The Penultimate Truth Read online

  CHAPTER 6

  "Why certainly, Mr. Brose," Joseph Adams said, and under his tongue his salivary glands strained with sickness; he turned his back, then, and set his briefcase down and was amazed at his somatic nausea, his response to finding Brose here in his own office. He was not frightened; not intimidated, not even angered that Brose had managed to walk in despite the elaborate locks, walked in and taken over—none of that counted, because the ill convulsion of his body startled every other reaction out of existence.

  "Would you like a moment to compose yourself, Mr. Adams?" The voice, wheedling, thin, like a guy wire plucked by an evil pneumatic spirit.

  "Y-yes," Adams said.

  "Pardon? I can't hear, you know; I must see your lips."

  My lips, Adams thought. He turned. "I need," he said, "a moment. I had flapple trouble." Then he remembered that he had left the four loyal companions, the veteran leadies of his retinue, in the parked flapple. "Would you—" he began, but Brose cut him off, not impolitely but simply as if he were not talking.

  "A new project of some importance has arisen," Brose said in his plucked-wire, strumming voice. "You're to do the reading matter on it. It consists of this . . ."Brose paused, then found a vast ugly handkerchief which he dabbled at his mouth with, as if molding the flesh of his face like soft, toothpastelike plastic into proper shape. "No written documents or line transmissions are to exist as to this project; no records. All, only, oral face-to-face exchanges between the principals; myself, you, Lindblom who will build the artifacts."

  Ha, Adams thought, and exulted. Webster Foote, Limited, the London-based planetwide private police investigation agency had already snooped, nosed the news into being; Brose, despite his obviously psychopathic security precautions, had lost even as he began. Nothing could have pleased Adams more; he felt the nausea drain away and he lit a cigar, paced about, nodding soberly, showing his willingness to participate in this most vital, secret enterprise. "Yes sir," he said.

  "You know Louis Runcible."

  "The conapt building man," Adams said.

  "Look toward me, Adams."

  Looking toward him, Joseph Adams said, "I passed over one of his conapt centers. His dungeons."

  "Well," Brose strummed, "they chose to come up. And they didn't have the ability to join us; we couldn't use them so what else but those row-on-row little apts? At least they've got Chinese checkers. And components are more restful to build than assembling complete leadies."

  "It is just," Adams said, "that there is a three thousand mile stretch of grass between my demesne and here that I have to pass over every day. Twice. And I wonder sometimes. And I remember how it looked in the old days before the war and before they were induced to go down into those tanks."

  "Had they not, Adams, they would be dead."

  "Oh," Adams said slowly, "I know they'd be dead; they'd be ash and the leadies would be using that ash to make mortar out of. It's just that sometimes I think of Route 66."

  "Whazzat, Adams?"

  "A highway. That connected cities."

  "A freeway!"

  "No, sir, Just a highway; let it pass." And he felt a weariness so strong that he actually thought for a split second that he'd suffered a cardiac arrest or some other fundamental physical collapse; he very carefully stopped inhaling his cigar and seated himself in a guest-type chair facing the desk, and blinked, breathed, wondered what had occurred.

  "Okay," Adams continued, "I know Runcible; he's basking in Capetown and he really does try—I know he does—to adequately provide for the tankers who surface; they've got built-in electric ranges, swibbles, wubfur carpeting wall-to-wall, 3-D TV, each group of ten living units has a leady to do chores such as cleaning . what's up, Mr. Brose?" He waited, panting with fright.

  Brose said, "Recently a hot-spot cooled off in southern Utah, near St. George, where it was . . . the maps still give it. Near the Arizona border. Red rock hills in that area. Runcible's geigers picked up the drop in r.a. before anybody else's, and he got it, staked his claim; the rest." Brose gestured deprecatingly, but with resignation. "In a few days he intends to send in his autonomic 'dozers and start breaking ground for a new constellation of conapts . . . you know, he has all that big primitive heavy-duty construction equipment that he carts all over the world."

  "You need that," Adams said, "to build the kind of structures he erects. Those conapts go up fast."

