The Troublemakers, George O. Smith [freenovel24 .TXT] 📗

pre-marriage apartment did maintain a series of attractive nuisances. Tranquilizer pills. Soothing mood music. A person of calm tendencies would find them most attractive. It was therefore her responsibility to protect the other party. Now—when Bertram has been properly treated and is able to testify—I think we'll find that Miss Hanford not only failed to protect Bertram, but indeed encouraged him to help himself to her pills and sleep in her bedroom under the soothing influence of the mood music prescribed for her."

Mr. Hanford snapped, "If this attractive nuisance is as you say, Harrison, why can't we charge that Bertram did little to protect Gloria from his own therapy?"

Scholar Ross raised a hand. "Permit me," he said, "to reiterate that it is the hypertonic, overactive personalities that create social troubles. A Bertram Harrison lulled into a semi-cataleptic state by the wiles of a Gloria Hanford would hardly be expected to rise in a sudden burst of strength."

"So no matter what I do, I'm wrong?" the girl asked.

"Not at all," said Scholar Ross. "It is your direct responsibilty—your duty—to do everything you can to establish a firm and stable family unit here with Bertram Harrison—"

"Sorry, Scholar Ross," said Mr. Harrison icily. "You haven't really heard me. Your notion that this affair is a civil argument between an affianced couple is not true. You imply that no laws have been broken. You are wrong. I am willing to sign a complaint right now that Miss Gloria Hanford deliberately induced my son to indulge in her therapy. It was her means of lulling him into a state of mind that would permit her to go gallivanting off on a date with another man."

"I am not married to Berty yet!" snapped Gloria. "Dating's still my right!"

"Oh," snarled Mr. Harrison angrily, "shut up or I'll sign a complaint that you administered medical treatment without a license! Insofar as the Harrison family is concerned, this engagement shall be terminated unfavorably. Come!" he said to his wife. She rose to follow.

Gloria stepped aside, but paused to ask, "Aren't you going to take Bertie with you?"

Mrs. Hanford said coldly, "He's already been taken to the hospital for treatment to bring him out of the trance you got him into. And so, Miss Hanford, will you please step aside and let me pass?"

And Mr. Harrison's parting shot was, "I shall sign my complaints in the morning—or if he is able, we'll make it thoroughly legal and have Bertram sign them."

He closed the door firmly.

Mrs. Hanford wailed, "Now what shall we do?"

Scholar Ross shook his head. "With this poor record, this non-cooperation," he said slowly, "it will be well nigh impossible to arrange another union, furthermore, if Harrison carries out his threat—"

Gloria said quickly, "If he wants to, he can talk Bertie into anything. Anything. Such as signing the most frightful complaints and being convinced of their absolute truth and justice."

Mr. Hanford said, "If that's true, he could also be talked back out of them."

Scholar Ross shook his head again. "That presupposes that you could arrange access to Bertram that couldn't be overcome by another talking-to by his parents. It won't work. The young man is a mental weathervane."

"So where do we stand?"

"As I say, we might as well prepare for the worst. If the case of Gloria Hanford ever comes under the scrutiny of the Law, she will be declared either a delinquent or an incorrigible, depending upon whether her escapades are ruled misdemeanors or felonies." Scholar Ross turned to Gloria Hanford. "I warned you. Now, where we of the Department of Domestic Tranquility have no power to force you into a proper course of action, you'll find that the Law most certainly has. Miss Hanford, the Law will decide just how dangerous you are to the civic peace. Upon that decision, the law will further decide what action it must take to protect that civic peace from you."

He paused. A silence followed his statements. He waited a few moments to let his words sink in. Then he walked to the door and said:

"As of now, the future of Miss Gloria Hanford is out of my hands."

Mr. Hanford said, "Scholar Ross, how bad is this likely to be?"

"A lot will depend upon how swiftly Bertram Harrison responds to the restorative treatment. With some luck and a brilliant attorney on your side the matter might not reach a major catastrophe. Tomorrow may tell."

IX

Junior Spaceman Howard Reed said plaintively, "But this is the Bureau of Justice. According to the Regulations you are supposed to listen to me, at least."

The space officer behind the desk wore the three wide stripes of the commander's rank, topped by the fasces that symbolized the law. He was Commander Hughes, chief of the Space Service Bureau of Justice. He smiled at the junior spaceman but shook his head. "You would place us in a most difficult position were we to heed your plea without having the matter referred to us through official channels."

With some exasperation, Reed said, "Look, sir, I've been subject to a severe injustice. Why can't I at least tell my problem to someone?"

"That would be cutting across channels. It simply is not done."

"Commander Hughes," said the junior spaceman earnestly, "you're not serving justice. You're obstructing it!"

