Mack Reynolds: Planetary Agent X

He had flicked the selector switch to full blast, automatic. Now he gently squeezed the trigger and the windshield of the pursuing floater shattered into slivers and dust and the vehicle, suddenly driverless, banked to the left, crashing into the rock pile in a grinding, collapsing, shrieking complaint of agonized machinery, framework and glass.

He stood for a moment, the gun still at the ready, though there was small chance that any life could have survived his attack. He watched expressionlessly, poker-faced, feeling nothing whatsoever in the way of regret or compassion. They had played the game of pursuit and lost. What was there to regret, so far as he was concerned? He had won, in his one chance in a million gamble.

He tucked the gun back into his belt and scrambled to the top of the rocks, marveling as he went that there should be comparatively open countryside this near to Greater Washington. It was deliberate, undoubtedly. Evidently the largest city on Earth had some desperate need of a bit of countryside surrounding it. What amounted to a national park, where there were air, trees, and even an occasional stream. A memory of what the world had been in yesteryear.

From the top he surveyed back over the route he had just covered. So far as he could see, there were no further pursuers. They had evidently sent no more than two men, confident that with radar, sensi-screens and their other ultramodern police equipment and armament, one man posed no problems. There was the faintest of smiles on his usually poker-face.

He returned to his floater, lifted it and headed toward the city. He would have to plan carefully now. Undoubtedly his two pursuers had been in continual communications with their headquarters. Suddenly their reports would have been cut off. Headquarters would undoubtedly send out more men, but, what was more pressing, would call ahead for the city’s police to be on the watch for him.

Billy Antrim’s problems were far from over.

Ronald Bronston said to Irene, “What’s roiling the Old Man?”

She paused long enough from her switches, her order-box, her buttons and phones to say snappishly, “How would I know? He never tells me what’s going on around here. I’m supposed to be clairvoyant, telepathic, and omniscient to boot. I tell you, there’s a lot of jetsam around this office.”

Ronny grinned at her. “Sid Jakes called and said Ross wanted to see me immediately.”

Irene Kasansky was as important a cog in the wheels of Section G, of the Bureau of Investigation, of the Department of Justice, of the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, of United Planets, as was Ross Metaxa himself. Or so, at least, everybody said, including the Old Man when he was slightly in his cups. She loved every soul in the small department and the affection was reciprocated with interest—though no one would have dreamed of admitting it, on either side.

She said now, “Well, don’t stand there. If his high mucky-muck summoned you, scamper.” She added, “Tell him he can have up to fifteen minutes with you. Then he’s got to see Lee Chang about the Han rebellion.”

“Got it,” Ronny told her, making for the inner door.

She looked after him for a split second, deciding that of all the top field agents in Section G, Ronny Bronston least looked the part, which was possibly to be one of his most valuable assets. Irene loved them all, these spearhead men of the conquest of space, but there was a particular something about Ronny Bronston. She snorted inwardly—first thing she knew she’d be letting him catch onto the fact, and then where would things be?

Ronny went through the entry and turned left to the door inconspicuously lettered, ROSS METAXA, COMMISSIONER, SECTION G.

Section G, Ronny thought, all over again. What an innocuous name for Department of Trouble-shooting, Department of Cloak and Dagger, Department of Secret Treasury Department devoted , he reminded himself bitterly, to the principle that the end justifies the means . Ronny had yet to forget he had been raised in an atmosphere of high ethic and ideals.

Ronny knocked and the door slid open.

Ross Metaxa, bleary eyed as always, looked up, as always affecting the acid surliness which fooled everybody—sometimes even himself.

He pushed some reports away from that part of his desk immediately before him and fished the brown bottle from a drawer as he said, “Sit down, Ronny. Drink?”

“Not from that bottle,” Ronny said.

“How’s the wound?” Metaxa growled, pouring himself a slug. “Doctor got you off booze?”

“I’m okay now. I’ve got myself off that Denebian tequila of yours,” Ronny said, sinking into a chair. “I know when I’m well off. I’ll stick to kerosene.”

“Very funny,” Metaxa grumbled, knocking the liquor back over his tonsils, impervious to the other’s shudder. He put the top back on the bottle, began to return it to the drawer, changed his mind and shoved it to one side of the desk. “What do you know about Palermo?” he said.

Ronny cast his eyes slightly upward and spoke as though remembering a lesson. “One of the far out planets, in more ways than space. Colonized by Italians…”

“Sicilians,” Metaxa grunted.

“… only recently joining the UP. The government and socio-economic system seem to be unique.”

His superior grunted sour amusement. “That’s a gentle way of putting it,” he said. “The government is by Maffeo , a very old Sicilian institution which they seem to export along with their emigrants. Its origins are lost in antiquity but seem to go as far back as the slave rebellions of the Romans.”

“Romans?”

“What’s wrong with your history, Ronny?” the other said gruffly. “The Roman Empire. Controlled…”

“Oh, yeah. I remember.”

The other grunted. “You can look it up in the archives later. At any rate, it seems that the planet Palermo was originally settled by peasant types, evidently largely interested in fleeing this very institution. They found their planet, way beyond what were then the reaches of UP, and paid through the nose to have themselves and their scanty belongings hauled out. Space Freightways handled the transportation. One of their usual gyp arrangements.”

Metaxa came to a sudden halt in his delivery and said into his order-box, “Irene, what ever happened to that investigation on Space Freightways? I told you I wanted an immediate report.”

Ronny Bronston couldn’t make out her answer, but he caught the snap in her voice. He grinned inwardly.

“All right, all right,” Metaxa snapped back. “But tell that loafer to get a move on.” He grunted and turned back to Ronny.

“At any rate, the colonists of Palermo managed to foul up their whole project through sheer lack of sophistication. Planted in their number were a handful of the very Maffeo they thought they were getting away from. In less than two generations, the outfit was in control.”

“In what way?” Ronny said.

“In the most brutal way,” Metaxa told him sourly. “You can look up details later. What interests us is that at this time the planet is stagnating under what amounts to a modern form of robber baron feudalism. A handful of bully-boys on the top, a terrified peasantry working their lives away on the bottom.”

“They’re members of UP?” Ronny said. “Why’d we let them in? As long as they were outside, we could have dealt with them. A few agents could have drifted in and pulled some…”

Metaxa was nodding. “Because we were stupid, and they were smart, instinctively smart. Luigi Agrigento, current head of the Maffeo, saw the handwriting on the wall when nearby planets began also to be colonized. He petitioned to join UP and was admitted after the usual mild routine. He understood perfectly well that given membership, Articles One and Two of the United Planets Charter protected him from outside interference.