The Canopy Of Time Part 13

"So there's the story of a jerk called Art Stayker for you, fellows," he said, as his right foot left the last step. "He couldn't take it. The solid business was too tough for him. Right there and then, after he beat up that little tailor, he dropped everything and disappeared into the stews of Nunion. He didn't even stay to round off his picture, and Unit Two folded up. He was a reed quitter, was Art."

Ruddy came up to Harsch and said, "You have me interested. How come, though, we've had to wait twenty years to hear all this?"

Carefully, Harsch spread his hands wide and smiled.

"Because Stayker was a dirty word round here when he first quit," he said, aiming his voice not at Ruddy but at Mr. Wreyermeyer, "and after that he was forgotten and his work was tucked away.

Then-well, it happened I ran into Stayker a couple of days backhand that gave me the idea of working over the old Unit Two files."

He tried to move in front of Mr. Wreyermeyer, to make it easier for the big chief to compliment him on his sagacity if he felt so inclined; but Ruddy got in the way again.

"You mean Art's still alive?" Ruddy persisted. "He must be quite an old man now. What's he doing, for To's sake?"

"He's just a down-and-out, a b.u.m," Harsch said. "I didn't care to be seen talking to him, so I got away from him as soon as possible. Man, he stinks!"

He shook Ruddy off and stood before the big chief.

"Well, Smile," he said, as calmly as he could, "don't tell me you don't smell a solid there-something to sweep 'em off their feet and knock' em in the aisles."

As if deliberately prolonging the suspense, Mr. Wreyermeyer took another drag on his aphrohale before removing it from his mouth.

"We'd have to have a pair of young lovers in it," he said stonily.

The old sucker had fallen for it!

"Sure," Harsch exclaimed, scowling to hide his elation. "Two pairs of young lovers! Anything you say, Smile, Just the way you want it. huh?"

Pony Caley was also there, trying to horn in on his boss's success.

"And these guys in the doorways, Mr. Wreyermeyer," he said eagerly, "maybe they could be galactic spies and we could make it into a thriller, hey?"

"Yep, that figures," Pony's yesman declared, smacking the palm of his hand with his fist. "And this Art Stayker quaint could be their dupe, see, and we could have him shot up in the end, see."

"Not too much shooting," Janzyez interrupted. "I see it more as a saga of the common man, and we could call it 'Our Town' or something-if that t.i.tle isn't under copyright."

"How about 'Starry Sidewalks' for a name?" someone else suggested.

"It's a vehicle for Eddi Expusso!" Pilloi shouted.

The boys were playing with it. Harsch had won his round; man, how he loved himself!

He was hustling out of the little theatre with the rest of them when Ruddy touched his arm.

"You never told me, Harsch," he said, "just how you happened to find Art again."

There was something subversive about Ruddy; it was a miracle he had climbed as high as he had. He was for ever asking questions.

"It was like this," Harsch said. "I happened to have a rendezvous with some dame a couple of nights back, see. I was looking for a taxi-bubble afterwards-there weren't so many about, because this was the early hours of the morning, and I had to walk through Bosphorus Concourse. This old guy hanging about in a doorway recognized me and called out to me."

"And it was Art?" Ruddy inquired excitedly.

"It was Art all right. He'd have kept me talking all night if I hadn't been firm. But at least it put me on to the concept of this solid. Well, see you tomorrow, Ruddy; so long!"

"Just a minute, Harsch. This is important. Didn't Art say if he had found out what was at the heart of the city? That was what he'd gone looking for, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Oh, he found it all right. He wanted to tell me all about it-at three in the morning! I told him what he could do!"

"But what did he say, Harsch?"

"h.e.l.l, man, Ruddy, what's it matter what a broken-down quaint like Stayker said or didn't say? It was his usual patter, but even worse to understand than in the old days-you know, Philosophical. I was pretty plastered, I couldn't bother to take it in. To, I was loaded with randy drops!"

"But had he found the secret he was chasing?" "So he said-but whatever it was, it had strictly no cash value. His pants were in rags I tell you; the crazy b.u.m was s.h.i.+vering all the time. Say, I must move. See you, Ruddy!"