  "Well," Brose said, "we want that area."

  You liar, Adams thought to himself. He got up, turned his back to Brose and said aloud, "You liar!"

  "I can't hear."

  Turning back, Adams said, "It's just rock, there. Who wants to put a demesne there? My god, some of us have demesnes that contain a million and a half acres!" He stared at Brose. It can't be true, he said to himself. Runcible got in there first because no one cared enough about that region to want to know the readings; no one paid Webster Foote to have Foote field reps and techs keep tabs on that hot-spot and Runcible got it by default. So don't try to jolly me along, he said to himself, and felt hatred for Brose, now; the nausea was gone and an authentic emotion had replaced it inside him.

  Evidently Brose perceived some of this on Adams' face. "I guess that is pretty no-good land, there," Brose admitted. "War or no war."

  "If you want me to manage the aud-portion of the project," Adams said, and was almost unhinged to hear himself actually say this to Brose, to the man's face, "you had better tell me the truth. Because I don't feel very good. I was up all night writing a speech—by hand. And the fog bothered me. Fog gets to me; I should never have set up my demesne on the Pacific south of San Francisco. I should have tried down by San Diego."

  Brose said, "I'll tell you. Correct; we don't care—no Yance-man with all his marbles could possibly care—about that arid land at the old Utah-Arizona border. Look at these." He managed to flap his pseudopodialike flippers until they connected with a packet which he carried; like a roll of wallpaper samples the document was spread out.

  Peering, he saw careful, really lovely drawings. It was like looking over an Oriental silk screen scroll from the—future? Now he saw that the objects depicted were—unnatural. Freak guns with spurious knobs and warts. Electronic hardware that—he intuited from experience— served no purpose. "I don't get it," he said.

  "These are artifacts," Brose said, "which Mr. Lindblom will make; superb craftsman that he is he will have no difficulty."

  "But what do they do?" All at once Adams understood. These were fake crypto-weapons. And not just that; he saw, as the scroll-like document unrolled in Brose's flippers, additional artifacts.

  Skulls.

  Some were Homo sapiens.

  Some were not.

  "All these," Brose said, "Lindblom will manufacture. But you must be consulted first. Because before they are found—"

  "'Found!'"

  "These completed objects, made up by Lindblom, using Eisenbludt's studios in Moscow, will be planted on the land Runcible is about to break for his new conapts. However, it must be established in advance that they are of incalculable archeological worth. A series of articles in the prewar scientific journal Natural World, which as you know was formerly available to every educated man in the world, must analyze these as—"

  The office door opened. Looking wary, Verne Lindblom entered. "I was told to come here," he said to Brose; he glanced, then, at Adams. But said nothing more. However, they both understood; the vid-conversation which had taken place a half hour ago was not to be referred to.

  "These," Brose said to Lindblom, "are the scale drawings of the artifacts which you will make to be planted in Southern Utah. At the proper geological stratum." He swiveled the scroll for Lindblom to see; Verne glanced briefly, professionally. "There is a time factor, but I'm sure you can have them ready when needed. The first 'dozer needn't dig them up. Just so they appear before the digging ends and the construction begins."

  Lindblom said, "You have someone on Runcible's work crew who'll spot them,
if necessary? If they otherwise go unnoticed?" He seemed, to Adams, to understand fundamentally what was going on; someone had already briefed him. He himself, however; he was baffled. But he played along; he continued to study the painstakingly, professionally executed drawings.

  "Of course," Brose said. "An engineer named Robert—" He tried to recall; the eighty-two-year-old brain flagged. "Hig," Brose said at last. "Bob Hig. He'll spot them if no one else does, so will you start, then, Lindblom? Eisenbludt knows you're to be given use of every tool and studio facility you need. But he doesn't know what for, and we will keep it limited to as few people as we can, throughout."

  "Hig finds them," Lindblom said, "notifies Runcible. Meanwhile—" He glanced at Adams. "You'll have your series in the prewar Natural World by some world-famous archeologist regarding artifacts of this sort."

