The Magnificent Wilf Read online

  “You think we’re a couple of those?” asked Lucy. “The Member from Xxxytl suggested that possibly you are,” said Mr. Valhinda, “together.”

  “He did?” said Lucy.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Valhinda. “Come to think of it, however, that brings me to two subjects you mentioned last night before we parted to take our rest. As regards your co-worlder, Rex. The Mordaunti Council Member deeply apologizes, but by an error, he was taken back to the Member’s homeworld of Mordaunt. He’s now being sent here to rejoin you. Meanwhile, it seems he’s been making friends everywhere and telling them all about you.”

  “Telling?” said Tom.

  “How can he—” said Lucy, almost in the same instant.

  “Oh, telepathy, of course,” said Mr. Valhinda, with a wave of his hand. “All civilized and many barbarian Races have the capacity. The universal language. Limited, of course. Still, you must really pick up the knack of it as soon as you have a spare moment.”

  “But you said ‘all about us,’ ” persisted Lucy.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Valhinda, “he can talk about one or the other of you, or his house and territory at great length, if either of your names is mentioned. But I mentioned this just in case you’ve been concerned about him.”

  “Oh, Rex will do all right,” said Lucy. “But how about that Mordaunti apology—‘error’! I’ll just bet!”

  “I’m afraid the Member from Mordaunt is not vet as civilized as some of the Council thought. As your Race may eventually be, the Mordaunti were only probationally allowed to occupy a seat acquired by conquest. It will probably fail confirmation to the Council, now, because of this barbaric attempt to keep you from Cayahno. But they are already returning Rex as swiftly as they can, with apologies.”

  “That’s better,” said Tom. “But you mentioned two subjects we brought up last night—?”

  “Oh yes,” said Valhinda. “I believe, you, Tom, suggested to me that I might authorize Lucy to receive the same briefing that you did, on Sector information and other Alien languages. I said I would speak more to you about it this morning.”

  “Is there any problem with it?” asked Tom.

  “I’m afraid there is,” said Mr. Valhinda. “An insurmountable problem. Unfortunately the fact is that rules governing such briefing are made, not within the Sector, but within Central Galactic Government, itself. I’m sure an exception could be made and Lucy given permission—but the red tape involved would cause us to face about a two-hundred-year delay in getting it from Galactic Center.”

  “Oh,” said Lucy.

  “I understand your dismay,” said Mr. Valhinda. “But you see how impossible it is for the Council to authorize any such thing. It is even more impossible for me, as a member of your sponsoring race, to authorize it; since according to the rules of primitive contacts, you are a pair. Since one of you has been briefed, that’s considered all that is necessary for both of you to act. A possibly fallacious assumption in this particular instance; but there it is—and I have a responsibility to my own Race not to endanger them by any illegal move in the process of sponsoring another, newer Race.”

  He stopped, and his eyes met Tom’s meaningfully. It was an act as obvious as a wink. Tom stared back, puzzled.

  “Tom,” Lucy said, nudging him. “I understand. Don’t you?”

  Tom looked at her, frowning. Then, suddenly his frown cleared.

  “Why, yes,” he said to Mr. Valhinda, “I understand perfectly. But perhaps you’ll tell me what the penalty would be if I did share my knowledge illegally with Lucy?”

  “Well,” said Mr. Valhinda, gazing out a nearby window, “in that case … since you’re primitives, and not really even under Sector authority yet, it would only be a black mark against you—but the same Galactic red tape would apply. By the time the black mark was ready to be put there, the justification for your doing it—if it turned out to be justified—would already have been accepted. The two would simply cancel each other out. Oh, Galactic Government might decide to make something of an example of you individually, Tom. But there would be no repercussions as such against your Race as a whole—which is the important part.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Lucy, “I don’t want to know.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Valhinda, “if the two of you, working together, end up reflecting great value and honor on your Race and the Sector, you would individually, both of you be applauded rather than condemned.”

