Andre Norton - The Science Fiction anthology

“Good morning, Sub-Archivist Clarey,” the man said mellowly. “Good of you to come in. There’s rather an unusual position open and the machines tell us you’re the one man who can fill it. Please sit down.” He indicated a small, hard stool.

Clarey remained standing. “I’ve been a perfectly competent Sub-Archivist,” he declared. “If MacFingal has—if there have been any complaints, I should have been told first.”

“There have been no complaints. The reclassification is upward.”

“You mean I’ve made it as a Musician!” Clarey cried, sinking to the hard little stool in joyful atony.

“Well, no, not exactly a Musician. But it’s a highly artistic type of job with possible musical overtones.”

Clarey became a hollow man once more. No matter what it was, if it wasn’t as duly accredited Musician, it didn’t matter. The machine could keep him from putting his symphonies down on tape, but it couldn’t keep them from coursing in his head. That it could never take away from him. Or the resultant headache, either.

“What is the job, then?” he asked dully.

“A very important position, Sub-Archivist. In fact, the future welfare of this planet may depend on it.”

“It’s a trick to make me take a job nobody else wants,” Clarey sneered. “And it must be a pretty rotten job for you to go to so much trouble.”

The girl, whom he’d almost forgotten, gave a little laugh. Her eyes, he noticed, were hazel. There were L-E girls, he supposed, who also had hazel eyes—but a different hazel.

“Perhaps this will convince you of the job’s significance,” the interviewer said huffily. He took off his mask and looked at Clarey with anticipation. He had a sleek, ordinary, middle-aged-to-elderly face.

There was an awkward interval. “Don’t you recognize me?” he demanded.

Clarey shook his head. The girl laughed again.

“A blow to my ego, but proof that you’re the right man for this job. I’m General Spano. And this is my Mistress, Secretary Han Vollard.”

The girl inclined her head.

“At least you must know my name?” Spano said querulously.

“I’ve heard it,” Clarey admitted. “‘The Fiend of Fomalhaut,’ they call you,” he went on before he could catch himself and stop the words.

The girl clapped her hand over her mouth, but the laughter spilled out over and around it, pretty U-E laughter.

Spano finally laughed, too. “It’s a phrase that might be used about any military man. One carries out one’s orders to the best of one’s ability.”

“Besides,” Clarey observed in a non-Archivistic manner, “what concern have I with your military morality?”

“He’s absolutely perfect for the job, Steff!” she cried. “I didn’t think the machines were that good!”

“We mustn’t underestimate the machines, Han,” Spano said. “They’re efficient, very efficient. Someday they’ll take over from us.”

“There’re some things they’ll never be able to do,” she said. Her hazel eyes lingered on Clarey’s. “Aren’t you glad, Archivist?”

“Sub-Archivist,” he corrected her frostily. “And I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“That’s not what the machines say, Sub-Archivist,” she told him, her voice candy-sweet. “They deep-probed your mind. You don’t do anything, but you’ve thought about it a lot, haven’t you?”

Clarey felt the blood surge up. “My thoughts are my own concern. You haven’t the right to use them to taunt me.”

“But I think you’re attractive,” she protested. “Honestly I do. In a different way. Just go to a good tailor, put on a little weight, dye your hair, and—”

“And I wouldn’t be different any more,” Clarey finished. That wasn’t true; he would always be different. Not that he was deformed, just unappealing. He was below average height and his eyes and hair and skin were too light. In the past, he knew, there had been pale races and dark races on Earth. With the discovery of other intelligent life-forms to discriminate against together, the different races had fused into a swarthy unity. Of course he could hide his etiolation with dye and cosmetics, but those of really good quality cost more than he could afford, and cheap maquillage was worse than none. Besides, why should his appearance mean anything to anybody but himself? He’d had enough beating around the bush! “Would you mind telling me exactly what the job is?”

“Intelligence agent,” said Spano.

“Isn’t it exciting?” she put in. “Aren’t you thrilled?”

Clarey bounced angrily from his chair. “I won’t sit here and be ridiculed!”

“Why ridiculed?” Spano asked. “Don’t you consider yourself an intelligent man?”

“Being an intelligence agent has nothing to do with intelligence!” Clarey said furiously. “The whole thing’s silly, straight out of the tri-dis.”

“What do you have against the tri-dis, Sub-Archivist?” Spano’s voice was very quiet.

“Don’t you like any of them?” the girl said. “I just adore Sentries of the Sky !” Her enthusiasm was tinged, obscurely, with warning.

“Well, I enjoy it, too,” Clarey said, sinking back to the stool. “It’s very entertaining, but I’m sure it isn’t meant to be taken seriously.”

“Oh, but it is, Sub-Archivist Clarey,” Spano said. “ Sentries of the Sky happens to be produced by my bureau. We want the public to know all about our operations—or as much as it’s good for them to know—and they find it more palatable in fictionalized form.”

“Documentaries always get low ratings,” the girl said. “And you can’t really blame the public—documentaries are dull. Myself, I like a love interest.” Her eyes rested lingeringly on Clarey’s.

They must think I’m a fool, Clarey thought; yet why would they bother to fool me? “But I am given to understand,” he said to Spano, “even by the tri-dis, that an intelligence agent needs special training, special qualifications.”

“In this case, the special qualifications outweigh the training. And you have the qualifications we need for Damorlan.”

“According to the machines, all I’m qualified for is human filing cabinet. Is that what you want?”

Spano was growing impatient. “Look, Clarey, the machines have decided that you are not a Musician. Do you want to remain a Sub-Archivist for the rest of your days or will you take this other road? Once you’re on a U-E level, you can fight the machines; tape your own music if you like.”

Clarey said nothing, but his initial hostility was ebbing slowly away.

“I wanted to be a writer,” Spano said. “The machines said no. So I became a soldier, rose to the top. Now—this is in strictest confidence—I write most of the episodes of Sentries of the Sky myself. There’s always another route for the man with guts and vision, and, above all, faith. Why don’t we continue the discussion over lunch?”

It was almost unthinkable for L-E and U-E to eat together. For Clarey this was an honor—too great an honor—and there was no way out of it. Spano and the girl put on their masks; the general touched a section of the wall and it slid back. There was a car waiting for them outside. It skimmed over the delicately wrought, immensely strong bridges that, together with the tunnels, linked the great glittering metropolis into a vast efficient whole.

Spano was not really broadminded. Although they went to the Aurora Borealis , it was through a side door, and they were served in a private dining room. Clarey was glad and nettled at the same time.

The first few mouthfuls of the food tasted ambrosial; then it cloyed and Clarey had to force it down with a thin, almost astringent pale blue liquid. In itself, the liquor had only a mild, slightly pungent taste, but it made everything else increasingly delightful—the warm, luxurious little room, the perfume that wafted from the air-conditioning ducts, Han Vollard.