Assistant Secretary Duffold bit his thumb tip and frowned. It was true that the home office had instructed him, rather reluctantly, to call in the Service; but he had made no mention of that part of it to Pilch. And the girl already had jolted him with the information that a Psychological Service operator had been investigating the Palayatan problem on the planet itself during the past four months. “We figured Outposts was due to ask for a little assistance here about this time,” was the way she had put it.
“I can’t give my consent to your plan,” Duffold said with finality, “until I’ve had the opportunity to investigate every phase of it in person.”
The statement sounded foolish as soon as it was out. The remarkably outspoken young woman sitting on the other side of his desk was quite capable of reminding him that the Psychological Service, once it had been put on an assignment, did not need the consent of an Outposts assistant secretary for any specific operation. Or anybody else’s consent, for that matter. It was one reason that nobody really liked the Service.
But Pilch said pleasantly, “Oh, we’ve arranged to see that you have the opportunity, of course! We’ll be having a conference on the ship, spaceside”—she glanced at her timepiece—”four hours from now, for that very purpose. We particularly want to know what Outposts’ viewpoint on the matter is.”
And that was another reason they were disliked: they invariably did try to get the consent of everyone concerned for what they were doing! It made it difficult to accuse them of being arbitrary.
“Well—” said Duffold. There was really no way for him to avoid accepting the invitation. Besides, while he shared the general feeling of distaste for Psychological Service and its ways, he found Pilch herself and the prospect of spending a half-day or so in her company very attractive. The Outposts Station’s feminine complement on Palayata, while a healthy lot, hadn’t been picked for good looks; and there was something about Pilch, something bright and clean, that made him regret momentarily that she wasn’t connected with a less morbid line of work. “Kidnapping and enforced interrogation of a friendly alien on his own world!” Duffold shook his head. “That’s being pretty heavy-handed, you know.”
“No doubt,” said Pilch. “But you know nobody has been able to persuade a Palayatan to leave the planet, so why waste time trying? We need the ship’s equipment for the investigation, and it might be safer if the ship is a long way out from Palayata while it’s going on.” She stood up. “Will you be ready to hop as soon as I’ve picked up Wintan?”
“Hop? Wintan?” Duffold, getting to his feet, looked startled. “Oh, I see. Wintan’s the operator you’ve had working on the planet. All right. Where will I meet you?”
“Space transport,” said Pilch. “Ramp Nineteen. Half an hour from now.” She was at the office entrance by then; and he said hurriedly, “Oh, by the way—”
Pilch looked back. “Yes?”
“You’ve been here two days,” Duffold said. “Have they bothered you at all?”
She didn’t ask what he meant. “No,” she said. Black-fringed gray eyes looked at him out of a face from which every trace of expression was suddenly gone, as she added quietly, “But of course I’ve had a great deal of psychological conditioning—”
There hadn’t been any need to rub that in, Duffold thought, flushing angrily. She knew, of course, how he felt about the Service—how any normal human being felt about it! Wars had been fought to prevent the psychological control of Hub citizens on any pretext; and then, when the last curious, cultish cliques of psychologists had been dissolved, it had turned out to be a matter of absolute necessity to let them resume their activities. So they were still around, with their snickering questioning of the dignity of Man and his destiny, their eager prying and twisted interpretations of the privacies and dreams of the mind. Of course, they weren’t popular! Of course, they were limited now to the operations of Psychological Service! And to admit that one had, oneself—
* * *
Duffold grimaced as he picked up the desk-speaker. He distributed sparse instructions to cover his probable period of absence from the Station, and left the office. There wasn’t much time to waste, if he wanted to keep within Pilch’s half-hour limit. In the twelve weeks he had been on Palayata, he had avoided direct contact with the natives after his first two or three experiences with the odd emotional effects they produced in human beings. But since he had been invited to the Service conference, it seemed advisable to confirm that experience once more personally.
The simple way to do that was to walk out to Ramp Nineteen, instead of taking the Station tube.
The moment he stepped outside the building, the remembered surges of acute uneasiness came churning up in him again. The port area was crowded as usual by sightseeing Palayatans. Duffold stopped next to the building for a few moments, watching them.
The uneasiness didn’t abate. The proximity of Palayatans didn’t affect all humans in the same way; some reported long periods of a kind of euphoria when around them, but that sensation could shift suddenly and unaccountably to sharp anxiety and complete panic. Any one of several dozen drugs gave immunity to those reactions; and the members of the Station’s human personnel whose work brought them into contact with the natives were, therefore, given chemical treatment as a regular procedure. But Duffold had refused to resort to drugs.
He started walking determinedly toward the ramp area, making no attempt to avoid the shifting streams of the Palayatan visitors. They drifted about in chattering groups, lending the functional terminal an air of cheerful holiday. If his jangling nerves hadn’t told him otherwise, Duffold could have convinced himself easily that he was on a purely human world. Physically, Palayatans were humanoid to the n’th degree, at least as judged by the tolerant standards of convergent evolution. They also loved Hub imports, which helped strengthen the illusion. Male and female tended to wander about their business in a haze of Hub perfumes; and at least one in every five adults in sight wore clothes of human manufacture.
But Duffold’s nerves were yammering that these creatures were more alien than so many spiders—their generally amiable attitude and the fact that they looked like human beings could be only a deliberate deception, designed to conceal some undefined but sinister purpose. He broke off that unreassuring line of thought, and clamped his mind down purposefully on a more objective consideration of the odd paradoxes presented by these pseudo-people. Palayatans were even more intrigued, for example, by the Hub humans’ spectacular technological achievements than by Hub styles and perfumes. Hence their presence in swarms about the Station where they could watch the space transports arrive and depart. But, in twelve years, they hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to transplant any significant part of Hub technology to their own rather rural though semi-mechanized civilization.
At an average I.Q. level of seventy-eight in the population, that wasn’t surprising, of course. What was not only surprising but completely improbable, when you really considered it, was that they had not only developed a civilization at all, but that it had attained a uniform level everywhere on the planet.
It simply made no sense, Duffold thought bitterly. Outposts’ sociological experts had made the same comment over a year ago, when presented with the available data on Palayata. They had suggested either a detailed check on the accuracy of the data, or a referral of the whole Palayatan question to Psychological Service.
The data had been checked, exhaustively. It was quite accurate. After that, Outposts had had no choice—
* * *
“My, you’re perspiring, Excellency!” Pilch said, as he stepped up on the platform of Ramp Nineteen. “This is Wintan. You’ve met before, I believe. But you really needn’t have hurried so.” She glanced at her timepiece. “Why, you’re hardly even two minutes late.”
Wintan was a stocky fair-haired man, and Duffold did recall having met him some months before, when his credentials—indicating a legitimate scholarly interest in sociology—were being checked at the Station.
They shook hands, and Duffold turned to greet the other man.
Only—it wasn’t a man.
Mentally, Duffold recoiled in a kind of frenzy. Physically, he reached out and clasped the elderly Palayatan’s palm with a firm if clammy grip, shook it twice, and dropped it, his mouth held taut in what he was positive was an appalling grin. Wintan was saying something about, “Albemarl . . . guide and traveling companion—” Then Pilch tapped Duffold’s shoulder.
“The records you sent by tube have arrived, Excellency. Perhaps you’d better check them.”
Gratefully, he followed her into the ship. Inside the lock, she stopped and looked at him quizzically. “Hits you pretty hard, doesn’t it?” she murmured. “Great Suns, why don’t you take one of those drugs?”