Planet in Peril

Charles said: “Look, you mean there’s someone out there waiting to see me? Anything but that.”

  The auto drew up before a big apartment block fronting the lake. The three of them went inside and took a lift to the top floor. Awkright whistled sharply at the door. He grinned at Charles.

  “I warned the visitor we were coming.”

  The door opened and they went through into the lobby. Awkright said: “You go ahead, Charlie. Straight through to the lounge. I want to show Hiram something.” There was no doubt that something was waiting for him. He pushed the door open and walked into the lounge—a big bright airy room with a lake view. Someone was standing by the main window, looking out over the waters. She turned as she heard him come in. It was Sara*

  Charles went right over to her. She smiled, hesitantly and then with warmth. He took her by the elbows, eager to feel the realness, the solidity, of her body. He wanted to bring her closer, to turn the knowledge of her return to him into the conviction of embrace. He was fairly sure she would not refuse him this time, either. But something prevented him. Instead he took one of her hands between his own, caressing it.

  “Sara,” he said. “How did you get away? Who was it took you?”

  She said: “Get away? There wasn’t any difficulty. Why should there be?”

  “But you were captured in the first place—by someone? It was made to look like suicide.”

  “Captured, but very politely.” She shivered. “That was the unpleasant part. A pre-set lock was put on the gyro controls. After about five minutes I found the controls just didn’t respond. I had to sit there while the gyro took me.”

  “Took you? Where?”

  “Sacramento. In the first place.”

  “Sacramento. Atomics!”

  “Of course. I was taken into the Atomics HQ building. They were very nice about everything, and most apologetic. They had had to pick me up, they said, for questioning on a matter of what they called managerial importance. I was to have a bed there for the night, and leave for Philadelphia the next morning.”

  “You couldn’t get any messages out, of course?” “Well, no. I was fed up about that. But it was understandable. They gave me a direct undertaking that I would be a free agent again in three days, and I had to be content with it.” Her face clouded. “During that time, Daddy—you know. But even that wasn’t their fault. They asked me whether my disappearing for three days would be likely to have any serious effect on him; they were willing to pick him up as they had done me, if I preferred it. It was my error of judgment. I didn’t want him to have the shock of being captured; I guess I underestimated the shock to him of having that happen to me.”

  “What happened—when you got to Philadelphia?”

  “I saw Raven.”

  Charles whistled. Raven was Chief Director of Atomics, Chairman of the Council of Managerial.

  “And…?"

  “I liked him. In fact I think he's the first person I’ve met over here that I’ve genuinely respected."

  Charles said: “He sounds a regular guy. Not the kind who would be trying to get you to complete Dai’s work for the benefit of his own managerial at all.’’

  Sara released her hand. “Come and sit down." She led the way over to a wallseat.

  “He did want something, though. Can you tell me what it was he wanted?"

  Sara fixed her eyes on him. “He wanted me to transfer from UC to Atomics. Officially, and above board. I can tell you that he would like you to do the same."

  Charles stared back at her—in amazement. He said:

  “You don’t mean—you consented? That you applied for transfer?"

  From a pocket she took the Atomics flame badge, and pinned it on her tunic. “Yes. I didn’t wear this at the beginning because I wanted to explain things to you." Her face softened. “Charles, I should have liked to talk it over with you first, but then they had to tell me that you had been captured by Telecom. They were trying to get you released, but meanwhile what was there to do?"

  “Go back to UC. Why not?”

  “UC," Sara said, “is so ineffective as to be impossible. The only Managers they’ve got that are any good are those who, like Ledbetter, are careerists. When Dai disappeared, the Atomics Contact Section were onto it. They tried to get co-operation from UC—from the top, from Graz—but they didn’t even know what had been happening in their own laboratories, and didn’t care either.”

  “They didn’t know," Charles said, “because Ledbetter had been routing the important stuff through to Telecom.”

