“Who are you looking for?” she asked. “Dirk? Or Mr. Vanderloon?”
Mal looked at her in some puzzlement.
“Mr. Vanderloon, I thought…” he said. “Oh, well it’s none of my business, then,” she replied. She turned and wandered back toward the window. Somewhat unsettled and unsure, Mal followed her.
“That is—” he said, “unless I’m supposed to see Mr. Dirk first?”
She turned and looked up at him. The gray eyes were large and serious, but with a pinpoint of bright humor in their smoky depths.
“Not Mr. Dirk,” she said. “Dirk Ten Drocke, Vanderloon’s nephew. I’m Margie Stevenson, his personal secretary.”
“Oh?” replied Mal, still more or less at a loss. “Then this is Mr. Ten Drocke’s office?”
Margie Stevenson threw back her red head and laughed.
“Does it look like an office?” she asked. “No, this is just the anteroom for one of Mr. Vanderloon’s offices—if you can even call them offices. Lounging rooms with a desk in them is a better way of putting it. Dirk, now—Dirk doesn’t have an office. All he has is a personal secretary to keep him from forgetting things.” She looked at Mal searchingly. “Who are you, anyway? Haven’t you ever heard of Dirk Ten Drocke?”
Belatedly, recognition of the name came to Mal.
He had seen it not once but a fair number of times in the newsfax. According to what he had seen, Dirk was the lineal descendant of old Walter Ten Drocke- An enormously wealthy young man whose estate was being managed by his Uncle Vanderloon, an Archaist and a general wildhair.
“I didn’t know he had a secretary,” was all he could think of to say. Hastily, he remembered his manners. “Pardon me. I’m Malcolm Fletcher.”
“Fletcher?” she looked at him sharply, as if his name had just now penetrated. “You’re the one who’s working on the drive?”
“You know about the drive?” he demanded. “That and other things,” she replied, unperturbed.
“Then maybe,” said Mal, “you know why Mr. Vanderloon has sent for me.”
“I might guess.” she said. “But privately.”
“I see,” Mal answered. He was about to say something more, but just then another door in the room swung open and the tallest, thinnest young man that Mal had ever seen came striding through with his face twisted in angry lines.
“—And that’s it!” he shouted over his shoulder, slamming—or rather trying to slam, for it was built so as not to be capable of being closed in that manner—the door behind him. He took a long stride inward to the room, saw the two other people waiting there, and checked himself.
“You here, Margie?” he said, with a note of surprise in his voice.
“Where did you expect me to be?” she demanded a little tartly.
“I thought I left you in Mexico.”
“You did leave me in Mexico. In fact I had to fill out an emergency travel voucher to get back here.”
“Oh,” said Dirk. He looked around the room as if searching for a change of subject and his eyes lighted on Mal. “Hello?” he said uncertainly.
“This is Malcolm Fletcher, Dirk,” said Margie. “He’s working on the faster-than-light drive.” Mal jumped. “I—” he began, then hesitated. “That information isn’t supposed to be—”
“Have you forgotten?” asked Margie. “Dirk is the Company’s largest stockholder.”
“Yes,” said Mal, “but—” He checked himself just in time. He had been about to say that, stockholder or not, Dirk did not look like the kind of person to be trusted with restricted information. Nor was this an illogical attitude. From the soles of his soft leather boots to the feather in his cap, this youngest son of the Ten Drocke line had clothed his six-foot, ten-inch body completely in seventeenth-century cavalier costume, complete with four-and-a-half-foot sword. He looked like a character actor stretched to the proportions of caricature. Not that the costume did not become him. It did. Dirk was undeniably eye-catching. The soft, hip-length leather boots, the fawn-colored breeches, the wine-red doublet, the scarlet cloak, all fit him to perfection. The only thing was that they were too perfect. Dirk and his costume were too much of a good thing. So that instead of being impressed, Mal was tempted to grin.
“Down with the Aliens!” said Dirk automatically. “So you’re the man on the drive. How’s it going?”
Mal was tom between the knowledge of the secrecy surrounding his work and the information he had just received concerning Dirk’s name and position with regard to the Company.
“Well, of course it’s too early to say anything definitely—” he began. But to his relief Dirk took him up without further explanation.
“Fine. Fine. Lick the Aliens on their own ground… . Margie—”
“Right here,” said Margie.
“I’ve got a terrific idea. You know how I can’t get any lawyer to take my case against Uncle Peer. Well, we’ll hire some private detectives and set them to running down the background of some— hum,” Dirk broke off, eying Mal. “Excuse me,” he said. “No offense to you, Mr.—er, Fletcher, but I think we’ll step outside.”
He drew Margie out.
Mal sat down on one of the chairs to wait. But he had barely seated himself before an annunciator hidden somewhere in the wall told him to come into the interior office from which Dirk had just come out.
Going on into the next room, Mal found himself face to face with a large bland man in late middle age who was rising from a desk to greet him. His appearance was mild and rather harassed; and Mal caught himself for a minute doubting if this was really Vanderloon, President of the Board.
