Mack Reynolds: Planetary Agent X

“Of course, old chap,” Jakes told him cheerfully. “We know all that, or you wouldn’t ever have been chosen as an agent for Section G.”

Ronny looked at him in disgust. “I’ve resigned that position, Jakes.”

Jakes grinned back at him. “To the contrary, you’re now in the process of receiving permanent appointment.”

Ronny snorted his disgust and turned back to Metaxa. “Section G is a secret department of the Bureau of Investigation devoted to subverting Article One of the United Planets Charter.”

Metaxa nodded.

“You don’t deny it?”

Metaxa shook his head.

“Article One,” Ronny snapped, “is the basic foundation of the Charter which every member of UP and particularly every citizen of United Planets, such as ourselves, has sworn to uphold. But the very reason for the existence of this Section G is to interfere with the internal affairs of member planets, to subvert their governments, their economic systems, their religions, their ideals, their very ways of life.”

Metaxa yawned and reached into a desk drawer for his bottle. “That’s right,” he said. “Anybody like a drink?”

Ronny ignored him. “I’m surprised I didn’t catch on even sooner,” he said. “On New Delos Mouley Hassan, the local agent, knew the God-King was going to be assassinated. He brought in extra agents and even a detail of Space Forces guards for the emergency. He probably engineered the assassination himself.”

“Nope,” Jakes said. “We seldom go that far. Local rebels did the actual work, but, admittedly, we knew what they were planning. In fact, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Mouley Hassan provided them with the bomb. That lad’s a bit too dedicated.”

“But why? ” Ronny blurted. “That’s deliberately interfering with internal affairs. If the word got out, every planet in UP would resign.”

“Probably no planet in the system that needed a change so badly,” Metaxa growled. “If they were ever going to swing into real progress, that hierarchy of priests had to go.” He snorted. “An immortal God-King, yet.”

Ronny pressed on. “That was bad enough, but how about this planet Mother, where the colonists had attempted to return and live in the manner man did in earliest times.”

“Most backward planet in the UP,” Metaxa said sourly. “They just had to be roused.”

“And Kropotkin!” Ronny blurted. “Don’t you understand, those people were happy there. Their lives were simple, uncomplicated, and they had achieved a happiness that—”

Metaxa came to his feet. He scowled at Ronny Bronston and growled, “Unfortunately, the human race can’t take the time out for happiness. Come along. I want to show you something.”

He swung around the corner of his desk and made his way toward a ceiling-high bookcase.

Ronny stared after him, taken off guard, but Sid Jakes was grinning his amusement.

Ross Metaxa pushed a concealed button and the bookcase slid away to one side to reveal an elevator beyond.

“Come along,” Metaxa repeated over his shoulder. He entered the elevator, followed by Jakes.

There was nothing else to do. Ronny Bronston followed them, his face still flushed with the angered argument.

The elevator dropped—how far, Ronny had no idea. It stopped and they emerged into a plain, sparsely furnished vault. Against one wall was a boxlike affair that reminded Ronny of nothing so much as a deep-freeze.

For all practical purposes, that’s what it was. Ross Metaxa led him over and they stared down into its glass-covered interior.

Ronny’s eyes bugged. The box contained the partly charred body of an animal approximately the size of a rabbit. No, not an animal. It had obviously once been clothed, and its limbs were obviously those of a tool-using life form.

Metaxa and Jakes were staring down at it solemnly, for once no inane grin on the supervisor’s face. And that of Ross Metaxa was more weary than ever.

Ronny said finally, “What is it?” But he knew.

“You tell us,” Metaxa growled sourly.

“It’s an intelligent life form,” Ronny blurted. “Why has it been kept secret?”

“Let’s go back upstairs,” Metaxa sighed.

Back in his office he said, “Now I go into my speech. Shut up for awhile.” He poured himself a drink, not offering one to the other two. “Ronny,” he said, “man isn’t alone in the galaxy. There’s other intelligent life. Dangerously intelligent.”

In spite of himself Ronny reacted in amusement. “That little creature down there? The size of a small monkey?” As soon as he said it, he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.

Metaxa grunted. “Obviously size means nothing. That little fellow down there was picked up by one of our Space Forces scouts over a century ago. How long he’d been drifting through space, we don’t know. Possibly only months, but possibly hundreds of centuries. But however long, he’s proof that man is not alone in the galaxy. And we have no way of knowing when the expanding human race will come up against this other intelligence—and whoever it was fighting.”

“But,” Ronny protested, “you’re assuming they’re aggressive. Perhaps coming in contact with these aliens will be the best thing that ever happened to man. Possibly that little fellow down there is the most benevolent creature ever evolved.”

Metaxa looked at him strangely. “Let’s hope so,” he said. “However, when found he was in what must have been a one-man scout. He was dead and his craft was blasted and torn—obviously from some sort of weapons’ fire. His scout was obviously a military craft, highly equipped with what could only be weapons, most of them so damaged our engineers haven’t been able to figure them out. To the extent they have been able to reconstruct them, they’re scared silly. No, there’s no two ways about it, our little rabbit sized intelligence down in the vault was killed in an interplanetary conflict. And sooner or later, Ronny, man in his explosion into the stars is going to run into either or both of the opponents in that conflict.”

Ronny Bronston slumped back into his chair, his brain running out a dozen leads at once.

Metaxa and Jakes remained quiet, looking at him speculatively.

Ronny said slowly, “Then the purpose of Section G is to push the member planets of UP along the fastest path of progress, to get them ready for the eventual meeting.”

“Not just Section G,” Metaxa growled, “but all of the United Planets organization, although most of the rank and file don’t even know our basic purpose. Section G? We do the dirty work, and are proud to do it, by every method we can devise.”

Ronny leaned forward. “But look,” he said. “Why not simply inform all member planets of this common danger? They’d all unite in the effort to meet the common potential foe. Anything standing in the way would be brushed aside.”

Metaxa shook his head wearily. “Would they? Is a common danger enough for man to change his institutions, particularly those pertaining to property, power and religion? History doesn’t show it. Delve back into early times and you’ll recall, for an example, that in man’s early discovery of nuclear weapons he almost destroyed himself. Three or four different socio-economic systems coexisted at that time and all would have preferred destruction rather than changes in their social forms.”

Jakes said, in an unwonted quiet tone, “No, until someone comes up with a better answer it looks as though Section G is going to have to continue the job of advancing man’s institutions, in spite of himself.”

The commissioner made it clearer. “It’s not as though we deal with all our member planets. It isn’t necessary. But you see, Ronny, the best colonists are usually made up of the, well, crackpot element. Those who are satisfied stay at home. America, for instance, was settled by the adventurers, the malcontents, the nonconformists, the religious cultists, and even the fugitives and criminals of Europe. So it is in the stars. A group of colonists go out with their dreams, their schemes, their far-out ideas. In a few centuries they’ve populated their new planet, and often do very well indeed. But often not and a nudge, a push, from Section G can start them up another rung or so of the ladder of social evolution. Most of them don’t want the push. Few cultures, if any, realize they are mortal; like Hitler’s Reich, they expect to last at least a thousand years. They resist any change—even change for the better.”