Watchers of the Dark (23 page)

“Granted!” the native exclaimed awesomely.

Darzek modestly remained silent.

The native motioned Darzek into a transmitter, and he found himself at the end of a dimly red-lit corridor. He stepped forward confidently. This time he knew what to expect: the sensation of icy needles probing him, the dizziness, the tremendous weight, the growing feeling of numbness. He reached the opposite end of the corridor in a bath of blinding perspiration, and the weight lifted. A door stood open before him. He mopped his face and flexed his numb limbs before he moved into the room beyond.

Triumphantly he approached its desk, and then he froze in consternation. The inditer was a strange model, and he had no idea how to work it.

“So much for my private consultation,” he said bitterly.

He seated himself and waited for someone to come for him.

Abruptly the room spoke. It said, “Why have you not reported?” Its precise tones were utterly devoid of emphasis or expression. The question was a flat statement.

Darzek controlled his amazement and said plaintively, “I didn’t know how. I still don’t know how.”

“Why have you not reported—” A pause. “—through the Council?”

“There is no Council,” Darzek answered.

“Why have you not reported through the Council?”

Darzek hesitated, apprehensive that he and Supreme might be embarking for a ride on a conversational merry-go-round. Obviously he would have to phrase his statements carefully. “You have had no report from any member of the Council for a long time,” he said.

“Affirmative.”

“You have had no report from any member of the Council since the day I was admitted to a meeting of the Council.”

The pause, if there was one, was a mere flicker. “Affirmative.”

“All members of the Council of Supreme are dead,” Darzek said.

“This time the pause was noticeable. “More data requested,” Supreme said.

“SIX was an agent of the Dark. When I exposed him, he tried to kill me. I escaped, but he killed the other members of the Council before I killed him. His Eye of Death burned down the meeting place. There is no Council. All of the members are dead.”

“You killed the members of the Council,” Supreme said.

Darzek hoped that it was a question. “Negative!” he snapped. “I killed SIX, who was an agent of the Dark. SIX killed the other members of the Council and set the building on fire.”

It sounded unbelievable even to him. Suddenly he could envision himself telling that story in court with no witnesses to support him.
How did it happen that you survived, Defendant Darzek, when everyone else died? How did it happen that this disaster overtook the Council at the precise moment of your one and only visit?

But he would defend himself when the need arose. The immediate problem was to make Supreme understand what had happened. He said, “Check your circuits, if that’s the word for it, and you’ll find that nothing is operating in the building where the Council met.”

The pause was a long one. “Affirmative,” Supreme said finally.

“Nothing is operating because the building no longer exists. You’ll also find, if it’s possible to check, that no member of the Council has used his official residence since that day.”

“Affirmative.”

“I didn’t know how to report to you that the members of the Council were dead, and I didn’t know what other agents of the Dark might be active on Primores. I left as quickly as possible, and my assistant and I went to Yorlq to learn what we could about the Dark. Do you want a report on what I did there?”

“Affirmative,” the flat voice said.

In concise sentences Darzek described what had happened on Yorlq; and on Primores since his return. At the end he asked lamely, “Did you understand all of that?”

“Affirmative.”

“Do you want me to go over any of it again?”

“Negative.”

“Have you any instructions?”

“Negative.”

“None at all?” Darzek exclaimed unbelievingly. “The Dark will soon move again. Primores is in danger.
You
are in danger!”

“Negative.”

Darzek took a deep breath. “Am I to continue supplying the Dark worlds?”

“Affirmative.”

“I’d like to be placed in charge of this world’s proctors.”

“More data requested.”

“If we can squelch the agitators, it may not be too late to save Primores.”

“Primores is not in danger,” the voice said laconically.

“If you’re wrong, and I happen to think you are, I want to be able to protect you when the Dark comes. Where on Primores is your main location?”

“Everywhere.”

Darzek hesitated, and then asked again, “Where are you?”

“Everywhere.”

“Should the traders be encouraged to organize a resistance?”

“Negative.”

Suddenly Darzek realized that he was not alone. A native stood near the door, waiting respectfully.

“What do you want?” Darzek demanded.

“I am
urs
Gwalus. Supreme has appointed me to assist you. You are to report to Supreme through me.”

Darzek regarded him coldly. “Why?”

“Supreme prefers indited reports.”

“I see. Would you kindly inform Supreme that I prefer a non-native as an assistant?”

“Non-native?”
urs
Gwalus repeated bewilderedly.

“Someone from another solar system.”

“There is no such person available.”

“Not even one?”

“Not among the servants of Supreme.”

“The situation is worse than I thought.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kindly inform Supreme that in the absence of precise instructions I shall carry on along the same lines, as I see fit.”

urs
Gwalus tapped out the message and read the reply. “Affirmative.”

“May I have a private consultation with Supreme whenever I deem it necessary?” Darzek asked.

“If Supreme consents.”

“Then I have nothing more to say. Kindly show me the way out of this place.”

“I don’t like it,” Miss Schlupe announced.

“Neither do I. Supreme insists that Primores is not in danger. Supreme must exist in a dream world. How many agents do you have?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“I wish it was ten times that many. The traders would help, but what I have in mind requires natives.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Action. For once I’m going to act
before
the Dark does.”

