The Doomed Planet

  My clothes were lying in a tangle on the floor. I reached down and picked them up.

  Sloppily dressed, I stood at the door. I looked back into the room. I frowned as Asa’s voice sounded, “Oh, Har. Me now, oh, Har, please!”

  Lik’s voice came with a strangled sound, “Not yet. Not yet. Not yet!”

  I shook my head even though it made it hurt.

  I closed the door behind me and the music dimmed to a whisper.

  XIV

  Nobody was about. I found a viewer-phone in the hall. I did not turn the viewer on. I called Shafter to come and get me.

  Outside, the morning air was chill. I went over to the landing pad and sat down on a bench.

  Somewhere behind me, I heard a noise. I turned. A man was clearing up debris outside the door of the hospital, throwing things into a trash box. He had on an old doctor’s smock, very stained. After a bit he picked up the box and headed for the kitchen disintegrator: his course lay across the landing pad.

  When he got close, I suddenly recognized him. It was Prahd! The once straw-colored hair was heavy now with gray, but his eyes were as green as green emeralds. He was long of limb and had a jerky walk as though hung together with hinges.

  He dumped his trash and turned around. He saw me sitting there.

  “Who are you?” he said. “One of the children’s shiftless friends?” There was an edge of contempt in his voice, possibly brought on by my very rumpled appearance. It stung me.

  I opened my mouth to give him an acid reply when suddenly, despite my fog, inspiration hit me. And then and there I proved my worth as an investigative reporter. Despite being banged half to pieces, despite marijuana aftereffects, I could still function. I don’t mind telling you that what I pulled off was absolutely brilliant! A coup in its own right.

  “My name is Pry,” I said. “I am a medical student.”

  He stopped. I could see the interest kindle. “Well, what are you doing here?”

  “It’s private research,” I said. “Just for my own interest. Lately I’ve been studying genetics. I ran into the strange case of a brown-eyed man and a blue-eyed woman who had only green-eyed children.”

  He sat down suddenly on the other end of the bench and looked at me closely. “Where did you get this?” he said.

  In true investigative-reporter style, I lied. “One of my professors said he had heard from a colleague long ago that it could happen. And he cited the children of Pratia Tayl.”

  “Are you hinting at something?” said Prahd.

  “No, no,” I said, my brilliance overriding my splitting headache, “I would never dream of questioning the ethics of the leading cellologist in the land. I just slipped in here this morning in the hope of getting a glimpse of some of the green-eyed progeny. Then I will know that it is indeed true that a brown-eyed man and a blue-eyed woman can have green-eyed children, and I won’t have to believe the genetic axioms anymore. I find them tiresome anyway.”

  “Oh, come now,” said Prahd, the sanctity of the medical and cellological axioms at risk. “You can’t make a decision on a single case.”

  “You’re going to say,” I said, “that it is an atavism, but that won’t hold, for it seems to be consistent and breeding true. The percentage of atavistic reoccurrences are . . . I forget the percentage. . . .”

  “Nineteen,” said Prahd. “But you are simply floundering around. It is NOT an atavism. You students are all too willing to go diving off into the brush instead of holding the line. I assume now that I can talk within the bounds of professional discretion?”

  “Absolutely!” I said.

  “The old colleague of your professor was alluding to the case of an officer of a defunct organization who was married in the Royal prison and whose bride conceived on her wedding night. When the child was born it had to be registered and it excited some professional interest; but the paper I filed on it might now be lost, for it was long ago.”

  “No one cited a paper,” I said, ignoring my headache and continuing to surpass myself with investigative reporter brilliance.

  “Then that’s the trouble,” said Prahd. “They don’t teach students as thoroughly as they used to in my day: they leave it up to people like myself to straighten them out.

  “The case traces back to another, far-off planet that doesn’t exist anymore. I was on duty there and this same officer came to me, injured. One of his testes had atrophied in youth, the other had been crushed. In effect, he had been emasculated.

  “Now, on this far-off planet there were very few available Voltarians and it would have been a scurvy trick to give him testicles from the race there, as it is very short-lived. Further, there was the matter of operational emergency.

  “The only possible solution was to take cells of my own testes and cause them to manufacture full organs in his scrotum.”

  “Amazing!” I said. “Does one run into these emergencies often?”

  “Fortunately, seldom. It is a very unique case. I was rather proud of the result, actually. But on the other hand, it had strange consequences. This officer was quite unprincipled.

  “In a valley there, near the hospital, with his new equipment, he impregnated some thirty women. The offspring all had green eyes and straw-colored hair, even though black eyes and hair were the racial dominance.

  “Not only that, but this officer actually married two women in a very distant city on that planet and he impregnated them and at least a dozen other women there.”

  “And the offspring all had green eyes and straw-colored hair?”

  “Every one of them!” said Prahd.

