Status Quo Part 7

"Brief me," Larry said.

"Well-briefly does it-it got out a couple of years ago that some of our rocketeers had bought a solid fuel formula from an Italian research outfit for the star probe project. Paid them a big hunk of Uncle's change for it.

So Self sued."

Larry said, "You're being _too_ brief. What d'ya mean, he sued? Why?"

"Because he claimed he'd submitted the same formula to the same agency a full eighteen months earlier and they'd turned him down."

"Had he?"

"Probably."

Larry didn't get it. "Then why'd they turn him down?"

Sam said, "Oh, the government boys had a good alibi. Crackpots turn up all over the place and you have to brush them off. Every cellar scientist who comes along and says he's got a new super-fuel developed from old coffee grounds can't be given the welcome mat. Something was wrong with his math or something and they didn't pay much attention to him. Wouldn't even let him demonstrate it. But it was the same formula, all right."

Larry Woolford was scowling. "Something wrong with his math? What kind of a degree does he have?"

Sam grinned in memory. "I got a good quote on that. He doesn't have any degree. He said he'd learned to read by the time he'd reached high school and since then he figured spending time in cla.s.srooms was a matter of interfering with his education."

"No wonder they turned him down. No degree at all. You can't get anywhere in science like that."

Sam said, "The courts rejected his suit but he got a certain amount of support here and there. Peter Voss, over at the university, claims he's one of the great intuitive scientists, whatever that is, of our generation."

"Who said that?"

"Professor Voss. Not that it makes any difference what he says. Another crackpot."

After Sam's less than handsome face was gone from the phone, Larry walked over to the bar with his empty gla.s.s and stared at the mixer for several minutes. He began to make himself another flip, but cut it short in the middle, put down the ingredients and went back to the phone to dial _Records_ again.

He went through first the brief and then the full dossier on Professor Peter Luther Voss. Aside from his academic accomplishments, particularly in the fields of political economy and international law, and the dozen or so books accredited to him, there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy.

A bachelor in his fifties. No criminal record of any kind, of course, and no military career. No known political affiliations. Evidently a strong predilection for Thorstein Veblen's theories. And he'd been a friend of Henry Mencken back when that old nonconformist was tearing down contemporary society seemingly largely for the fun involved in the tearing.

On the face of it, the man was no radical, and the term "crackpot" which Sam had applied was hardly called for.

Larry Woolford went back to the bar and resumed the job of mixing his own version of a rum flip.

But his heart wasn't in it. _The Professor_, Susan had said.

Before he'd gone to bed the night before, Larry Woolford had ordered a seat on the shuttle jet for Jacksonville and a hover-cab there to take him to Astor, on the St. Johns River. And he'd requested to be wakened in ample time to get to the shuttleport.

But it wasn't the saccharine pleasant face of the Personal Service operator which confronted him when he grumpily answered the phone in the morning. In fact, the screen remained blank.

Larry decided that sweet long drinks were fine, but that anyone who took several of them in a row needed to be candied. He grumbled into the phone, "All right, who is it?"

A Teutonic voice chuckled and said, "You're going to have to decide whether or not you're on vacation, my friend. At this time of day, why aren't you at work?"

Larry Woolford was waking up. He said, "What can I do for you, Distelmayer?" The German merchant-of-espionage wasn't the type to make personal calls.

"Have you forgotten so soon, my friend?" the other chuckled. "It was I who was going to do you a favor." He hesitated momentarily, before adding, "In possible return for future-"

"Yeah, yeah," Larry said. He was fully awake now.

The German said slowly, "You asked if any of your friends from, ah, abroad were newly in the country. Frol Eivazov has recently appeared on the scene."

Eivazov! In various respects, Larry Woolford's counterpart. Hatchetman for the _Chrezvychainaya Komissiya_. Woolford had met him on occasion when they'd both been present at international summit meetings, busily working at counter-espionage for their respective superiors. Blandly shaking hands with each other, blandly drinking toasts to peace and international co-existence, blandly sizing each other up and wondering if it'd ever come to the point where one would _blandly_ treat the other to a hole in the head, possibly in some dark alley in Havana or Singapore, Leopoldville or Saigon.

Larry said sharply, "Where is he? How'd he get in the country?"

"My friend, my friend," the German grunted good-humoredly. "You know better than to ask the first question. As for the second, Frol's command of American-English is at least as good as your own. Do you think his _Komissiya_ less capable than your own department and unable to do him up suitable papers so that he could be, perhaps, a 'returning tourist' from Europe?"

Larry Woolford was impatient with himself for asking. He said now, "It's not important. If we want to locate Frol and pick him up, we'll probably not have too much trouble doing it."

"I wouldn't think so," the other said humorously. "Since 1919, when they were first organized, the so-called Communists in this country, from the lowest to the highest echelons, have been so riddled with police agents that a federal judge in New England once refused to prosecute a case against them on the grounds that the party was a United States government agency."

Larry was in no frame of mind for the other's heavy humor. "Look, Hans,"

he said, "what I want to know is what Frol is over here for."

"Of course you do," Hans Distelmayer said, unable evidently to keep note of puzzlement from his voice. "Larry," he said, "I a.s.sume your people know of the new American underground."

"_What_ underground?" Larry snapped.

The professional spy chief said, his voice strange, "The Soviets seem to have picked up an idea somewhere, possibly through their members.h.i.+p in this country, that something is abrewing in the States. That a change is being engineered."

Larry stared at the blank phone screen.

"What kind of a change?" he said finally. "You mean a change to the Soviet system?" Surely not even the self-deluding Russkies could think it possible to overthrow the American socio-economic system in favor of the Soviet brand.

"No, no, no," the German chuckled. "Of course not. It's not of their working at all."

"Then what's Frol Eivazov's interest, if they aren't engineering it?"

Distelmayer rumbled his characteristic chuckle with humor. "My dear friend, don't be naive. Anything that happens in America is of interest to the Soviets. There is delicate peace between you now that they have changed their direction and are occupying themselves largely with the economic and agricultural development of Asia and such portions of the world as have come under their hegemony, and while you put all efforts into modernizing the more backward countries among your satellites."

Larry said automatically, "Our allies aren't satellites."

The spy-master went on without contesting the statement. "There is immediate peace but surely governmental officials on both sides keep careful watch on the internal developments of the other. True, the current heads of the Soviet Complex would like to see the governments of all the Western powers changed-but only if they are changed in the direction of communism. They are hardly interested in seeing changes made which would strengthen the West in the, ah, Battle For Men's Minds."

Larry snorted his disgust. "What sort of change in government would strengthen the United States in-"

The German interrupted smoothly, "Evidently, that's what Frol seems to be here for, Larry. To find out more about this movement and-"

"This _what_?" Larry blurted.

"The term seems to be _movement_."

Larry Woolford held a long silence before saying, "And Frol is actually here in this country to buck this ... this movement."