Chapter 19

DOUBLE AGENT

Back on Earth, affairs political and financial moved so fast and in such quantity that Upton

Maynard had more work on his hands than any one man could possibly do. He had to

sleep five or six hours almost every night. Also, he could handle those Tellurian affairs

much better if he were there in person-especially if he could drop GalMet entirely for a

while-and why not? Young Smith had plenty of jets . . . wherefore he called Smith and

Miss Champion into his inner office.

"Miss Champion, take notes, please. Mr. Eldon Jay Smith I believe, the Executive

Vice-President of Galactic Metals, Incorporated?"

"That is precisely what I have the honor and privilege of being, sir." Smith put his right

hand over his heart and bowed. "As of the present moment, sir; that is, sir, I mean, sir."

"You'll start executing as of the present moment, sir," and Maynard told him what he had

in mind, concluding, "So sit on the throne, hub, 'til I get back-and don't let the block line

drop down through the bottom of the chart."

"Drop? You kidding? Now we can get something done -it'll zoom right up through the top.

How about it, Dorry?" He winked at Miss Champion, who, always the perfect First

Secretary-always, that is, in Maynard's presence-did not wink back. She merely smiled.

"But suppose I take her along?"

"Go ahead. Do that. Wreck the outfit. I've been wanting to quit and go fishing, anyway."

"Yeah. I know. I know just what I'd be wrecking anyway, I'd bet on the fish. 'Bye, Don;

'bye, Doris," and Maynard strode blithely out.

The girl gave Smith a long, level look. "You're the only human being alive with the sublime

nerve to give him the needle that way. Just suppose he climbs your frame for it some

day?"

"He set the pace, didn't he? Anyway, I'd get along." "Pfooie! Nobody could blast you out

of here with an atomic bomb and everybody knows it. You really know him don't you?

I've always thought I was the only one who did."

"I know he's the universe's best-and that these damned yes-men and toadies around

here make him just as sicka da bel' as they do me-and that's a great God's plenty."

"That's what I meant, Don ... and you're not too bad a stinker yourself, in some ways."

For weeks, ever since they had become psionic, a current of something-like electricity

plus-had been flowing between these two, and it was getting stronger all the time.

"Thanks for them kind words, Dorry. You're slipping. First thing you know you'll . . ."

"I'm not slipping and whatever it was you were going to say, I won't. No telepathy, no

rapport. I've been a career business woman ever since I was fifteen-a good one-and I'm

going to keep on being just that."

He smiled; more a grin than a smile. "That's the way to talk, Dorry. Strictly business. If

there's any one thing in this wide fat world I really love, it's business."

"Let's get at it, then." Miss Champion, now all briskly efficient FirSec, picked up her

book. "I'll remind you, Mister Smith, that you are wasting time that is costing the

company a dollar a minute. In exactly four and one half minutes you have an appointment

with Felton of Barbizon about. enlarging the operation there; at nine plus forty five with

Quisenberry of Belmark, ditto; at ten plus ten with Andersen of Pharmics. . . ."

Maynard landed on Earth at Chicago Spaceport. He took a copter to the big old building

on Michigan Avenue that was GalFed's headquarters. Stevens Spehn's office was on the

twenty sixth floor, in front, affording a splendid view of Lake Michigan-all water clear out

to the horizon.

Having sent a thought ahead, Maynard strode straight through the main office and the

FirSec's office. That smart girl, who of course listened in on everything, even -or

especially?-on thought, merely glanced up with a smile from the tape she was reading

and exchanged greetings in thought with him as he went past.

Spehn's office, vastly unlike his previous one, was small and plainly furnished. Even his

desk was small; he could, with a little stretching, reach anything on its plate-glass top. He

was leaning 'way back in his swivel chair, with both feet perched up on the corner of his

desk. When Maynard came in Spehn pointed his cigarette at a huge overstuffed chair

near the desk, but facing the huge front window. Maynard sat down, lighted a long, thin

cigar, crossed his legs, and spoke aloud. "So you're rolling, Steve. So you like your

PsiCor, eh?"

