Talents, Incorporated, Murray Leinster [best feel good books .txt] 📗

an ancient tradition, which scorned the idea of incorporating other worlds into its own governmental[13] system—which was appalling—but merely made them subjects and satellites and tributaries.

Bors had been born on Tralee, which he remembered as a tranquil world of glamor and happiness. But he was on Kandar now. He served in its space-navy, and he foresaw Kandar becoming what Tralee had become. He felt such hatred and rebellion toward Mekin, that he could not notice a pretty girl. He was getting ready for the savage last battle of the space-fleet of Kandar, which would fight in the great void until it was annihilated. There was nothing else to do if one was not to submit to the arrogant tyranny that already lorded it over twenty-two subject planets and might extend itself indefinitely throughout the galaxy.

He moved to verify again the complete pulverizing of the ashes in the fireplace.

The communicator buzzed. He pressed the answer button. A voice said, "Sir, the space-liner Vestis reports breakout from overdrive. Now driving for port. Message ends."

Bors's eyes popped wide. He'd heard exactly that only minutes ago! It could be coincidence, but it was a very remarkable one. The man Morgan had come to him to tell him that. If he'd come for some other reason, and merely made a guess, it could be coincidence. But he'd come only to tell Bors that he could be useful! And it was impossible, at a destination-port, to know when a ship would break out of overdrive! Einstein's data on the anomalies of time at speeds near that of light naturally did not apply to overdrive speeds above it. Nobody could conceivably predict when a ship from many light-years away would arrive! But Morgan had! It was impossible!

He'd said something else that was impossible, too. He'd said there was a Mekinese cruiser on the sea-floor of Kandar, where it could blast all the local fleet—which was ready to fight but vulnerable to a single fusion-bomb. If such a thing happened, the impending disaster would be worse than intolerable. To Bors it would mean dying without a chance to strike even the most futile of blows at the enemy.[14]

He hesitated a long minute. Morgan's errand had been to make a prediction and give a warning, to gain credence for what he could do later. The prediction was fulfilled. But the warning....

An enemy cruiser in ambush on Kandar was a possibility that simply hadn't been considered—hadn't even occurred to anyone. But once it was mentioned it seemed horribly likely. There was no time for a search at random, but if Morgan had been right about one thing he might have some way to know about another.

Bors gave curt orders to his subordinates in the work of record-destruction. He went out of the building to the greensward mall that lay between the ministries of the government, and headed for the palace at its end. The government of Kandar was not one of great pomp and display. There was a king, to be sure, but nobody could imagine the perspiringly earnest King Humphrey the Eighth as a tyrant. There were titles, it was true, but they were life appointments to the planet's legislative Upper House. Kandar was a tranquil, quaint, and very happy world. There were few industries, and those were small. Nobody was unduly rich, and most of its people were contented. It was a world with no history of bloodshed—until now.

Bors brushed absently at his uniform as he walked the two hundred yards to the palace. He abstractedly acknowledged the sentries' salutes as he entered. Much of the palace guard had been sent away, and most of the palace's small staff would hide from the Mekinese. The aggressors had a nasty habit of imposing special humiliations upon citizens who'd been prominent before they were conquered.

He went unannounced into King Humphrey's study, where the monarch conferred dispiritedly with Captain Bors's uncle, the exiled Pretender of Tralee, who listened with interest. The king was talking doggedly to his old friend.

"No. You're mistaken. You'll have my written order to distribute the bullion in the Treasury to all the cities, to be shared as evenly as possible by all the people. The Mekinese[15] can't blame you for obeying an order of your lawful king before they unlawfully seize the kingdom!"

Captain Bors said curtly, "Majesty, the first of the four liners is in. Two more will arrive tomorrow and the last at sunrise the day after. The Mekinese will be here two days later."

King Humphrey and Captain Bors's uncle stared at him.

"And," said Bors, "the same source of information says there's a Mekinese cruiser waiting underwater off Cape Farnell to lob a fusion bomb at the fleet as it's ready to lift."

King Humphrey said, "But nobody can possibly know that two liners will come tomorrow! One hopes so, of course. But one can't know! As for a cruiser, submerged, there's been no report of it."

"The information," said Captain Bors, "came from Talents, Incorporated. It's sample information, given free. The first item has checked. He came with a letter from a cabinet minister on Norden."

Bors handed it to the Pretender of Tralee.

"Mmmm," he said thoughtfully. "I've heard of this Talents, Incorporated. And on Norden, too! Phillip of Norden mentioned it to me. A man named Morgan had told him that Talents, Incorporated had secured information that an atom bomb—a fission bomb as I remember, and quite small—had been set to assassinate him as he laid a cornerstone. The information turned out to be correct. Phillip of Norden and some thousands of his subjects would have been killed. The assassins were really going to extremes. As I remember, Morgan wouldn't accept money for the warning. He did accept a medal."

"I think," said Bors, "I think I shall investigate what he said about a Mekinese ship in hiding. You've no objection, Majesty?"

King Humphrey the Eighth looked at the Pretender. One was remarkably unlike the other. The King was short and stocky and resolute, as if to overcome his own shortcomings. The pretender was lean and gray, with the mild look of a man[16] who has schooled himself to patience under frustration. He nodded. King Humphrey shook his head.

"Very well," said Bors. "I'll borrow a flier and see about it."