  “That’s what I mean," she said. “Ineffective. They still didn’t act when I disappeared, or even when Ledbetter had you picked up. And meanwhile they had allowed the lab to be raided and anything that was of any value picked up.”

  Charles remembered Humayun’s reports arriving at The Cottage; of course, Telecom would have got them.

  “Yes,” he said. ‘1 know about that.”

  “You see,” she said. She showed him her wrist, and the small radio banded to it. “With this, I can call help from Atomics at any time. If I had gone back to UC it would merely have been a matter of presenting myself as a sitting duck to whichever managerial felt like taking aim.”

  Reluctantly, he began to see her point of view. He himself had been shocked enough by having the familiar world split and quake beneath his feet, and he had not been an exile, in a strange land, a strange world almost.

  “It wasn’t as though I had any ties to UC, was it? They took us in when we came over from Siraq, but any managerial would have done. We were skilled technicians—Dai and myself, that is. They didn’t do anything for Daddy.”

  “I suppose not. And you’re working for them?”

  She said frankly: “Not very well. I suppose I’m the collaborative type—I don’t work terribly well on my own.”

  “But how does it happen that you’re here—in Awkright’s suite? He’s not working for Atomics, too?”

  “I was flown over here. Three or four hours ago, Telecom alerted their whole organization for triple security checking. Atomics guessed what it meant—that you and Dinkuhl had got clear somehow. The Telecom line seemed to be directed toward Canada, but the Atomic guess was that you would be heading this way. They knew something of Dinkuhl’s circle—more than Dinkuhl would like to think, I fancy—and assumed he would get in touch with Awkright as soon as possible. As he did, of course.” Her hand moved, to touch his own. “You didn’t mind my coming over to meet you?”

  He smiled, grasping her fingers. “No.”

  “Not even when I come as an emissary of a strange managerial, trying to seduce you from your duty?” “It's always nice to have someone try to seduce you, even when you have no intention of giving way.” He grinned. “Isn’t it?”

  She looked at him appraisingly for a moment, and then colored. “I suppose so.”

  He thought for a moment. “You do recognize that my duty should be towards UC—my own managerial?”

  She shook her head definitely. “No. I was looking at it from the point of view I was afraid you might adopt. But I’m not going to argue about that. Will you come over and see Raven? I can promise you that you can do what you like afterward. There will be no question of holding you against your will.”

  He said: “Of course I’ll come. It will be quite an experience seeing Raven, in any case.”

  With relief, she said: “I’m glad.”

  He warned her: “That doesn’t mean I’m transferring.” She shrugged, very prettily. “As long as you’re coming.”

  Something that had been teasing Charles’ mind returned to bother him now.

  He said: “Your watch…”

  She lifted her finger, looking at him curiously. It was the same watch, or a duplicate.

  “You got it back, then,” he said.

  “Got it back? Oh, I see what you mean. I didn’t know you knew about that. I put it in to Allied Electrical for recharging during that week end. Daddy said he would pick it up for me on the Sunday
afternoon—he had to go fairly near the automat delivery—but he forgot. His memory was not very good the last few years. He was going to have it sent on to me, but of course ... I had it sent on to Philadelphia eventually.”

  Charles said: “Well, I’m damned! As simple an explanation as that. It was that watch that convinced me you really were alive.”

  She smiled. “Well, I am.”

  “Yes, but the evidence was unsound.”

  “Does the evidence matter?”

  The grave air of formality, to some extent characteristic of all Atomics posts, was paramount at the Philadelphia HQ. The Chief Directors private office was a long room, with one window on the courtyard and the other on Philadelphia, spread out thirty floors beneath. The desk the Chief Director was using was the one by the courtyard window. The uniformed, precise flunkies ushered Charles and Sara in, and Raven stood up.

  “I had the pleasure of seeing you approach, from my window. Miss Koupal, I am very glad you were successful in your mission. And you, too, Mr. Grayner—it was very good of you to be willing to put some of your time at my disposal.”

