The Planet Killers

  “Yes. To save Earth the agony and destruction involved in acting in hot blood when Lurion springs its war on us.”

  “But are you God? Once you take this power on yourself, to destroy whole worlds, where does it stop? Suppose you decide that Argonav is evil next, and then Simulor, and then Hannim? Do you go around blasting one planet after another, in the name of saving Earth and civilization?”

  “Look at it from the viewpoint of the computed data. Lurion is rotten through and through. Eventually some of that rottenness is going to flare up into a galactic war. Fifty billion people may die— fifty billion, not just three billion. The economies of hundreds of worlds may be disrupted. A dozen future generations will have their birthrights mortgaged to pay for the havoc Lurion will cause. And, the computer says, the probability is extremely high that Earth herself will be destroyed in a surprise attack, as the opening salvo in the war. To avoid all this, I was sent here … to destroy Lurion.”

  “But I would have died too!” Lori exclaimed, realizing the fact all at once.

  Gardner nodded. “That’s why I’ve been trying to keep away from you. It was a mistake for me ever to get entangled with you. You couldn’t have been saved if the project had gone off as scheduled.”

  “But now there’ll be a delay, you say, because this man Archer is dead. You’ll have to send for a replacement, and by the time he gets here my ship will have left. But then Lurion will be destroyed when that fifth man gets here.”

  “I have another man going, breaking down under the strain. He’s been here too long, you see. So I would have to replace him . More delay. And by the time the replacements finally did get here, most likely it would be my turn to have a breakdown, and then …” Gardner clenched his fists. “But all this doesn’t matter. There isn’t going to be any project. Lurion won’t be destroyed.”

  “Lurion won’t—”

  “At least, not by me.” Gardner smiled, feeling the strength of his decision now. “The computer has made some big mistakes already. It let Archer get past, and Archer was a traitor. It approved me, even though I wasn’t really the right kind of person to act as executioner. It bungled the whole first batch it sent out. I can’t trust the computer’s judgments any more. Certainly I can’t give the order to destroy a world on the basis of them.”

  “But, what are you going to do, Roy?”

  “I’m not sure. But I’ve found a group, an underground organization of Lurioni, who are working to change the ways of society here. I’m seeing some of them tonight, to find out just what their program is. Then I’ve got to return to Earth, I’ve got to find out whether the existence of that group was known, whether it was fed into the computer with the original data on Lurion.”

  “What difference will that make?”

  Gardner leaned forward anxiously, “If the group didn’t get computed in, it meant that the extrapolation of Lurion’s future is faulty. I’ll demand a new computation before any drastic steps are taken. On the other hand, if the computer did know about these people, and extrapolated that they would have no effect on the general trend …” Gardner shrugged. “In that case, I guess Lurion will have to die.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Steeves’ house was a tall old building, one of a group of identical tall, narrow buildings that bordered a tiny grassy square in a quiet part of the city. Steeves lived on the top floor. Lori and Gardner rode up in a creaking lift-shaft.

  They were slightly early, but the two Lurioni, Kinrad and Damiroj, had already arrived. They rose politely as Gardner and Lori entered.

  “Miss Lori Marks,” Gardner said. “An anthropologist from Terra. A very close friend of mine.”

  “Pleased,” Kinrad said.

  “A pleasure,” said Damiroj.

  Their manners, thought Gardner, were very refined. He was willing to bet that these two had been off Lurion, had picked up their cultured ways on some more genteel world.

  There was a frosty little moment of uncertainty. The two Lurioni, doubtless remembering the peculiar behavior of Gardner at their last meeting, were slow to begin a conversation. Steeves broke up the rigidity by offering drinks; he served, instead of the ubiquitous khall , a sort of local brandy that Gardner found interesting. The apartment was small but well furnished, with objects from a number of worlds arranged tastefully. Steeves had prospered in his twenty years on Lurion, no doubt of that.