  He exchanged a further meaningful glance with Tom and Lucy—just as a platform, like the one Drakvil had carried Tom and Lucy on, floated into the room and approached the Oprinkian.

  “Forgive my presumption,” the platform said in a polite, middle-range voice, “the rest of the Sector Council has fully informed itself now on the background of the two Humans. It is ready to officially begin the day’s meeting and discuss the matter. They would appreciate your presence, Mr. Valhinda, bringing the two Humans with you.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Valhinda. “I think we should be going.”

  Tom and Lucy left the breakfast table with their host and mounted the platform. Tom hastily adjusted the buckle of his Assassin’s weapons harness as he climbed aboard. A second later they were in the Council room and all the other Members seemed to be there, except for two vacant chairs, one being the Jaktal seat Tom had sat down in the day before.

  Mr. Valhinda got down from the platform and started for his own chair, then stopped when he realized Tom and Lucy had not moved. He turned back.

  “The Jaktal chair is yours, temporarily, of course,” he said reassuringly to them. “I believe it’s roomy enough for the two of you.”

  Then he turned back and went on toward his own chair. Tom and Lucy went down to the Jaktal chair, and its large seat did accommodate them both comfortably, sitting side by side. They looked around the table.

  All eyes seemed to be fixed on them. But then the Member from Wavry grew five feet in its chair again, and began to wave its branches around. Everybody’s gaze turned to observe the movements. The Member from Wavry continued, clearly making another statement, if not another speech.

  “I wish we could know what it’s saying!” whispered Lucy in Tom’s ear.

  “So do I,” whispered Tom back.

  But just at that moment, the Member from Wavry ceased waving its branches, shortened itself by some five feet and stood still.

  “I heartily concur!” cluttered the little seahorse-like Alien from Xxxytl; and Lucy, having been illegally taught some Xxxytl, and bits of other languages, by Tom the night before, understood him. The magnifying glass effect was on; and she, like Tom, could see him clearly, floating upright above the seat of his chair, with his tiny fins fanning back and forth energetically to emphasize what he said. “The suggestion is an excellent one!”

  Belatedly, the translingualphone, now back in action, translated the words faithfully and unnecessarily into loud, clear English.

  “I oppose!” boomed the tusked, walrus-like alien, glaring at the Member from Xxxytl from the opposite side of the table. “The idea of entrusting a Galactic Sector empire of some size to the primitive actions of a young, uneducated, near-barbarian Race, is against all that this Council and Galactic civilization stands for. We are putting a number of other, as yet unseated but promising, near-barbaric Races at risk. It is like giving a new-born being the powers that should only be wielded by an educated adult of that Race, even if that Race was qualified.”

  “That objection is entirely beside the point!” chirped the seahorse-like Xxxytl Member. “We have here an unparalleled opportunity, not merely to educate a promising young Race in the process of supervision of other Races, but by exposing them to the problems of such supervision, to educate this Council on ways of developing a new pattern for bringing younger Races along with greater speed than we have ever been able to do before! I most strongly concur— and I repeat that again—I most strongly concur!”

  “Would the honorable Member fr
om Xxxytl,” roared the walrus-like alien, raising his head and flashing his tusks dangerously, “be willing to go on record with this Council as having an admitted Racial partiality for these two-in-one Humans?”

  “Would the honorable Member from Dulm—” cluttered the seahorse, bouncing up and down in mid-air, “—be prepared to issue an apology for what he has just said and which implies an unacceptable slight against myself and the whole Xxxytl Race?”

  “I might also point out,” Mr. Valhinda’s voice gently inserted itself between the voicings of the two other Members, “with regard to the Member from Duhn, who spoke of two-in-one Humans—that the Human Race is simply bisexual, not two-in-one. That is not the same thing as individuals of that Race having two separate bodies apiece, as some Races have; nor the ability our fellow Member from Xxxytl is accustomed to having, in his own Race.”

