“Dangerous… dangerous,” Fraffin said.
“But enough profit to oppose any danger,” she said.
“Any danger?”
“As the parable has it,” Ynvic said, “the Gods smile on profit.”
Gods, commerce and bureaucracy, Fraffin thought. These endure, even among our poor savages. But I’m trapped here, grown too much like my simple creatures. He held out his right hand, looked at the palm. My hand’s in their every heritage. I’m the germ of yesterday resurrecting faces out of Babylon.
“Kelexel has requested an interview with the great Fraffin,” Ynvic said. “He’s been…”
“I’ll see him,” Fraffin said. He hid his palm in a clenched fist. “Yes. Send him to me.”
“No!” Ynvic said. “Refuse him, let your agents…”
“On what grounds? I’ve seen other rich merchants.”
“Any grounds. Whim, an artist’s impulse, pressure of work.”
“I think I shall see him. Is he internally instrumented?”
“Of course not; they wouldn’t be that simple. But why would you…”
“To feel him out.”
“You’ve professionals for that job.”
“But he wants to see me.”
“Here is real danger. Let him once suspect and he’ll not bid. He’ll just snoop until he has us all in his noose.”
“He may not bid anyway. Someone must find what will tempt him.”
“We know what’ll tempt him! But let him get just the faintest hint that we can interbreed with these savages, the most vague suspicion and we’ve lost him… and ourselves as well.”
“I’m not a child to be lectured to, Ynvic. I’ll see him.”
“You’re determined, then?”
“I am. Where is he?”
“Out on the surface with a tour crew.”
“Ahhh. And we’re monitoring, of course. What does he think of our creatures?”
“The conventional things: they’re so gross, ugly—like caricatures of Chem humanity.”
“But what do his eyes say?”
“The females interest him.”
“Of course they do.”
“Then you’re going to withdraw from the war drama and set up a story for him?”
“What else can we do?” his voice revealed frustration and resignation.
“What’ll you use, that little group in Delhi?”
“No, I’m saving that one for an emergency, a real emergency.”
“The girls’ school in Leeds?”
“Inappropriate. What do you think, Ynvic—will violence catch his mind?”
“Definitely. It’s the murder school in Berlin, then, eh?”
“No, no! I think I have something much better, I’ll discuss it after I’ve seen him. As soon as he returns, have…”
“One moment,” Ynvic said. “Not the immune—not that one!”
“Why not? Compromise him completely.”
“That’s all this investigator would need! That alone without…”
“The immune can be killed at any time,” Fraffin said.
“This Kelexel is not stupid!”
“I’ll be cautious.”
“Just remember, old friend,” Ynvic said, “that I’m in this as deeply as you. Most of the crew could probably get off with sentences of constructive labor, but I’m the one faked the gene samples we sent the Primacy.”
“I heard you,” Fraffin said. “The word is caution.”
Chapter 3
Feeling reasonably secure behind his cover, Kelexel paused just inside the salon-office of the storyship director. He cast a searching look around the room: such interesting signs of wear on furnishings supposedly resistant to such depletion. The control supports of an editing chair showed a polished glitter where Fraffin’s arms had rested.
He has been here a very long time indeed, Kelexel thought. We are right to suspect the worst. A Chem’s attention span cannot be that long—unless there are forbidden attractions.
“Visitor Kelexel,” Fraffin said, rising. He indicated a chair facing him across the desk, a simple wooden artifact native to this place. It was a nice touch of the exotic, made a stranger feel uncomfortably alien and un-adapted to outpost living. Fraffin himself occupied a conventional floater seat, its body sensors tuned to his personal needs.
Kelexel bowed over the immersed viewer in the desk, used the formal greeting: “Director Fraffin, the light of a billion suns could not add one candlepower to thy brilliance.”
Oh, Lords of Being, Fraffin thought. One of those! He smiled, timed his seating to coincide with Kelexel.
“I grow dim in the presence of my guest,” Fraffin said. “How may I serve such a distinguished person?” And he thought: Preferably on buttered toast.