"Oh, brother!" Spehn got up, walked around to the older man, shook him solemnly by the

hand, and resumed seat and pose. Then: "Oh ... broth ... therr! One hundred percent

convictions so far and not a possible miss in sight. Psionic Intelligence agents are things

that . . . well, maybe some cloak-and-dagger men have dreamed about such things, hut

we've got 'em. Over ten thousand already and more coming and they're all batting a

thousand, Boss, the Big Brains claim that while ethics is related to psionics, ethics is not

and cannot be made an absolute. Do you buy that?"

"In the abstract, as a generalization, yes. In practice, and in the specific case of our own

culture as it now is, perhaps not. I might almost say probably not."

"Very, very cautious about going out on a limb, aren't you? So bite yourself off a piece of

this and chew on it and give your taste-buds a treat. The opposition hasn't got any

psiontists worth a tinker's toot and never will have any."

Maynard did not question this statement. All experience had shown that any psychics of

much ability, immediately upon perceiving the vastnesses of psionics, went to Newmars

and the University of Psionics as a matter of course. Spehn went on:

"It's a truly wonderful thing to know, for certain damn sure, everything that goes on. So

we're steam-rolling 'em to the queen's own taste. This next election will be honest; the

kind of election the Founding Fathers had in mind. GalFed should be in the saddle shortly

after that. Of course there'll be some fuss, but Guerd should be ready by then. You're

sticking around?"

Maynard nodded. "Longer than that, Stev. Until GalFed is, both in name and in fact, THE

GALACTIC FEDERATION; until Tellus-a united Tellus-is both in name and in fact the

capital of all civilization."

Spehn thought for a moment. "That's a big order, boss, but I wouldn't wonder if we might

be able to deliver the goods."

After half an hour more of discussion, Maynard went up one floor and had a long

discussion with Fleet Admiral Guerdon Dann.

He then tuned his mind to that of Li Hing Wong, who brought Feodr Ilyowicz in for a

three-way. Things were going as well as was to be expected. The Iron Curtain and the

Bamboo Curtain, which had faced outward, had been replaced by Psionic Curtains facing

inward. Since the fleet englobing Earth, whatever it really was, did not seem to care

what happened to either Russia or China, there had not been very much effective

opposition. People were dying, but that couldn't be helped. The only way progress could

be made was by killing off the commissars and the warlords and all such corruptionists;

and, since corruption had been the way of life for centuries, reclamation would

necessarily be a slow process.

As each district was reclaimed and put under a psionic Peace-lord its people were given

as much self-government as they could handle-which wasn't very much. They would have

to grow up to self-government, and that would take a low; time. If famine and pestilence

did not take care of the population problem, population control would; by birth-control and

logic if possible, by sterilization if necessary.

It was not a cheerful report; but Maynard had not expected it to be. He shrugged his

shoulders and went on to interview every one of the men and women who were handling

the political campaign. Then, last of all, he turned his attention to the financiers who were

operating in the stock market.

The Plastics Building, in Chicago, Illinois, WestHem, Tellus, occupied the entire eight

hundred block west; bounded by Halsted and Peoria Streets on the east and west, and

by Washington and Randolph Boulevards on the south and north. Its main bulk, built of

steel-reenforced synthetics of various kinds, was eighty five stories high, and a

comparatively slender tower reached up fifteen stories higher still. This tower housed the

private offices of the Biggest of the Big of Plastics, Incorporated; and its entire top floor,

the one hundredth of the building, was devoted to the series of exceedingly private

offices, in ascending order of privacy from the private elevator, of the least accessible

man on Earth-President Byron Punsunby himself.

To say that these offices were sumptuous is to make the understatement of the year, but

that is all that will be said. At three o'clock one Wednesday afternoon, while President

Punsunby was sitting at his most sumptuous desk, alone in his most sumptuous, most

private office, clear across the tower from the elevator, a call came in on a

communicator that was his alone, in a mish-mash of noise and herringbone that he alone

could unscramble. He stared at it angrily for a few seconds; his big, fat body tensing, his

big, fat face stiffening, and his small blue eyes growing even harder than their hard wont.