  Atomics for some reason retained the archaic forms of address in polite conversation.

  Charles said: “Naturally, Chief Director, it's an honor to be invited to meet you.”

  Raven directed his attention to Sara. “Do take a seat, Miss Koupal. And you, Mr. Grayner.”

  Sara remained standing. She said: “I think it would be better, sir, if I left the room for the present.” She glanced sideways at Charles. “Mr. Grayner knows of my transfer, and knows something of my views on it. I don’t think it would help at all for me to stay.”

  “As you feel best,” Raven said. He nodded to the two flunkies by the door, and they opened it again to let Sara out. “You will be within call?”

  She nodded. “In the garden.” She smiled at Charles, and left.

  Raven said: “I think an entirely private conversation would be most satisfactory, don’t you, Mr. Grayner? Rogers, Barczywski—wait outside, please.”

  The doors closed, and they were alone in the long and carefully ordered room. It had been built, and furnished, a long time ago; this was one of the first major edifices of the managerial world.

  “You will have a chair, anyway, Mr. Grayner,” Raven said. “Cigar, cigarette?”

  Charles took the chair indicated, and a cigarette from the box. “Thank you, Chief Director.”

  Raven went through the motions preparatory to lighting a cigar. He chuckled; it was a restrained but friendly expression.

  ‘If you were to decide to come over to us—I say if, Mr. Grayner—it would be incumbent on you to address me as ‘sir/ We have our little ways which must be preserved, mat coeli. Am I right in taking it that you would not find an insuperable objection in that small point?”

  The flame moved over to him, and he lit up. He smiled.

  “No. No objection, sir.”

  “Well,” Raven said easily. “That’s something. I always prefer to start off with a measure of agreement, however tiny it may be.”

  He paused, drawing on his cigar, and Charles waited. While he waited, he studied the man.

  He was a little under average height, and slimly built. He wore London clothes—a dark rust suit with a lime shirt and cravat—and wore, as a button-hole ornament, a white carnation. His features were somewhat sharp in outline but entirely relaxed in expression; it was impossible to imagine him getting excited over anything. He was probably in his early sixties; his hair had already turned white, and to good effect.

  Raven said: “Now, we can get to the business. I want to put things in their perspective. You are, I am sure, a shrewd and eminently sensible young man, but with the experiences you have so recently had, it would be surprising if your judgment had not been knocked a little out of true. And then, for some time now you have had the advantage of the company of Mr. Dinkuhl, a man of acute and perspicacious intelligence but of rather fixed ideas.” He glanced at Charles. “Could you, I wonder, give me some idea of your present views?”

  “On what?”

  “On fundamentals. On society.”

  “It’s rather hard to explain,” Charles said. Raven looked at him benevolently, encouragingly. “Until the recent events you mentioned, I took things for granted. I think that what has probably surprised and shocked me more than anything else has been the realization of the mistrust and hostility that exists between managerial. The world seems to have broken up, and it isn’t easy to put the pieces together again. Dinkuhl’s group of malcontents —you seem to know about them—and the Cometeers— and you probably know about them, too—and then finding that Telecom had access to all my records— through Ledbetter, I suppose. Now you have my records as well. The whole set-up seems to be riddled with double-crossing.”

  Raven nodded. “Not a very pretty picture, is it? The spectacle of a society chasing its tail, right hand fighting left hand, for the possession of the skills of three people —two of whom are not even its own children—is one to strike fear. I suppose Mr. Dinkuhl would describe such a situation as the ultimate throes of decadence.” Charles smiled slightly. “He does.”

  “And I,” said Raven, “must take a large measure of the blame, I suppose. I have been Chief Director of this managerial for fifteen years, and Chairman of the Council for twelve.” He leaned forward slightly. “Ten years ago, to the month, I reminded the Council of the urgency of reorganizing the research and technical development sides of managerial life. It was not a new proposition—several of my predecessors had drawn attention to the same need. The matter was ventilated— and dropped. Nothing got done. Shall I tell you what I did? I launched in this managerial a propaganda drive in favor of science and technology. It was directed principally at the class which was then in process of graduating. A bare handful of one hundred twenty-plus IQ candidates volunteered—and every single one proved to have disabling personality characteristics!”