  "I see," Adams said, and genuinely did see, now. The articles which he would write would be printed in the journal, backdated, the issues artificially aged so as to appear authentically prewar; on the basis of them, as universally accepted valid scientific opinion, the Estes Park Government would claim the artifacts to be priceless finds. They would then go before the Recon Dis-In Council at Mexico City, the high court of the world that stood above both Wes-Dem and Pac-Peop and each Yance-man anywhere in the world—and above the wealthy, powerful builder Louis Runcible. And on the basis of these backdated spurious articles the council would rule the Estes Park Government to be legally correct. For artifacts of such worth automatically made the land government property.

  But—Brose did not want the land. So something was still wrong.

  "You do not see," Brose said, reading his expression. "Tell him, Lindblom."

  Verne Lindblom said, "The sequence is this. Hig, or someone else on Runcible's work crew supervising the leadies and the big autonomic rigs, discovers the artifacts and tells Runcible. And regardless of their worth, U.S. law notwithstanding—"

  "Oh my god," Adams said. Runcible would know that, if brought to the Estes Park Government's attention, these artifacts would cost him his land. "He'd conceal the find," Adams said.

  "Of course." Brose nodded in delight. "We've had Mrs. Morgen, at the Institute of Applied Psychiatric Research in Berlin, independently analyze the fully documented psych-profile of the man; and she agrees with our own psychiatrists. Why, hell; he's a businessman— he's after wealth and power. What do priceless ancient artifacts made by a nonterran raiding party that landed in Southern Utah six hundred years ago mean to him? These skulls; the ones not Homo sapiens. Your articles will show a photo of this drawing. You will conjecture that these nonterrans landed, conjecture by meager bones and artifacts discovered what they were like, that they were engaged in a skirmish by an Indian war party, and the nonterrans lost, did not colonize Earth—all this is conjecture, and the evidence at the time of your articles, thirty years ago, was incomplete. But further finds were hoped for. These are those."

  "So now," Adams said, "we have fully representative weapons and bones. At last. The conjectures of thirty years ago have been verified and this is a moment of vast scientific import." He walked to the window, pretended to look out. The conapt builder Louis Runcible, when notified of the finds, would guess wrong—would suspect that they had been planted on his land so that he would lose that land; and, guessing wrong, would conceal the finds and continue with his digging and construction work.

  Whereupon—

  Motivated by loyalty to science rather than to his "employer" and that industrial magnate's greed, Robert Hig would "reluctantly" leak the discovery of the artifacts to the Estes Park Government.

  Which would make Runcible a felon. Because there was that law, obtaining again and again as the leadies employed by each Yance-man at his private demesne dug and dug for prewar relics of artistic and technological worth. Whatever he found—whatever his leadies found— belonged to him, if there was no overriding—i.e., major—archeological worth.

  And a nonterran race which had landed on Earth six hundred years ago, fought a pitched battle with local Indians and then retreated, once more departed—it would be a nolo contendere plea by Runcible before the Recon Dis-In Council in Mexico City; despite the finest legal help on Earth he wouldn't have the ghost of a chance.

  But Runcible would not merely lose his land.

  It would be a prison sentence for forty to fifty years, depending on the skill of the Estes Park Government's attorneys before the Council. And the Precious Relics Ordinance, as the law was called, had been tested by a number of Yance-men various times; discoveries of magnitude which had deliberately gone unreported and then been found out—the council would throw the book at Runcible and he would be wiped out; the economic empire which he had built up, his conapts all over the world, would revert to public domain: this was the punitive clause of the Precious Relics Ordinance, the clause that gave it such fierce gnashing teeth. The person convicted under the ordinance not only went to prison—he forfeited his holdings in toto.

  It all made sense to Adams; he saw now what his articles for Natural World, for issues of thirty years ago, were to consist of.

  But, and this made him freeze into stupidity; this blotted his mind of its canniness and made him hang vapidly on the colloquy between Brose and Lindblom, both of whom obviously understood the purpose of this—which he did not.

  Why did the Estes Park Government want to destroy Runcible? Of what was he guilty—at the very least, what menace did he pose to them?