He'd been getting altogether too damned many calls on that com of late and he hadn't

liked any one of them. And this was the worst. It wasn't subspace, or even long distance;

it was local-and this was one purely sweet-scented hell of a time for him to have to leave

Earth . . . why couldn't the ape handle a few things himself?

He unscrambled the mish-mash; Erskine Cantwell, the Comptroller General of The

World, appeared. "Where are you?" Punsunby snapped. "Spaceport?" "Yes. Just

landing."

"Come in. I'll be alone."

Cantwell did not enter the Plastics Building by any of the usual routes. He approached it

via subway, opened an almost invisible door into the second subbasement, walked along

a deserted hall, opened a completely invisible door by speaking a series of six coined

words, and took the ultra-secret elevator straight up into Punsunby's ultra-private office.

"Well?" Punsunby demanded, savagely. "I told you to take whatever steps might prove

necessary. Why the hell didn't you do it, instead of coming here again?"

"What do you think?" Cantwell sneered. "That I'm here for the fun of it? I'm only the

Highest Agent, remember? Six A's and a B, with only a violet headlight. It takes the one

and only discarnate God Himself-the one and only holder of seven straight A's-the

All-Powerful and Eternal-the one and only being able to pour the pure mercury-vapor light

of God onto his poor dumb creatures-you, you fat-head, are the only living human being

who can modify Article Ninety of your precious Second Directive, and by all the devils in

hell you . . ."

"Christ almighty!" Punsunby broke in. He had been turning not-so-slowly purple as he

listened to this lesemajeste, but at the words "Second Directive" his face began to pale.

"But that's the basis of the whole caste system-it's never been modified. Things can't be

that bad, Ersk-there must be some other way of handling this trouble."

"It's exactly that bad, and if you can find any other way to clean up the mess I'll roll a

peanut from here to Buckingham Fountain with my nose. And I've had it. You can take

this . . ."

"Don't say it, Ersk." Punsunby got up, walked around the desk, and put a big hand on the

slender man's shoulder. "We couldn't operate without you. But such a change as that . . .

God knows where a thing like that would end."

"You're so right. That's the trouble with any rigid system," Cantwell said, much more

calmly. "When it starts to crack it's apt to shatter. But that's the way you Tops have

always wanted it, so you're stuck with it. So let's get at it."

"All right. I'll have to make a couple of calls."

There was no more talk of business until they were in SUITE ONE of the subspacer.

Then Punsunby said, "Go ahead, Ersk. What do you think it is?"

"I know what it is, now. Sabotage. Expert, organized, directed, and highly efficient

sabotage. Worthy of the Commies at their very best."

"The Commies? But I . . .

"I didn't say it was and I don't think it is. I don't see how it could be. I can see only one

possibility. I never have believed in mind reading; but what else can it be?"

"The Galaxians." Punsunby thought for minutes. "Mental stuff-that's why you want our

mentalists to work openly with operators without losing caste. But no person has

ever-knowingly, that is-has ever even seen a three-A, Ersk. It'd scare 'em to death."

"It'll have to be worse than that. They'll have to shed their pretty colored spotlights, put

on lockets, and become operators. How the hell else can we find out what is going on?

All we're doing now is knocking hell out of production by killing thousands of dumb

bastards who don't know whether Christ was crucified or shot in a crap game."

"Well, how about hiring some of their psychics away from 'em? Price would be no

object."

"We can't. They're ethical. And if WestHem ever finds out what we're doing they'll stop

the Earth in its tracks and throw us the hell off bodily. Don't kid yourself about this, Lord

Byron, or you'll wind up square behind the eight-ball."

Punsunby wriggled and squirmed all the way to The World; but his every idea was

crushed by Cantwell's relentless logic. Therefore, as soon as the starship landed, the

two Supreme Beings of The World went directly to the immense building housing

Information Central and donned the gorgeously-colored, heavily-jeweled regalia of their

respective positions. Punsunby sat on the splendidly ornate Throne of The Company;

Cantwell on a much smaller and somewhat plainer throne at his master's feet.

Punsunby put on a wisely beneficent smile, Cantwell pressed a hidden switch, and each

of the thousands of Agents in Information Central's vast building was bathed both in the

pure mercury-vapor Light of the Company and in the warmth and abundance of the

Company's good will. Each put hands on head; each was suffused with happiness at this

all-too-rare personal contact with The Company Itself.