"Now see here, young man—"

"Commander Hughes, you're insisting that I request my superior officer to forward through official channels a complaint against him. First, sir, I point out that he would refuse my request unless he were absolutely certain that my case against him was ridiculously weak. Second, I'm certain that the request would bring quick retaliation."

Commander Hughes shook his head. "The Regulation provides that any reasonable request be forwarded. And the Regulation further provides that there shall be no punitive action."

Reed snorted. "Fine. And if I do find myself punished, must I next forward my request for investigation through the same officer?"

"That is a serious charge, young man."

"I can substantiate it! Look, sir, quite a long time ago I made some scientific studies, and—"

"You're an Operations officer, Mr. Reed?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then you're not trained in science?"

"Let's not go on that rat-race right now," said the junior spaceman testily. "I've heard it before. That's why I'm here!"

"Very well."

Junior Spaceman Howard Reed took a deep breath and plunged into his long explanation. At the end, Commander Hughes nodded, his face in a non-committal mask.

"One moment now," he said. He turned to the working desk behind him and spoke into a telephone. It had neither visual plate nor amplified output; only the user could know what was being communicated, and with whom.

"Now we'll see," said the commander as he hung up the telephone.

With the awkwardness of a stopped trivideo drama they stood and sat there motionless and silently as the minutes dragged past. Ultimately there was a gentle alarm ring from one of the desk drawers. Commander Hughes opened it to extract a couple of yards of stereofac paper.

"Your service record," explained the commander, picking up a reading prism and starting at the top. "Just another moment."

Another half dozen minutes went past.

"'Junior Spaceman Howard Reed,'" the commander read quietly at last, "'has an exemplary record.' That is Commander Breckenridge's opinion, if we are to believe what we read in this record. Oh, perhaps, he thought, a bit headstrong and mildly argumentative, factors which he considered balanced by a faculty for deep concentration."

"And how about my being transferred to Eden, Tau Ceti? And then to Flatbush, Lalande 25372?" Reed demanded.

"'Reasons for transfer,'" read Commander Hughes from the record. "'Junior Spaceman Howard Reed is ambitious and overactive. In the considered opinion of Commander Breckenridge, he will make a fine superior officer once his duty-experience has the proper breadth.'" The commander looked up and waved a hand at the length of stereofac. The fasces wrought in gold above the stripes glittered in the light. "Were it not for the Regulations against permitting a junior officer to inspect his own service record," said Commander Hughes with a smile, "I'd let you see for yourself that nowhere on this record is there a single word that corroborates your suggestion. Your tour of duty on Flatbush, Lalande 25372, and your earlier transfer to Eden, Tau Ceti, were merely the standard tour of duty, granted to satisfactory junior officers as a means of properly broadening their experience."

"In other words," snapped Reed angrily, "the fact that I have crossed space in a craft powered by a technical suggestion made by me some years ago does not prove a thing."

"Can you prove that you made any such technical suggestion?"

"Yes. Call Commander Briggs of the Bureau of Research. Call Commander Breckenridge of the Bureau of Operations. Demand that they state under oath, whether I did or did not make such suggestions. I was told my ideas were worthless."

"In other words, the Bureau of Research says it wouldn't work?"

"But look, sir! I drove a spacecraft all the way from—"

The Bureau of Justice officer held up a hand.

"Look," said the junior spaceman angrily, "all I want is justice!"

"And justice you'll get!" retorted Commander Hughes. "First, Mr. Reed, let me ask how you obtained permission to leave your post on Flatbush, Lalande 25372, so that you could come to the headquarters in person to state your plea? Or was this trip authorized?"

"Well, sir—the detector and beacon stations are completely automated and—"

"In blunt terms you are absent without leave?"

"Well, sir—"

"Junior Spaceman Howard Reed, you will consider yourself under personal arrest. We have no alternative but to place you in the custody of the Space Security Police. Remain as you were!"

Like the fabled case of the drowning man, Junior Spaceman Howard Reed reviewed his past in a single flash before his eyes. In the second blink, he covered his present. It wasn't to his liking.

Having covered his past and discarded his present, he next inspected his most probable future and came to the almost immediate conclusion that there wasn't very much in it for him. He had never heard Napoleon's statement that God was on the side with the heaviest artillery, but, in his own way, Junior Spaceman Howard Reed came to a parallel conclusion. Justice was on the side of the heaviest rank. Bitterly, he reflected that the reward for a technical suggestion of great merit was that they wouldn't make any trouble for him—so long as he didn't try to claim credit for it.

He came back to his dangerous present quickly. Commander Hughes was talking briskly into his secret telephone.

With a quick gesture, the junior spaceman leaned forward over the desk and snatched the instrument out of the senior officer's hands. He hauled in on the connecting cord until it came taut, and then he yanked, ripping the cord from its terminals. Brusquely, he dropped the telephone instrument into the commander's waste basket.