Man Who Used the Universe

  Chaheel thought back to the array of seemingly decorative, gleaming towers, which rose like a metal forest from the island. As he suspected, Lewmaklin did not indulge in frivolous decor.

  "The beam employed by this system is of a new, formerly unknown type, apparently designed to cover great distances without the aid of the usual booster stations. Our chief communications officer was scanning when he happened to encounter an ultrafast series of numbers being blasted out via this method. Fortunately, he had them recorded before they escaped completely.

  "It took us until yesterday, shiptime, to decode the mathematical sequence. I will play the gleaning back for you now." He made a gesture.

  At the far end of the oval depression, around which the cupouches and their occupants were grouped, another officer touched controls. The already dim room darkened further and the hollow in the floor lit up.

  Chaheel saw the squat shape of Loo-Macklin standing in the same grand room where he himself had stood the previous evening. The human turned to face a visual pickup. His expression was solemn. A storm-tossed ocean was visible through the transparent wall behind him.

  "Hail tomothee, Falexia. Everything goes as planned. It will not be longer now until the final phase of our dealing can be brought to fruition, an end toward which we have worked for so long. The projections for success are still good. I look forward as always to meeting you in person.

  "I am in position to manage all details of the business from my end. All final concerns have been obviated. Until we have the honor of a successful meeting, Falexia, I faretheewell."

  It was not a long transmission.

  Chaheel had just finished a graphic lesson in the folly of jumping to wrong conclusions. The message left him curious, but untroubled.

  "Save for the somewhat stilted language, which may be due to improper decoding—" an officer across the oval stiffened slightly—"and the unfamiliar forms of greeting, I see nothing to be concerned with here. He is clearly in converse with some commercial opposite, finalizing the details of some large transaction.

  "Lewmaklin's business interests are among the most extensive known. Is it surprising that he should utilize a new variety of tightbeam communication for such purposes? The heads of certain Families employ similar methods for security purposes."

  "I question nothing you point out." Despite this confession, the commander still appeared uneasy.

  "Then why retain you the aspect of a crespik deadbone?" Chaheel wanted to know.

  "Three days following, evening yesterday local planetary time, and apparently in response to the message you have just viewed, we intercepted another transmission. Incoming, this time. It is only because we continued to monitor the special beam frequency that we were able to trap it."

  The depression in the center of the floor flickered to life once more, only this time the image was distorted and violent with static.

  While engineers worked to clear it, the commander continued to talk. "The method of broadcast actually differs slightly from that used by Lewmaklin. Despite the aid of computers, our decoding efforts were not completely successful. As you see, it is highly difficult to unscramble.

  "I believe that this is an instantaneous response to the broadcast you just saw."

  Chaheel did some rapid calculating. He was neither physicist nor communications expert, but even he knew that within a volume of space several parsecs across, subspace communications took a matter of minutes. Transmission across greater distances required proportionately more time.

  If the commander was correct and this garbled communication was truly instantaneous, then that could mean that Lewmaklin's outgoing message took a day and a half to reach its destination, instead of minutes. And another day and a half for the reply to reach Evenwaith. That implied conversation over distances so great that . . .

  "Truly," whispered the commander as he saw astonishment come over the psychologist, "the scale involved is nothing less than incredible. To mention not the power requirements necessary to boost such a signal."

  "Surely Lewmaklin doesn't have access to such energy sources?" Chaheel ventured.

  "Perhaps not," murmured the commander. "Perhaps it took his transmission three days to reach its destination and the reply only minutes to return."

  "That's quite impossible," said Chaheel.

  "So say you. So say my own communications and engineering staffs. Yet I wonder. Many important developments have emerged from this human's laboratories. They have produced this mysterious additive, which you insist is harmless to us yet effective enough to fool the UTW's own scientists. Might they not also invent a new and unique method of long-range communication?"

  "Is that what you think has happened?"

  "No. No, I do not. I think Lewmaklin has purchased the technology necessary to build it."

  "Purchased it? But no known people . . ."

  Again the commander cut him off, discarding all semblance of politeness. The image on the screen was clearing. It resolved into a thing.

  The creature was huge. At least, Chaheel had an impression of considerable size. There was nothing in the field of view to give scale to the being.

  It stood against a metal wall, which generated its own light, a harsh bronze glow. The being was a quadruped, clad in thin golden scales like a fish. A curving row of tiny black eyes ran in a line across the center of the massive, rotund body. A pair of long arms reached out from either side and ended in hands, which were interlocked beneath the row of onyx-colored eyes.

  Overlapping scales fringed a wide mouth. When the orifice moved, a strange whistling sound emerged from hidden depths and short, pointed teeth became visible. The black eyes remained solid, showing no visible pupils. There were no other visible external organs.

  When the creature altered its stance, which it did with ceremonial frequency, it moved on a single revolving limb, which was somehow fastened to its ventral side. It appeared that the creature was spinning, balancing on a cushioned ball covered with thicker, darker scales.