They made the solid. It was one of Supernova's big budget productions for the year. It raked in the money on every inhabited planet of the Federation, and Harsch Benlin was a made man thereafter. They called it "Song of a Mighty City"; it had three top bands, seventeen hit tunes and a regiment of dancing girls. The whole thing was re-shot in the studios in the pastel shades deemed most appropriate for a musical, and they finally picked on a more suitable city than Nunion to stage it in. Art Stayker, of course, did not come into it at all.

Time pa.s.sed. Time dropped away like a cataract over the brink of heaven. The galaxy, even the everlasting fabric of s.p.a.ce itself, grew old. Only man's schemes remained new; and now from the knowledge gained from the sentient cells came the concept of applied mutation to weave a fresh pattern into the ancient tapestry of human circ.u.mstance.

They Shall Inherit.

The man from the Transfederation Health sat im-patiently in the glossy waiting-room, his portcase lying beside him. Having got in from Koramandel only two days ago, he still bore flecks of vacuum tan on his face. He was a straggling, untidy man with an ill-fitting collar and floppy ankle-boots; his fingers drummed unceasingly on his bony knees.

The discreetly masked blonde at the Enquiries desk ignored his occasional starts of movement, which sug-gested he might suddenly jump up and go. Occasionally he looked at her, but most often he looked away. Yinnisfarians did not attract him; he considered them cor-rupted by the power they wielded in the galaxy. He had been waiting here for twenty minutes, and that to him seemed a subtle insult. Through green hyaline panels he could see the lift of the EAMH, the Experimental Applied Mutation Hospital, moving, leaving him here isolated.

Finally he rose, skirted the flowering dicathus on a low table; and said to the girl in a moderate voice, "This really is too bad, you know. Tedden Male was supposed to see me at bleep three and a third sharp. I made this appointment three weeks ago, before leaving Koramandel."

"I'm sorry, Djjckett Male," the masked girl said, using the Yinnisfarian mode of address. "I'll ring his office again, if you like. I can't think what might be delaying him; he is usually so punctual."

She had scarcely laid one irreproachable hand on the vibroduct before a broad man in a black swathe swept into the waiting-room, to pause by the desk with a certain theatrical flourish. He was bald. He smiled. He came forward with his hand extended palm upward in greet-ing. He was Moderator Senior Ophsr. IV Phi Tedden, co-ordinating Director of the EAMH.

A flurry of boisterous apologies and irritable "quite-all-right's" enveloped the two men as Tedden led Djjckett up to his office on the next floor. Followed closely by his portcase, Djjckett found himself in a sump-tuous room decorated with blown-up high-speed microacaths of fissioning chronosomes. He settled himself into an enveloper and jacked up his feet.

"You know I would be the last male to keep Transfed Health waiting," Tedden protested, also enveloping. He proffered a box of affrohales. Djjckett refused; Tedden shut the box with a snap, not taking one himself. He had a powerful but curiously blank face, with small red veins patterning the sides of his nose; his mask was a per-functory affair, covering little more than his ears, jaws and chin. Beneath his a.s.sumed heartiness was a distinct unease, which Djjckett noted with pleasure without com-prehending. With nervous emphasis he added, "No, I wouldn't keep you waiting for anything."

"I hope you aren't inferring you kept me waiting for nothing," Djjckett said, smiling under his moustache.

Looking away from the acid witticism, Tedden said, "A personal matter kept me. Again I apologize."

"Well, I expect you know what I have come about, Moderator Tedden Male," Djjckett said, his voice a.s.sum-ing a more official tone. "Public opinion has forced Transfed to take some steps to allay certain rumours circulating about EAMH. As senior member of your old Koramandel Fraternity, I was deputed"

"Yes, I have all the doc.u.ments you people sent me," Tedden interrupted. "Fraternal Djjckett Male, let me put it to you like this. We-I don't mean you and I personally-represent two opposed camps.

Transfed Health, by its nature, is cautious, reactionary-it has to be; we at EAMH are bold, progressive-because we have to be. You are afraid of the effects on human beings of the gene-s.h.i.+fts with which we have been so successfully experimenting. Lay galactic opinion, if I may say so, has nothing to do with the matter; ultimately, it always goes wherever it is led, and in this case it is Transfed's duty to lead it in our direction, just as it has won acceptance for its own recent gene-s.h.i.+ft experiments on animals.

