Watchers of the Dark (22 page)

Darzek made the rounds of the traders, seeing one or two a day in an apparent gesture of good fellowship. Gul Meszk had evolved the grandiose scheme of uniting all the traders in the galaxy against the Dark, but several of the traders were less than wholly enthused with the idea.

“There are too many traders in this part of the galaxy now,” Brokefa grumbled.

“Then you should be pleased that E-Wusk and I are leaving,” Darzek said lightly.

“Bosh. I wasn’t thinking of you. When are you leaving?”

“Like E-Wusk, I shall consult Supreme. There is, alas, a long waiting list.”

“Of course. There always has been.”

“At present it’s longer than usual. Everyone fleeing the Dark seems to proceed by way of Primores.”

“I’d be happier about this plan of Gul Meszk’s if you would join us,” Brokefa said. “Gul Meszk is no leader, and he knows it. He wanted to give the job to Gul Rhinzl, but Gul Rhinzl said a commander who could fight only at night would be worthless.”

“On Yorlq we fought only during the day, at the convenience of the natives. If we’d had enough nocturnals to harass them at night, we might have won.”

“I never thought of that,” Brokefa said, wide-eyed.

“I found Gul Rhinzl to be a valuable assistant. Whatever position he holds, he certainly won’t be worthless.”

He departed, leaving Brokefa in a thoughtful mood. If what Darzek had said got back to Rhinzl—and he was certain that it would—there was a good chance that when next Darzek called on him the nocturnal would be more generous with his confidences than he had been the last time.

Miss Schlupe had a squad of her detectives out for training. She was lurking unobtrusively behind some shrubbery and casting scathing glances in the direction of an agitator who was haranguing a small group of natives.

“How many of them are yours?” Darzek asked.

“Are you kidding? Mine have strict orders not to go near one of those jolly gatherings. If they hang around listening to that bilge they may start believing it. I’ve got them studying the agitators, and they’ve made a lovely collection of three-dimensional photographs, and they’re to tail them whenever they can, as far as they can, but if I ever catch one listening I’ll fire him.”

“Good idea.”

“When I think of the time we wasted on Yorlq with Kxon and his group I feel sick. By the way—has it occurred to you that our education has been neglected?”

“Several times. What did you have in mind?”

“I wanted
urs
Dwad to go over and call that snake a liar, and I don’t know the word for it. Do you?”

Darzek thought for a moment. “No.”

“We should sue Smith for dereliction of duty.”

Darzek chuckled. “He was indoctrinating us for a meeting with the Council of Supreme. Even if he’d known there would be liars present, he wouldn’t have wanted us to say so.”

“How would we go about getting ahold of Smith? There must be a Primorian headquarters for his certification groups.”

“We wouldn’t know whom to ask for. He didn’t tell us his official name or status. We don’t even know how they refer to Earth.”

“Drat him!”

“If I could get ahold of him I’d use him for more critical things than vocabulary building,” Darzek said, watching the agitator. “Is it my imagination, or are these characters drawing more people?”

“Their crowds get larger every day. If we don’t find out who’s behind this, and soon, Primores is going the way of Yorlq.”

“Carry on. I’m going to see E-Wusk.”

E-Wusk was out. Darzek went instead to call on Gul Halvr and found him grumbling about Meszk’s latest idea. “He’s called a meeting of five hundred traders,” he said. “He wants to organize them against the Dark.”

“Will they come?”

“Why not? Any trader would be interested in defeating the Dark. Gul Meszk wants each of the five hundred to organize more traders, and so on. If he brings all the traders in the galaxy to Primores, who will there be left to do business with? Do you think this idea has a chance?”

“What’s the native population of Primores?”

“Perhaps as many as a million million.”

“If Gul Meszk raised a force of a million, which would be a staggering task, he’d still be outnumbered a million to one. Of course a large part of the million million is made up of nonfighters, and the rest would have very little organization. Gul Meszk might have a chance if he could get his force organized in time and deployed in the right place. Unfortunately, he has very little time and no one knows the right place.”