  “Well, how did you know that, if they were born after you left?”

  He looked at me strangely. I had to get a quick grip on the situation, for the marijuana and headache had made me incautious. I was floundering, the sunlight hurt my eyes. I said, “But Pratia calls more than two people ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ and this officer was sent to an island before the second child . . .” I broke down, trying to think.

  Just then Ske the butler passed, evidently bound for the markets, and he said, “Good morning, Master Pennwell. Did you have a nice night with Lady Pratia?”

  Prahd’s hand was gripping my front collar. He yanked me close. “Who the blazes are you, anyway?”

  Unfortunately for Prahd, it yanked my face upward. My eyes lighted on an attic window!

  A face was there, peering through the curtains.

  The hair was gray and matted.

  The eyes were wild, quite insane.

  But even age did not fully change him from his pictures.

  IT WAS SOLTAN GRIS!

  Despite the throttlehold on my throat, despite my hangover, elation coursed through me! Not even the jar when Prahd threw me down could wipe out my triumph.

  Pratia must have gotten him as part of her trade for fuel!

  But how monstrous! Here he was, surrounded by his worst enemies—Ske, Meeley and even Bawtch—before he died! How they must torment him and gloat! What glee they must feel with him locked up there in the attic!

  I was staring at those insane eyes and then I further understood. He was carrying another man’s sperm: every time he had impregnated a woman it had been not for himself but for Prahd! How devilish Prahd had been, siring babies all over the place without a single blot on his professional ethics!

  And there Gris was, still under the sentence of death: Teenie had simply delegated it to Pratia! No wonder his prison records still existed! The sentence had never been completed!

  And Pratia had had him (bleeping) himself crazy all these years siring another man’s children!

  A TERRIFIC, MONSTROUS ADDITIONAL COVERUP!

  The insane eyes withdrew from the attic window.

  I giggled in Prahd’s face.

  Hangover or no hangover, I knew right then that I was one of the greatest investigative reporters that ever lived!

  I had found Soltan Gris!

  XV

  For three days after I got home I was
not much good for anything.

  My heart was pumping overtime, though I realized this must be because I simply was not used to marijuana. My eyes continued to be bloodshot, caused, of course, by my rubbing them too often. My throat was dry, but only when I wasn’t drinking water. It was also bruised deep inside, a condition occasioned, naturally, by Prahd’s grip. The body contusions and chafed (bleep) just showed that I was not used to sex.

  The doctor that Hound called asked if I’d been mauled and chewed by a snug and wanted to give me numerous shots for snug-bite. I said no, but Hound said yes and the reaction from the shots was far worse than any illness I might have had.

  These people were far too nosy and it was with great relief, on the fourth day, when they finally let me out.

  The bruises had turned yellow. I ignored the ruptured veins. I grabbed Shafter and made him pack the old air-tourer. I had things to do!

  In my pocket nestled a note I had blackmailed out of Prahd. It was on the stationery of the King’s Own Physician and it said I was a medical inspector. He had quickly seen the light when I had told him that my great-uncle, Lord Dohm, at the Royal prison, would be fascinated to know where his prisoner, Soltan Gris, had gotten to and, further, that the neighbors in that elegant neighborhood might object to mobs burning down Minx Estates if they found the hated Gris was not only alive but in the attic there. Prahd had seen the light, all right! I marveled at the way I was rapidly picking up the skills of an investigative reporter: I could do them so well now that even the after-haze of marijuana could not dull them.

  And neither could these broken veins and bruises! I was heading for the Confederacy Insane Asylum on the chance that Doctor Crobe and Lombar Hisst were still alive!

  If there had been a coverup on so many other things, might it not be true that their TRUE condition might also be masked? Perhaps they had just been the victims of political opportunism and chicanery! It might be that they were illegally held!

  What a coup if I established THAT!

  The Confederacy Asylum is far, far to the north. There is a wasteland there that borders a vast ocean near the northern pole of Voltar, a dismal place, covered most of the year with ice.

  It was the autumn season and the quarter of the year which covered the north with perpetual night had not quite arrived, though Voltar’s sun was awfully low on the horizon on these brief, remaining days.

  After an overnight stop at a midway air hostel, we arrived in the twilight of a 10:00 AM dawn.

  As far as one could see, there were small huts and buildings. They ended at a cliff edge far above the sullen Northern Ocean.

  Shafter landed on the target marked, “Reception Center.” Wrapped in an electric-heated jacket and covered by a snow mask, I stepped out into the shrieking, icy wind.

  A guard flinched at the letter and hastily directed me into the building and down a long hall to the office of the Resident Keeper.

  Strangely enough, the official was a cheerful, bright young man with black eyes and charm. The sign said his name was Neht.

  He came right out of his chair when I handed him the note. His hair rose faster than he did but the speed of his recovery told me all I needed to know: his appointment was political rather than technical and was held by INFLUENCE.