  "Distance and slightly different methodology of transmission made it rough on our decoders," the commander reminded Chaheel. "All we have been able to do thus far is produce a clear picture and sound. As to the language, if it is one, we are still ignorant.

  "The being is of no known type. It is not one allied to us, to the humans, the Athabascans, or any other civilized race. The light-emitting wall the alien stands in front of is as unique as its probable builder."

  Chaheel considered a moment, said, "Lewmaklin has apparently contacted a new sentient race and is keeping the discovery private until he concludes some no doubt highly profitable business with it. Perhaps he is doing this because they are technologically advanced but commercially unsophisticated. I would not put it past him to cheat an entire race if he thought he could get away with it."

  On screen the strange creature continued to dance and whistle, the sounds rising and falling in intensity. After a while the performance concluded and the screen went to black. Dim light returned to the conference room.

  "I see not your reason for concern," muttered Chaheel, afraid of what might be coming. "Lewmaklin is a devious individual. His private commercial transactions are not a matter of concern to the Families."

  "They are when they involve an entirely new and apparently more efficient method of deepspace communication," the commander argued. "The military applications should be obvious even to a nonwarrior such as yourself. I can assure you that the war family of the Marouf is extremely interested in this."

  They would be, Chaheel grumbled to himself. He had almost resigned himself to the expected request.

  So tired am I of all this, he thought. He longed for the mental cleanliness of pure academia, for a chance to study history set in time and rock, whose surprises are almost always pleasant.

  But it was not to be.

  "You wish me to continue my surveillance of this Lewmaklin so that I might discover the location of these whistlers and thereby make it po
ssible for the Families to have access to this new transmission methodology, is that it, Commander?"

  He looked greatly uncomfortable. "The Marouf have requested it. I merely pass along the directive."

  Chaheel thought of boldly confronting Loo-Macklin and simply asking for the technology. That wouldn't work, he knew. The human aided the Nuel, but kept his business and politics separate. This was a business decision some Family heads had forced on the Marouf, he was certain.

  But he could do nothing about it except get it over with. A refusal would make unhindered research impossible.

  "Ship's staff concurs in the decision," the commander added.

  "Boil the ship's staff!" I am getting old, Chaheel thought. I should fight this. But he knew it would be better to comply, and probably easier.

  "I will strike a bargain with the Marouf, Commander. I will remain on this miserable world and do my best to learn the location of these whistling aliens with the long reach. I will do this for one year only. If at the end of that time I have not succeeded in learning anything, I will be permitted to return to my private studies."

  "I believe the Marouf will agree to that," the commander murmured, most unhappy at the position he'd been placed in.

  "I have been offered the chance to work for this Lewmaklin. I will accept. That will put me in a position to probe. I should like a copy of this," and he gestured with a tentacle toward the floor screen, "in solid form, so that I may study it also."

  "Anything you wish, psychologist."

  "Anything but my freedom. Anything but the chance to go home. The Families demand much." The officer said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  "Very well then. It is settled. I will work to soothe the anxious minds of the Marouf, a paranoid Family if ever there was one. There are a few observations I left incomplete. This will give me time to tidy them up.

  "But woe to the Marouf, Commander, if certain members of the Si should learn of this, for they have made of this Lewmaklin one of their own, and they don't enjoy anyone spying on a member of their family unless he's a relative. . . ."

  Chapter 13

  Chaheel Riens did not see Loo-Macklin when he returned to Evenwaith. Undoubtedly the great man was too busy. But word of his open offer to the Nuel psychologist had been placed in record, and Chaheel was immediately offered a choice of positions.

  He selected an important one, in a department in the metropolis of Cluria, which was responsible for monitoring trade details between the UTW and the worlds of the Families. As an alien well versed in human psychology, he offered advice that was welcomed by his human colleagues.

  Somewhat to his surprise, though he should have anticipated it, he also encountered other Nuel who'd been hired to serve Loo-Macklin's enterprises in similar capacities. There were enough of them in Cluria to have formed a tight little community of their own. Chaheel did not try to hide his pleasure at finding members of his own kind to visit with. Constant human company depressed him.

  Rather more of a surprise was the discovery that Loo-Macklin had provided many facilities for his Nuel employees and that they mingled quite freely with their human associates. Chaheel had been so involved in his own studies that the lessening of tension between other Nuel and the humans they worked with had escaped his notice.

  One Nuel, an elderly female named Purel Manz, had been working for Loo-Macklin's family interests for nearly fifteen years.

  "I was one of the first," she told Chaheel. "It was hard and lonely in the beginning, but I persevered. The pay was very remarkable.

  "Over the years I have watched some of the human's prejudice toward us fade, and I in turn have lost much of my shape-paranoia. Even before the arrival of fellow Nuel such as yourself the insults had ceased to trouble me. You grow inured."

  "Even though such execrations have not disappeared from human society entirely?"

  "By no means, young one." She was being funny. Chaheel was nearly her age. Maternal humor, the psychologist mused. "But truly has the volume lessened. There are times when I think the Orischians, for example, now loathe us more than the humans."