  Louis Runcible who builds housing for tankers who come up to the surface expecting to find the war in progress, only to discover that the war ended years ago and the world's surface is one great park of villas and demesnes for the elite few . . . why, Adams asked himself, must this man be slaughtered, when he is so patently performing a vital service? Not just for the tankers who surface and who must live somewhere, but to us, the Yance-men. Because—and we all know it; we all face it—the tankers living in Runcible's conapts are prisoners and the conapts constitute reservations—or, as the more modern word has it, concentration camps. Preferable to the ant tanks underground, but still camps from which they cannot, even briefly, leave—legally. And, when a couple or a gang of them manage to sneak away illegally, it is General Holt's army here in Wes-Dem or Marshal Harenzany's army in Pac-Peop; anyhow it is an army of very skilled, veteran leadies who track them down and return them to their swimming pools and 3-D TV and wall-to-wall wubfur carpeted conapts.

  Aloud he said, "Lindblom, I'm standing with my back to B rose. Therefore he can't hear me. You can. I want you to casually turn your back to him; don't move toward me—just turn so your face is toward me and not toward him. And then for god's sake tell me why."

  After a moment he heard Lindblom stir. Then say, "Why what, Joe?"

  "Why are they after Runcible?"

  Lindblom said, "Didn't you know?"

  At the desk Brose said, "Nobody's facing me; please turn so we can continue the mapping of this project."

  "Say," Adams grated, staring out the window of the office at the other buildings of the Agency.

  "They think Runcible is systematically tipping off one ant tank after another," Lindblom said. "To the fact that the war is over. Someone is. They know that. Webster Foote and his field people found that out during routine interviews of a group of tankers who surfaced a month or so ago."

  Brose complained with growing peevish suspicion, "What's going on? You two are conversing."

  At that, Adams turned from the window to face Brose; Lindblom, too, turned toward the monster concoction wedged somehow into the chair at the desk. "Not conversing," Adams said to Brose. "Just meditating."

  On Lindblom's face there was no expression. Only empty, stonelike detachment. He had been given a task; he intended to do it. He recommended to Adams by his manner that Joseph Adams do the same.

  But suppose it were not Runcible. Suppose it were someone else. Then this entire project, the faked artifacts, the articles in Natural World, the "leak
" of the find, the litigation before the Recon Dis-In Council, the destruction of Runcible's economic empire and his imprisonment:

  It was all for nothing.

  Joseph Adams trembled. Because, unlike Brose, unlike Verne Lindblom and probably Robert Hig and anyone and everyone else connected with this project—he had a dreadful intuition that it was all a mistake.

  And his intuition was not going to halt the project.

  Not one bit.

  Again turning his back to Brose, Adam said, "Lindblom, they may be wrong. It may not be Runcible."

  There was no answer. Lindblom could not respond because he was, at the moment, facing Brose, who now, on his feet, was waddling and groping his way, supported by a magnesium crutch, toward the office door, mumbling as he departed.

  "Honest to god," Adams said, staring fixedly out the window, "I'll write the articles, but if it isn't him, I'm going to tip him off." He turned, then, toward Lindblom, tried to read his reaction.

  It was not there to read. But Lindblom had heard.

  The reaction would come, sooner or later; Joseph Adams knew this man, this personal friend, had worked with him enough to be sure of it.

  It would be a strong reaction. After a great deal of soul-searching Verne Lindblom would probably agree, probably help him find a way of tipping off Runcible without leaving a trail back to the source that Brose's agents could trace; Brose's agents and the private hired talents of the Footemen operating in conjunction. On the other hand—

  He had to face it; was facing it.

  Verne Lindblom was a Yance-man, fundamentally. Before and beyond any other consideration.

  His reaction might be to report Adams' statement to Brose.

  The agents of Brose would, then, within minutes, show up at Joseph Adams' demesne and kill him.

  It was that simple.

  And at the moment there was no way he could tell which direction his long-time friend Lindblom would jump; Adams did not possess the services of an international psychiatric profile-analysis organization, as Brose did.