The Stardroppers (2 page)

Dan’s organization was thorough. All the necessary preparations for his arrival had been attended to. He had been booked into a large modern hotel in Mayfair, where he checked in like any casual tourist, and he’d had time to eat lunch and move on to take coffee in a penthouse lounge overlooking the fine new towers of London before anything happened to remind him that other people could be thorough too.

At ten to three the lounge was nearly empty. It was therefore already a warning when the burly man walked through the door, came over, and took the other chair at the low table where Dan was sitting. Dan studied him. He saw a big-boned man, going bald, with a bristly brown mustache and red cheeks, who smiled when he found Dan’s eyes on him.

“Special Agent Cross?” he said in a voice that did not carry nearly far enough to be overheard. And smiled again, more broadly.

So someone had goofed. But there wasn’t much point in argument.

“Just plain mister,” Dan said after a pause. “The organization has a title. We don’t.”

“I see. Well, you’ll want to look at this.” The burly man flipped an identification card from his pocket. It had his photo pasted to it, and underneath was typed “Hugo Samuel Redvers, Superintendent.”

“Special Branch?” Dan said.

“Of course.”

Dan sighed and handed back the card. “What can I do for you?” he said.

“Oh, just chat for a while. Answer one or two questions.” Redvers settled more comfortably in his chair. A
waiter passed with a tray and asked what he wanted; he ordered black coffee and a Havana.

“Such as?” Dan invited when the waiter had gone.

“Mainly, what brings you to Britain. Our man at the airport was slightly puzzled to see a Special Agency operative with one of those gadgets on his shoulder.” Redvers waved at Dan’s stardropper, lying on the table between them; the New York briefing for this trip had included a warning that all genuine stardropper fans took their beloved gadgets with them wherever they went, and he was determined to stay in character. “Your London office stoutly denied any knowledge of you, so I had no option but to come and talk to you personally. Cross isn’t your real name, I take it?” he added in passing.

Dan shrugged. His real name was so far in the past he felt sometimes as though it had been just another of the dozen or so aliases he had used in ten years’ work.

“Well, I won’t press you,” Redvers said after a pause. “I worry about what people do, not what name they choose to do it under. Well, Mr. Cross?”

The waiter delivered his coffee and cigar. He unscrewed its aluminum cylinder and sniffed appreciatively before lighting up.

Meanwhile Dan reached a decision. It was galling to have to declare any Agency interest to an outsider, but there seemed to be no help for it. Fortunately there was no special secrecy about his visit to London; it was classed as a Grade E mission, involving only such precautions as were necessary to preserve his future usefulness. So he said reluctantly, “Stardroppers.”

“I thought it might be. Well, well.” Redvers dumped his spent match in a handy ashtray. “I was wondering when you’d get into that particular act. Everyone else has been in it for months. Just fact-finding?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Then you’re welcome to dig for any facts you can. And by the way: you needn’t worry that being seen with me in public will foul you up. This is one of my working faces I have on. The name and rank are genuine, though, and so’s the card—I had it made at the Yard this morning.”

He looked for a reaction in Dan’s face; Dan stonily denied him the pleasure of seeing any.

“We also checked your room for bugs, and I can assure you there aren’t any. We knew which it was because we have a tap on the computer which centralizes hotel bookings in this village nowadays. All in all I feel rather pleased with myself today, which is why I’m treating myself to this cigar. Oh, I’m sorry—I should have asked if you’d like one. I imagine Havanas are something of a forgotten luxury as far as you people in the States are concerned.”

“For a guy who knows all the answers, you’re trying very hard to needle me,” Dan said.

“I suppose I am. I’m sorry. I’ll get back to the point. There are two major and several minor reasons why people get interested in the stardropping craze afflicting us. Among the minor reasons—well, commercial rivalry is one. The thing was invented here, and someone had the sense to tell Rainshaw he ought to file for a patent application, which incidentally makes fascinating reading. It’s a prime example of doubletalk.”

