Happiness: A Planet (18 page)

Once inside the ship she scrambled furiously to her feet. The round technician, a younger woman and a man stared at her. The man nervously smirked.

“Yes. Very funny,” Tulla said. “You do realise there’s a moon gone missing over there? And that it’s my job to find out about it? Three million people’s lives are in danger and you play jokes! Expensive jokes I might add. You must be hours over schedule. For what?”

The black-haired woman had come in behind Tulla. The four of them were glancing apprehensively to one another.

“Fools! All of you!” Tulla shouted. “I’ve
a good mind to report the lot of you to the police when I get back. All day you’ve kept me hanging about here! Fools!”

“Only a joke,” the shipboard man said. “A bit of fun.”

“Yea. A bit of fun,” they all chorused, half-heartedly laughing, realising their mistake. Because, looking now at her habitually untidy yellow hair, they saw that she could not possibly be a policewoman. No policewoman could cultivate that long-term amount of disregard for her appearance. Nor do undercover police agents threaten to call the police. And if her work was as important as she claimed, and if they were not already under suspicion, then any complaint she made would bring them to the police’s attention.

So Tulla was overwhelmed with solicitous apologies, how they hadn’t realised... a bit of a lark... no harm meant... She noticed her ship’s log on one of the freighter screens. On the other screens, as she had guessed, were views of the walkways.

“Can I have those codes now?” Tulla held out her hand to the technician. He pulled a grubby booklet from his tunic pocket.

“Better still,” Tulla took him by the sleeve, pushed roughly past the black-haired woman, “you can come and show me the codes. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is.”

Mumbling apologies the technician preceded her from the freighter to the machine room, unlocked the door. It took him only a few minutes to find all the codes that she might need. They heard the freighter leave.

“Anything else I can do,” he gallantly offered. “If I’d have known how...”

“I am now,” Tulla cut him short, “going to have to work all night. You can bring me some food. And unlock my ship door. I don’t want to have to disturb your precious beauty sleep when I leave.”

Now that she had won Tulla felt empty of anger, wanted only to be left alone to get on with her work. And she worked through all of that night and all of the following morning before she was satisfied that she had sufficient evidence. The round technician, fawning now over her well-being, brought her some breakfast. Some of that day’s freighter crews looked in on her, but left her alone with her work. Tulla didn’t see the technician again before she left. As soon as she reached light speed she slept.

While Tulla Yorke was approaching the platform Anton Singh and Petre Fanne were fast closing on this city. Once their deceleration passed below lightspeed, and as soon as they were within hailing distance of the city, Anton made continual use of the phone. His conversations were of no interest to Petre. Conducted mostly in guarded business jargon they were with people she didn’t know about people she didn’t know. She did hear her own name mentioned once and Tulla’s spelt. Nothing though could distract her from the city growing before her.

Her dreams had made the city smaller. So far away, on those small stations, she hadn’t been able to believe that the city could have been so big. Often, lately, she had told her memory that its youth had deceived her. But so grand was it, this home of thirty million people, that with every kilometre they closed upon it she became ever more convinced that a diminutive ex-gymnast, ex-station Director’s ex-consort would not be freely admitted entry there.

The tiny ship finally docked in the dead hours of the night. (When Tulla was still trying to rouse the platform technician.) By then Petre had fatalistically resigned herself to being refused entry to the city. However, as soon as the ship’s door opened, she found herself being rushed through the immigration formalities with as little hindrance as when she had left XE2 three days before.

With Munred the fuss of exit and entry formalities had taken a tiresome age. Now, Petre realised, it had only taken so long with Munred because the immigration and emigration officials had been demonstrating to their superior that they were sticklers for the correct procedure. And if, as had twice happened, those officials had omitted one sub-clause of that correct procedure, Munred had kindly reminded them of it. Bored once by the unending delays and cross-referencing, Petre had asked Munred if he couldn’t hurry things along. Munred, in a reproving whisper, had told her that it would set an unfortunate precedent if he were seen to exploit his position.

Even so the swiftness that night with which she and Anton were passed through the empty immigration hall and the entry formalities were so contrary to her expectations that she was in the cab before she fully realised that she was actually in the city.

“How?” she asked Anton, referring back to the ease of their entry. She was coming to regard him as something akin to a magician. He smiled smugly at her,

“Wealth is a privilege which begets yet more privilege.”

Anton could also have told her that a man like himself, who decides to break all the rules, often knows more of those rules than a man, like Munred, who tries to apply them. Because, needless to say, Anton did not share Munred’s high regard for the proper procedures.

All bureaucracy to Anton was but a bothersome obstacle to be brushed aside, to be circumvented. What might or might not be proper did not enter into his thinking. He was a man, Petre was coming to realise, who wanted to do things and did them. Results alone mattered. So, where Munred had punctiliously done his duty, Anton purposefully avoided it if it stood in his way.

The cab dropped Anton and Petre at an apartment complex subtly bedecked with the trappings of wealth. The size of the elevator alone bespoke unambiguous affluence.

“You live here?” Petre asked Anton.

“No,” Anton replied, preoccupied, “A friend.”

That he wasn’t amused by the idea of his living in such a place impressed Petre. She was, therefore, smiling before she even entered the apartment and Anton introduced her to a stout silver-haired man, whom she immediately recognised as a City Senate Member.

“Petre Fanne, this is Hambro Harrap.”

Anton looked on approvingly as Hambro proceeded to practise his charm on Petre and she on him. Petre chose to regard this first social contact under Anton’s auspices as a test of her abilities; and, like all experienced socialites, Petre knew when to say nothing. So, as soon as the courtesies had been satisfactorily completed, Petre moved away from the two men so that they could, undistracted, talk.

