“In good time,” he said, sitting down across from me. “Captain Varod asked me to send his regards. And to convey the message that he knee you were lying when you promised to give up a life of crime.”
“So he had me watched?”
“You’re catching on. After this last criminal assignment for us you will become an honest man. Or else.”
“Who are you to talk!” I sneered and drained the glass. “A crooked shyster who is theoretically paid to uphold the law. Yet you stand by and let the thugs here on Paskonjak pass legislation to have trials after an execution-then you employ a criminal to commit a criminal act. Not what I would call sincerely law-abiding.”
“First,” he said, lifting a finger in a very legalistic way, “we have never condoned the secret law in the Mint. It was only recently produced by the overly-paranoid management here. Yours was the first arrest-and will be the last. There have been numerous job replacements already. Secondly,” another finger rose to join the first, “the League has never condoned violence or criminal acts. This is the first occurrence and has been produced by an .unusual series of circumstances. After great deliberation the decision was made to do it just this one time. And never again.”
“Millions might believe that,” I sneered disbelievingly. “Isn’t it time you told me what the job is?”
“No-because I don’t know myself. My vote was cast against this entire operation so I have been included out. Professor Van Diver will brief you.”
“But what about the thirty-day poison?”
“You will be contacted on the twenty-ninth day.” He stood up and went to the door. “It is against my principles to wish you good luck.”
This was his puritanical pontificatory exit line. Because as he went out an elderly type with a white beard and a monocle entered.
“Professor Van Diver I presume?”
“Indeed,” he said extending a damp, limp hand for me to shake. “You must be the volunteer with the nom de guerre of Jim about whose presence I was informed, who would await me here. It was very good of you to undertake what can only be called a rather diligent and difficult assignment.”
“Rather,” I intoned, falling into his academic mode of speech. “Is there any remote possibility that I might be informed of the nature of this assignment?”
“Of course. I have the requisite authority to provide augmentive information to you concerning the history and tragic circumstance of the loss. Another individual, who shall be nameless, will supply the assistance that you will require. I shall begin with the circumstances that occurred a little over twenty years ago . . .”
“A beer. I must have refreshment. Will you join me?”
“I abstain from all alcoholic and caffeine-containing beverages.” He glared at me glassily through his menacing monocle as I refilled my mug. I sipped and sat and waved him into action. His voice washed over me in turgid waves and soon had me half-asleep-but the content of his talk woke me up fast enough. He went on far too long, with far too many digressions, but despite this it was fascinating stuff to listen to.
A stripped-down version wouldn’t have been half as much fun for him and would have taken only a few minutes to tell. Simply, Galaksia Universitato had sent an expedition to a reported archeological site on a distant world-where they had uncovered an artifact of non-human origin.
“You must be kidding,” I said. “Mankind has explored a great part of the galaxy in the last thirty-two thousand years and no trace of an alien race has ever been found.”
He sniffed loudly. “I do not `kid’ as you say in your simple demotic. I have pictorial proof here, photographs sent back by the expedition. The artifact was uncovered in a stratum at least a million years old and resembles nothing in any data base existent in the known universe.”
He took a print from his inner pocket and passed it over to me. I took it and looked at it, then turned it around since there was no indication of which was top or bottom. A twisted hunk of incongruous angles and forms resembling nothing I had ever seen before.