Kelexel swallowed, felt suddenly uneasy. Something about Fraffin bothered him. The director was such a small man—dwarfed by the desk and its instruments. Fraffin’s skin was the milk-silver of the Sirihadi Chem, almost matching the room’s walls. It was the man’s stature; that was it. Kelexel had expected someone larger—not as large as the vassals of this planet, certainly… but… larger… something to go with all the power visible in his features.
“You were very kind to grant me your time,” Kelexel said.
Conventionally, Fraffin said: “What is time to the Chem?”
But Kelexel didn’t rise to the cliché. The power in Fraffin’s face! It was a famous face, of course—the black hair, the pits of eyes under jutting brows, crag cheeks, outcroppings of nose and jaw. Large reproductions of that face danced on the air wherever a Fraffin story was shown. But the actual flesh and bone man bore an un-retouched resemblance to the reproductions that Kelexel found disturbing. He had expected more false drama in one or the other. He had expected disparity, a sham somewhere to help him see through these people.
“Visitors don’t usually request an interview with the director,” Fraffin said, prodding.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Kelexel said. “I’ve a…” He hesitated, realization coming over him. Everything about Fraffin—timbre of voice, the rich skin color, the total aura of vitality—it all spoke of recent rejuvenation. But Fraffin’s cycle was known to the Bureau. He wasn’t due for rejuvenation in this period.
“Yes?” Fraffin said.
“I’ve… a rather personal request,” Kelexel said.
“Not for employment, I hope,” Fraffin said. “We’ve so…”
“Nothing for myself,” Kelexel said. “My interest level is quite low. Travel seems to satisfy me. However, during my last cycle I was permitted to have a male offspring.”
“How fortunate for you,” Fraffin said, and he held himself still and watchful, wondering: Could the man know? Is it possible?
“Mmmm, yes,” Kelexel said. “My offspring, however, requires constant diversion. I’m prepared to pay a very high price for the privilege of placing him with your organization until my contract of responsibility terminates.”
Kelexel sat back, waiting. “He will be suspicious of you, naturally,” the Bureau’s experts had said. “He will think you seek to place a spy among his crewmen. Be alert to his inner reactions when you make your offer.”
Watching now, Kelexel saw the Director’s disquiet. Is he fearful? Kelexel wondered. He shouldn’t be fearful—not yet.
“It saddens me,” Fraffin said, “But no matter the offer, I must refuse.”
Kelexel pursed his lips, then: “Would you refuse…” And he named a price that astonished Fraffin.
That’s half as much as I could get for my entire planetary holding, Fraffin thought. Is it possible Ynvic’s wrong about him? This couldn’t be an attempt to put a spy among us. All our crewmen are bound to the compact of shared guilt. No new man can learn what we do until he’s hopelessly compromised. And the Bureau wouldn’t try to buy one of us. They don’t dare give me grounds for pleading entrapment.
“Is it not enough?” Kelexel asked. He stroked his chin. The Bureau’s experts had sa
id: “You must act the part of a responsible citizen concerned over his parental contract, perhaps even a bit doting and slightly embarrassed by it.”
“It, uhh, grieves me,” Fraffin said, “but there’s no price I’ll accept. Were I to lower the barriers to one rich man’s offspring, my ship soon would become a haven for dilettantes. We’re a working crew, chosen only for talent. If your offspring wishes to train for a post, however, and go through the normal channels…”
“Not even if I doubled the offer?” Kelexel asked.
Is it really the Bureau behind this clown? Fraffin wondered. Or could he be one of the Galaxy Buyers?
Fraffin cleared his throat. “No price. I am sorry.”
“Perhaps I’ve offended you?”
“No. It’s just that my decision is dictated by self-preservation. Work is our answer to the Chem nemesis…”
“Ahh, boredom,” Kelexel murmured.
“Precisely,” Fraffin said. “Were I to open the doors to any bored person with enough wealth, I’d multiply all our problems. Just today I dismissed four crewmen for actions that’d be commonplace were I to hire my people the way you suggest.”