  Gardner smiled disarmingly and said, “I guess I ought to begin with apologies for my queer behavior the last time we met.”

  They tried to shrug the incident off, but Gardner insisted. “I was very upset, that day. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’ll have to ask you to forgive me, and to forget all that took place.”

  Steeves said, “Then you really are interested in our group, Gardner?”

  “Yes. But I’ve got to have more information. And there’s some information I’d better give you. It’s time to drop some of the masks. I’m not really a jewel merchant. I’m a secret agent of the Terran Security Corps.”

  The Lurioni looked startled. Steeves reared back and exclaimed, “What?”

  “Yes. Lurion is under very close observation by Earth, and I’m one of the observers. You understand that this is absolutely secret, not to go beyond this room.”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well, then. Let’s put it that Earth is extremely disturbed by the probable course of events on Lurion. Bluntly, Earth thinks the pattern is pointing toward war. But we hope to avoid this war by sponsoring groups such as yours that can alter the course of events on Lurion. Have I begun to make myself clear?”

  Kinrad, Damiroj, and Steeves looked utterly floored by Gardner’s announcement. Steeves muttered, “We had no idea. I thought you were a private merchant.”

  “Has anyone of an official capacity ever approached you as I’m doing now? Anyone from Earth, I mean.”

  “No.” Steeves said. “We’ve only mentioned the matter to a couple of other Earthmen, close friends of mine. You were the first outsider I chose.”

  “A lucky choice,” Kinrad said.

  Gardner nodded. His hopes rose. If this group were really unknown, then it couldn’t have been taken into account when the computer had worked up its Lurioni extrapolation. Which meant there might still be a chance to avert the holocaust of total destruction.

  Gardner said, “I’ll be returning to Earth soon, reporting to my superiors. Can you give me some idea of your program of action? How big is your group anyway?”

  “We have five hundred members on three continents,” Damiroj said. “The number is growing, slowly but constantly.”

  “And just what are your aims?”

  It was Kinrad, the more articulate of the two, who leaned forward to speak. “Lurion is in, shall we say, a primitive stage of culture, speaking not technologically but in term of interpersonal relationships. Our plan is to infiltrate positions of responsibility here, and gradually to bring about change.”

  “We have several men in local legislatures,” Damiroj said. “Others have received judgeships. Soon we shall elect delegates to the central congress. Perhaps before long we will have a few men on the High Committee.”

  “Several religious leaders have joined us,” Kinrad went on. “As we progress, we hope to gather support from influential men of business. Enlightenment is spreading. Perhaps it will take us two or three generations before our influence is felt. But it will be felt if we have support! And Lurion will change! We will break up the power blocs, the hate-mongering ones who lead us. We will reduce the competition of everyday life, the competition that turns us into beasts. We will bring the long-overdue cultural change that will transform this world!”

  Eyes bright with the fervor of crusaders, Kinrad and Damiroj paused in their outburst. Gardner felt his own heart pounding. This was what could save Lurion, this upsurge from within, so unsuspected by the computer who had ordered this planet’s destruction!

  This time Gardner did not rush out abruptly, as he had befor
e. But he knew that he could leave at once. He had heard what he had hoped to hear.

  He stayed on for an hour more, listening to the grandiose plans unfolding. Finally, when the time came to leave, he assured the two Lurioni that he would do everything in his power to aid their cause, and thanked Steeves profusely for having arranged the meeting.

  “You’ll never know what you’ve done.” Gardner said.

  And indeed Steeves would not. But he had saved one world from destruction and another from a monstrous load of guilt if, Gardner thought, he could succeed in getting Security to order a recomputation of the probabilities. That might not prove so easy.

  “Well?” Lori asked, outside in the square. “What do you think of them?”

  “They’ve got a lot of enthusiasm, Lori. They know what needs to be done, and they’re going to do their damndest to do it.”

  “Do you think they’ll succeed?”

