Bob Shaw - The Ceres Solution

“I’d like to know what you thought you were doing. What made you bring that object here?”

“There was no time to…” Gretana, who had been unconsciously drawing herself up into her old mirror-watching attitude, was jarred by the word which Vekrynn had applied to Denny Hargate. She dredged up the self-control to make her shoulder muscles relax, to stave off the prickling that had begun to blur her vision.

“He isn’t an object,” she said quietly, numbed by her temerity in challenging the Warden. “He’s a human being, and he was dying.”

Vekrynn came towards her, looming. “Is that supposed to be something new on Earth?”

“It’s new for each person it happens to,” she said, willing herself not to back down in response to the overwhelming psychic pressure being exerted by the Warden.

“This is incredible,” Vekrynn half-whispered, drawing near. “I never thought that you, of all the observers I’ve recruited, would have the…” His eyes hunted over her face, speculative and oddly cautious, then he turned and walked back to his desk. He sat down in the high-backed chair and when he looked towards Gretana again she was surprised to see that he was smiling.

“You made me lose my temper, Gretana ty Iltha, and that is quite an achievement,” he said. “Now, let’s see if you can distinguish yourself even further by correctly divining why I got angry.”

Gretana was disconcerted. “I broke the law. I disobeyed a prime directive, but there was no…” Her voice faded as she saw that Vekrynn, still smiling, had begun to shake his head.

“Laws. Directives. Regulations. They’re very important to us, but at the same time they are only abstractions, which means they are quite unimportant compared to some other things—for example, a human life. I know you acted on impulse, but what’s going to happen to this poor creature Hargate now? He can’t be sent back to Earth, knowing what he does, and there is no place for him in our society.” Vekrynn waited for his words to take effect.

“From what I’ve been told, Hargate is a very sick person, in all probability one whose intellect and experience are severely limited, even by Terran standards. I can arrange to have him institutionalised, of course, but the severity of the culture shock that would involve is inconceivable. In your attempt to be kind you have condemned him to end his days in isolation from everybody and everything he knows and cares about, in total confusion and bewilderment.”

“I didn’t think of it like that,” Gretana said, aware that she was being truthful on two separate levels. In skording with Hargate to Station 23 she had acted with absolutely no thought for the future—nor could she, now that she knew him, imagine the acid-tongued and quick-tempered Terran being intimidated by alien surroundings. He would possibly be afraid, but—another fragment remembered from conversation with Lorrest—it was the Mollanians entrusted with his welfare who were likely to experience culture shock. Thoughts of Lorrest reminded Gretana she had not yet told Vekrynn the reason for her unscheduled return. It should have been the first thing to be discussed, but the Warden had been too busy telling her she was stupid and ugly…

“Let’s go on with the guessing game,” Vekrynn said. “Give me two more reasons for being angry with you.”

Gretana, still unable to gauge the Warden’s mood, shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“One of them is the harm you’ve done your own career—I’m supposed to return to you to Mollan for arraignment—the other is the fact that you have involved me. You see, I have no intention of surrendering a member of my team, and that means I must commit certain infringements and do a lot of talking and go to a lot of trouble that I wouldn’t otherwise have had.” Vekrynn took time to produce a wintry smile. “I’m a busy man, young Gretana, and I would have been happy to forego all this.”

“I’m quite prepared to return to Mollan and accept the…”

“Nonsense! You’re going back to Earth, where you can be of some service to the Bureau, and the Terran is going with me.”

“Where to?” Gretana said, having difficulty in keeping up with the pace of the exchange.

“I have a private estate—a retreat, you might call it—on Cialth. It’s a very pleasant world and I have permanent staff there, so the Terran will be well looked after. He will be my private guest for as long as it takes for him to…for the time remaining to him.”

The resentment caused by Vekrynn’s opening remark began to fade from Gretana’s mind as she strove to modify her attitudes towards him. She had hoped for clemency and understanding, but it had never occurred to her that a man in the Warden’s position would personally shoulder the responsibility for her ill-considered actions.

“Don’t stand there dreaming,” Vekrynn snapped. “Go back to the Terran, put him into his conveyance and bring him out to the node. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

“But I…”

“Do it now! ” Vekrynn’s eyes projected ancient and overwhelming authority.

Gretana nodded and almost at once found herself hurrying through the long ante-chamber where three-dimensional star maps floated in the dimness. The corridors and offices of the station were unnaturally deserted, and she wondered if people were keeping out of Vekrynn’s way or if he had ordered a general clearance for reasons of his own. She entered the room which had been set aside for Hargate’s improvised treatment. He was still asleep, lying exactly as she had left him, looking too ill and broken to be alive. The incongruity of his Earth-style clothing was an indictment to Gretana. She worked both hands under the slight figure and, once again daunted by his lack of body mass, placed him in the wheelchair which had been parked in a corner. Hargate grunted noisily during the process, and by the time she had arranged his legs in positions of apparent comfort he was wide awake and alert.

“If you’ve finished taking liberties with my person,” he said, “would you mind telling me what’s happening?”

Gretana copied his tone, sparing herself explanations. “You’re going on a wonderful vacation to a planet called Cialth. You’re going to be very happy there.”

“How about you?”

“I’m going back to Earth.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of this.”

“I don’t think either of us has any choice in the matter,” Gretana said firmly, grasping the handles on the back of the chair and propelling it into the corridor.

“What’s all this crap about me going on a vacation?” Hargate demanded, twisting to look up at her. “What’s going on here anyway?”

“The Warden is taking you to one of his private residences.”

“Why should he do that? I don’t want to go with him.”

Closing her ears to his protests, Gretana wheeled Hargate at speed along the corridor, through the square outermost chamber and out into the permanent floodlighting of the central plaza. Hargate lapsed into stillness as he saw the herculean figure of the Warden of Earth waiting at the focus of the nodal mosaic. It was as though Vekrynn’s psychic energies had reached across the intervening space and swamped all activity in the little Terran’s nervous system, imposing complete paralysis. Gretana, in spite of comparative familiarity, felt that she was breasting concentric rings of numinous power as she went towards Vekrynn, and she could only guess at the effect on Hargate. It occurred to her that it would be almost impossible to find two men who were more dissimilar in every circumstance of their existences, and hers was the responsibility for bringing them together.

“This is the man I brought from Earth,” she said, using English for Hargate’s benefit. “Sir, this is Dennis Hargate.”