“Four dismissed?” Kelexel said. “Lords of Preservation! What’d they do?”
“Deliberately lowered their shields, let the natives see them. Enough of that happens by accident without compounding it.”
How honest and law abiding he tries to appear, Kelexel thought. But the core of his crew has been with him too long, and those who leave—even the ones he dismisses—won’t talk. Something’s at work here which can’t be explained by legality.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Kelexel said, assuming a slightly pompous air. “Can’t have fraternizing with the natives out there.” He gestured toward the surface with a thumb. “Illegal, naturally. Damnably dangerous.”
“Raises the immunity level,” Fraffin said.
“Must keep your execution squads busy.”
Fraffin allowed himself a touch of pride, said: “I’ve had to send them after fewer than a million immunes on my planet. I let the natives kill their own.”
“Only way,” Kelexel agreed. “Keep us out of it as much as possible. Classic technique. You’re justly famous for your success at it. Wanted my son to learn under you.”
“I’m sorry,” Fraffin said.
“Answer’s definitely no?”
“Definitely.”
Kelexel shrugged. The Bureau’d prepared him for outright rejection, but he hadn’t quite prepared himself for it. He’d hoped to play out the little game of negotiation. “I hope I haven’t offended you,” he said.
“Of course not,” Fraffin said. And he thought: But you’ve warned me.
He had come around to complete agreement with Ynvic’s suspicions. It was something about this Kelexel’s manner—an inward caution that didn’t fit the outer mask.
“Glad of that,” Kelexel said.
“I’m always curious about the merchant world’s current price,” Fraffin said. “I’m surprised you didn’t bid on my entire holding.”
You think I’ve made a mistake, Kelexel thought. Fool! Criminals never learn.
“My holdings are too diverse, require too much of my attention as it is,” Kelexel said. “Naturally, I’d thought of bidding you out and giving all this to my offspring, but I’m quite certain he’d make a mess of it, ruin it for everyone. Couldn’t invite that sort of censure on myself, you know.”
“Perhaps the alternative, then,” Fraffin said. “Training, the normal channels of application…”
Kelexel had been prepared and sharpened for this task over a period long even to the Chem. The Primacy and the Bureau contained men who fed on suspicion and they smarted under continued failure with Fraffin’s case. Now, the tiny betrayals in Fraffin’s manner, the patterned evasions and choice of words were summed up in the Investigator’s awareness. There was illegality here, but none of the crimes they’d considered and discussed. Somewhere in Fraffin’s private domain there was a dangerous something—odorous and profoundly offensive. What could it be?
“If it is permitted,” Kelexel said, “I shall be happy to study your operation and make appropriate suggestions to my offspring. He will be delighted, I know, to hear that the great Director Fraffin granted me these few attentions.”
And Kelexel thought: Whatever your crime is, I’ll find it. When I do, you’ll pay, Fraffin; you’ll pay the same as any other malefactor.
“Very well, then,” Fraffin said. He expected Kelexel to leave now, but the man remained, staring offensively across the desk.
“One thing,” Kelexel said. “I know you achieve quite complex special effects with your creatures. The extreme care, the precision engineering of motives and violence—I just wondered: Isn’t it rather slow work?”
The casual ignorance of the question outraged Fraffin, but he sensed a warning in it and remembered Ynvic’s words of caution.
“Slow?” he asked. “What’s slow to people who deal with infinity?”
Ahh, Fraffin can be goaded, Kelexel thought as he read the signs of betrayal. Good. He said: “I merely wondered if… I hesitate to suggest it… but does not slowness equate with boredom?”
Fraffin sniffed. He’d thought at first this creature of the Bureau might be interesting, but the fellow was beginning to pall. Fraffin pressed a button beneath his desk, the signal to get the new story under way. The sooner they were rid of this investigator the better. All the preparations with the natives would help now. They’d play out their parts with rigorous nicety.
“I’ve offended you at last,” Kelexel said, contrition in his voice.
“Have my stories bored you?” Fraffin asked. “If so, then I’ve offended you.”