“Now you sound like E-Wusk,” Gul Halvr said disgustedly.

E-Wusk was waiting at Darzek’s apartment, his huge, wrinkled form tense with excitement. “I have consulted Supreme!” he blurted.

“Splendid! With what result?”

“I asked Supreme to suggest a world where I would be safe from the Dark. And Supreme answered—” E-Wusk paused for breath. “Supreme answered,
‘Primores’!”

Darzek found the sun as much of a mystery as the varicolored sky: he could look at it steadily with naked eye.

Obviously Primores O was an old, old world. The harshness of nature had long since been controlled and softened, and someone with an eye for beauty had rearranged and remolded the landscape, at the same time that those seeking comfort had rescheduled and revised the weather.

Darzek’s one regret was that there was no air travel. The only broad glimpse of Primores that he could obtain came from the observatories, the white crowns on the hilltops where the Primorians went to eat a quiet meal and look out at their lovely world.

But Darzek had little time for sight-seeing. He visited the observatories, not to enjoy the view, but to observe the natives.

They were another of the disconcertingly humanlike species. Darzek had long since learned that he was much more at ease with the utterly inhuman than with those types that possessed superficial human resemblances. With the latter he experienced the normal reaction of one of his kind encountering the maimed or the deformed: a temptation to stare, and a feeling of acute embarrassment. For this reason he was more relaxed in the presence of a Rhinzl, for example, or an E-Wusk, than with such distortedly human types as a Kxon or a Meszk.

He was extremely uncomfortable in the presence of the Primorians.

Their heads protruded from their chests, and their bodies loomed above and behind in bulging humps. Their faces were small, the large eyes wide-set with an enfolded nostril slightly above and a mouth invisible under a blunt chin. They swathed themselves in thick wrappings that completely obscured the contours of their bodies, a custom of which Darzek heartily approved. He preferred not to know what their bodies looked like.

Their slow movements, their quiet, meditative manner, their soft, hesitant speech gave no indication of blazing powers of intellect, and yet Darzek had the uncomfortable suspicion that their misshapen heads housed enormous brains. The crude, lying propaganda of the Dark should have received from them the derision it so richly deserved, but it did not. They were listening to it in ever-increasing numbers— listening phlegmatically, but for all Darzek knew they were capable of unimaginable heights of frenzy.

These were the people to whom Supreme was entrusted. They filled the ranks of civil servants, custodians, even guardians, if such existed. The entire galaxy would be plunged into anarchy if they revolted.

They must not revolt.

The traders saw this as clearly as Darzek. Rhinzl invited Darzek to come and see him, and there he met Gul Meszk and Gul Isc. Meszk asked him bluntly, “What do you know about Supreme?”

“Very little,” Darzek said. “I’ve requested a consultation, but half the galaxy seems to be waiting for consultations.”

“Some of the traders I invited to Primores have already arrived,” Meszk said. “We must perfect our plans, and quickly.” He paused. “Gul Darr—where
is
Supreme?”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”

“Nor has anyone else. A world is too large a place on which to seek even such a large object as Supreme must be. The governmental departments and offices are connected with Supreme in some fashion, but they are staffed entirely by natives, who pretend to know nothing.”

“Have you asked them?”

“I’ve done nothing else since we arrived here.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“We are agreed on two points,” Meszk said. “For one, the absolutely essential task we must undertake is to protect Supreme. For another, if anyone knows where Supreme is located it will be certain natives responsible for its maintenance, which means that when the Dark comes all natives will know. The Dark will know.”

“I agree.”

“Gul Darr, how can we protect Supreme from the natives when they know where it is and we don’t?”

“Has anyone thought of asking Supreme where it is?”

Meszk blinked his eyes in rapid succession. “No. No one has thought of that.”

“When I receive my consultation I’ll ask.”

Meszk brightened. “Thank you, Gul Darr. You always seem to know what to do.”

