became a squeal. Stop! she wanted to scream, but she could not speak. She felt as if she were rising; now she had become weightless, floating. The room drifted into darkness. It fell away from her, farther and farther. No motion, no sound . . . just a single spark of light that flickered, hesitated, and then winked out.

  Oh dear, she thought. I’m going to get into trouble. Even her thoughts seemed to drift away; she could not maintain them. I’ve done something wrong. This will cost me my job.

  She drifted on and on.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The buzzing of his bedside vidscreen woke Jason Dill from his deep, tranquilizer-induced sleep. Reaching, he reflexively snapped the line open, noticing as he did so that the call was on the private circuit. What is it now? he wondered, aware of a pervasive headache that he had been struggling with throughout hours of sleep. The time was late, he realized. At least four-thirty.

  On the vidscreen an unfamiliar face appeared. He saw, briefly, a displayed identification-standard. The medical wing.

  “Managing Director Dill,” he muttered. “What do you want? Better check next time with the monitor; it’s late at night here, even if it’s noon where you are.”

  The medical person said, “Sir, I was advised by members of your staff to notify you at once.” He glanced at a card. “A Mrs. Agnes Parker, a schoolteacher.”

  “Yes,” Dill said, nodding.

  “She was found by another teacher. Her spinal column had been damaged at several points and she died at 1:30 A.M. First examination indicated that the injuries were done deliberately. There’s indication that some variety of heat plasma was induced. The spinal fluid evidently was boiled away by—”

  “All right,” Dill said. “Thanks for notifying me; you did absolutely right.” Stabbing at a button he broke the connection and then asked the monitor for a direct line with Unity Police.

  A placid, fleshy face appeared.

  Dill said, “Have all the men guarding the Fields girl removed and a new crew, picked absolutely at random, put in at once. Have the present crew detained until they can be fully cleared.” He considered. “Do you have the information regarding Agnes Parker?”

  “It came in an hour or two ago,” the police official said.

  “Damn it,” Dill said. Too much time had passed. They could work a lot of harm in that time. They?

  The enemy.

  “Any word on Father Fields?” he asked. “I take it for granted you haven’t managed to round him up yet.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the police official said.

  “Let me know what you find on the Parker woman,” Dill said. “Go over her file, naturally. I’ll leave it to you; it’s your business. It’s the Fields girl I’m concerned about. Don’t let anything happen to her. Maybe you should check right now and see if she’s all right; notify me at once, either way.” He rang off then and sat back.

  Were they trying to find out who took the Fields girl? he asked himself. And where? That was no secret; she was loaded into my car in broad daylight, in front of a playground of children.

  They’re getting closer, he said to himself. They got Vulcan 2 and they got that foolish, sycophantic schoolteacher whose idea of taking care of her children was to gladly sign them over to the first high official who came along. They can infiltrate our innermost buildings. They evidently know exactly what we’re doing. If they can get into the schools, where we train the youth to believe . . .

  For an hour or two he sat in the kitchen of his home, warming himself and smoking cigarettes. At last he saw the black night sky begin to turn gray.

  Returning to the vidscreen he called Larson. The man, disheveled by sleep, peered at him grumpily until he recognized his superior; then at once he became businesslike and polite. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “I’m going to need you for a special run of questions to Vulcan 3,” Jason Dill said. “We’re going to have to prepare them with utmost care. And there will be difficult work regarding the data-feeding.” He intended to go on, bu
t Larson interrupted him.

  “You’ll be pleased to know that we have a line on the person who sent the unsigned letter accusing Director Barris,” Larson said. “We followed up the lead about the ‘talented murdered man.’ We worked on the assumption that Arthur Pitt was meant, and we discovered that Pitt’s wife lives in North Africa—in fact, she’s in Cairo on shopping trips several times a week. There’s such a high degree of probability that she wrote the letter that we’re preparing an order to the police in that region to have her picked up. That’s Blucher’s region, and we’d better put it through his men so there won’t be any hard feelings. I just want to get a clearance from you, so I won’t have to assume the responsibility. You understand, sir. She may not have done it.”

  “Pick her up,” Dill said, only half listening to the younger man’s torrent of words.

  “Right, sir,” Larson said briskly. “And we’ll let you know what we can get from her. It’ll be interesting to see what her motive is for accusing Barris—assuming of course that it was she. My theory is that she may well be working for some other Director who—”

  Dill broke the connection. And went wearily back to bed.

  Toward the end of the week, Director William Barris received his DQ form back. Scrawled across the bottom was the notation: “Improperly filled out. Please correct and refile.”

  Furiously, Barris threw the form down on his desk and leaped to his feet. He snapped on the vidsender. “Give me Unity Control at Geneva.”

  The Geneva monitor formed. “Yes, sir?”

  Barris held up the DQ form. “Who returned this? Whose writing is this? The feed-team leader?”

  “No, sir.” The monitor made a brief check. “It was Managing Director Dill who handled your form, sir.”

  Dill! Barris felt himself stiffen with indignation. “I want to talk to Dill at once.”

  “Mr. Dill is in conference. He can’t be disturbed.”

  Barris killed the screen with a savage swipe. For a moment he stood thinking. There was no doubt of it; Jason Dill was stalling. I can’t go on like this any further, Barris thought. I’ll never get any answers out of Geneva this way. What is Dill up to, for God’s sake?