  A flash of insight suddenly lit up Tom’s mind. Recalling the enormous, whale-like Alien of his briefing, he wondered briefly if it was, somehow, the other half of the tiny seahorse shaped member. If not, what was the ability of the Xxxytl that had been referred to?

  “Bisexual?” inquired a large snake-like Alien, coiled in a chair and with a tapestried skin in the colors of red, green, white and blue. “No parthenogenesis at all?”

  “None,” said Mr. Valhinda.

  “Poor things,” murmured the snake-like Member to itself.

  “Bisexual, bisexual … imagine that! However,” the walrus-like Member from Duhn lifted his head proudly once more, “no Member of the Race of Duhn has apologized for anything in our known history.”

  “May I suggest,” said Mr. Valhinda, “that if, instead of apologizing, you simply withdraw your implication, the Member from Xxxytl might withdraw his demand for an apology?”

  “Well . . .” said the Duhnian, looking doubtfully across the table at the seahorse.

  “I will be glad to withdraw my demand for an apology,” said the Xxxytl, “on assurance from the Member from Duhn that no slight was intended to my Race.”

  “I do so withdraw,” said the walrus.

  “And I withdraw my demand,” said the Xxxytl.

  “That matter being settled,” went on Mr. Valhinda, “perhaps the Council could take a vote on the suggestion of the Member from Wavry, that the Member from Xxxytl a moment before so eloquently and wisely endorsed.”

  “Well said!” said what looked like an owl wearing spectacles with heavy tortoiseshell rims down near the far end of the table from Tom and Lucy. It was impossible to tell whether the spectacles were a natural part of his body or merely a device he was using. “I do so move.”

  “I second it,” said the snake-like Alien, uncurling slightly.

  A clamor of musical sounds, chiming on either one of two different chords, rang through the chamber all at once.

  “The motion is carried by a two-thirds vote of the Council,” announced the voice of the T.L.Phone. “The Humans are temporarily confirmed as Ambassador-at-Large for their Race and also—in the form of the coupled pair from Earth—temporarily and provisionally instated as Representatives to this Council for the empire of Races formerly controlled by the Jaktal Race; this to include the Jaktal Race as it presently exists—”

  Lucy’s hand squeezed Tom’s hand out of sight below the table. He squeezed back. The translingualphone was being noisy again.

  “—The Ambassador-at-Large from Earth is to make contact with other Races and empires within this Sector, but with none above their own comprehension level, without direction. They will be guided in this by a representative of their sponsoring Race, who is presently also a Member of this Council. It is suggested that that direction begin immediately; and therefore the Humans are excused as of the present moment, to be accompanied by the Oprinkian Member, who will direct them to their first world-of-call. We will now turn to other matters for consideration by the Council.”

  Mr Valhinda was already standing up and stepping away from his chair. Tom and Lucy left their own and followed him out of the Council chamber.

  “No,” said Tom, “try it again, Lucy. ‘Gratkl!’ ”

  “Gratkl,” said Lucy.

  “No, no,” said Tom, “you’ve got to come down hard on the k and emphasize the end of the word—and snap it all out! Try again.”

  “GratKl!!” snapped Lucy.

  “Fine,” said Tom.

  “Does it really mean ‘if you ever offend me one of us must die’?” said Lucy. She tried it again. “Gratkl!”

  “Absolutely,” said Tom. “You’re doing it beautifully now and that’s just the way it should be. No, it’s roughly the same as saying simply ‘hi, how are you’ in our language.”

  “You mean they don’t mean it?”

  “Oh, they mean it all right,” said Tom. “It’s just the way the Skikana are. Very, very touchy and brave. Coming down on that k in a word is very important—it shows you mean it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re glad,” said Lucy. “But I hope I don’t have to say it. Are we almost down yet?”

  Tom looked out the window of the spaceship at the ground coming up at them.

  “Almost there,” he said, “and I think we’re all ready.”

