“That’s something,” murmured the Servant.
“Yes, but I don’t know where,” Reigner Two continued. “This sheet doesn’t say.” He rattled the sheet irritably. “I wish I’d thought to check before we set out. I’ve forgotten.”
“But this one – or more – is dealt with,” the Servant said. He seemed to be trying to console himself more than Reigner Two.
“No, they’re not!” Reigner Two cried out. “You don’t understand! If one of them’s near enough to be included in the bannus field, it would fetch him out of stass. I shudder to think what would happen then!”
“Oh dear,” murmured Reigner One. “My dear Two. That you should not have said.”
The Servant was shifting around on the settle. His usual relaxed composure seemed to have deserted him. He looked sick. At last, obviously determined to stop Reigner Two, he said, and it could be seen this took him some courage, “Sire, I am sure you should not be telling me things that are not even on the faxsheet.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Reigner Two said pettishly. “There are other things about the bannus that—”
“Don’t you think the work on these goblets is beautiful?” the Servant interrupted, as if he were desperate. His face shone with sweat and he was whiter than ever.
“Vulgar, I think,” said Reigner Two. “These outer sector heads use their position just to grab money, to my mind. As I was saying, the bannus—”
But, to the Servant’s evident huge relief, the Controller of Yurov came pelting back, fat quivering all over him and his face speckled with perspiration. “Phased!” he said. “We did it in record time! If you and your man would like to follow me, Excellency.”
The Servant unfolded from the settle like someone starting a race. Reigner Two dragged himself up after him, and the two disappeared into yet another portal.
When the image reappeared on the table, it was the sector office in Albion.
“What frightful décor!” said Reigner Three. “Dreadful provincial bad taste.”
“They’re out in the backwoods now,” said Five.
“And it shows!” said Four. “Steak and mustard.”
“I thought that was your favourite dish, Four,” murmured Reigner One.
The Albion office was lined in yellow shiny wood, crudely panelled, with insets of meaty pink or lime yellow. All the office furniture – and this place was more like an office than any of the others – was the same meat-pink and yellow. The effect was even more garish against the emerald green of the robes of the Associate Controller and his assistants, who were sweeping forward to meet the two travellers.
“How come he’s only the second one who’s had time to get into official dress?” Reigner Four wondered.
“Wears them all the time – probably sleeps in them,” Five said.
In fact, the green robes all looked smooth and freshly pressed. They flowed in graceful folds as the entire group bowed as one man. It looked rehearsed. “My name is Giraldus, Excellency,” the Associate Controller said to the Servant. “I have had to take this authority upon myself in view of the unfortunate absence of our Controller Borasus. But you find Albion prepared to receive you in spite of our sad emergency.”
“Then Controller Borasus is still unaccounted for?” said the Servant.
Associate Controller Giraldus shook his head, with a woeful look that had no woe in it at all. “Not heard of since he stepped through the portal to Earth, I am sorry to say. He never boarded his plane in London. He never made his way to the American conference. But there has been no panic here. We have—”
“The Reigners will be glad to know that,” the Servant interrupted politely. A little smug smile curved the corners of Giraldus’s mouth, but the Servant did not smile as he went on, “This makes it all the more important for me to get to Earth quickly.”
“And you shall!” Giraldus said grandly. Robes swirling, he turned and led the way across the pink and mustard hall. As the picture shifted to follow Reigner Two, the watching Reigners saw that the place was full of office workers, all carefully dressed in Reigner Organisation uniform and all doing their best to look efficient and busy. Several hundred pairs of eyes followed the Servant and Reigner Two, awed and curious.
“He must have pulled in the entire staff of Albion Sector,” Reigner Five commented. “Or else that office is seriously overmanned.”