"Children of the Company-my children-be happy," Punsunby told the raptly-listening

thousands. "In view of the unprecedented difficulties which the World is now

experiencing, The Company decrees that Article Ninety of its Second Directive is

amended by the addition to it of Section Fifty Six, as follows: `All members of all

Mentalist castes in category A A A are permitted and directed to work, with no effect

upon caste, at whatever undertakings and in whatever fashions Highest Agent A A A A A

A B shall set up and direct.' Be happy children."

The Company lights all went out, the golden thrones sank down through the golden floor,

and Punsunby whirled on Cantwell.

"I hope to hell that does it!" he snapped. "Now let's shed this junk and get me going back

to Earth!"

Deston and his crew were not interested in Punsunby himself. What they wanted was the

coordinates of The World. Thus they were on the lookout for, and were checking up on,

every starship approaching Tellus. Thus, even before Cantwell's subspacer landed, they

had learned everything that Cantwell himself had ever known about The World and had

put the Explorer into orbit around The World's sun. And thus, long before the disguised

psychologists of The World had made any significant progress in their investigations, the

Galaxians were ready to go to work.

"Shall we take a quick peek at Information Central?" Deston asked, "To see which of

those colored-headlamped buzzards are doing what to whom?"

"We shall not!" Barbara declared. "If I never know exactly which button a murderer

pushes to kill a perfectly innocent person it will be three days too soon. We can cripple

all the instrumentation of that whole Information Central without. . ." She paused and

frowned. "Exactly," Jones said. "That would tear it."

"Well, maybe," Barbara conceded. "So well hunt up whoever's causing it and put them

out of business, and then stop it. We know it isn't the Galaxians, so it must be the

Communists."

"If we couldn't find the place, how could they?" Deston asked. His thoughts took a new

turn then, and as he thought his mind-blocks began unconsciously to go up. "Okay, we'll

hunt 'em up. We know how they work. They won't be close in-too easy to spot. They'll be

'way out somewhere, and quite possibly underground. It will be a job, fine-toothing that

much territory, but there's a lot of us. We'll divide it up . . . like this. . .

It was super-sensitive Bernice who finally found the Russians' carefully-concealed,

deeply-buried headquarters.

"Good going, Bun!" Deston applauded. Then, after a quick probe, he went on. "New

Russia! That's really one for the book. First thing, let's get those Company Agents up

here-those two there, I think, are going to be the answer to Maynard's prayer. Their

language has been sort of-censored?-let's see how they take to telepathy."

A C B A and A C B D, being very strong latents and well on the way to making psiontists

of themselves without even knowing that such a science as psiontcs existed, learned

telepathy in seconds. More, they went into a hammer-and-tongs mind-to-mind session

with the Funny Four even while the six leaders were arguing with the other ex-Agents. All

these were latents, however; hence, after the University of Psionics had been explained

to them, they were more or less eager to go. They knew less of reality than even the

little that the two "hunchers" knew; but, like latents everywhere, they did want to learn.

Wherefore, after Barbara had had a flashing exchange of thought with Stella Adams, the

new recruits were delivered to her in her office in the University. Beedy was still bruised

and battered, but no one-except his new wife, of course-paid any more attention to that

than he did himself. Everyone knew all about what had happened, and they all approved

of him and he knew it.

"Babe!" Barbara burst out then. "What's on your mind? You've been blocking solid-give!"

"I didn't mean to, actually, but I wouldn't wonder. I don't like the only possible answer a

bit, and you won't either. We never even heard of that planet New Russia. And how did

they find this world? I've been racking my brains and the only possible answer I can

come up with is that Feodr Ilyowicz has always been a double agent -suckering us but

good, all along."

"Oh, no!" came a storm of protest, and Jones added, "I can't buy that bundle, Babe.

There isn't a psiontist in the outfit. He'd be here himself-no, he couldn't, at that-but he'd

have somebody on the job here."

"You're wrong, Here, he couldn't." Cecily shook her head. "Perfect Commie technique.