“
urs
Dwad should have followed him,” Miss Schlupe said. “And he’d better stage his next performance in some other park.”

“I agree. Speak to him about it. He also should try to do something about that smirk. But it works. Now I want to see if our ex-agitator has anything constructive to say.”

But the agitator, when he got over being incoherently bewildered, would say nothing at all. By then
urs
Dwad had brought in three more agitators, and the remainder of Miss Schlupe’s detective squad was moving into action. In three days Darzek had a thousand prisoners on his hands, none of whom would speak except to recite, parrotlike, the all-too-familiar cant against foreigners.

Concentration camp facilities were difficult to come by on Primores. Just as the operation seemed about to break down because there was no accommodation for more prisoners, and no one to guard them if accommodation should be found, Gud Baxak arrived. He had purchased a hundred more spaceships, and Darzek ordered one of these fitted for passengers, and shipped the agitators off to a Dark world whose populace was properly grateful for Darzek’s ministrations and in no mood to tolerate any nonsense from those who had been spreading the gospel of the Dark.

Gud Baxak brought a distressing report on the activities of agitators on surrounding worlds. Even if Primores were defended successfully, it seemed likely that it would become an island completely surrounded by the Dark.

“But there’s nothing I can do about that,” Darzek told himself. “One world at a time is as much as I can handle.”

They were five days in accumulating another thousand prisoners, and the third thousand required ten days of intense work. Every abduction came off smoothly, but there had been a sharp falling off in the number of agitators available. Darzek shipped out the last thousand and went with Miss Schlupe on a tour of the parks.

“I’d like it better if some of them would talk,” Miss Schlupe said.

“I doubt if any of them know anything. The first agitators had to be recruited by foreigners, but after that the natives would do their own recruiting. Probably none of our three thousand has had any contact with the persons behind this.”

“Then your smash hit is a flop. All they have to do is recruit more agitators.”

“Not at all. At the very least we’ve upset their time schedule, and they can’t recruit them anything like as fast as we can pick them up. From now on I want your detectives to work in teams—one to do the abducting, and the others to watch carefully for a foreigner who seems unduly interested in the proceedings. He might even try to interfere. He’s the one we want.”

“Right. It’s high time they started getting curious about what’s happening to their agitators. These foreigners won’t come willingly, so there’ll have to be enough muscle to stuff them into the transmitters. I’ll set up four teams of seven.”

“That should do it.”

Darzek patiently made his rounds. He went first to E-Wusk, who had submerged himself in statistics relating to the Dark’s next move. E-Wusk said bewilderedly, “Everything is proceeding according to pattern except here on Primores. The parks should be full of agitators; instead, they’ve almost disappeared.”

“Fancy that,” Darzek murmured.

He found Gul Meszk in the throes of despondency. Having recruited an army, he didn’t know what to do with it. Worse, the housing shortage had forced him to scatter his recruits through all of the worlds of the Primores system, and he had no better than a vague idea of where his army was.

“Isn’t anyone in charge?” Darzek asked.

Meszk gestured despairingly. He had been too busy recruiting to look after the recruits he already had. Gul Ceyh had heroically accepted the task, but he had accomplished nothing. Gul Kaln was acting as his assistant, but he was kept busy trying to persuade the recruits not to give up and go home. Gul Isc had accepted the task of locating Supreme. He had not done so. Gul Halvr was trading again, doing a brisk business importing food to Primores. (Darzek winced, remembering E-Wusk’s prediction of an increased consumption of food when the Dark threatened.) Gul Rhinzl also was trading again, but was helping as much as he could whenever anyone could think of anything for him to do. The
efa,
despite their ignominious Yorlq behavior, were posturing as military commanders and seeking to oust Gul Ceyh—who was perfectly willing to be ousted. Gul Azfel had become disgusted with the whole business. Dark or no Dark, he wasn’t forgetting that he had daughters to marry off, and he was planning a symposium.

Meszk said pleadingly, “Come with me to see Gul Rhinzl.”

Darzek went without protest, and from the murky depths of an impromptu dark room Rhinzl greeted him enthusiastically. “Gul Isc just left,” he said. “He has two hundred people making inquiries, and for all they’ve been able to find out, Supreme might be located at the end of the galaxy. Either end.” He paused. “Gul Darr, the fate of an individual becomes unimportant when the fate of an entire galaxy is at stake. I sympathize with your desire to find a refuge from the Dark, but if the Dark takes Supreme there will be no refuge anywhere. I ask you in the name of all of the traders: Help us.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Join us. Take command of the defense. You seem to understand such things. The rest of us don’t, but we do understand the need for action. We are willing to do anything, to make any sacrifice, if only someone in whom we have confidence will tell us what must be done.”

“If I could be certain that all of the traders agreed with you—”

“They do,” Meszk said quickly. “I’ve asked them.”

“I see. I know the time is short, but I must think about this before I decide.”

Alone in the small room he called an office, he attempted to sort out his jumbled impressions. He had never completely abandoned his notion that one of the traders was an agent of the Dark; but the Dark’s area of conquest was so vast, its conquered worlds so numerous, that no one trader could be contributing more than local assistance. He rejected emphatically the notion that the Dark was a conspiracy on the part of many traders. No group of traders would participate in a plot that was ruinous to trade.