“Ah, Mal,” said this man—and with the sound of his voice all doubts vanished. Mal had heard him speak not once but several times in recorded messages from the Board to Company branches. “Glad to meet you at last.”
Taken a little aback by the warmth of the welcome and the familiarity of the greeting, Mal fumbled his way through the social amenities and did not fully recover possession of himself until Vanderloon had them both seated and the conversation brought around to the matter of the drive.
“Now, I don’t want any technical details,” said Peer Vanderloon, sitting back in his chair. “But how does it look, Mal? Like success?”
“Well—” said Mal cautiously. “I don’t want to sound too optimistic; but if I can follow out my present line of work on an out-and-out experimental basis, I’ve got high hopes of running into a solution.”
“Mmmm … hmm,” said Vanderloon, pinching his lips together. “That close, eh?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe it as close—” said Mal.
“I see,” said Vanderloon. “Now, tell me,” he turned to look directly into Mal’s face, “is any part of this experimental business you propose liable to be dangerous—to you, or anyone else?”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes,” said Vanderloon.
“Why—” stammered Mal, “of course not. Why—it’s impossible. I use force fields of very minor strength—not anywhere near enough to do any damage, no matter what.”
“But you do use force fields?” said the older man.
“Well, yes, but—”
“I see. Yes. I see,” said Vanderloon, nodding his head as if in agreement with some inner thought. He came back to Mal. “No doubt,” he said, “you wondered why I canceled your order for supplies?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Mal.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Vanderloon. “I was told to. Tell me, Mal, did you ever hear of a race of Aliens called Sparrians?”
“No,” answered Mal blankly. “Should I?”
“I don’t believe you should,” went on the older man. “The point is—and this is very secret, Mal—they seem to be something on the order of our guardians. We’ve had one riding herd on us ever since we started research on the possibility of a faster-than-light drive.”
“Guardians?” echoed Mal bewildered.
“That’s as good a word as any.”
“But,” said Mal, “I thought the idea was that the Aliens wanted us to develop the drive on our own.”
“It was,” nodded Vanderloon. “But on several occasions now they’ve stepped in, with a word of advice—or warning.”
“But I don’t understand,” repeated Mal. “It still doesn’t make sense.”
Vanderloon shrugged. “I’ll let you find out for yourself,” he said. “The Sparrian has asked to see you. I don’t know what he wants to talk to you about, but this is so similar to other occasions I can’t help guessing. And I’ve told you this so that you’ll be at least partially prepared.” Mal sat with his head spinning, trying to sort out his thoughts. “Now?” was all he could say.
“If you’re ready,” said Vanderloon. He stood up. In a daze, Mal followed suit. Looking back over his shoulder to make sure the younger man was following, Vanderloon led the way out through a large dissolving force screen window and across a small, terraced lawn hidden in the mansion’s interior, and to the door of an apartment on its far side. Here he halted.
“Inside,” Vanderloon said.
Mal hesitated. Then, feeling embarrassed over his obvious qualmishness about the meeting, he put his finger on the latch button of the door, opened it and stepped inside.
He stepped into a deep gloom only barely short of total darkness. The room seemed small and bare of furniture. Little flickers of light seemed to come and go in the darkness, having the effect not so much of lighting up the room as of dazzling the eyeballs for a split second, so that Mal was blinder than before.
“Malcolm Fletcher,” said a flat, mechanical voice unexpectedly.
Mal blinked in the gloom, looked about him, and made out a dim heavy shape close to the floor at the far end of the room. He moved toward it.
“For your own safety,” it told him, when he was about half a dozen steps still distant, “do not come too close.”
Mal stopped. Peering forward, he could still see next to nothing of the Sparrian. It seemed, if any thing, to have a sort of large, sluglike shape with something very like feelers or antennae sprouting from one end.
“I understand,” said Mal, “you want to talk to me.”
“I want,” said the Sparrian, “to caution you.”
“Caution me?” Mal felt a sudden coldness gathering in his middle.
“Caution you,” repeated the other. “Your present line of research has dangerous implications.”
“But—how could it be dangerous? It’s impossible. Where would the danger come in?”
“I am sorry,” said the Sparrian. “I am not permitted to tell you that.”
“But the force fields I’m using are too weak—”
“I am sorry.”
Mal took a protesting step forward.
“Stay back,” warned the voice. “I must warn you that to approach me too closely is dangerous.”
“Why can’t you tell me what about the drive’d be dangerous?”
“It is not permitted.”
“But—”
“That is all.”
“If you won’t give me anything but your unsupported word, I’ll have to disregard it,” said Mal. He found himself becoming furious. There was a smugness, an assumption of authority about this alien that grated on him.
This time there was no answer. The Sparrian seemed to have closed up permanently as far as this particular conversation was concerned. After waiting a long moment more, Mal gave an angry exclamation and turned on his heel. He went out of the door, fuming.
Outside, the terraced lawn was deserted. Mal crossed it and went slowly back through the window and into the office. Vanderloon was waiting for him in a chair.
“What was it?” asked the Chairman of the Board, getting up as Mal entered.
Mal scowled. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “The wildest thing I ever heard from anybody. Dangerous!”