He left the palace. There was already disorganization everywhere. The planetary government was in process of destroying all the machinery by which Kandar had been governed, as if to make the Mekinese improvise a government anew. They would make many blunders, of course, which would be resented by their new subjects. There would be much fumbling, which would keep the victims of their conquest from regarding them with respect. And there would be the small tumult Bors had said was in preparation. The king and the Kandarian fleet would fight, quite hopelessly and to their own annihilation, when the Mekinese fleet appeared. It would be something Kandar would always remember. It was likely that she would not be the most docile of the worlds conquered by Mekin. The Mekinese would always and everywhere be resented. But on Kandar they would also be despised.

Bors found the ground-cars which waited to carry the king and those who would accompany him, to the fleet when the time came. He commandeered a ground-car and a driver. He ordered himself driven to the atmosphere-flier base of the fleet.

On the way the driver spoke apologetically. "Captain, sir, I'd like to say something."

"Say it," said Bors.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I've got a wife and children. Even for their sakes, sir. I mean, if it wasn't for them I'd—I'd be going with the fleet. I—wanted to explain—"

"Why you're staying alive?" asked Bors. "You shouldn't feel apologetic. Getting killed in the fleet ought to follow at least the killing of a few Mekinese. There should be some satisfaction in that! But if you stay here your troubles still won't be over, and there'll be very little satisfaction in what you'll go through. What the fleet will do will be dramatic.[17] What you'll do won't. You'll have the less satisfying role. I think the fleet is taking the easy way out."

The driver was silent for a long time as he drove along the strangely unfrequented highways. Just before the ground-car reached the air base, he said awkwardly, "Thank you, sir."

When he brought the car to a stop, he got out quickly to offer a very stiff military salute.

Bors went inside. He found men with burning eyes conferring feverishly. An air force colonel said urgently, "Sir, please advise us! We have our orders, but there's nearly a mutiny. We don't want to turn anything over to the Mekinese—after all, no matter what the king has commanded, once the fleet had lifted off, there can be no punishment if we destroy our planes and blast our equipment! Will you give us an unofficial—"

Bors broke in quickly.

"I may be able to give you a chance at a Mekinese cruiser. Can you lend me a plane with civilian markings and a pilot who's a good photographer? I'll need a magnetometer to trail, too. There's a rather urgent situation coming up."

The men stared at him.

He explained the possibility of a Mekinese space-cruiser lying in fifty fathoms off Cape Farnell. He did not say where the information came from. Even to men as desperate as these, Talents, Incorporated information would not seem credible without painstaking explanation. Bors was by no means sure that he believed it himself, but he wanted to so fiercely that he sounded as if some Mekinese spy or traitor had confessed it.

The feeling of tenseness multiplied, but voices grew very quiet. No man spoke an unnecessary word. In minutes they had made complete arrangements.

When the atmosphere-flier took off down the runway, wholly deceptive explanations were already being made. It was said that the atmosphere-fliers were to load bombs for demolition because the king was being asked for permission to bomb all mines and bridges and railways and docks that would make[18] Kandar a valuable addition to the Mekinese empire. Everything was to be destroyed before the conquerors came to ground. The destruction would bring hardship to the citizens—so the story admitted—but the Mekinese would bring that anyhow. And they shouldn't profit by what Kandar's people had built for themselves.

The point was, of course, to get bombloads aboard planes with no chance of suspicion by spy or traitor of the actual use intended for them. Meanwhile, Bors flew in an atmosphere-flier which looked like a private ship and explained his intentions to the pilot, so that the small plane did not go directly to the spot five miles offshore that the mysterious visitors had mentioned, to make an examination of the sea bottom. Instead, it flew southward. It did not swing out to sea for nearly fifty miles. It went out until it was on a line between a certain small island where many well-to-do people had homes, and the airport of the planet's capital city. Then it headed for that airport.

It flew slowly, as civilian planes do. By the time the sandy beaches of a cape appeared, it was quite convincingly a private plane bringing someone from a residential island to the airport of Kandar City. If a small object trailed below it, barely above the waves, suspended by the thinnest of wires, it was invisible. If the plane happened to be on a course that would pass above a spot north-northeast from the tip of the cape, a spot calculated from information given by Talents, Incorporated, it seemed entirely coincidental. Nobody could have suspected anything unusual; certainly nothing likely to upset the plans of a murderous totalitarian enemy. One small and insignificant civilian plane shouldn't be able to prevent the murder of a space-fleet, a king and the most resolute members of a planet's population!

Captain Bors flew the ship. The official pilot used an electron camera, giving a complete and overlapping series of pictures of the shore five miles away with incredible magnification and detail.

The magnetometer-needle flicked over. Its findings were[19] recorded. As the plane went on it returned to a normal reading for fifty fathoms of seawater.

Half an hour later the seemingly private plane landed at the capital airport. Another half-hour, and its record and pictures were back at the air base, being examined and computed by hungry-eyed men.

Just as the pretty Morgan girl had said, there was a shack on the very tip of the cape. It was occupied by two men. They loafed. And only an electron camera could have used enough magnification to show one man laughing, as if at something the other had said. The camera proved—from five miles away—that there was no sadness afflicting them. One man laughed uproariously. But the rest of the planet was in no mood for laughter.

The magnetometer recording showed that a very large mass of magnetic material lay on the ocean bottom, fifty fathoms down. Minute modifications of the magnetic-intensity curve showed that there was electronic machinery in operation down below.

Bors made no report to the palace. King Humphrey was a conscientious and doggedly resolute