Beloved Son Page 7

  Previous shuttles had come without warning and the starmen had obtained only glimpses of them at odd angles, shadows against greater darkness or brilliant flecks lighted on a single face to obscure the shape of the whole. Closer view roused his space-trained excitement. First, they were far too small by the fuel-carrying standards of his day and their ventless noses made it certain they were not monopole ships. (A small internal voice nagged, But why aren’t they? and was stilled for lack of clues.) Allowing for a crew of two and space for removal of Columbus’s personnel and baggage, no more than a third of their lengths could be propulsive system. This argued a sophisticated drive, and in his knowledge only the ion rocket could possibly fill the bill; he discounted the nuclear pulse system with its dangers and shielding problems.

  The nearer shuttle swayed slightly as its tieline clamped magnetically to Columbus’s hull, and he caught his breath as sunlight silhouetted what could only be an arrowhead airfoil. These were not space-to-space parasites but self-contained ground-to-space shuttles, postulating fully manual control and an accordingly high fuel capacity with an incredible waste allowance. He itched to come to grips with one of these tiny skybirds.

  A porte opened and a suited figure moved clumsily out, fumbling along the tieline with an air of not knowing what to do with its useless legs. Sunlight caught the flash of insigne on the helmet.

  The Commissioner was not accustomed to weightlessness; there were possibilities in that. An awkward man is vulnerable to indignity.

  2

  Campion’s perfunctory hours of null-g experience in a Flight Branch school some years before had not been enough to immunise him against disorientation in a boundless environment or the shock of sudden reorientation – lurchingly downwards – when a movement of his head brought the huge Earth into view. He closed his eyes and felt his way along the line, anger rising at his ineptitude. (And always there was the subliminal sting of those Jackson-bred doubts, like a fortune teller’s ambiguities.)

  He snapped unforgivably at the Tech whose hand hauled him through the starship’s porte and guided him right way up. Inside they stripped the suit from him and every movement was an error because his anger forgot to restrict exertion to a minimum.

  His first impression was of waste. A space ship with a corridor and rooms opening off it like an Earthside hotel! He had been taught that conspicuous waste had been the identifying characteristic of the twentieth century; well, they had paid for it, poor devils. But the bitter result was that their descendants paid for it still and would for centuries to come.

  He began to simmer down. He should not have made this trip; a deputy would have sufficed but the obsessive need to meet Raft face to face had overridden judgement.

  While he clung without dignity to the shoulders of two Techs who tugged at his boots he saw the man himself. In shapeless, grubby overalls, with hair hanging over his eyes, hands in pockets, he lounged against the wall, observing the struggling group with professional contempt.

  The likeness was fantastic and the Techs knew it; they also knew better than to refer to it or take obvious notice. In any case they must have been the first discoverers. So blue eyes under red hair stared into grey eyes under brown hair like feuding brothers, while Campion tried to comfort himself that a likeness between himself and this shambling ape must be fortuitous.

  The tramp raised himself erect in a movement Campion could not have duplicated and became suddenly the Commander shoddiness could not disguise.

  ‘Commissioner Campion? Welcome aboard.’ It was a polite curse. ‘We’ll wait for you in the wardroom.’

  He walked away with a shuffling gait Campion could not have achieved in weeks of practice, leaving the Commissioner to bite on the fact of having been effortlessly put in his place. He realised mismanagement of the Columbus affair from the start; her complement would be in no receptive mood.

  He asked, ‘What the devil’s a wardroom?’

  ‘A sort of community lounge, sir. Derived from old seagoing speech.’ More damned waste! ‘Do we come with you?’

  ‘No. Why should you? This isn’t a job for—’ He thought, Steady! and tried to undo brusqueness. ‘Sorry. I mean that this is still a classified matter.’