“I had a hunch that the Reigners would be sending their Servant,” Giraldus said, approaching the grey pearly outline of a local portal. “When I sent my report through, I also took the liberty of requesting hourly updates from Iony Sector. Expensive, I concede, but see how it has paid off. We had ample warning that you were on your way, Excellency. And at that point I decided to go over Earth’s head. The Runcorn office has shown that it doesn’t know what it’s doing, and this is far too important to leave to local idiots. I’ve calibrated this portal directly to London, which was what our lamented missing Controller did too, and I’ve arranged for a car to meet you and drive you straight out to the library complex.”
“Most efficient,” said the Servant. “Have you money and documentation for Earth, or do I apply to Runcorn for that?”
“Great Balance, no! We leave Runcorn strictly out of this,” Giraldus said. He ushered them towards a small meat-pink table on which lay a number of flat leather folders. “Provision,” he said, “for a large number. We did not know how many colleagues you would be bringing, Excellency.” He picked up the largest leather folder and presented it to the Servant with a bow.
The Servant turned the wallet over, musingly, and then opened it to show a thick wodge of paper money and a number of little cards peeping from pockets in the leather. He teased a card forth with his long, deft fingers and examined it. His face went perfectly blank. “This,” he said, turning his face, skull-like, towards Giraldus, “is a credit card made out in my own name.”
“Yes indeed,” Giraldus said smugly, handing Reigner Two another wallet at random. “I wished everything to be entirely right and accurate. Now please excuse me one moment while I key the portal.”
“The names of our Servants,” said Reigner Three, “are one of the secrets of the House of Balance.”
“Purely for psychological reasons,” Reigner One put in.
“It makes no difference,” said Reigner Three. “This Giraldus has used his emergency authority to pry.”
“Wants to impress Mordion with his efficiency,” said Reigner Four. “Aims to get promoted to Controller.”
They were relieved to see that, as soon as Giraldus turned his back to key the portal, Reigner Two gave the Servant the Sign – with the delay gesture added, meaning that the Servant should terminate Giraldus on the way back. The Servant nodded in reply, very slightly.
“I’m glad to see that Two hasn’t lost his head completely,” Reigner Three said.
The portal opened. Giraldus swung round and bowed again. “May I wish you a safe and successful journey,” he said merrily. “Auf Wiedersehen, as they say on Earth!”
“Thank you,” said the Servant. Very gravely, he added, “I shall see you again on our way back from Earth,” and followed Reigner Two towards the portal.
As the table blinked white while the two travellers were in transit, Reigner Four exclaimed, “Our Servant looked sorry for him! Is he slipping or something?”
Reigner One twinkled a smile. “No. He always looks like that when he gets the Sign. What made you think he enjoys his work?”
“Well—” Reigner Four thought about it, with his handsome face rather bewildered. “I’d enjoy it. I always rather envy the Servants.”
“I doubt you would if you knew,” said Reigner One.
Here the table blinked into murky darkness as the two travellers emerged among tall buildings. It was night on this part of Earth, and it appeared to be raining. The monitors enhanced the light so that the watchers could see Two moaning and pulling his muffler round his head. The Servant turned up the collar of his yellow
coat while he looked round for the car that was supposed to meet them. It slid up beside them as he looked, and stopped, making fierce yellow bars filled with rain with its headlights.
“I wouldn’t care to ride in that!” muttered Reigner Four. “Metal turtle.”
A heavy man, trimly dressed in a light-coloured raincoat, climbed hastily out of the vehicle and hurried round in front of the headlights. “Reigners’ Servant?” he asked, in an angry abrupt way.
Reigner Five stopped the cube there for a second in order to switch in a translator. Reigner Four stretched his muscular arms and yawned. “Do we need to watch any more, Five?”
“Certain things come out,” said Five, “of a different nature.”
“We’ll be guided by you, Five,” Reigner One said placidly.
The image ran again, showing astonishment on the Earthman’s large well-nourished face, as the Servant and Two advanced into the car lights to meet him. The monitors picked up his sub-vocal comment, which he certainly did not intend anyone to hear. “My God! Where did they get those clothes? The Salvation Army?”