Petre purportedly examined a painting; but, with a small appreciative smile, she was covertly surveying her new surroundings. The very size of the rooms, the decor, the furnishings, the original paintings, the blossoming houseplants, the softness of the carpets... all were redolent of riches. Petre’s buoyancy, her vitality, her self-confidence, instantly returned. She felt that she had come home.

While standing before the painting Petre had heard Nautili mentioned, distances, times, Tulla’s qualifications.

“I’ve checked her out,” Hambro said. “Doesn’t seem the type to leap to wild conclusions.” He called Petre to them, “Do you believe her?”

“I believe her when she says that she suspects it.”

“This further evidence... Do you know what it is she hopes to find on the platforms?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Turning to Anton, Hambro asked what part Petre was playing in this little drama. Anton explained that Petre had been the Director’s consort, that the Director was now missing, presumably killed by the Nautili.

“Oh my dear,” Hambro laid a hand on Petre’s arm, “I am so sorry.”

Hambro Harrap was the first person to have unreservedly expressed sympathy for her; and, though Petre knew that sympathy to be patently false, it had her fighting down her tears.

The commonplace professionally uttered Hambro turned from her distress, was silent a moment, thoughtful.

“What do you think?” he asked Anton. Petre again unobtrusively moved away.

“The whole business has Nautili stamped all over it.” Anton sat on the edge of an easy chair, “If only because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve come across them before. Out on the edges. You leave them alone, think you’re peacefully coexisting, then they take it into their heads — if they’ve got heads — to remove a substation. Though I must admit I’ve never come across them blocking transmissions or moving a moon before. It’s something we’re certainly not capable of. And the planet’s got seas; and the two ships that were seen to be shot down — no gun flashes. The police, for all the wrong reasons, made a big thing of that. In my book it’s Nautili.”

Hambro proceeded to quiz Anton about details. Anton opened his case, called up some of the information he had purloined from the ship. At one point Hambro laughed,

“How do you come by all this stuff Anton? Your usual questionable sources?”

“My usual unquestioned sources,” Anton grinned at him, glanced to Petre, who, smiling, turned away. This man, she thought, was unscrupulous; yet he offered her trust and expected trust in return. As if following her thoughts Hambro chuckling laid his hand on Anton’s shoulder.

“I’d sooner trust,” he told Petre, “this self-confessed scoundrel than any number of guessed-at hypocrites.” The two men smiled briefly with shrewd understanding at one another, resumed their conversation.

Once Hambro Harrap had allowed himself to be convinced that something was definitely afoot on Happiness, Petre — from her discreet distance — beheld in muted pantomime the subtlest exchange of signals. Hambro’s silver head, one groomed eyebrow lifted in question, was tilted slightly in her direction. In response Anton’s sharp chin marginally rose and his eyes partially closed in assent. She was, she realised, cleared to share the confidences of the confidence breakers.

“So what do we do?” Hambro said. “I could use it to steal a march on my rivals. But the bearer of bad tidings can end up carrying the stigma of those bad tidings. One isn’t credited with vigilance, just with being a busybody. And I could, with some justification, be accused of inciting panic. This has to be handled with care.”

Petre’s opinions had been in a constant state of reversal and revision since her meeting Anton Singh. She had been shocked by his tampering with the mail, and had quickly become bored with its banal contents. She had been impressed by his being on familiar terms with a City Senate Member, and had subsequently rebuked herself for having believed Anton Singh to be a selfish rogue when, in bringing this information to Hambro Harrap, Anton had all the while had the public interest at heart. So she had forgiven him his unorthodox methods. Now she was shocked again to realise that all that this City Senate Member cared for the information was what use he might personally make of it.

For someone who had so cynically exploited her own sexuality, her naivity and her trust might appear remarkable. But Petre Fanne was one of those who did not examine her own motives nor apply them to others. She believed other people to be different. However, like so many of the other people in this tale, Hambro Harrap also had his humble ambitions.

Where, for instance, Munred Danporr had had a single future picture of himself, Hambro had a collage of such pictures — himself haranguing a spellbound Senate, himself jubilantly waving his arms aloft on the victory rostrum, his media-self confidently addressing the citizenry, himself mentioned in the press, himself the subject of speculation by the pundits.... Fame was the name of his game.

“How long have we got?” Hambro asked Anton.

Petre, fascinated by the machinations of these two men, and scornful of her own recent naiveté and wanting to learn more, came and sat near Anton.

“Time Tulla Yorke gets back to XE2, makes it official...” Anton pursed his lips, “Five days before it reaches here.” Anton at this juncture was unaware that, apart from her being about to be delayed, Tulla’s work had taken longer than she had anticipated. “How long before the news breaks...” Anton spread wide his palms, “...depends what tag they put on it. If it’s an Urgent, even a Priority, it could break immediately. Then again it might get passed to some specialist office, be sat on for weeks. Like you said, no-one wants to break bad news.”

Although this cynical appreciation of the way Service operated offended Petre — out of the faint ghost of a loyalty to Munred and his profession — such a view, she had to admit, was more or less accurate. Because, as we have already seen with the police, with Munred, with Nero Porsnin, the majority of those in positions of authority are all too ready to talk themselves into doing nothing, into leaving the problem for someone else somewhere else.

As has been said before this inactivity is deliberate policy. However, the result is, because of its indolent personnel and its size, our civilisation is slow to respond to crises, practically always fails to read the signals in advance, with the consequence that apparently trivial imperfections often go unchecked for decades, gather their own momentum, until the point is reached where drastic action has to be taken. As with the intentional underproduction of past centuries — to keep food prices and profits high — until we were faced with a near calamitous food shortage in two whole galaxies. Only then were laws promulgated to fix a minimum of food production. So too with communication — not until the administration was in near chaos was the Service formed and Space Time introduced.