Exploiter's End Part 5

"Just for the record," I said.

"It had to be him," Starza said. "That thoughtcaster blast yesterday morning made reference to your study on the Term. Only Harvey and Carmody knew about that. It couldn't have been Harvey. He cut his throat this morning.

"I've decided," Starza said. "This is a Type L planet, after all. The natives are chronically unstable. Hostile, in fact. Pursuant to Solar Regulation 3, we have the right to enforce martial law. It should be six months before an investigation. Meanwhile--"

"We'll get production," I said.

"We'll get production." He wiped his forehead, relaxed. "I'll send in a full report tonight. Better turn in, Jake," he said kindly. "I'll need you in the morning."

I turned in.

You lie awake, staring into the blackness. It gnaws.

My head throbbed. I should have felt a triumphant relief, but I could not remember my axioms, and I felt a sick dull hate for the thing the Guild spy Carmody had done to me. What happens when you strip a man of everything he believes in?

He remembers other things.

Those memories came trooping back like ghosts and I fought them, sweating, but they came. Once upon a time, there was a starry-eyed young engineer who started out to set the galaxy on fire. But he got squeamish, somewhere along the way. So Carmody operated on him. Carmody did things to his brain, made a good production man out of him.

I remembered now.

That time I had argued with Starza about standards, nine years ago. And I had resigned. And Starza sent me to Psych.

Good old Carmody.

There never would be a white marble villa on Venus. It was a harmless dream, a subst.i.tute for what I had lost. But it didn't matter! Those superimposed patterns had been removed, that thoughtcaster had crippled my thinking, but, by Heaven, I was still an Amalgamated man! They couldn't take that away.

But Starza had been wrong about Carmody.

Nothing definite. But when you dedicate your life into extrapolating curves, frozen chunks of time and motion, into the thunder of jets lifting Amalgamated ships from Terminorb, your mind becomes a very efficient a.n.a.logue computor, if you know how to use. I used it now. I fed little things, facts, variables, into that computor, and it told me three times. Probability: sixty percent at least.

I got up, dressed stiffly. I was trembling. I could still serve, after all.

I took the lift up to Administration, and walked down that long gray corridor on leaden feet towards the illuminated rectangle of Starza's office.

I opened the door.

"h.e.l.lo, darling," Fern said.

She was unhurriedly burning Starza's report. Starza sat mutely in his chair, head tilted back at an impossible angle, staring at nothing.

"It had to be you." I had never felt so tired. "You would have destroyed the plant, wouldn't you? Only I showed you another way. Make the Terms revert. And you had that hypo all ready when I reeled into Psych." I moved towards her carefully. "You're so d.a.m.ned altruistic. A Guild mindless-controlled," I said.

Fern's smile was compa.s.sionate. She methodically ground the ashes to powder, lifted that calm green gaze.

"Stupid words to frighten children, Jake. Yes, they kidnapped me. I never reached Earth, three months ago. I was indoctrinated--oh, they didn't have far to go. _Each race to its own fulfillment._" Her eyes were shining. "Look out the window."

Numbly, I moved past her. I stared. In the distant blackness, a column of living flame flickered up the slope of Cobalt Mountain. Ice-green, ruby, silver and blue. The Terms were leaving.

"They're not ready for individuality yet," Fern breathed. "In a million years perhaps. Not now. They're going home."

"To die."

"The race will live. Individuality isn't the penultimate, darling.

You'll find out." I moved towards her. "You've got a very tough mind, Jake. You'll make a wonderful Guild agent--"

I got both hands on her throat.

Fern moved. Her right arm was a snake striking, and a steel strength lifted me, turning, against one and a half gravities, and the floor wavered up to hit me in the face. Something broke. I tasted blood.

Through the agony, I moved. I crawled towards her.

"They gave me six weeks of hand combat under two gravs," she said. "Soon you'll be one of us, Jake. One of the Guild!"

I stared up at her in a dull horror. I kept crawling.

"We'll heal you," Fern said. "We'll give you back the dream. We may even work together! Maybe I'll fall in love with you again, who knows?" Her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g. She took out a sonic pistol. "It's all right, darling. I'll adjust it for knockout. In three hours we'll be on a Guild flier. Please, darling," she said, and I kept crawling. And Fern's smile was a benediction as she pulled the trigger.