I have made this quite clear in signals and vibros written to your people over the last couple of years."

"Humans and animals are two different things, and in this matter" Djjckett began.

"In this matter-forgive my taking the words from your mouth-in this matter, the whole material future of Yinnisfar is concerned. We are at the cross-roads; you must be aware that our economic position in the galaxy is unstable, and must constantly expand to remain stationary?"

"Of that I am as aware as you are, Moderator. But I do not want to talk about galactic economics; I wish to discuss the mothers and new-born children placed under your care here."

Tedden put his big hands on the desk, palm down, and made a heavy face.

"The two subjects are inseparably intertwined, Mr. Djjckett, let me a.s.sure you of that. But we shall get no-where if we wrangle. Come, perhaps it would be best if you had to look into one of our wards, and see some-thing of what we are achieving."

He rose. Djjckett reluctantly did the same. Tedden ushered him towards the door; Djjckett dodged under his shepherding arm and went back to his enveloper to look at his portcase. When he saw it remained quietly where it was, he returned to Tedden's side, wearing the look of a man prepared to face the worst.

They moved together down a soundless corridor, through two doors, and into an observation booth over- looking a ward containing six small cots. The cots were all occupied.

"Pologla.s.s; we see them, they do not see us," Tedden explained, glancing at his finger bleep.

Djjckett stared through the windows, prepared for something horrible.

The temperature inside the small ward was evidently high, for the six cots held infants who lay there without coverings. A nurbot moved efficiently from cot to cot, changing napkins with a rubbery deftness.

Only three of the babies were awake; two of them stood shakily, supporting themselves by the bars and watching the attendant machine; the other, having just woken, was also anxious to see what was happening. With slow, tentative movements, it pulled itself up, feet wide apart, pink knees slightly bent, until it stood erect. Uttering an inarticulate cry, it staggered two steps forward, grabbed the cot side as if its life depended on it, and hung there gazing vaguely in the general direction of its nurse.

"Splendid exhibition; might have done it especially for our benefit," Tedden said, with gratification and pride. He added quietly, "And all these six babies are under forty-eight hours old."

"You can surely see why we think this experiment is monstrous," Djjckett said, his lanky body shaking inside its rather loose suit, as he and Tedden walked back down the corridor. In his mind, the picture still burned of that tiny, wizened, red thing standing unaided in its cot; it made him feel as sick as if he had seen a woman thrashed or a criminal executed.

"You are raising monsters," he added, indignantly, when Tedden did not at once reply. It was one of Djjckett's characteristics that, caught on the wrong foot, he could be ruffled easily and then become unable (or so he feared) to express his irritation. He waved a hand and added, "as for the luckless and deluded mothers you have here in your power, they should never"

Tedden showed real anger. Normally he was rather stolid and slow to anger; today his nerves were already on edge. Stopping so suddenly that Djjckett jumped, he said, "Just try and remember the facts, will you? People come to the EAMH voluntarily, men and women with an eye to the future, eager to take advantage of the discoveries we have made and are making. D'you think they prattle about monsters?"

A redness crept up his face and over the s.h.i.+ning ex-panse of his skull. Still talking, he plunged suddenly into motion again, leading the way back to his room, closing the door after Djjckett as the other followed in. He deliberately ignored Djjckett's sick expression.

"You see, it comes back to what I was saying about the future of Yinnisfar," Tedden said, "in which the future of the individual is naturally involved. You realize that Yinnisfar and consequently most of the Federation is threatened with a ma.s.sive trade recession. Some of these newly discovered worlds at the Hub, planets with less than a million years of history behind them, are stealing a march on us. Gutaligni is a case in point.

"You may have heard, Djjckett Male, that the Cutalignians now have virtually an empire of their own.

Planets that once dealt entirely with us are now swamped with their goods, their executives, their ideas.

Cutalignian s.p.a.ce liners and freighters are taking up trade and s.h.i.+pping lines that were indisputably ours for milleniums. Of course, it's only a drop in the ocean and gets pooh-poohed even in responsible quarters, but for me it's a sign, an omen. We're going downhill. Why?"