  There were handholds in the wall and he used them. Pausing in the doorway through which Raft had gone, he saw him again as one in a seated arc of dispassionately polite faces. Imitating Raft’s shuffle he took a pace inside the room, steadied himself with a hand on the doorframe, shut the door behind him and positioned himself against it. He felt he had completed the manoeuvre without loss of presence and was aware of the impact of his tailored black and burnished gold against the pale paint of the bulkhead. Aware, too, that a careless movement could ruin it.

  He recognised Lindley, excited and obscurely amused, as the one who relaxed first on a long breath and drew the eyes of the others with him to centre on Raft. Raft was plainly puzzled by their staring, but a man does not readily recognise himself other than in a mirror.

  Lindley said, ‘You read of it but never see it. Spitting image – almost. Albert, meet Albert.’

  Raft inspected Campion thoughtfully. Curiously his personality dimmed, withdrew, as though he listened to voices only he could hear. Then he smiled and shook his head but said nothing.

  A slightly accented voice – ah, yes, Doronin – said, ‘Albert has brown hair and grey eyes. But it is astonishing, like different aspects of the same man.’

  ‘Hair and eyes are not conclusive.’ That was Streich. He and Kulayev chattered together about imperfect techniques, experimental sports and stimulation of recessives.

  Raft said loudly, ‘Forget it; he isn’t a clone-brother.’

  That was good, good, but also not conclusive. ‘You could have reasons for saying so, Commander.’

  Raft shrugged. ‘If you were a brother we would both know it and the point would not be raised.’

  ‘A statement impossible to corroborate.’

  So it was. Lindley said, ‘Take his word, Commissioner. It seems that clone-brothers have their own means of recognition.’

  ‘I have heard the Commander’s recorded statement about that; it still remains only his word.’

  ‘You don’t wish to be a clone-brother? I sympathise, and as a psychiatrist I have my own reasons for being sure that the Commander is telling the truth.’

  ‘And for convincing me of it.’ He continued sullenly, ‘I need to know, beyond doubt. Do you still say, Commander, that this method is not telepathic?’

  Raft smiled at him, genuinely amused at an inane predicament. ‘I do. The awareness is strong and unpleasant; I don’t know the pathology or psychology of it; I can only tell you that it exists. And who would want telepathy? Mental privacy is an essential need.’

  Campion said, without any lightness, ‘An outbreak of telepaths would be the last straw. I have to tell you all that you have returned at a moment of stress which nobody in authority understands or can explain to you. An underground movement exists and we don’t know its meaning; it concerns that biologist of your time, Heathcote, and his experiments. You can accept, Commander, that a Security Commissioner takes no pleasure in being suspected as a possible member of your clone.’

  ‘You aren’t.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure.’

  ‘You can. You don’t make me vomit.’

  ‘I’m not laughing. Or do you mean that literally?’

  ‘I do.’

  Campion thought about it. ‘You mentioned it on tape but I thought the revulsion might have been the passing aspect of a first impact.’ He continued, almost hopefully, ‘We still aren’t sure but if this is so, then we’re barking up a wrong tree. People with such reactions couldn’t co-operate.’

  Raft nodded. ‘It could be a problem that knocks cloning on the head for ever; they simply couldn’t stand each other’s physical presences.’

  With a new line of thought opening Campion became careless; a slight movement displaced him and the attempt to reco
ver lifted him six inches from the floor and turning slowly face down.

  Raft came across the room in a sweep impossibly graceful in such an ungainly man, anchored himself with a hand on the door handle and with the other took Campion lightly by the shoulder to bring him upright, and steadied his floating with a touch of his knee.

  ‘Stay still. Now – slide your feet across the floor to the chair. Don’t push down.’

  It was humiliating but he needed the chair. He had lost his chance of dominating but had the sense to make the best of it, to assume a deprecating ruefulness and say, ‘Outside the Flight Branch we get very little orbital experience. I’m out of my element.’

  He saw a chance to recover the ball and added, ‘As you will be down there.’ That caught them; play what games of sang-froid they might, their curiosity must be consuming. ‘You will be babies in the new world, unable to stir without falling out of your unfamiliar cradles. Perhaps you’ll like it, but my Ombudsman has his doubts.’