  Gardner shrugged. “The culture pattern of Lurion is thousands of years old. You can’t eradicate that much viciousness overnight. But the important thing is that someone will be trying to do it.”

  He hailed a cab. Lori said, “What are you going to do now?”

  He shrugged. “Return to Earth and put the case before my superiors.”

  “Will you go alone?”

  “I’ll take Smee,” he said. “He’ll never hold out here. No sense having him wait any longer. And …”

  “Yes?”

  “What about you, Lori? Will you go back to Earth with me? Or do you want to stay out of this whole thing? You’ve got your research to finish.”

  “It can wait.”

  “I might get in trouble on Earth. They might put me away for safekeeping. I know too much. So do you. It’s risky to go with me.”

  “I’ll go.”

  “And afterward?”

  She gestured ambiguously. “I might finish my thesis. Or I might not. Let’s not worry about that now.”

  In the morning, he put through a call to Smee. The conversation was brief; Gardner said that he had received word from Earth to hold the project up indefinitely, pending new considerations. “I’m going back to Earth at once. I thought you might like to come with me. It may be months before the go-ahead comes through.”

  “What will you do with Weegan and Leopold?”

  “They’ll stay here,” Gardner said. “They can wait a while. I know you can’t.”

  “When will you pick me up?”

  “Later today. I’ll land at Norivad Spaceport and have you paged.”

  Gardner called Weegan and Leopold next, and informed them of the change in plans. They were both surprised and more than a little troubled by the prospect of a delay, but they agreed to stay on.

  Packing was quick. Gardner unsealed the closet and took out Archer’s generator. It had been modified somewhat, to the form of a twin-turreted microscope. He stuffed it into his own luggage, sealed everything up, and went down to Lori’s room to see how she was progressing. Shortly after noon, they checked out of the hotel and took a cab to the spaceport.

  There was a brief delay while he identified himself, passed through Customs, and claimed his ship. Thankfully, his papers were all in order, though it took a small bribe to squeeze through the Customs shed without a full-scale inspection.

  He and Lori trooped out onto the field. He found his ship, thumbed open the hatch, and they entered. He radioed the control tower, got blastoff clearance, pressed down on the blasting key. The ship rose, bobbed for a moment on its jetstream, and soared into the stratosphere. Gardner navigated along a tight arc, never more than two hundred miles from the ground, as he shot along toward Norivad, the city where Smee was stationed.

  “Request landing clearance,” he called, giving his identification data.

  The spaceport at Norivad was very much like the one Gardner had left behind. He brought the ship down smoothly on an outjutting flange of the spacefield and asked the control tower to page his passenger for him. Ten minutes later Smee appeared, riding out from the terminal in a small truck. A porter unloaded his two pieces of baggage. Smee came aboard, looking like an old man, bent, roundshouldered, his face withered, his eyes dreary.

  “I don’t understand,” Smee muttered, as he settled down inside the ship. “They let me rot here for seven months, and then they call the whole thing off. As if I was a robot. As if I didn’t have feelings.”

  Gardner did not look. Smee was shattered, crushed under the toll of his assignment. And the shattering had been for nothing … maybe .

  “Why did they change their minds?” Smee asked.

  “Some new information came to light. Information that made Lurion out to be a better place than it looks on first glance.”

  “Lurion is hell,” Smee said thickly. “It should be destroyed.”

  “So the computer says. But there’s new data to be considered. We can’t go blowing up worlds that might be salvaged.”

  But Smee had lived with the thought of destruction for too long. It had seared channels into his brain. Now he could only shake his head and repeat, “It should be destroyed.”

  Gardner felt a surge of pity, and he did not dare tell the other man that it was on his account that the project had been postponed. Smee would have only asked why the planet had not been blown up first, with the recomputation to come later. Gardner wondered whether the efficient medicos of Security would be able to repair this empty hulk of a man who had been sacrificed for nothing.

