Poul Anderson: A Circus of Hells

She built her sentences with care. “Nobody’s told me much. You understand they wouldn’t, till the last minute. Your ideas are right, but they’re about as far along as my own information goes.”

“Has Flandry said nothing to you?”

She plunged. “All right. Yes. Give me that packet.” Having taken the money, she described what the pilot had been able to reveal to her after she had lowered his guard for him. (An oddly sweet pair of nights; but best not think about that.) “He doesn’t know the coordinates yet, you realize,” she finished. “Not even what kind of sun it is, except for the metals. It must be somewhere not too far off his assigned route. But he says that leaves thousands of possibilities.”

“Or more.” Rax forgot to control intonation. Was the sawing rhythm that came out of the speaker an equivalent of its equivalent of an awed whisper? “So many, many stars…a hundred billion in this one lost lonely dustmote of a galaxy…and we on the edge, remote in a spiral arm where they thin toward emptiness…what do we know, what can we master?”

The voice became flat and businesslike again. “This could be a prize worth contending for. We would pay well for a report from you. Under certain circumstances, a million.”

What Nicky said he was getting! And Leon’s paying me a bare hundred thousand —Djana shook her head. “I’ll be watched for quite a while, Rax, if Wayland turns out to be any use. What good is a fortune after you’ve been blasted?” She shivered. “Or they might be angry enough to brain-channel me and—” The cigarette scorched her fingers. She ground it into a disposer and reached for a new one. A million credits, she thought wildly. A million packs of smokes. But no, that’s not it. What you do is bank it and live off the interest. No huge income, but you’d be comfortable on it, and safe, and free, free —

“You would require disappearance, certainly,” Rax said. “That is part of the plan.”

“Do you mean we…our boat…would never come back?”

“Correct. The Navy will mount a search, with no result. Ammon will not soon be able to obtain another scout, and in the interim he can be diverted from his purpose or done away with. You can be taken to a suitably distant point, to Terra itself if you wish.”

Djana started her cigarette. The taste was wrong. “What about, well, him?”

“Junior Lieutenant Flandry? No great harm need come if the matter is handled efficiently. For the sums involved, one can afford to hire technicians and equipment able to remove recent memories from him without damage to the rest of his personality. He can be left where he will soon be found. The natural assumption will be that he was captured by Merseians and hypnoprobed in a random-pattern search for information.”

Rax hunched forward. “Let me make the proposition quite specific,” it continued. “If Wayland turns out to be worthless, you simply report to Ammon as ordered. When it is safe, you seek me and tell me the details. I want especially to know as much about Flandry as you can extract from him. For example, has he anything more in mind concerning this mission than earning his bribe? You see, my organization may well have uses of its own for a buyable Navy officer. Since this puts you to no special effort or hazard, your compensation will be one hundred thousand credits.”

Plus what I’ve already got in my purse, she exulted, plus Leon’s payment!

“And if the moon is valuable?” she murmured.

“Then you must capture the boat. That should not be difficult. Flandry will be unsuspicious. Furthermore, our agents will have seen to it that the crates supposed to contain impellers do not. That presents no problem; the storage cave is unguarded.”

Djana frowned. “Huh? What for? How can he check out the place if he can’t flit around in his spacesuit?”

“It will not be considered your fault if his judgment proves erroneous, for this or any other cause. But he should be able to do well enough; it is not as if this were a xenological expedition or the like. The reason for thus restricting his mobility is that he—young and reckless—will thereby be less likely to undertake things which could expose you, our contact, to danger.”

“Well!” Djana chuckled. “Nice of you.”

“After Flandry is your prisoner, you will steer the boat through a volume whose coordinates will be given you,” Rax finished. “This will bring you within detection range of a ship belonging to us, which will make rendezvous and take you aboard. Your reward will go to a million credits.”

“Um-m-m…” Check every angle, girl. The one you don’t check is sure to be the one with a steel trap in it. Djana flinched, recalling when certain jaws had punished her for disobedience to an influential person. Rallying, she asked: “Why not just trail the scout?”

“The space vibrations created by an operating hyper-drive are detectable, instantaneously, to a distance of about one light-year,” Rax said, patient with her ignorance of technology. “That is what limits communications over any greater reach to physical objects such as letters or couriers. If our vessel can detect where Flandry’s is, his can do likewise and he may be expected to take countermeasures.”

“I see.” Djana sat a while longer, thinking her way forward. At last she looked up and said: “By Jesus, you do tempt me. But I’ll be honest, I’m scared. I know damn well I’m being watched, ever since I agreed to do this job, and Leon might take it into his head to give me a narcoquiz. You know?”

“This has also been provided for,” Rax pointed. “Behind yonder door is a hypnoprobe with amnesiagenic attachments. I am expert in its use. If you agree to help us for the compensation mentioned, you will be shown the rendezvous coordinates and memorize them. Thereafter your recollection of this night will be driven from your consciousness.”

“What?” It was as if a hand closed around Djana’s heart. She sagged back into her chair. The cigarette dropped from cold fingers.

“Have no fears,” the goblin said. “Do not confuse this with zombie-making. There will be no implanted compulsions, unless you count a posthypnotic suggestion making you want to explore Flandry’s mind and persuade him to show you how to operate the boat. You will simply awaken tomorrow in a somewhat disorganized state, which will soon pass except that you cannot remember what happened after you arrived here. The suggestion will indicate a night involving drugs, and the money in your purse will indicate the night was not wasted. I doubt you will worry long about the matter, especially since you are soon heading into space.”

“I—well—I don’t touch the heavy drugs, Rax—”

“Perhaps your client spiked a drink. To continue: Your latent memories will be buried past the reach of any mere narcoquiz. Two alternative situations will restimulate them. One will be an interview where Flandry has told Ammon Wayland is worthless. The other will be his telling you, on the scene, that it is valuable. In either case, full knowledge will return to your awareness and you can take appropriate action.”

Djana shook her head. “I’ve been…brain-channeled…brain-burned—no,” she choked. Every detail in the room, a checkerboard pattern on a lounger, a moving wrinkle on Rax’s face, the panels of the inner door, stood before her with nightmare sharpness. “No, I won’t.”

“I do not speak of slave conditioning,” the other said. “That would make you too inflexible. Besides, it takes longer than the hour or so we dare spend. I speak of a voluntary bargain with us which includes your submitting to a harmless cue-recall amnesia.”

Djana rose. The knees shook beneath her. “You, you, you could make a mistake. No. I’m going. Let me out.” She reached into her purse.