  He became conscious of an opposing stage management when Raft jumped his lead. ‘Nobody likes aggressive change but adaptability was a major requirement for our selection. When do we leave?’

  ‘Now. With me.’

  None of them stirred and Raft asked only, ‘To whom will we be reporting?’

  It was too cool; they were after something, but with six armed men in call he need not fear violence. ‘The administration that sent you out no longer exists and we don’t know quite what to do with you. The scientists will want to have at you of course.’

  Doronin displayed the first eagerness he had seen in them. ‘Then perhaps we can go to our own countries?’

  ‘Why, yes, I suppose so.’ With the words he realised that he had now a thoroughly nasty piece of business on his hands, one he had not given thought to. ‘With one exception.’

  The air tightened with defensiveness.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Lindley, but you cannot go back to England.’

  Lindley’s face became wooden. ‘Why not?’

  ‘There is no England – as you knew it.’ As the man’s face became hideous he said desperately, ‘There was a period of – we call it the Five Days. I’ll get the Ombudsman to explain it properly. Someone who lived through it. I wasn’t born.’ He felt he was making excuses, pleading to be absolved of blame.

  Lindley said in a stranger’s voice, ‘There was a war? And England – disappeared?’

  ‘Became uninhabitable. For another century, I think.

  There are a dozen such areas around the planet.’ No imaginable consolation was possible. He said drearily, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Lindley held a long silence nobody cared to break. At last he asked, ‘The island can be visited?’

  ‘With precaution.’

  ‘Such as lead pants?’ It was savagery, but the soul had gone out of him. ‘Albert! Can Australia hold us both, or have you seen enough of me?’

  ‘No; stay with me.’ Raft left it at that and veered from the subject. ‘Was Australia damaged, battered?’

  ‘Comparatively little. So little as to make us unpopular in a broken world.’

  ‘Then you are Australian?’

  ‘In a way. I was born there. At least I think so; records were poorly kept then. But as International Security I have no country.’

  Lindley laughed. ‘One world! With an armed service to hold it together! We’ve had a few years in heaven, now let’s see what hell on Earth is like. But Cap’n Albert said it all so long and long ago: “It’ll be the same old shitheap”.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ There could be no reasoning with a man from whom tradition, kind and environment had been stripped in a sentence. ‘We should leave immediately.’

  No one moved. He rose cautiously from the chair to gain the mild superiority of standing over them. ‘It is time to go.’

  The German, Streich, said with an air of initiating a new phase, ‘After so long another hour can pass. We have had days to think on what we have seen and heard, which is little. What we have seen is only –’ his finger stabbed at Campion’s black and gold ‘–that!’ The detestation in his tone was dismaying. ‘We have had six black uniforms on six silent men. Now a seventh, who makes mysteries. This is menace.’

  ‘The uniform? The colour?’ Campion’s mental footing was becoming as unsure as his physical equilibrium. ‘It is distinctive, immediately recognised. Nobody else wears black except for small dress contrasts; that is why we use it.’

  ‘So? A rainbow world? Pretty. But our century is not so forgettably far back in time. Do you really not think that black uniforms are ever the symbol of secret police, of arrests by night, of torture and blood and forced confessions?’

  It was fascinating information, fitting his picture of their corrupt society. ‘That may have been. Not now.’

  ‘And the deaf ear to questions? What is hidden? Does the world even know we are here? Or are we something new and fearful to be kept in an administrative closet?’

  Raft broke in on him, Commander of Columbus and all in it. ‘You sealed our controls and stole our records. For lack of understanding we let you do it, but we have had time to think and make our guesses.’ Campion tensed as Raft also stood and they faced each other, smart black authority against a shapeless overall loaded with command. Raft asked unexpectedly, ‘Are you armed?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Raft smiled, ‘You are probably as strong and fast as I am but not so agile in this environment.’

