Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy

"Nor can human beings police it. It gets bigger every year. Dirtside police eventually close the gaps. But with us, the longer we try the more there is. So to most of us it's a job, an honest job, but one that can never be finished.

"But to Colonel Richard Baslim it was a passion. Especially he hated the slave trade, the thought of it could make him sick at his stomach -- I've seen. He lost his leg and an eye -- I suppose you know -- while rescuing a shipload of people from a slaving compound.

"That would satisfy most officers -- go home and retire. Not old Spit-and-Polish! He taught a few years, then he went to the one corps that might take him, chewed up as he was, and presented a plan.

"The Nine Worlds are the backbone of the slave trade. The Sargony was colonized a long time ago, and they never accepted Hegemony after they broke off as colonies. The Nine Worlds don't qualify on human rights and don't want to qualify. So we can't travel there and they can't visit our worlds.

"Colonel Baslim decided that the traffic could be rendered uneconomic if we knew how it worked in the Sargony. He reasoned that slavers had to have ships, had to have bases, had to have markets, that it was not just a vice but a business. So he decided to go there and study it.

"This was preposterous -- one man against a nine-planet empire... but the Exotic Corps deals in preposterous notions. Even they would probably not have made him an agent if he had not had a scheme to get his reports out. An agent couldn't travel back and forth, nor could he use the mails -- there aren't any between us and them -- and he certainly couldn't set up an n-space communicator; that would be as conspicuous as a brass band.

"But Baslim had an idea. The only people who visit both the Nine Worlds and our own are Free Traders. But they avoid politics like poison, as you know better than I, and they go to great lengths not to offend local customs. However Colonel Baslim had a personal 'in' to them.

"I suppose you know that those people he rescued were Free Traders. He told 'X' Corps that he could report back through his friends. So they let him try. It's my guess that no one knew that he intended to pose as a beggar -- I doubt if he planned it; he was always great at improvising. But he got in and for years he observed and got his reports out.

"That's the background and now I want to squeeze every possible fact out of you. You can tell us about methods -- the report I forwarded never said a word about methods. Another agent might be able to use his methods."

Thorby said soberly, "Ill tell you anything I can. I don't know much."

"You know more than you think you do. Would you let the psych officer put you under again and see if we can work total recall?"

"Anything is okay if it'll help Pop's work."

"It should. Another thing --" Brisby crossed his cabin, held up a sheet on which was the silhouette of a spaceship. "What ship is this?"

Thorby's eyes widened. "A Sargonese cruiser."

Brisby snatched up another one. "This?"

"Uh, it looks like a slaver that called at Jubbulpore twice a year."

"Neither one," Brisby said savagely, "is anything of the sort. These are recognition patterns out of my files -- of ships built by our biggest shipbuilder. If you saw them in Jubbulpore, they were either copies, or bought from us!"

Thorby considered it. "They build ships there."

"So I've been told. But Colonel Baslim reported ships' serial numbers -- how he got them I couldn't guess; maybe you can. He claims that the slave trade is getting help from our own worlds!" Brisby looked unbearably disgusted.

Thorby reported regularly to the Cabin, sometimes to see Brisby, sometimes to be interviewed under hypnosis by Dr. Krishnamurti. Brisby always mentioned the search for Thorby's identity and told him not to be discouraged; such a search took a long time. Repeated mention changed Thorby's attitude about it from something impossible to something which was going to be true soon; he began thinking about his family, wondering who he was? -- it was going to be nice to know, to be like other people.

Brisby was reassuring himself; he had been notified to keep Thorby off sensitive work the very day the ship jumped from Hekate when he had hoped that Thorby would be identified at once. He kept the news to himself, holding fast to his conviction that Colonel Baslim was never wrong and that the matter would be cleared up.

When Thorby was shifted to Combat Control, Brisby worried when the order passed across his desk -- that was a "security" area, never open to visitors -- then he told himself that a man with no special training couldn't learn anything there that could really affect security and that he was already using the lad in much more sensitive work. Brisby felt that he was learning things of importance -- that the Old Man, for example, had used the cover personality of a one-legged beggar to hide two-legged activities... but had actually been a beggar; he and the boy had lived only on alms. Brisby admired such artistic perfection -- it should be an example to other agents.

But the Old Man always had been a shining example.

So Brisby left Thorby in combat control. He omitted to make permanent Thorby's acting promotion in order that the record of change in rating need not be forwarded to BuPersonnel. But he became anxious to receive the dispatch that would tell him who Thorby was.

His executive was with him when it came in. It was in code, but Brisby recognized Thorby's serial number; he had written it many times in reports to "X" Corps. "Look at this, Stinky! This tells us who our foundling is. Grab the machine; the safe is open."

Ten minutes later they had processed it; it read:

-- "NULL BESULT FULL IDENTSEARCH BASLIM THORBY GDSMN THIRD. AUTH & DRT TRANSFER ANY RECEIVING STATION RETRANSFER HEKATE INVESTIGATION DISPOSITION -- CHFBUPEBS."

"Stinky, ain't that a mess?"

Stancke shrugged. "It's how the dice roll, boss."

"I feel as if I had let the Old Man down. He was sure the kid was a citizen."

"I misdoubt there are millions of citizens who would have a bad time proving who they are. Colonel Baslim may have been right -- and still it can't be proved."

"I hate to transfer him. I feel responsible."

"Not your fault."

"You never served under Colonel Baslim. He was easy to please... all he wanted was one-hundred-percent perfection. And this doesn't feel like it."

"Quit blaming yourself. You have to accept the record."

"Might as well get it over with. Eddie! I want to see Ordnanceman Baslim."

Thorby noticed that the Skipper looked grim -- but then he often did. "Acting Ordnanceman Third Class Baslim reporting, sir."

"Thorby..."

"Yes, sir?" Thorby was startled. The Skipper sometimes used his first name because that was what he answered to under hypnosis -- but this was not such a time.

"The identification report on you came."

"Huh?" Thorby was startled out of military manners. He felt a surge of joy -- he was going to know who he was!

"They can't identify you." Brisby waited, then said sharply, "Did you understand?"

Thorby swallowed. "Yes, sir. They don't know who I am. I'm not... anybody."

"Nonsense! You're still yourself."

"Yes, sir. Is that all, sir? May I go?"

"Just a moment. I have to transfer you back to Hekate." He added hastily, seeing Thorby's expression, "Don't worry. They'll probably let you serve out your enlistment if you want to. In any case, they can't do anything to you; you haven't done anything wrong."

"Yes, sir," Thorby repeated dully.

Nothing and nobody -- He had a blinding image of an old, old nightmare... standing on the block, hearing an auctioneer chant his description, while cold eyes stared at him. But he pulled himself together and was merely quiet the rest of the day. It was not until the compartment was dark that he bit his pillow and whispered brokenly, "Pop... oh, Pop!"