  "Of course," Chaheel reminded her, "the lessening of tension has taken place primarily among humans who have regular contact with us or who are accustomed to our presence here in large metropolitan centers."

  "I suppose that's so," she said. "You still hear of violent incidents taking place on outlying worlds. Restavon, Terra, and Evenwaith are the only places where we have been truly accepted." Her voice dropped to a guttural whisper. "That will matter no longer when we assume control of their government."

  Chaheel expressed surprise. "So you know about that."

  "I am senior functionary here," she informed him pridefully. "It would be impossible for me to function properly without knowing the true intentions of the Families."

  Her aura of professionalism faded and she asked with sudden interest, "I understand you have actually met Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin himself."

  "Twice." He was a touch put off by the admiration in her voice. "Once quite recently when he offered me my present position here. That was barely a year ago." Have I been in this place another entire year, he mused? The home-longing bit at his soul once again.

  "The other time was many years ago on one of our own worlds. I was instructed to monitor him while he witnessed a Birthing."

  Purel Manz was shocked. "That is difficult for me to believe. Did it not come from so respected an individual as yourself, I should not believe it."

  "It's true. I found it hard to accept at the time myself. Permission was granted him."

  "Well, he is such an important person," she murmured. You've no idea how important, Purel Manz, he thought. "I suppose exceptions must be made." But the shock still showed in the contractions of her eyelids.

  "Tell me," Chaheel asked her, "how many others on the Nuel staff here know that their commercial work is only part of a greater plan to infiltrate and subvert human government and commerce?"

  "Only my personal assistant. The rest believe only that they participate in interworld commerce, which is of itself beneficial to the worlds of the Families. Most tolerate the drawbacks of working on a UTW planet in return for the remuneration, which benefits their immediate families and which is considerable. Lewmaklin pays his employees well.

  "And as I told you, it has become much easier here these past few years, much more tolerant than it was for those of us who had to be first. It will be a gentle takeover when it finally comes. Humans are not so bad after all, when they can be disabused of some of their more primitive, deeply ingrained prejudices."

  "You almost sound as though you're becoming fond of the race," Chaheel suggested.

  "When you work with certain individuals, no matter what their shape or attitudes, for as long as twelve years, it is hard not to form some sort of attachment. Occasionally the feeling is reciprocated.

  "Nevertheless," her multicrinkled skirt rippled as she shifted her position, "we serve first the Families. No personal feelings can be allowed to interfere with the greater purpose which places us here."

  "No, but such emotion has weight. That's part of my job here," he lied faultlessly, "to keep watch on your feelings and attitudes."

  "On behalf of the Families," she asked him, "or on behalf of our mutual employer?"

  "You should know the answer to that," he replied without giving her an answer. Let her stay a little uncertain, a tiny bit in the dark.

  "How I envy you for having actually met him. For a mere human he seems truly to be the most remarkable individual."

  "Tired I am of hearing that," said Chaheel exasperatedly. "He is not more than a single successful sentient. There is nothing unique about him. He has merely shown himself to be unusually adept at commerce."

  Full of large lies today, aren't you, psychologist? Angry at himself, he elected to kill the idle bantering and get to the reason for this little meeting. He reached into a top pocket and removed a solido reproduction, which had been cast from
the information received a year ago on the Nuel monitor ship orbiting Evenwaith.

  "Tell me," he asked her, handing it over, "in all your workings for Lewmaklin's businesses, have you ever encountered an alien or representation of an alien that looked anything like this?"

  She studied the casting briefly, said with assurance as she handed it back to him, "No. Never. Peculiar-looking creature. Where is it from?"

  "I don't know." He returned the solido to the empty pocket. One of the el busily remodeling his attire promptly sewed it shut.

  "Is it important?"

  "Not really," he assured her. "Just something of personal interest."

  They discussed items of no importance, which would be of interest only to another Nuel. Then Chaheel left Purel Manz and returned to his station.

  Another year passed. Another year on an alien world, another year of home-longing.

  Though he would not have said Loo-Macklin was becoming an obsession with him, he had, as corollary to his formal assignment, begun studying the human's early history, researching his rise in human society and the development of his commercial empire all the way up to the present.

  Most of the material available for general review was excruciatingly boring. He supposed an economic historian would have found it all fascinating, but for him there was nothing of interest in the long lists of figures and recordings of mergers and takeovers. Credit shuffling gave him no insight into the workings of the man's mind.

  Then he stumbled across a peculiar entry in the section of company history, which dealt with Loo-Macklin's extensive and historic interests in mining. He paid a little more attention to the words rolling up on the screen. It was all in human script, of course, which Chaheel could now read more fluidly than most humans.

  One of Loo-Macklin's exploration vessels, the Pasthinking, had discovered massive deposits of cobalt and related minerals on the distant world of a star designated NRGC 128. While the crew was mapping the location of the deposits, the ship's automatic monitoring system had picked up a subspace transmission. The frequency of the transmission was noted.