When did a commissar ever trust a psychic as far as he could throw him? He'd use his

knowledge, yes, but he wouldn't let him get out of sight."

"That's true, Curly," Deston said. "Anyway, all . . ." "But just look at what he's doing to

Communist Russia!" Bernice broke in.

"He has to, or he wouldn't last an hour," Jones said, grimly. "All that means is that,

compared to a planet and years of time, EastHem's expendable-for as many years as is

necessary. So I'll buy it after all. What do we do next? Scout New Russia?"

"I don't think so, we need dope first, and, as I started to say, we can find out. Flit us to

one of Jupiters's moons, you Trains, and we'll put. . ."

"High it, fly-boy, and find the beam!" Jones snapped. "We can't 'port those jaspers down

there back to New Russia and we can't leave 'em here and we can't very well kill 'em in

cold blood."

"Okay, Control Six, I'll try it again," Deston agreed. "Um . . . um . . . mm. How about

putting 'em-being sure we get 'em all, of course-into an empty hold here in the Explorer?

Keep 'em in durance vile for the duration? Intern 'em?"

"That's a cogent thought, friend," Barbara said, and the others agreed. "I wish we could

do a lot worse to 'em than that."

It was done.

"Can I land now, Control Six?" Deston asked, plaintively, and the others laughed.

"Okay, fly-boy, you're on the beam now."

"Thank you, Control Six. As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted, let's flit to

somewhere near Tellus: and put the snatch on Ilyowicz and see if our guesses are any

good. No, better let me do the grabbing alone if he has any warning whatever we'll never

get him, and if I'm wrong about him I'll apologize abjectly."

The Russian had no warning whatever. Before he could begin to thing about setting up

the psionic barrier through which no psionic force could act, he was in the Explorer. Nor

did Deston have occasion to apologize. It became evident instantly that Ilyowicz would

fight to the death, and in another instant six of the most powerful minds known to man

were tearing at his mental shields.

He held those shields with everything he had, but he did not have enough. No human mind

could have had enough. His shields failed; and, a moment after their failure, such was the

irresistible flood of mental energy driving inward, Feodr Ilyowicz died. In that moment

before death, however, the six learned much.

He had always been a double agent. He had always lived for Russia, he was dying for

Russia. Not the Russia of Earth-that was expendable-no one cared what happened there

for a few years or a few decades-but the great New Russia that already possessed one

whole planet, was taking possession of another at this moment, and would very soon

possess all the populated planets of civilization. Everything he had learned he had

passed on to New Russia. It had a University of Psionics that would soon surpass that of

Newmars. He had traced Punsunby to The World long ago, and had advised the Premier

himself as to what should be done about it. If it had not been for that stupid oaf

Ovlovetski he would have gone to The World himself and made such arrangements as to

...

That was all. Feodor Ilyowicz was dead.

Thoughts flew for minutes; then Deston said, "There may not have to be any scandal. I'll

yank his first assistant-his nephew, Stepan Ilyowicz, you know-and we'll see what he's

like."

The nephew was deeply shocked at what had happened, but he opened his mind fully

and completely.

While his uncle had always been a solitary, secretive sort of man, one who never opened

his screens fully to anyone, he had always believed him to be thoroughly loyal to the

Galaxian cause. He had always acted that way; had never given any grounds whatever

for suspicion.

Yes, he himself believed fully in Galaxianism and was completely loyal to it. Yes, if

acceptable to the Board, he would be very glad indeed to take his uncle's place on the

Board.

It was agreed that Maynard would have to know the whole truth, and would have to

decide what to do with it.

Maynard was shocked, too; and for minutes deeply thoughtful. "Well," he said, finally,

"that teaches us something. There'll be no more gentlemanliness or courtesy on the

Board with respect to mental privacy. Never again. No, we can't have a scandal at this

point; it would be disastrous. I'll take care of it. Thanks, all of you both for this and for the

fine job you've done on the whole project."

And Maynard did take care of it. It was announced with due pomp that Feodr Ilyowicz,

the beloved, revered, and highly honored Second Tellurian Member of the Directorate of

the Galactic Federation, had died almost instantly in his sleep of a massive cerebral

hemorrhage.