  “In UC,” Charles said, “there was no question of opting.”

  Raven smiled. “Nor, in any other year, was there in this managerial. I thought of enforcing the reversal of policy, and even made tentative plans, but it did not prove possible to carry the idea through. There are limits even to the powers of a Chief Director.”

  Charles said: “Then Dinkuhl was right. This society is too far gone to save itself.”

  “Sometimes,” Raven said, “I have thought that. But, you know, there never has been a historical situation which was final. In any historical situation, the best one can do is to assess probabilities—and after you have assessed probabilities you have still got to decide about taking sides.

  “It is here that Mr. Dinkuhl and I part company. Mr. Dinkuhl wants the world to crash. No doubt he has his reasons, but I do not appreciate them, nor share his views. If society is sick and looks like dying, my instinct is to do what little it may be possible for me to do, to save it. The death of any society is a terrible thing, as Mr. Dinkuhl—as a student of history—must know. It may be that people today are not as happy as the TV screens portray them as being. They cannot be, if so many of them have resort to these peculiar rites of damnation associated with the comet that happens to be visiting us. But I regard the kind of unhappiness they may now have as different in kind from the utter misery and wretchedness that would attend a breakdown in civilized life. It may be a long pull—it may be an entirely vain pull—to get society back on its feet, but I see no harm in trying it.”

  Ceasing to speak, Raven kept an inquiring look directed on Charles’ face. It was impossible not to be impressed by the man’s realism and confidence; nor to fail to compare it favorably with Dinkuhl’s realism and despair.

  “This is the picture I give you, Mr. Grayner. Either you help to destroy managerialism, or help to save it by working on the diamond-solar power source for Atomics. You will be saving, as I have explained, something very imperfect, but destruction is a terrible thing. Should you choose what seems to me the more human course,
then you must decide in what direction your help will be of the greatest value. Were other things equal, I should counsel you to work on behalf of your own managerial, for a number of reasons which I will not go into now. But I don’t think other things are equal, and I do not think you yourself think so. I ask you to throw in your lot with us, because it is my own belief that we are most capable of helping you and of using your work wisely.” He paused. “You might like time to think matters over?”

  Charles said: “You already have Sara. If I should ask for transfer as well—aren’t UC going to object to this wholesale suborning of their research workers?”

  Raven nodded. “It is very likely. But one of the few intermanagerial regulations the Council did agree on was that entailing the full and free right of transfer, with the consent of the person seeking transfer and the new managerial. The consent of the original managerial is specifically not required.” He smiled. “Although it was much before my time, I believe I am right in saying that United Chemicals, along with Steel, Allied Electrical and a few others, formed the group that urged the regulation, and that this managerial opposed it in the first place—it was used in a campaign against us. Things make the round. Anyway, you may leave UC’s objections to me. It’s my job to deal with them.”

  “One question, sir. You haven’t got Humayun?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t know where he is?”

  “We have had some lines to work on. Frankly, we know very little yet. He may even be genuinely dead.” “You know that he is the real brain behind the diamond power source—that the original work was all his?”

  “We know that. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Grayner. What stage would you say the work has reached?”

  “Development stage. When I first examined it, I wanted to pass it on for routine development—the essential creative work had been completed. Sara persuaded me to carry on for a time. Of course, I did not know then that there was no one in fact capable of doing the development work.”

  “And how long, in your view, should the development work take?”

  Charles shrugged. “It's practically impossible to give an answer—snags always crop up, but you can’t estimate the size of the snags nor their number in advance. Not less than three months, I should say. And probably not more than a year.” He glanced at Raven. “Once again, it’s worth remembering that even if you hold two out of three, it’s the third that’s the heavyweight.”