The Servant heard. His ears were as keen as any monitors. A large amused smile lit his face. Like others before him, the Earthman stared at that smile uncertainly. “Pleased to meet you,” the Earthman said, in the same angry way. “I’m John Bedford, Earth Area Director.” He held out a broad hand.
The Servant took the hand and shook it. This was obviously an Earth ritual. “And I’m pleased to meet you, sir. We had no idea the Area Director would be here in person.”
“No, I’ll bet you hadn’t!” John Bedford said with energetic bitterness. “I broke all the speed limits getting down here from Runcorn. I was damned if I was going to let Albion go over my head! It was my clerk on my patch who turned this forbidden machine on, and it’s my responsibility to see it put right. Earth may be an out-of-the-way hole at the edge of the galaxy, but we do have our pride!”
Reigner Four asked, in some surprise, “Doesn’t Earth Organisation know how much we depend on their flint?”
“Four, it really is time you took a bit of notice of something beside yourself,” Reigner Five told him. “Of course they haven’t a clue.”
“If they knew,” Reigner Three explained, “they’d up the price and cut our profits to nothing. Then we’d have to suppress them. As it is, we tell them the flint’s used for road rubble and keep Earth busy fighting itself. That way everyone’s happy.”
“And now you can go back to sleep, Four,” said Reigner Five.
While they were talking, the Servant had managed to say something that soothed the angry Area Director. John Bedford was now holding open the rear door of his car and saying quite cheerfully, “It’s no trouble really. I enjoy night driving. The roads are empty. Get in. Get comfortable. I want to get through London before the morning traffic starts.”
Reigner Two climbed through the door. The monitor image tipped and enlarged to show the interior of the car and its seats covered with grey downy substance. Doors banged. The monitors again raised the light level. John Bedford was seated in front of a steering wheel, tipping his head back to tell his passengers to fasten their safety belts. The Servant fastened Reigner Two in and then himself. The racing figures and symbols showed that Reigner Two had almost instantly fallen asleep, even before the car began to move. Reigner Three had to look away as the journey began. The feeling you got from looking at the table, of moving without really moving, was enough to make anyone car-sick.
“I’ve been finding out all about the library clerk,” John Bedford said in his abrupt way, tipping his head back as he drove. “Is that the sort of thing you people want to know?”
“Yes, indeed.” The Servant hitched himself forward against his straps, until he was leaning from the back seat in a hunting crouch. “Anything you can tell me will be most valuable.”
“His names really Henry Stott,” said John Bedford. “He gave the name Harrison Scudamore when he first joined us, and that was his first lie. The main thing that’s come out is that he’s a confirmed liar.”
“Oh,” said the Servant.
“Yes,” said John Bedford. “Oh. You don’t have to tell me we boobed. I’m here to tell you I’m prepared to take the rap for it. That’s why I came myself. Stott lied about his name. He lied about his family. Here on Earth we have an absolute rule that anyone who joins Rayner Hexwood must have no family to ask awkward questions. We even insist that our people don’t marry until they’ve proved they can keep a secret. I’ve a wife and kids myself now, but I had to wait ten years and keep poor Fran in the dark about why.”
“Is that necessary?” asked the Servant.
“Yes. The higher grades get to travel to Yurov and even beyond,” John Bedford told him. “And the rest of Earth is only just starting to think in terms of spaceships. We know this world’s just not ready to join the galactic community, so we keep it dark. It wouldn’t do at all for anyone to guess we actually trade with other worlds.” He laughed. “Actually, back in the days when we used anti-gravity transports, people were always seeing them and thinking they were flying saucers full of aliens. We had to work hard to discredit the reports. It’s a great relief now that we have trade portals.”
The Servant meditated on this. The monitors caught him sideface, with his eyebrow winging above one deep, bright eye, like a hunting owl. “Go on about Stott,” he said after a while.