"I daresay you know more about all this than I do," Djjckett said morosely; his face was still grey and patchy with shock. "The reason generally given for this trend is that the Gutalignians are long-lived, so that training and education go further, and an experienced older man can serve longer. . . ."

"Good enough. It's a good reason. To put it in cash terms, a thousand-purs education lasts an ordinary man, a Yinnisfarian, from the age of say twenty to ninety-five; that's only seventy-five years. But a thousand-purs educa-tion lasts a Cutalignian about a hundred and twenty years. Imagine if everyone on Earth could spend forty-five years at the age of forty. Advantageous, eh? Here, do have a affrohale, Djjckett Male; I'm sorry if I sounded short-tempered then. My nerves are all on edge today. Nothing personal intended."

He extended his silver case almost with a look of plead-ing, rebuking himself as he misinterpreted the affronted expression of Djjckett's face (but why couldn't these out-s.p.a.cers wear civility masks like civilized people!).

Feebly, Djjckett again refused the case. Diurnal drug-ging, long fas.h.i.+onable on Yinnisfar, was regarded as decadent on Koramandel, like the habit of masking.

"I shall be better soon, Moderator," he said. "It was the shock of seeing those wretched infants. . . .

Excuse me, I think I will take a drink."

He snapped his fingers. Obediently, the portcase rose from where it had been quietly lying. It was neat, small, covered with short fur, much like a bag on four legs, with a hump in the middle which would open at a word of command to reveal Djjckett's vibros and doc.u.ments. Instead of giving that word, the Transfed man clicked his tongue.

The portcase straightened up. From under its belly, a retractable pink stalk emerged and pointed towards Djjckett's face. Nonchalantly taking the end of this stalk into his mouth, Djjckett began to suck.

Rising half out of his enveloper, Tedden said in dis-gusted tones, "Is that thing animal or machine?"

"Previously animal but presently neither animal nor machine," Djjckett said, removing the nipple moment-arily from his mouth. "It belongs to one of the group known as mammalloys now being exploited on Kora-mandel; no doubt we shall begin exporting "to your planet shortly."

"Never!" Tedden gasped. "It's repulsive! I apologize but I do beg you to stop sucking. . . . You mean the beastly thing is live?"

"Hardly that. It has no brain, only a nervous system. This particular mammalloy is an applied mutation from camel stock. You see how much more efficient and lighter it is than any robot could be. I must say how surprised I am to see you shocked over an experiment in many ways similar to your own."

"Similar! Similar! Ye glories! This terrible mutilation of animals"

"Oh, and how is it one half as monstrous as your own terrible mutilation of human babies?"

For the first time, Djjckett was enjoying himself; he took a further suck before dismissing the portcase.

But Tedden was gripping his desk in anger.

"The gene changes made in EAMH babies occur before conception."

"Similarly with our mammalloys, of course, Moderator."

The Moderator stood for a minute in complete silence. When he at last sat back again, he even smiled.

"There are two sides to every question," he said.

As the enveloper took him, he rubbed his hand across his big face, appearing to dismiss all that had gone before.

"Lots of worries," he said. "Forgive me if I make a vibrodo a minute."

He dialled the screen on his desk and the head and shoulders of a uniformed woman elaborately masked appeared immediately.

"Tunnice?" Tedden asked. "How is she please?"

"I was just going to call you, Moderator," the masked face said. "Everything seems to be perfectly under con-trol. She is quite comfortable, and we aren't expecting any further developments for a while. We'll vib you again as soon as anything happens."

She smiled, an official and rather strained curling of the lips that was emphasized by the mask.

"Thanks, Mingra Female," Tedden said, cutting her off.

He turned back to Djjckett a little blankly, as if the whole object of their meeting had gone from his head.

"Yes. . . . You see, Djjckett Male, the gap between our capabilities and the Cutalignians' must be closed. And it can be closed. That's what we're doing here, or trying to do despite outside interference; perhaps that's what you're trying to do too, with those beastly mam-malloys-I had no idea how far your experiments had gone. . . . Everyone lives under pressure nowadays; you know what civilization has become. It's a rat race. Gut-throat compet.i.tion. But supposing you matured at the age of five instead of the age of twenty...."