“Never!” Kelexel said. “So amusing, humorous. Such diversity.”
Amusing, Fraffin thought. Humorous!
He glanced at the replay monitor in his desk, the strip of story action in progress, shielded and displayed there for only his eyes. His crews already were getting to work. The time was ripe for death. His people knew the urgency.
His mind went down, down—immersed in the desk viewer, forgetting the Investigator, following the petty lives of the natives.
They are the finite and we the infinite, Fraffin thought. Paradox: the finite provides unlimited entertainment for the infinite. With such poor creatures we insulate ourselves from lives that are endless serial events. Aii, boredom! How you threaten the infinite.
“How pliable your creatures are,” Kelexel said, probing.
Such a bore, this clod, Fraffin thought. And he spoke without looking up from the viewer: “They’ve strong desires. I saw to that from the beginning. And enormous fears—they have enormous fears.”
“You saw to that, too?” Kelexel asked.
“Naturally!”
How easily he’s goaded to anger, Kelexel thought.
“What is that you’re watching?” Kelexel asked. “Is it something to do with a story? Do I interfere?”
He begins to take the hook, Fraffin thought. And he said: “I’ve just started a new story, a little gem.”
“A new story?” Kelexel asked, puzzled. “Is the war epic completed then?”
“I’ve cut off that story,” Fraffin said. “It wasn’t going well at all. Besides, wars are beginning to bore me. But personal conflict now—there’s the thing!”
“Personal conflict?” Kelexel felt the idea was appalling.
“Ah, the intimacies of violence,” Fraffin said. “Anyone can find drama in wars and migrations, in the rise and fall of civilizations and of religions—but what would you think of a little capsule of a story that focuses on a creature who slays its mate?”
Kelexel shook his head. The conversation had taken a turn that left him floundering. The war epic abandoned? A new story? Why? His forebodings returned. Was there a way Fraffin could harm a fellow Chem?
“Conflict and fear,” Fraffin said. “Ahh, what a wide avenue into the susceptibilities these are.”
“Yes… yes, indeed,” Kelexel murmured.
“I touch a nerve,” Fraffin said. “Greed here, a desire there, a whim in this place—and fear. Yes, fear. When the creature’s fully prepared, I arouse its fears. Then the whole mechanism performs for me. They make themselves ill! They love! They hate! They cheat! They kill! They die.”
Fraffin smiled—clenched teeth in the wide mouth. Kelexel found the expression menacing.
“And the most amusing part,” Fraffin said, “the most humorous element is that they think they do it of and by themselves.”
Kelexel forced an answering smile. Many times he’d laughed at this device in a Fraffin story, but now he found the idea less than amusing. He swallowed, said: “But wouldn’t such a story…” He groped for the proper expression. “… be so… small?”
Small, Fraffin thought. Such a clown, this Kelexel.
“Is it not an ultimate artistry,” Fraffin asked, “if I use a microscopic incident to display immensity? I take the Forever-Now right here.” He lifted a clenched fist, extended it toward Kelexel, opened it to show the palm. “I give you something you don’t have—mortality.”
Kelexel found the thought repellant—Fraffin and his grubby personal conflict, a slaying, a petty crime. What a depressing idea. But Fraffin was absorbed once more in the shielded viewer on his desk. What did he see there?
“I fear I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Kelexel ventured.
Fraffin jerked his gaze upward. The clod was going. Good. He wouldn’t go far. The net already was being prepared. What a fine, entangling mesh it had!
“The freedom of the ship is yours,” Fraffin said.
“Forgive me if I’ve taken too much of your time,” Kelexel said, rising.
Fraffin stood, bowed, made the conventional response: “What is time to the Chem?”
Kelexel murmured the formal reply: “Time is our toy.” He turned, strode from the room, thoughts whirling in his mind. There was menace in Fraffin’s manner. It had something to do with what he saw in that viewer. A story? How could a story menace a Chem?
Fraffin watched the door seal itself behind Kelexel, sank back into his chair and returned his attention to the viewer. It was night up there on the surface now and the crucial first incident was beginning to unfold.