“The question is how much the people who have the stolen compound in their hands actually know about it. We would prefer them to know several things. For example, up to a point YM-400 is easily handled. It’s a comparatively simple operation to reduce or restore the force field effect. The result is a controlled flow of radioactivity from the compound, or its cessation. Now, you’ve mentioned having heard that YM-400 transmutes space-time stresses—”
Fry nodded.
“Well,” Camhorn said, “as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what it appears to do—as was surmised originally of the unstable elements in the series. The active compound transmutes space-time stresses into a new energy with theoretically predictable properties. Theoretically, for example, this new energy should again be completely controllable. Have you picked up any rumors of what our experiments with the substance were supposed to achieve?”
Fry said, “Yes. I forgot that. I’ve heard two alternate theories. One is that the end result will be an explosive of almost unimaginable violence. The other is that you’re working to obtain a matter transmitter—possibly one with an interstellar range.”
Camhorn nodded. “Potentially,” he said, “YM-400 is an extremely violent explosive. No question about it. The other speculation—it isn’t actually too far-fetched—well, that would be the equivalent of instantaneous space-travel, wouldn’t it?”
Fry shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“However,” Camhorn said, “we haven’t transmitted even a speck of matter as yet. Not deliberately, at any rate. Do you know why, Gus?”
“No. How would I?”
“No rumors on that, eh? I’ll tell you. YM-400, when activated even in microquantities, immediately initiates the most perverse, incalculable effects ever to confront an experimenter. There has been, flatly, no explanation for them. I’ve had ordinarily unimpressionable physicists tell me with tears in their eyes that space-time is malevolently conscious of us, and of our attempts to manipulate it—that it delights in frustrating those attempts.”
Gus Fry grinned sourly. “Perhaps they’re right.”
“As it happens,” Camhorn observed, “the situation is very un-funny, Gus. Experiments with YM-400 have, to date, produced no useful results—and have produced over eleven hundred casualties. Most of the latter were highly trained men and women, not easily replaced.”
Fry studied him incredulously. “You say these accidents have not been explained?”
Camhorn shook his head. “If they were explicable after the event,” he said, “very few of them would have happened in the first place. I assure you there’s been nothing sloppy about the manner in which the project has been conducted, Gus. But as it stands today, it’s a flop. If the stakes were less high, it would have been washed out ten years ago. And, as I said before, if there were reason to believe that the stable compound was involved in the disappearance of a space transport, we probably would postpone further operations indefinitely. One such occurrence would raise the risks to the intolerable level.”
Fry grunted. “Is that what those accidents were like? Things—people—disappear?”
“Well . . . some of them were of that general nature.”
Fry cleared his throat. “Just tell me one more thing, Howard.”
“What’s that?”
“Has any part of what you’ve said so far been the truth?”
Camhorn hesitated an instant. “Gus,” he said then, “can you erase your question and my reply from the recording?”
“Of course.”
“Erase them, please. Then blank out our further conversation.”
* * *
A few seconds later, Fry said, “All right. You’re off the record.”
“Most of what I told you was the truth,” Camhorn said, leaning back in his chair. “Perhaps not all of it. And perhaps I haven’t told you the whole truth. But we’re out to spread some plausible rumors, Gus. We could not afford to get caught in obvious lies.”
Fry reddened slowly. “You feel the Interstellar Police Authority will spread those rumors?”
“Of course it will. Be realistic, Gus. Naturally, you’ll transmit the information I’ve given you only to qualified personnel. But there’ll be leaks, and . . . well, what better authentication can we have for a rumor than precisely such a source?”
“If you know of any potential leaks among the IPA’s `qualified personnel,’ ” Fry said, “I’d appreciate seeing the names.”
“Don’t be stuffy, Gus,” Camhorn said affably. “We’re not slandering the Authority. We’re banking on the law of averages. As you’ve indicated, the IPA can’t be expected to carry out this investigation unless it’s given some clues to work on. We’re giving it those clues. In the process, we expect to start the spread of certain rumors. That’s all to the good.”