“Yes,” Darzek agreed. “It rarely works out, but at least I know what to do.”

He stopped off at one of the parks before returning home. There were two agitators at work there. Darzek was not yet fluent enough in Primorian to understand everything they said, but he grasped enough of it to leave him feeling both angry and depressed. He counted the natives: nineteen in one group, twenty-seven in the other, all listening impassively without looking at the speakers. Vainly he searched their faces for the clue that seemed to be there for the taking but somehow eluded him.

At the park transmitting station he found another group gathered at one end of the small building. He edged his way to the front, and saw a word smeared onto the smooth wall. The natives were contemplating it silently.

Darzek had made no attempt to master the written language. He had to return with
urs
Dwad and ask him to translate. The puzzled native announced that the word had no meaning. Not until Darzek thought to suggest that
urs
Dwad pronounce it was he able to understand.

It said, in the Primorian alphabet,
“Grilf.”

They called it the Hall of Consultations.

It was an enormous, circular room, its wall lined with doors leading into the small consultation chambers. The consultants trudged patiently around the circle waiting for a chamber to become vacant just ahead of them, or positioned themselves strategically between two doors. When a door rippled open there was a politely restrained scramble to be next.

Darzek watched for a moment, and then took his place with those circling the room. He found, somewhat to his surprise, that he was in no hurry to consult Supreme. He felt very much like a bridegroom getting cold feet a moment before the wedding ceremony began. Belatedly he was realizing that the action he was about to take was irrevocable.

Supreme might have embarrassing questions as to why he had been squandering solvency like a spendthrift who unexpectedly comes into possession of a sheaf of credit cards. There was also the possibility that Supreme, once it learned Darzek’s whereabouts, would address a stream of communications to him marked ORDERS. He was prepared to welcome Supreme’s assistance, but the decisions Jan Darzek carried out had to be his own. He was not about to become a lackey to a computer, even when the computer was called Supreme.

He drifted with the others, making no attempt to enter a consultation chamber himself. They were as variegated a crowd as he had ever seen. “The dregs of the galaxy,” he found himself thinking, but of course they weren’t. They only looked like dregs. Traders, administrators, industrialists, scientists, scholars, perhaps even artists, all were exercising their traditional right to consult Supreme.

It was, Darzek thought, a glowing picture of democracy in action, and one made possible only by the fact that the head of the galactic government was a computer. No mere intelligent being could possibly cope with the demands of such a democracy.

A door rippled open just ahead of him. He took a deep breath and waited for another to snatch the opportunity, but so close was he that the others acknowledged his priority and moved around him.

He stepped through the open door, and it clicked shut behind him. He took in the room at a glance: a desk, a native clerk, a transmitter, a chair.

“State your problem, please,” the clerk said.

“I request a private interview with Supreme.”

“A . . .
private
. . . interview . . .”

“Private,” Darzek said firmly. He was determined that no native would listen in on his conversation—not with the Dark’s agitators ranting in the parks. “Just Supreme and myself. Please arrange it as quickly as possible. It’s urgent.”

The native’s chest heaved, tilting his head toward the ceiling. “I’ll inquire,” he announced finally. He stepped through the transmitter.

Darzek perched tensely on the edge of a chair and waited. The native returned, said politely, “Come with me, please.”

They emerged in another office, where a second native stood waiting for them. “You wish a—a
private
consultation?” he demanded.

“Private,” Darzek agreed.

“What did you wish to consult Supreme about?”

“That, too, is confidential.”

“I don’t know . . . I gravely fear . . .”

“Ask Supreme,” Darzek suggested.

“I could not, without some justification for your request.”

Darzek extended his right hand. “My solvency credential. Show that to Supreme, and tell Supreme that its owner requests a private consultation.”

“Come with me, please.”

He turned Darzek over to a committee of three, one of whom silently placed his hand on a solvency scanner and indited a message. The inditer clicked off a reply.