“Then,” said the older man, “I was right?”
“Yes,” growled Mal. “But he’s wrong!” he added swiftly. “There’s no danger. There’s no possible danger—”
“Mal, listen to me,” interrupted Vanderloon quietly. “Sit down.”
Mal sat down, scowling. Vanderloon seated himself behind the desk.
“This is going to be a blow to you, I know,” he said. “But the Federation knows what it’s doing and if it says further work along the line you’re following would be dangerous, we’ve got no choice but to scrap it and start fresh.”
“But—”
“Now, wait a minute, Mal,” said Vanderloon. “Tell me. Did you ever hear of Cary Menton?” Mal shook his head.
“Brilliant man. Brilliant. A little erratic, which was why he was never named to head the Project. He worked under Tom Pacune. You recognize that name?”
Mal nodded.
“Pacune was the first Chief Scientist on the Project, wasn’t he?” he asked.
“That’s right,” answered Vanderloon. He took a deep breath. “Well, Cary got an idea. Pacune liked it—recommended it to me. I liked it. But before we could set the wheels in motion to begin research on it, that fellow you just talked to, or one almost exactly like him, showed up from nowhere and introduced himself as an adviser from the Federation.”
Mal stared at the older man. Vanderloon went on.
“This Alien—the Sparrian, as he called himself—told me that it was his duty to warn us that the idea Cary had just produced not only would not work, but was dangerous in its implications. Well, I made some kind of answer and officially scrapped the projected research—I was a young man then,” said Vanderloon, a slightly wistful note in his voice. “At any rate, I cooperated officially, but on the side I set Cary to work on the idea after all in a secret laboratory of his own.” Vanderloon paused and looked at Mal.
“What happened?” asked Mal.
“The force fields Cary was experimenting with got out of hand,” answered the Chairman. “Maybe you can imagine it. We came out one day to find the lab building, Cary, and all the men who had been working with him, folded into a neat little lump of condensed matter about twenty feet on a side. They must have died instantly.”
“But the force fields I’d be working with would be far too weak—”
“Now,” said Vanderloon, “now, Mal, be reasonable. That wasn’t the only time I went against the Sparrian’s advice. Every time he was right; and I lost more good men than I care to think of. I finally found myself forced to the conclusion that he knew what he was talking about.”
“Look,” said Mal, “I’ll bring my calculations. You can have them checked by any man in the system. It’s not a complicated theory, it’s just a matter of hitting the right combinations. You’ll see—”
“No!” said Vanderloon decisively. “If I’ve got to make it an order, I’ll make it an order. There will be no more work done by you or anybody else on this line of work you’ve started.” He looked across the desk. “Don’t be insubordinate, Mal.” Mal stood up. He was almost too full of emotion for words, but he would have tried to speak once more if Vanderloon had not forestalled him.
“Better luck next time, then,” said the Chairman of the Board. “And now, I’ve got some things to do here—” He let the words trail off.
The dismissal was obvious. Looking into the older man’s eyes, Mal felt the fury rising inside him to the point where it threatened to break through all his control.
“Good-by,” he said. Turning sharply, he strode out of the room, so stunned and at the same time so angry that he walked blindly and automatically, following the luminous arrows that pointed his way back to the flyer awaiting him outside at the landing.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MANSION WAS ENORMOUS, almost a city in itself, so that discreet signs in pale white glowed on the various corners of the motorized halls and rampways, directing those unfamiliar with the establishment to their destination. Mal switched from one moving strip of bright color to another— it seemed—without end.
He went up hallways and d
own rampways. Also up rampways. The signs were most explicit, or seemed to be; but it struck Mal after he had been traveling for some twenty minutes that it was taking him a lot longer to exit than it had to enter. Puzzled, he watched closely for the sign at the next corner. There it was, a softly gleaming arrow and the legend—TO LANDING FIELD—but it indicated another turn up a long ramp that led in a curve into the upper levels of the house. Mal hesitated, but the gentle glow of the white arrow left him no choice. Once he left the marked route he would be lost in the many acres of the building. He put his foot on the smoothly upward-flowing ramp and let it carry him up and around the corner.
Hardly had he turned the corner, however, when the lights went out; and he was plunged immediately into total darkness. Out of this a hand reached forth, grabbed his arm and dragged him sideways. Caught unaware, he stumbled several steps to the right, feeling beneath his feet the moving surface of the ramp give way to stationary flooring. Then the lights went on again.
He found himself in an apartment which—by mansion standards—was a small one and unostentatiously furnished. It was evidently high in one of the towers, for two large force screen windows overlooked the landing field. Mal caught a glimpse of his flyer far below and felt a sudden flash of longing for the power belt he had left inside it. Then he recognized the two occupants of the room, and together, power belt and flyer, vanished from his mind.
The two in question were Dirk Ten Drocke and his little secretary, Margie. Dirk’s long hand still held Mal’s arm. He shook it off and reached instinctively for his gun before remembering that the guard had taken it from him.
“Hold it,” said Dirk hastily. “I’d like to talk to you, Fletcher.” Mal relaxed slightly, stepping back. He looked at both of them.