James Hogan - Entoverse

Danchekker stood before the screen, seeming to crouch in the attitude of some scrawny bird of prey, his lab coat hanging from his hunched shoulders like a vulture’s wings and his fingers curling by his sides like talons, as if he were about to pounce on the terminal and tear it to pieces.

“Very well,” he granted, finally conceding. “Would you kindly arrange for the agenda, and whatever figures I might need, to be ready for me to collect?”

“I’ve already seen to it,” Ms. Mulling replied.

Ten minutes later, Danchekker exploded through the door into Caldwell’s office high up on the far side of the complex. “You’ve got to do something!” he insisted. “The creature isn’t human. Can’t you transfer her to one of the Martian bases or a deep-space mission probe? I cannot continue with my work under these conditions.”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t matter too much anymore,” Caldwell said over his interlaced fingers. “Something else has come up, and-”

“Doesn’t matter!” Danchekker stormed. “I’d sooner be married to one of the Gorgons. The possibility of retaining any modicum of sanity at all is utterly out of the question.”

“I talked to Vic yesterday afternoon. He’s probably been looking for you. There’s-”

“The situation is preposterous. Now I’m even being subjected to dress inspections, for God’s sake. I am adamant: She has to go.”

Caldwell sighed. “Look, transferring her wouldn’t be so simple. She was with Welland for thirteen years and came with his personal recommendation. He might be retired, but he still has a lot of pull through the old-buddy net. It could cause complications-especially at a time like this, when we’ve got all kinds of people looking for career opportunities and slices of the new action.”

“I have no interest in the adolescent attention-seeking antics and Machiavellian inanities of other people. If this woman-”

The door opened and Solomon Cail from the public-relations office appeared. “Oh… excuse me, Gregg. I didn’t realize. Mitzi thought you were alone.”

“I was away for a couple of minutes,” Mitzi’s voice called from outside.

“It’s all right, Sol,” Caldwell said. “Chris just stopped by. Is it something urgent?”

“As a matter of fact, it was Chris that I wanted to talk about,” Cail said.

“Me?” Danchekker looked suspicious. “What for?”

“Senator Greeling’s wife has been onto us again. It’s this women’s discussion group that she runs. We’ve as good as promised them a tour of the alien-life-form labs, and she wants the director to look after them personally-mostly to impress her friends, I guess.” Cail shrugged and showed a palm. “I know it’s a drag and all that, Chris, but Greeling did a lot of work for us, getting the college sponsorship program through. We don’t want to upset a friend like him if we can help it. She’d like an afternoon next month, maybe?”

“God help us,” Danchekker moaned bleakly.

A call-tone sounded in the outer office. Mitzi answered, and a moment later Ms. Mulling’s voice rang stridently through. “Is Professor Danchekker there, by any chance? He has an imminent appointment, and it is most imperative that I find him.”

And then Hunt appeared in the doorway on the far side of Mitzi’s desk, carrying a sheaf of papers in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. “Hello, what’s going on here? Ahah, Chris! Just the man.”

“Sol, give us a minute, would you?” Caldwell said, at the same time relieving Cail of any choice in the matter by rising and coming around the desk to steer him back toward the outer office. He waved Hunt in and closed the door behind him, holding up a hand to stay Danchekker before Danchekker could start talking again. “Yes, I’ve been aware of the problem for some time, Chris. But we needed a tactful solution that wouldn’t create more hassles than it cured.”

Danchekker shook his head and waved a hand impatiently. “I’m being turned into a club treasurer. We’ve got enough tally clerks and ledger keepers who can take care of that kind of thing. I was under the impression that this establishment was supposed to be dedicated to the advancement of the sciences. I’ve seen more-”

“I know, I know,” Caldwell said, nodding and raising a hand. “But something’s come up that-”

“Now they want to make me a tour guide for women’s tea-party outings. The whole thing has become farcical. It’s a-”

“Chris, shut up,” Hunt interrupted calmly. “Delegate the lot. That’s what being a director is all about. You haven’t got time, now, anyway. Gregg’s got an off-planet assignment for the two of us.”

“And not only-” Danchekker stopped abruptly and sent Hunt a questioning look. “Off-planet? Us?”

Caldwell grunted and nodded at Hunt to continue.

“On Jevlen,” Hunt said. “There’s a Thurien ship in orbit that’s due to go back there shortly. Just think of it: a whole planetful of alien biology, literally light-years away. I think that a director of life sciences should be breaking new ground in the field, don’t you?” But it was clear already that Danchekker needed no further convincing. His expression had the rapture of a revivalist seeing light through the parting of the clouds.

They came out of Caldwell’s office a few minutes later. “I think we’re going to have to come up with some other arrangement,” Caldwell said to Solomon Cail, who was still waiting. “Chris is going to be tied up on a priority project.” He indicated the door of his office with a nod, and Cail disappeared inside.

Danchekker strode over to the terminal where Mitzi was still holding Ms. Mulling at bay. “Ah, there you are, Professor,” the image on the screen began. “The review meeting-”

“Find Yamumatsu and get him there,” Danchekker said. His voice rang with the newfound confidence of the reborn. “Also, contact the secretary of the Republican Society and give them my apologies, but I shall be unable to attend. Maybe Yamumatsu would like to stand in for me there, too.”

For a few seconds Ms. Mulling was too shocked to reply; she stared back at him from the screen, open-mouthed, like a mother superior who had just heard the Pope proclaim his conversion to atheism. She recovered herself falteringly. “I don’t understand… What’s happened? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong?” Danchekker repeated lightly. “Not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. Effective immediately, I shall be preoccupied with other matters. Have Brady come to my office, would you? Get out all the plans, charts, budgets, and other wastepaper that holds up the walls over there, and tell him he’ll be deputized as from tomorrow morning. I-” Danchekker spread both hands in a careless throwing-away motion, “-shall have flown.”

Ms. Mulling looked confused. “What are you talking about, Professor Danchekker? There are urgent things to be attended to.”

“I have no time for anything urgent. There are too many important things to be done, instead.”

“But-where are you going?”

“To Jevlen. Where else can a science of alien life be practiced?” Danchekker lifted a leg to dangle a sneaker-shod foot in view of the screen and waggled it provocatively. “Far, far away, Ms. Mulling. Beyond the horizons of imagination of the entire Republican Society, the verbal compass of a gaggle of senators’ wives, and even, if you are capable of comprehending such a thing, beyond the reaches of the sacred UNSA Corporate Procedure Manual.”

“Jevlen? Why? What are you going to do there?”

But Danchekker wasn’t listening. Hunt and Mitzi could hear him singing tunelessly to himself as he ambled away down the corridor beyond the open door.

“Far, far away. Far, far away…