“I’ve read it,” Dan grunted. But he agreed with Redvers’s description. The application discussed a device for the generation of certain patterned electricial impulses independent of the known spectrum of radiant energy, and it was perfectly clear from the fudged wording of the text that neither the applicant—nominally, the company Rainshaw had been working for at the time of the discovery—nor anyone else had the vaguest notion what was being patented.

“You see what I mean, then,” Redvers nodded. “Well, obviously stardropping is now big business, and the designs we’ve licensed—I mean we the British—are proving fantastically profitable. But the things are so easy to copy that we’re having the devil’s own trouble with pirate manufacturers, of course. Never mind that, though; I doubt your people would be interested in patent infringements. Then, as you probably know, we get a lot of problems with—well, I suppose one has to call them addicts, who are convinced someone has found a way to convert the signals into plain English and is hiding marvelous secrets from the world. Rubbish, of course, but it’s turning into
quite a serious social problem. That, though, is not really my business and I doubt if it’s yours.

“Of the major reasons, there’s what I consider this idiotic rivalry between the various nations to extract from stardroppers some knowledge which will make them masters of the world. Half the secret services on Earth seem to have sent people to London in the past year to grub around for hints and clues that might lead somewhere. But the Special Agency is the most fanatically internationalist of all the UN organizations, so unless you’ve turned your coat we can rule that out too. Which boils it down to one thing. You’re here to confirm that somebody can’t be found, and you’d far rather disprove the suspicion. Should I suggest a couple of likely names?”

He looked unblinkingly at Dan. A wisp of aromatic blue smoke drifted across his face.

“You do know all the answers,” Dan said at length. “I apologize for that crack about needling me.”

“I wish we did!” Redvers said with sudden heaviness. “One of the constables at the airport mentioned that you were taken aback by Grey’s appearance, as though you hadn’t been prepared for someone in his condition. I assure you that even if Grey was acting he’s fairly typical of his kind.”

“Acting? That wild-eyed guy yelling nonsense at people?”

“Oh yes, he’s one of my men too. We’ve been living by our wits in this country for the past decade, Mr. Cross. We’ve become pretty good at it.”

Professional admiration was getting the better of Dan’s discomfiture. He said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered to fly over. I could have called you up and simply asked you.”

“Hell, you’d have learned nothing. We’re too close to the problem to make sense of it. What I’d like most is advice from one of these alien creatures people claim to hear in their stardroppers. Failing that, an outsider’s view. And you’re a stranger here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, it’s my first visit.”

Redvers nodded. “But you must have been familiarized with the general situation—I know how thoroughly your operatives get briefed. Did your briefing by any chance
include a suggestion that if someone like me started being nosy you weren’t to object too strongly?”

“I was told you might be exceptionally cooperative with Agency representatives.”

“We try to be, I promise you that. We appreciate your outfit’s insistence on being on everyone’s side instead of one side or the other—which of course is how we regard our own policy nowadays. It’s a bit like walking a tightrope, though. This elderly continent of Europe is the battleground of the late twentieth century, and we’re right in the bloody firing line. You know what I mean?”

“I guess I do. Not that anyone could tell just by looking.”

“Oh, of course not. On the surface everything’s fine. We’re richer, better-housed, better-fed, better-educated than ever before in history, and we’re climbing back up the ladder of the world’s biggest trading nations at a rate of vertical knots. But what I’m talking about is in the mind. When we opted out of the arms race ten years ago the decision was called cowardice or treachery or worse, and I must admit I wasn’t sure myself it was a good thing. And there was that uproar over adopting the Swiss citizen-militia defense system, which nearly brought down the government. But now I’ve been convinced by the results. No slums, no poverty, lowest crime rate in London of any city of its size in the world—you could imagine a policeman being pleased about that!”

“So what are these drawbacks you mentioned—in the mind, you said?”

