“I understand the need for such Agents,” Bropha said slowly. “I should think, however, that they would be selected for such work with particular care.”
“They are,” said the Co-ordinator.
“Then supposing,” said Bropha, “that another people, like the Daya-Bals—who are experts in other branches of robotics—came into possession of such a ship. They could duplicate it eventually?”
“After some fifty years of study, they could,” the Co-ordinator agreed. “It wouldn’t worry us much since we expect to be studying hard ourselves throughout any given fifty years of history. Actually, of course, we have a theory that our Agents are psychologically incapable of giving away departmental secrets in a manner that could cause us harm.”
“I know,” said Bropha. “That’s why I was surprised to discover that there are . . . or were . . . two other Daya-Bals on Zamm’s ship.”
For the first time, the Co-ordinator looked a little startled.
“What made you think so?”
“I heard them talking,” Bropha said, “on various occasions, though I didn’t make out what they said. And finally I saw them—they came past my door, following Zamm.” He paused. “I was under drugs at the time,” he admitted, “and under treatment generally. But I can assure you that those incidents were not hallucinations.”
“I didn’t think they were,” said the Co-ordinator. “Is that why you’re trying to check on Zamm’s motivations?”
Bropha hesitated. “It’s one of the reasons.”
The Co-ordinator nodded. “Fifteen years ago, Zamm lost her husband and child in a space attack on a Daya-Bal liner. There were three survivors—Zamm was one—but they’d been unconscious through most of the action and could give no description of the attackers. The bodies of most of the other passengers and of the crew were identified, but about fifty remained unaccounted for. Zamm’s husband and child were among that number. She believes they were taken along alive by the unknown beings that wrecked and looted the ship.”
“That’s not so unreasonable!” Bropha said. But he looked rather shaken, suddenly.
“No,” agreed the Co-ordinator. “Under the circumstances, though, it’s extremely unreasonable of her to expect to find them again. You might say that Zamm is under a delusion in that she believes she will be able to beat probability at such outrageous odds. But that’s the extent of her `insanity’—according to our psychologists.”
Bropha started to speak, but then shook his head.
“So it’s not too hard to understand that Zamm hates the things she hunts,” the Co-ordinator pointed out. “In her eyes, they must be much the same as the things that took her family from her—they might even, by coincidence, be those very things themselves!”
“But that doesn’t—” Bropha began again.
“And her delusion appears to have blinded her neither to the difficulties of the task nor to the methods most likely to overcome them,” the Co-ordinator continued blandly. “A few years after her loss, she reduced the odds against her at one stroke to the lowest practical level by coming to work for us. In effect, that put the Department of Galactic Zones permanently on the job of helping her in her search! For the past dozen years, any trace of a Daya-Bal any of our operatives has discovered outside of the Betelgeuse Zone has been reported to Zamm in a matter of hours. Now, those two you saw on her ship—can you describe them?”
“It was dark in the passage,” Bropha said hesitantly. He was a little pale now. “However, I couldn’t be mistaken! It was a man and a boy.”
The Co-ordinator was silent for a moment.
“I thought it would be that,” he admitted. “Well, it’s an unpleasant notion to our way of thinking, I grant you—even a somewhat nightmarish one. There’s a flavor of necromancy. However, you can see it’s obviously not a matter that involves any question of Zamm’s loyalty. As you say, the Daya-Bals are very clever in robotics. And she was a neurosurgeon before she came to us. Those were just two marionettes, Bropha!”
He stood up. “Shall we rejoin your party, now?”
Bropha had come to his feet, too. “And you still say she isn’t insane?” he cried.
The Co-ordinator spread his hands. “So far as I can see, your experience offers no contradictory proof. So I shall simply continue to rely on the department’s psychologists. You know their verdict: that whatever our Agents may do, their judgment will be almost as nearly infallible as it is possible for highly-trained human-type intelligences to become. And, further, that no matter how widely their motivations may vary, they will not vary ever to the extent of being unacceptable to the department.”
* * *
Three days out in space by now, Zone Agent Zamm was rapidly approaching the point at which she had first swerved aside to join the search for Bropha.
She was traveling fast—a great deal faster than she had done while taking her damaged and politically valuable passenger home. With him on board she’d felt obliged to loiter, since the department did not recommend top velocities when some immediate emergency wasn’t impending. Only vessels of the truly titanic bulk of Vega’s Giant Rangers could navigate with apparent safety at such speeds; while to smaller ships things were likely to happen—resulting usually in sudden and traceless disappearances which had been the subject of much unsatisfactory theorizing in Department Lab and similar scientific centers throughout civilization. But Zamm was impatient both with the numbing, senseless vastness of space and with its less open dangers. Let it snap at her from ambush if it liked! It always missed.
“Want a hot-spot chart on this line I’m following, for a week’s cruising range,” she informed the ship’s telepath transmitter; and her request was repeated promptly in Galactic Zones Central on the now faraway planet of Jeltad.
Almost as promptly, a three-dimensional star-map swam into view on the transmitter-screen before Zamm. She studied it thoughtfully.
The green dot in the center indicated her position. Visually, it coincided with the fringe of a group of short crimson dashes denoting the estimated present position of the migrating Shaggar ships she had contacted briefly and reported on her run to Jeltad. A cloud of white light far ahead was a civilized star cluster. Here and there within that cluster, and scattered also around the periphery of the chart, some dozens of near-microscopic sun-systems stood circled in lines of deep red. Enclosing the red circles appeared others: orange, purple, green—indicating the more specific nature of the emergency.
Zamm stabbed a pointer at three systems marked thus as focal points of trouble inviting a Zone Agent’s attention, near the far left of the chart.
“Going to try to pick up the Shaggar drift again,” she announced. “If we find it, we ought to be somewhere up in that area before we’re done with them. Get me the particulars on what’s wrong around there, and home it out to me. That’s all—”
She switched off the transmitter. The star-map vanished and a soft, clear light filled the room. Zamm rubbed a thin, long hand over her forearm and blinked pale eyes at the light. “How about a snack?” she asked.
A food tray slid out of the wall to a side table of the big desk, its containers variously iced or steaming.
She ate slowly and lightly, mentally organizing the period of time ahead. Only for a few weeks—once she had laid out plans for a year or more—so and so many planets to investigate—such and such a field to cover! But the hugeness of the task had gradually overwhelmed her will to major planning. Now she moved about in briefer spurts, not aimlessly but diverted toward new areas constantly by hunches, sudden impulses and hopes—careful only not to retrace her tracks any more than could be avoided.
But she was beaten, she knew. She’d never find them! Neither would any of the thousands and thousands of people she’d set watching and looking for traces of them. The Universe that had taken them was the winner.
She glanced over at the black, cold face that filled the whole of her ship’s vision tank, its million glittering eyes mocking her.
“Stupid thing—grinning!” she whispered, hating it tiredly. She got up and started moving restlessly about the big room.
Black Face out there was her enemy! She could hurt it a little, but not much. Not enough to count. It was so big it only had to wait. For centuries; for thousands, for tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. Waiting while life built up somewhere, warm and brave and frail and hopeful—then it came suddenly with its flow of cold foulness to end it again! With some ravaging, savage destruction from outside, like the Shaggar; or more subtly with a dark pulse that slowly poisoned the mind of a race. Or it might be even only a single intelligent brain in which the cold death pattern grew till it burst out suddenly to engulf a nation, a planet— There was simply no end to the number and kinds of weapons the Universe had against life!