  He looked around them at the lounge of the Imperial suite in which they had made the voyage to this world of Mul’rahr. Four Hugwo lance-gunners stood scattered about the lounge, like statues at rigid attention. They looked like nothing go much as oversized clams, equipped with armored legs and arms, their tall lance-guns upright in their grasps.

  Luckily, thought Tom, the Hugwos did not understand English—in which he and Lucy had been talking—and while they could understand Skikana, that one word would have had little meaning for them without its context.

  “I keep reminding you,” Tom said, “how serious this is. As my Consort, you’ve got to be just as aggressive as I am. Otherwise the Skikana won’t respect us.”

  He ran his fingers of his right hand through his close-cropped brown hair.

  “We’ve been put in a position of over-extending our resources by being named as head of the existing Jaktal Empire—” He broke off. A fifth Hugwo, the corporal in charge of the Honor Guard of Lance-gunners, had just clanked in with a message in code which he handed to Tom. “—Thank you, Corporal.”

  “Sir!” shouted the Hugwo. He clanked backwards three paces, saluted with a precision for which these mercenary soldiers were famous, and became rigid. Both he and Tom had spoken in the lingua-franca of the civilized worlds of the Galactic Federation, which Lucy now understood. Tom scanned the message rapidly, translating as he read. He had had the recent codes briefed into him by Mr. Valhinda before leaving Cayahno.

  “Oh, no!” he said. “This was all we needed!”

  “What is it?” asked Lucy.

  “Almost the worst possible thing that could happen,” said Tom. “They’ve just opened up a branch of the Sector stock exchange on Earth. Domango was against connecting to the master stock board for this Sector on Cayahno so quickly. He felt we ought to learn how its elements worked—and he was right. But it seems there were powerful economic interests that couldn’t wait for a chance to invest off-Earth. Well, the interests got their way; and now as a result a consortium of them have invested Earth resources heavily in the future development of the Wockii, the subdominate Race here on Mul’rahr. I wonder if that’s why Mr. Valhinda sent us here?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Lucy. “There’re always people like that. I take it that investment could be the wrong thing to do?”

  “The Oprinkians consider it extremely risky,” said Tom. He snapped a pocket loset from his Assassin’s weapons harness and hastily disintegrated the message blank. “Earth could be plunged into debt for thousands of years if the Wockii futures are a dud.”

  “I gathered,” said Lucy, staring at the spot where the ashes of the message would have been, if there had been any ashes at all, “something like that. But what makes them doubt the Wockii Race’s future worth?”

/>   “They were afraid of what’s just happened. With the Sector stock market open, our over-eager and interstellarly ignorant investors plunged heavily on what looked like attractive investments. The Wockii futures looked attractive because they were so cheap. But Racial Futures are the most risky investments in the galaxy, according to my briefing—just imagine anyone who had their own worth solidly invested in Jaktal Futures, for example, up to a few weeks ago.”

  “I suppose some being did—they must have,” said Lucy thoughtfully.

  “Oh, yes,” said Tom. “They would have thought investment in the Jaktal Empire was as safe as anything in the galaxy. Of course, what our investors on Earth just did was exactly what the Sector Investment Sharks had been waiting for. They immediately bought up the Jaktal futures shares that had been sold, and called for immediate repayment by our own Race.”

  “Why us?” said Lucy. “We shouldn’t be responsible for the Jaktal debt, should we?”

  “Remember,” said Tom, “the Council provisionally confirmed us as possessors of the Jaktal spatial Empire.”

  “Well, in that case,” said Lucy, “we ought to be able to use the Jaktal resources to pay these sharks off.”

  “Far from it,” said Tom; “in a case like this we’re like trustees without authority. A provisionally-awarded Empire is most strictly protected against use of its assets by those temporarily awarded control. That’s why the Sharks have filed for repayment in Earth Human futures.”

  “We should tell them they’ll have to wait until we’re in control of Jaktal resources.”

  “We have,” said Tom. “That’s not the problem. The problem was an immediate effect in the Wockii Futures on the Interstellar Futurities Exchange. A bad wobble.”