  He concentrated on his piloting. Some hours later, the tiny vessel hung three quarters of a billion miles from Betelgeuse and three hundred million miles from Lurion. It was the conversion-point. Gardner jabbed down hard on the controls and the ship flicked out of normal space and into warp.

  He wondered what kind of reception would be waiting for him on Earth.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gardner stood at the entrance to the concentric series of offices that led inward to Security Chief Karnes’ office. He felt uncertain and tired. It was only hours since he had landed on Earth; Lori had gone to a hotel, Smee to the Security medical department. Gardner had not warned anyone of his return.

  He was not in uniform, and he was conscious of his shabby, travelworn appearance as he presented himself at the front reception desk. The clerk, a recruit Security man, glanced up suspiciously.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to see Chief Karnes.”

  “The Chief is in conference, sir. Do you have an appointment? I could ring him if—”

  “No, I don’t have an appointment,” Gardner said wearily. “But he’ll see me if you tell him who I am. Ring him up and tell him Agent Gardner is here to see him and make a report.”

  The receptionist frowned quizzically. “Very well. He’ll be free to take calls in half an hour. If you don’t mind waiting …”

  “I do mind waiting,” Gardner said icily. “Call him now.”

  “But—”

  “Call him, you ninny, and don’t sit there yammering nonsense at me!” Gardner snapped.

  Cowed, the receptionist shrank back into his cubicle and began plugging in phone-jacks. Gardner heard him talking to one clerk after another; Karnes was not an easy man to approach without an appointment. But at last he heard the receptionist say, “Agent Gardner is out here. He says he has a report to make.”

  Karnes’ reply was loud and anguished enough for Gardner to hear it clearly. The receptionist poked his neck out and said, “Excuse me, but is that Agent Roy Gardner? ”

  “Yes, it is. Just back from Lurion.”

  The receptionist relayed the information to Karnes. A moment later the youngster looked up dazedly at Gardner and said, “The Chief will see you immediately, Agent Gardner.”

  The double doors opened and Gardner strode through. He knew his way; he had only been in Karnes’ office a handful of times, but the way to the Chief’s office was something no Security man ever forgot.

  He came finally to the end of the long series of interlocking hal
lways and made the sharp left turn that put him in the vestibule of Karnes’ office. The scanning field bathed him for an instant; then the door rolled quickly back.

  Karnes was standing at his desk when Gardner walked in: the first time in Gardner’s memory, and perhaps in all of recorded history, that Karnes had not been seated when a subordinate entered the room. Karnes’ thin face was frozen in an expression of shock and perplexity. His fleshless lips moved for a moment impotently before the Security Chief was able to get out the words:

  “What the deuce are you doing here?”

  “Reporting back to request a recomputation, sir,” Gardner said evenly.

  Karnes sank limply into his chair and fixed hard, narrow eyes on Gardner. “Without orders? Without asking permission? Gardner, have you gone insane? What about the project?”

  “Perhaps the project is better canceled, sir. I couldn’t give the order to proceed. There’s some additional information about Lurion that has to be figured into the computation before we can act.”

  “This is incredible, Gardner,” Karnes said darkly. “You stand there to tell me that you abandoned your post and returned to Earth merely to let me know that you don’t think the computer was right? I—”

  Gardner recklessly interrupted him. “Sir, I’ve been in the Corps long enough to know the consequences of what I’ve done. But I had to. The computer is wrong!”

  “The computer spent three years formulating its decision, Gardner! We scoured Lurion for data, fed every relevant fact we could find into the programming.”

  Gardner’s jaws clenched. “The computer was capable of sending out a traitor to take part in the project, though. It’s far from infallible.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Your man Damon Archer. He showed up at my hotel with a hidden recorder and took down a full discussion of the project. Then he bolted. Luckily, he was stopped. But he was planning to sell that tape to the Confederacy of Rim Stars. Doesn’t speak well for the computer, does it, to pick such a man?”

  Karnes’ face clouded even more. “Archer was screened as thoroughly as anybody we’ve ever selected for an assignment.”