Robert Silverberg - The Planet Killers

“You were picked to implement this decision. If you remember, I didn’t think you were the right man. The computer overruled me. And instead of carrying out your task, you’ve acted in a direcdy contrary way.”

“Then you were right about me, and the computer was wrong!” Gardner shouted triumphantly. “If the computer can be wrong about me and wrong about Archer, what makes you so sure that it’s right about Lurion?”

“That’ll be enough,” Karnes barked. “Our decision has been taken. The project will continue as—”

“But all I ask is that you run a recomputation with the new data! It can’t take more than a year. Can’t you spare a year when the life of a whole world is at stake? The recomputation may change everything. It—”

“The project will continue as scheduled,” Karnes repeated inexorably. “Replacements will be sent to Lurion for Archer, Smee, and yourself. You are relieved of your position on this project, and your rank will be reduced to—”

“Reduced to nothing,” Gardner said. “I resign my commission on the spot. You’ll get the official notice by registered mail in the morning. I don’t want any part of this filthy organization!”

Saluting ironically, he spun on his heel and stalked toward the door. The panels rolled back obediently as he approached them.

“Gardner! Come back here! That’s an order, Gardner, do you hear me?”

“I don’t have to obey orders any more, sir.”

“Gardner!”

Without looking back, he stepped through the doorway, and it closed behind him. He began to walk rapidly down the long corridor. Voices sounded behind him, but he kept on going, through passageway after passageway, out to the front desk finally, past the goggle-eyed reception clerk, into the waiting lift-shaft.

Down. Out into the street.

Only when the fresh air reached him did he begin to think again. His mind had been numb all the way down, concentrating only on getting out of the building as quickly as possible.

Karnes had refused to listen. The project would continue as ordered. And he had resigned his commission. Like a string of firecrackers, the events had followed each other in explosive speed.

In no more than five minutes he had destroyed a career that had taken years to build.

He felt hollow and lost. But he knew he had done the right thing. That alone was a consolation.

In all conscience he could not have proceeded with the destruction project. Nor could he continue to associate himself with the organization that would be responsible for Lurion’s murder.

He had cut himself adrift, but at least his hands were clean.

Whatever happened now would be no guilt of his. He had tried.

A taxi glided up to the curb. Gardner stepped in and gave the driver the address of the hotel where he and Lori had registered earlier that day.

Lori was reading when he came in. She put away her book immediately and ran to him, eyes bright, smiling with anticipation. Her smile faded as she saw the expression on his face.

“What happened, Roy?”

He shook his head and dropped dispiritedly into a chair. “The damned obstinate fool,” he muttered bitterly. “Wouldn’t Karnes see you?”

“Oh, he saw me all right. He damned near had a fit when he heard I was waiting outside. I bet nobody ever got shown into Karnes’ office so fast. But then he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“What do you mean?”

Scowling Gardner said, “I told him everything. About Archer, about Smee, about the Lurioni underground. And all he did was chew me out for having left my position without permission. The project is going to continue as scheduled. He won’t even consider the idea of ordering a recomputation.”

“No, Roy! That’s horrible!”

“There’s more,” Gardner said. “He removed me from the project and started to demote me. So I resigned. I tossed in my commission.”

“Of course. What else could you have done? You couldn’t have remained attached to them after all this, could you?”

“No, but now I’m in a mess. I don’t have any other livelihood, and it isn’t easy for Security Agents to get jobs. People tend to distrust us. When I put down on the application, ‘Former Security Agent,’ they suddenly decide that the vacancy has been filled by a prior applicant due to apply at a later date. So Earth is closed to me. Besides, I’m walking around with a lot of top-secret classified information in my hold. Karnes may decide that I’m too dangerous to stay at liberty. The safest thing for them to do is to lock me up until after the Lurioni blowup, or maybe even indefinitely. To keep me quiet, you see.”

Lori pounded her fists against her thighs in anger. “But this is all outrageous! Aren’t they human? Can’t they at least order the recomputation instead of arresting you and blowing up a world? How can they dare to take such a responsibility?”

Gardner said quietly, “That’s the attitude I had until a little while ago. But now I understand Karnes and his bunch better. They’ve been living with this thing for five years, now. They’ve already gotten numb to the guilt. Their minds are frozen in the thought that Lurion has to be destroyed. It’s a dreadful thing to do, and they know it. But if they order the recomputation, and find out that they don’t have to destroy the planet, then all their suffering and guilt of the last five years was wasted; don’t you see? And they’ve reached the point where they’d rather blow Lurion up than admit that they were operating on insufficient data.”

He stared dumbly at the textured pattern of red and green whorls in the carpet. Lori said, “Roy, what are we going to do now?”

“Wei I’m going to become a victim of the Preventive Detention laws. You’re going to finish your thesis and get your degree in anthropology.”

“Don’t be stupid. Are you just going to sit here and let them arrest you?”

“What else is there for me? The cleanest thing would be to go back to Lurion and wait there for the blowup. But I’m not cut out for suicide. So I’ll rot in a jail instead. It’s the price I’ll pay for being an Earthman. We’ll all share the guilt of this Lurion thing.”

“No, Roy. Can’t we escape altogether, go off to some distant planet, some colony-world where we can buy land and just live and farm and forget this whole nightmarish thing?”

Gardner looked up. “Why should you get yourself mixed up in this?”

“Maybe I love you,” she said. “Or maybe I’m just an idiot. But I want to go with you wherever you go. And I don’t want you to sit by and let yourself be locked up.”

Gardner managed a faint smile. “Are you certain that this is what you want, Lori?”

“Yes.”

“What about your thesis, your doctorate?”

“What do those things matter? A lot of typed paper, a diploma, a title. They’re just substitutes for being alive, for being in love.”

“Get your doctorate. Marry some rich banker, the owner of a spaceKne, a jetpolo player. You’ve got looks, brains—”

“I don’t want any rich bankers. I want you, Roy.”

He was silent a long while, his eyes closed, his face bleak. At length he said, “I’ve got some money saved up. Security men get paid pretty well. It would be enough to take two people about nine hundred light-years on a one-way ticket and still leave a little over for living expenses.”

“I have money too, Roy. Not much, but it’s at least three thousand credits.”

“How fast can you lay your hands on it?”

“Within an hour. I don’t think the bank will make trouble about a withdrawal.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go down to the Bureau of Emigration and pick out a planet and get my passport validated while you’re taking your money out. When I get back, you can go and do the same thing. We’ll leave on the first available ship.”