Redvers wiped a fine gray cylinder of ash from his cigar. “Ah, yes. Maybe I can illustrate that with a little story. I once asked one of your compatriots how he liked it here, and he said it was a hell of a good place, bar two things—the nonstop political arguments in which we British try to figure out our own motives, and the knowledge that if things do ever come to the crunch both sides are going to hit this country on the principle of ‘denying ground to the enemy.’ ” He gave a chuckle. “Well, you only die once. I hope. And, naturally, from a professional point of view the last ten years have been a troublesome time. At first we were staving off American intriguers who were sure we’d had a momentary brainstorm and would reconsider if they promised us enough dollar credit, and
Soviet intriguers who were sure neutrality was unthinkable and we were really intending to join the Soviet bloc. They were both wasting their time, but between them they contrived to turn this island into a sort of vast Tangier, a strategically sited zone where everyone and his uncle is plotting a
coup d’état
. Life isn’t dull, but the risk of ulcers is on the high side.

“And that, according to the psychologists, is why stardropper was taken up so avidly. People, they maintain, are desperate for reassurance because they’re being denied security, and they’ll grab at even so slim a chance as the hope of knowledge from the stars. If that were the whole story, of course, it would be fine.”

“I’ve heard that theory before. Is it sound?”

“Possibly. On the other hand the country where stardropping is most widespread, after this one, isn’t in Europe at all. It’s India. The Japanese get out this very cheap solar-powered model, and people go out with loads of them on incredible ramshackle vehicles—I’ve seen pictures—and in the villages they club together to buy the largest and loudest they can afford. Then they put the earpiece in a washtub or something to act as a resonator, and bob’s your uncle: every man his own guru. It’s alleged to appeal to the religious instinct of the people. Take your choice of explanations. There are enough to go around, heaven knows!”

He realized suddenly he had forgotten his coffee, and gulped the whole cupful down at once.

“How are things doing in the States?” he continued after a pause.

“I have the impression the craze is six months to a year behind the peak it’s reached in Britain,” Dan answered. “It has a strong hold on the West Coast, but all kinds of fads have always flourished there. In the East it’s mainly young people and Greenwich Village types who are hooked, while the Midwest is barely touched—apart from universities, I mean. Even there, I think you have a worse student problem than we do, isn’t that right?”

“That’s a very bad area indeed,” Redvers confirmed. “One hears every day about the number of kids who are dropping out—stardropping out,” he amended with a grimace. “It’s mainly the sensitive, highly intelligent kids
who are affected, too. They’re suffering the low-grade version of the ultimate addiction, which can cause you to lose interest in your home, your job, your family, your other hobbies.… But of course the insanity isn’t the worst part of it.”

“Not the worst part of it?” Dan echoed. “What in hell
could
be worse, if you were right in saying Grey was based on a typical—ah—addict?”

“Oh, the fact that people do disappear.”

Redvers uttered the words so casually that Dan wondered whether he had heard right. He could not stop himself from jerking with surprise.

“Yes, Mr. Cross,” Redvers said soberly. “They disappear. And judging by your reaction I take it I was right about the main purpose of your visit?”

“Well, yes, I’m here to check out some rumors. But—”

“But what makes me believe such a fantastic story?”

Dan nodded.

“We’ve documented twenty cases where we can’t shake the witnesses. They say—they swear—that people known to them have literally and physically vanished, usually with a noise like a door slamming. Up till now we’ve prevented any reputable news agency from picking up such stories, but we can’t stop the rumors.”

Dan’s palms were slippery with sweat. He said, “What do these—these witnesses think about what they claim to have seen?”

“What you’d expect: that these were people who’d discovered mystic alien abilities through the stardropper and went to put them to use.”

“And you honestly believe them?”

“No. Not yet. But I have a sneaking suspicion I shall have to eventually. And if this is true, of course, it’s a pretty explosive fact. A power of instantaneous displacement, if it could be brought under control, could be put to use as a weapon: imagine eliminating the need to deliver H-bombs by plane or missile! Surely that if anything might tempt one of the nuclear nations into a pre-emptive strike once they were convinced the ‘other side’ was on the verge of such a breakthrough. I presume this is why your people are investigating the rumors?”

Dan nodded. The Agency had one sole purpose: to identify
threats to the peace of the world and ruthlessly cancel them out. For example, within the past year two prime ministers had died, one of a heart attack and the other of a cerebral embolism. Social psychologists had plotted graphs and said, “Such a man is not sane, and a lunatic in his position could start a war.”