  I didn’t remove my snow mask. I said severely, “There have been rumors of mistreatment of inmates, denial of medical care.”

  To my astonishment, his alarm did not just switch to charm. It went right on to laughter. “I can’t imagine where that came from,” he said at length. “We have a staff of physiological doctors unrivaled in skills. You will forgive my seeming mirth. Actually, it is relief. There has been criticism of a different kind: that our employment of gerontological technology on inmates adversely affected our budgetary burden. No, no, inspector, you will not find mistreatment here. The bodily illnesses of the insane—and they are many—are extraordinarily well cared for. And I can assure you that this task is performed, despite its difficulties: you see, the insane do tend to bash themselves around. But we patch them up, regardless. You see, we are forbidden by law to tamper with their nerves or damage them, but I assure you that, when they get ill or even scratched, they are cared for at once.”

  “You spoke of gerontological technology,” I said. “Are there abuses there?”

  “Some say so,” replied Neht. “But personally, I am proud of it. By extending age in inmates, it can be argued that the cost of running this place is heightened. But you must realize that, despite the short northern growing season, we actually EXPORT food to northern government installations: the inmates, many of them, seem to find relief in working outdoors despite the weather, as it gets them out of their cells. So, what does it matter if we extend age? Sometimes, though rarely, aging is attended by calming reflections, if senility does not set in. Just the other day we discharged a man who had reached 195. He said his wife would be dead by now, so there was no one left to keep him insane and he went away as happy as could be.”

  “Nevertheless,” I said, still severe, “this does not get you out of an inspection.”

  Of course, he complied. With the specter of a canceled appointment being issued by the Emperor, he was all obligingness.

  There ensued an hour of walking from barracks to barracks and hut to hut. I went through the charade of trying to talk to this patient or that. They stared at me blankly or thought I was a cloud and one even gave me a carefully stamped drawing receipt for two billion credits—except, despite his motions, he was holding neither an identoplate nor a paper. One was pushing a single-wheel cart through a yard. It was upside down; I asked him why he did not turn it right side up and he whispered to me that if he did, somebody would put something in it.

  Although walls were scarred up, the huts and barracks were well kept. Although the inmates were strange, none of them were physically injured or ill. The dispensary and hospital were clean and busy and no fault existed there.

  Finally I turned to Neht. My investigative-reporter skills would be needed to the full. I said, “I see no extremely aged people here. I doubt very much that you are using gerontological techniques to keep them alive. Frankly, I am beginning to suspect that you are killing the older ones off!”

  That got through his bland, black-eyed charm. “Oh, not so!” he cried. He studied the situation for a moment and then he said, “Come with me!”

  His way led to the record office. There sat huge arrays of consoles. He cleared away a covey of fluttering clerks and sat down at one, fanning his fingers over the keyboard. He was causing case records to flash by age.

  He kept up a running fire of comment, “You see? One-ninety-one. Two hundred and three. One-eighty-nine. One-ninety-two . . .” This one and that one, he went on and on. It dawned on me that there must be at least a half a million inmates in this place. This was going to take all day!

  My wits were sharp. I said, in an acid voice, “I see you are avoiding the political prisoners.”

  That stopped him. He forgot his charm and gawped. “We don’t have any political prisoners here!”

  “Oh, yes, you do!” I said in as deadly a voice as I could manage. “Or, that is to say, you DID until you killed them off.”

  “Oh, here now,” he said. “That is very brutal talk. They would fire the whole staff if anything like that happened!”

  “Precisely,” I said. “I happen to know there is truth in my allegation. You HAVE had political prisoners. I know the names of two.”

  He shook his head, confused. Then he said, “There never have been any such here. You have been misinformed, inspector.”

  “Punch in,” I said, “the names of Dr. Crobe and Lombar Hisst!”

  Instantly he relaxed. He even chuckled. “Oh, those!” he said. “They’re not political prisoners. They’re as insane as anybody ever got.”

  “Punch them in,” I said sternly.

  He did.

  AND THERE THEY WERE!

  Neht tried to explain that the reason they h
ad not come up on his gerontological console was that Hisst was only 170 and Crobe was only 180. I would have none of it.

  “Political prisoners,” I said. “I must inspect them!”

  He shook his head. He pointed to the notation on Hisst’s card: INCOMMUNICADO. May only speak to Crobe. And then on Crobe’s card: INCOMMUNICADO. May only speak to Hisst. “They are not permitted to talk to anyone! Nobody ever goes to see them!” Neht said. “Those are Royal orders!”

  “Aha!” I said. “From another reign! And what am I carrying but Royal orders? The charge is proven. You DO have political prisoners here, prisoners no more insane than you or I. Well, thank you, Neht. I shall now go back and make my report that the Confederacy Asylum—”