“But what’s the purpose?”
“I’ve told you that. Our criminals may or may not be caught as quickly as we’d like. The group actually in the know may be—probably is—quite small. But they should have a widespread organization, and they’ll be alert for counteraction now. They certainly will get the information we want them to have, whether it comes to them through the IPA or through some other channel; and that should be enough to keep them from committing any obvious stupidities. Meanwhile, we’ll have avoided making the information public.”
“We want to make sure they know—if they don’t already know it—that YM-400 is unpredictably dangerous. That leaves them with several choices of action. They can abandon those two thirty-four-kilogram cases, or simply keep them concealed until they obtain more complete information about the material. Considering the manner in which the theft was prepared and carried out, neither is a likely possibility. These people are not ignorant, and they aren’t easily frightened—and they certainly have the resources to handle any expense factor.”
Fry nodded.
“The probability is,” Camhorn went on, “that they’ll evaluate the warning contained in these rumors realistically, but proceed with experimentation—perhaps more cautiously than they would have done otherwise.”
“Which is as much as we hope to accomplish. I’ve told you of the losses among our personnel. We have no real objection to seeing someone else attempt to pull a few chestnuts out of the fire for us. That’s the secondary purpose of sacrificing some quite valid information. By the time we catch up with our friends, we expect the sacrifice will have been—in one way or another—to our advantage.”
“And suppose,” said Fry, “that their secret experiments with YM-400 result in turning another planet into an asteroid cloud?”
“That’s an extreme possibility,” Camhorn said, “though it exists. The point is that it exists now whatever we choose to do about it. We can only attempt to minimize the risks.”
“You’d still sooner catch them before they start playing around with the stuff?”
“Of course we would. But we’re working against time there.”
“How much time do we have before the thing gets critical?”
“Well,” said Camhorn, “assume they’ve had at least four or five years to prepare for the day when they could bring a quantity of YM-400 into their possession. They’ll have made every necessary arrangement for concealed full-scale experimentation. But, unless they are utterly reckless, they still have to conduct a thorough preliminary investigation of the compound and its possibilities. That phase of the matter shouldn’t be too dangerous, and it can’t be concluded in less than six months.”
Fry shook his head exasperatedly. “Six months!” he said. “We might get lucky and pick them up next week, Howard . . . but there are eighteen planets and planet-class satellites at peak population levels, seventy-three space cities with a total of eight times the planetary populations, five Freeholder planets on each of which you could keep an army concealed indefinitely if you wanted to go to the trouble. Add in close to a hundred thousand splinter populations on semi-habitables, asteroids, spaceborne in fixed stations and mobile craft—we can’t do it, Howard! Not in six months. We’ve already started putting anyone who might have the slightest connection with that space transport job through the strainer, and we’ll get on your lists of suspects as soon as they’re placed in our hands.”
“But don’t expect results in anything less than a year. . . .”
* * *
Fry, for once, had been too optimistic.
A year and a half went by. Endless series of more or less promising leads were run into the ground. The missing YM-400 didn’t turn up.
The IPA put out its nets again, and began to check over the possibilities that were left.
* * *
Seen from the air, Lion Mesa, in the southwest section of the American continent on the Freehold Planet of Terra, was a tilted, roughly triangular tableland, furred green with thick clusters of cedar and pinyon, scarred by outcroppings of naked rock. It was eight miles across at its widest and highest point, directly behind an upthrust mass of stone jutting toward the north and somewhat suggestive of the short lifted neck and heavy skull of a listening beast. Presumably it was this unusual formation which gave the mesa its name. From there the ground dropped to the south, narrowing gradually to the third point of the triangle. Near the southern tip in cleared ground were the only evidences of human habitation—half a dozen buildings of small to moderate size, handsomely patterned in wood and native stone. Directly adjoining one of the buildings was a large, massively fenced double corral. This was an experimental animal ranch; it and the mesa plus half a hundred square miles of surrounding wasteland and mountain were the private property of one Miguel Trelawney, Terrestrial Freeholder.