“He lied,” said John Bedford. “He said he was an orphan. In fact he has both parents living – father breeds pigeons. He lied about his age. Said he was twenty-one, and he turns out to be eighteen. He said he’d had a previous job with an electronics firm, and that was another lie. He’s been unemployed since he left school. Then it comes out that he’s been in court for stealing from the store where he said he’d had the job. The references, the GCSE certificate, the birth certificate he produced were all forgeries – forged them himself, we think. I suppose he was desperate to get a job, but there’s no way we should have employed him.”
“Don’t you have recruiting staff who can see through those kind of lies?” the Servant asked.
“We’re supposed to have,” John Bedford said disgustedly. “You may be sure I’ve gone through our Induction Office like a dose of salts. I kicked half of them out into Maintenance, in fact. But they all swear Stott was equal to any test they threw at him. That cocky brat seems to have bluffed his way past everything.”
“Weren’t they bound to say that?” asked the Servant.
John Bedford barked out a laugh. “Yes, to save their own hides. That’s the problem. But someone in Induction had doubts. Stott was only given the lowest level of information and posted to Hexwood Farm – believe it or not, that’s supposed to be a place where no one can do any harm! I wish I’d known there were dangerous machines stored there. There’s no kind of cross-reference to that, even on my Most Secret files. I had to work it out when Albion started asking questions.”
“Very few people knew. Albion had no information either,” the Servant said. “So the clerk is a confirmed liar, a thief and a forger. What are his interests? Pigeons like his father?”
“No, Stott and his dad hate one another. I doubt if they’d agree on anything,” John Bedford told him. “I drove over and dropped in on the parents. His pa’s a nasty bit of work too. He thought I was the police at first and he was scared stiff – I don’t think he’s on the level either. Then when he found I wasn’t the fuzz, he came the injured father at me and told me he’d washed his hands of young Henry two years ago. Embarrassing scene, with Henrys ma blubbing away in the background about how her Henry was always misunderstood. But Ma came up with something that’s definitely worth mentioning. Blubbed on that her Henry was a genius with computers. This is true, too. Runcorn confirmed it – but only when I went back and asked. Apparently he won all the computer games during the induction course, and then started showing the other trainees how to hack into my office computer. I had another few hides for that one.”
/> “So he had the skills to start the bannus,” the Servant concluded. His dim, owl-like profile had the same look, sad and still, as he had had saying goodbye to Giraldus. He knew Stott had to be terminated. “Stott seems to be one who liked to translate his dreams into reality,” he added musingly.
“Most crooks are,” John Bedford agreed. “But so are a lot of people who aren’t crooks. What’s achieving your ambition, after all, but just that – dreams to reality? Crooks just take the easy short cut.”
He and the Servant fell to talking about criminals and the criminal mind. They seemed to like one another. Reigner Three shifted about, yawning. Reigner Four stretched again and scratched his curly hair. Reigner One went to sleep, as peacefully as Reigner Two’s image on the table. Meanwhile the car rushed on through growing daylight and patches of green countryside. Reigner Five was the only one who watched and listened closely, with his sandy head sarcastically tipped and his pale greenish eyes hardly winking.
“They’re nearly there,” he said at long last.
Reigner One woke up so smoothly that it was hard to tell that he had dozed off. Three and Four dragged their attention back to the table. It was quite light in the image now. Houses were going slowly past beyond Reigner Two’s bleary waking face. All four Reigners watched intently as the car stopped and the three men got out into dawn sunlight. They walked slowly along an empty road to an old wooden gate.
And, as they reached the gate, the image blanked out into hissing white light.
“That’s all there’s been since,” said Reigner Five. “From the look of it, something shorted Two’s monitors out the moment he got near that gate. It would take an unusually powerful field to do that.”
“So you think the bannus is running?” asked Reigner Three.
“Something is, which could be the bannus,” Five answered cautiously.
“Anyone else would say yes,” said Four. “The Servant could have handled almost anything else. That’s why Two took him along, after all.”