Mack Reynolds - Code Duello

Irene Kasansky said, “He’s expecting you. Watch out. The jetsam is flying today.” She did things to the bank of orderboxes she had on her desk, even as she clipped out her words. Her deft hands flew, pressing buttons, flicking switches.

Sid Jakes grinned at her. “I’ve never seen the day,” he said, “when you didn’t think the jetsam was flying. I hate to say this, Irene, but I think you’re a fake. I think you like it here at Section G.” She glared at him.

Lee Chang Chu, who stood next to the assistant Section G head, said, “Irene is the most efficient colleague we have.”

Irene snorted and snapped into an orderbox: “Well, find him, then!” She flicked it off and glared up at Lee Chang, standing there hardly five feet tall and very antique Oriental in her cheongsam dress. “Let me tell you, Goody Two Shoes, my resignation is in. This efficient colleague has had it. I’m transferring to Statistics.” Sid chuckled over his shoulder even as he led the way to the door to the sanctum sanctorum beyond. “That’ll be a neat trick to pull off,” he said. “The Old Man wouldn’t let you go if the Director of the Commissariat himself was silly enough to want you.”

The ultra-secretary glowered at him, but was forced to direct her attention to her chattering orderboxes.

Sid Jakes held open the door for Lee Chang, taking her slim figure in appreciatively, as she tripped through in the ages-old quick shuffle of the Chinese woman.

“Lee Chang,” he said, “why don’t you marry me? I’m handsome, reasonably young, of charming disposition, and an incredibly competent lover, and have excellent prospects, if our good commissioner will ever drop dead.” He hurried ahead of her to deal with the next door.

She cocked her head to one side slightly and thought about it. She said briskly, “Several reasons, Citizen Jakes.”

“I can’t imagine what they could be.”

“Well, though I’m highly flattered by the proposal, I suspect that you’re ulcer-prone, in spite of your surface clan. Besides, I doubt if Commissioner Metaxa plans on dropping dead in the immediate future. But, above all, you’re already married.”

“Um.” He made a wry face. “That’s true, that’s true, but we could always elope to the planet Saudi.” He had a finger on the door screen now, activating it, and standing so that the occupant of the office beyond could see him.

“Saudi?” Her voice, as always was a tinkle. It would be a perceptive observer who could suspect that Lee Chang Chu was one of the most efficient supervisors in the cloak and dagger Section G of the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs.

The door smoothed open and Sid Jakes grinned, even as he politely motioned her to precede him. “Saudi. The planet Saudi. Polygamy,” he said.

Ross Metaxa, rumpled of clothes as ever, sat behind his cluttered desk. He was slightly red of eye, sour of mien and gave a first impression of either too little sleep, or too much bottle belting the night previous.

Before Sid Jakes could get Lee Chang settled into a chair, the Commissioner of Section G growled, “What is a Special Talents class?” He reached into a desk drawer and came up with a squat bottle and three small glasses. “Denebian tequila?” he said, gesturing an invitation with the brown bottle.

Lee Chang Chu shuddered a polite negation.

Sid Jakes said, “I’m much too young, Chief.”

Lee Chang said, “It’s a project of mine, Commissioner. After all, you put me in charge of recruiting new agents.”

He glared at her. Ross Metaxa was the only person in Section G who would have dreamed of glaring at the tiny Chinese. He picked up a report from the mess on his desk, laid it down again and thumped it with the back of his hand.

“Agents, agents! Section G agents, the toughest operatives in United Planets. It takes years to locate a prospect, more years to train one. You’re an old hand, Chu; I thought I could trust you with this. In the field, you’re as good a supervisor as we have. And in the past you’ve field trained some of our best. Ronny Bronston, for example.” He looked at his assistant, perched on the side of his superior’s desk. “How is Bronston?”

“Oh, Ronny’ll be all right. You can’t crisp him.”

“You can evidently come mighty close. How is he?”

“Still unconscious.”

Metaxa made a face. He looked back at Lee Chang, who was demurely maintaining her peace. “What’s this about sending an eight-year-old girl to Falange?”

Sid Jakes laughed. “Chief, you misread that report. Helen just looks like an eight-year-old. She’s in her mid-twenties.”

“How can anybody who looks like an eight-year-old child be a Section G operative? What’s this other supposed agent? A Cordon Bleu chef. If this Tri-Di photo with his dossier means anything at all, he looks like a roly-poly middle-aged man. And this…”

Lee Chang said mildly, “The point is, Commissioner, they cleaned up the Falange mess. A mess that had cost us three men, experienced agents, before they took over.”

Metaxa looked at her blankly, looked back at the report. He poured himself another of the fiery Denebian tequilas and tossed it back. “How could they possibly have?”

Lee Chang came gracefully to her feet. “I suggest we go to the gym. At this time of the day, most of the class is exercising… or practicing their special talents.”

Ross Metaxa glared at her again, then growled into his orderbox, “Irene, can I be spared for fifteen minutes?”

Sid Jakes and Lee Chang failed to make out the reply, but Metaxa turned the glare from the Chinese girl to the box. “Oh, is that so?” he snapped. “Well, you’re fired.” He came to his feet and lumbered around the desk, heading for the door. “I don’t know why I put up with that woman.”

Sid Jakes came to his own feet, to follow. He chuckled. “You put up with her, Chief, because she knows more about the workings of Section G than the three of us, here, put together.”

Metaxa snorted.

The Commissioner of Section G stared about him in disbelief. The hall was a madhouse.

Up near the ceiling, a small child was doing things on a trapeze that should have been impossible. Over near one wall, a stocky, not to say plump, man was winging a shovel around and around his head. Suddenly, he let go and the shovel spun over and over, finally to smash, blade first, into the bull’s-eye of what Metaxa could now see was a target, some thirty feet away. Near another wall, a dark complected, serious looking worthy was snapping a bullwhip of the type that could sometimes be seen in Old West historical fiction Tri-Di shows.

Lee Chang, who was leading the way, came up to a dignified man whose huge size was mollified by the anachronistic pince-nez glasses he wore, and his air of the scholarly. He was watching the child trapeze artist. At his feet was the largest dumbbell the Commissioner had ever seen.

“Special talents?” Ross Metaxa blurted, in disgust. His eyes went around the room. “ These are the agents you’ve been recruiting for my department?”

Sid Jakes chuckled.

“Shut up, you laughing hyena,” Metaxa snapped. “With this Dawnworlds crisis on our hands, we’re shorter of trained agents than Section G has ever been, and you come up with this gang of freaks.” He glanced at a plain-looking middle-aged woman who looked back at him mildly.

Lee Chang said, “Martha Lorans. She has total recall. With Martha along, a troupe assigned to some emergency can set down on a planet without any records whatsoever on their persons. No matter what data they need for the job, they can carry it in her head.”