  As Campion’s hand moved to the shoulder holster and he thought, The idiot’s going to attack me, Raft was already upon him. He was swung about and the gun taken from him before he had properly freed it; he saw it tossed to Matthews before his arms were forced behind his back and up.

  Raft spoke in his ear. ‘Aboard this ship I command and you request. That was law in my day and will remain so until I hand over command. When and if I find someone entitled to the handing over.’

  Campion remained still; he needed knowledge.

  Matthews examined the gun and snickered, ‘It’s a gas pistol!’

  Raft asked, ‘What sort of gas, Commissioner?’

  ‘A short time soporific.’

  Doronin said, ‘That tells us something. Let him go, Albert.’

  His arms were released. He tugged furiously at his rumpled uniform and at once drifted off the floor. Raft guided him back to his chair.

  ‘As Commander I apologise, but it was necessary. What does the gun tell, Ivan?’

  ‘He may also carry a lethal arm but he reached for this one – a peace weapon. Perhaps Security is basically a peaceful force. He came in here alone, arguing confidence and a lack of hostility. The black uniform is probably no more than he claims, simple melodrama. He is a man in an unimagined and possibly to him unimaginable position and therefore he is mishandling it. There would seem to have been some considerable changes in human attitudes. Jim?’

  ‘Probably.’ But Lindley was in dead England and not much interested.

  Raft said, ‘We’d better get the rest of them in here.’

  ‘I think not; they should not see him at a disadvantage. We must establish equality, not dominance.’

  Campion said, ‘Your methods are peculiar.’

  Raft laughed at him. ‘We don’t much care for yours. Let’s begin again at the beginning. Commissioner, I am Commander Raft. Welcome aboard.’

  Campion ignored the one-upmanship and the proffered hand. ‘In your day was it customary to immobilise a protagonist and then offer a charade of formality to gloss violence?’

  Lindley came viciously to life. ‘In business, politics and diplomacy it was commonplace, and Columbus to your shuttle it still is.’

  And that could be true in the sub-surface rough and tumble, though he had never considered it so succinctly. ‘Very well, I’ll play your game – when you return me the pistol.’

  Matthews murmured, ‘And balls to you, Fred.’

  ‘Commander?’

  ‘Give it to him, Ewan.’ Mat
thews did not move. ‘Must I take it from you?’

  No doubt that he could. Matthews handed it over with poor grace. Campion hefted it a moment and returned it to the holster. Gestures all round, he thought.

  Doronin took up the attack. ‘Our time is only four decades past; I feel that you are not so very much our technical superiors and certainly not our intellectual masters. You live in a different world, not necessarily a better one, and we are not country boys with straws in our hair. This had to be made clear.’

  ‘Accepted – with reservations. It is your morality we distrust.’

  Doronin’s eyes widened. ‘That? Perhaps rightly. Points of view –’ He did not pursue it. ‘May I make an educated guess? You, a security officer, are capable of a kind of violence but not accustomed to it; your whole behaviour pattern cries it out. So there must be a different relationship between law officers and the public than prevailed in the last century – more mutual respect, less distrust.’

  Campion came in with exasperated force. ‘Do you think I am some sort of muckraking policeman?’ The silence said that they most surely did. ‘Security is non-national and it is not interested in civil crime; we guard the rights of people, not their possessions. We guard against encroachment and aggression and other less simple forms of anguish and disaster. We deal in population movements, conservation of resources, co-ordination of international projects, preservation of cultural identity in minorities and almost anything that concerns planetary welfare and what you could term fair play. You might call us international diplomats.’ Matthews squawked contempt and Campion surveyed him coolly. ‘Very well – co-ordinating politicians. Politician was a dirty enough word in your time, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Armed politicians!’ Lindley jeered.

  ‘Why not? Can authority preserve itself without a source of provable strength? Do you prefer anarchy? Ceaseless conflict? That was your life, wasn’t it? We have certain police powers and military resources but they are rarely called on and have never seen massive use.’