The Magnificent Wilf Read online

  Miles paused; more to get his breath, Tom thought, than anything else.

  “That’s very understandable, sir,” said Tom, to fill the gap.

  “Of course it is,” said Miles. “Well the upshot was that I dug into our list of Secretariat employees who fit the bill, and came up with the five best candidates for the Secretary to choose from—don’t worry,” said Miles, looking at Tom, “you and your wife and dog aren’t on the list.”

  “I hadn’t been expecting—” Tom was beginning, when Miles cut him short.

  “Well, you aren’t, anyway,” he said. “You and your wife, Judy—”

  “Lucy,” said Tom, coldly.

  “Oh yes, Lucy,” said Miles. “Met her at one of our annual New Year’s parties, I think. Young woman, reddish-brown hair—there’s a name for that kind of hair, but I can’t think of it … well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, Mr. Rejilla will be spending a day or two overnight with whichever one of the five is chosen, to see what Humans and pets are like, together. The Secretary’s about to decide who. He was going to talk it over once more with me this afternoon so I could fill him in on any information that isn’t in the dossiers, from my personal experience; but I’ve been subpoenaed to appear at a hearing in the Committee Conferences Building, now, so you’re going to have to talk to him instead.”

  “I am?” said Tom, surprised.

  “That’s what I said—he asked for you when I couldn’t make it. I’ve got the dossiers on the chosen hosts here. They’re Jennings, Ninowsky, Ormand, Jondu and Wilts. You know them all and you can tell him whatever he wants to know. Dory’s made up extra copies of their dossiers for you to have with you when you talk. If he wants more info about some of the points in the dossiers, you can fill him in. Dory’s got the copies outside now. Go get them and come back here—don’t waste time.”

  Tom didn’t.

  He came back into Miles’ office, juggling the rather heavy pile of thick dossiers in their slippery brown covers, to find Miles impatiently waiting by a small brown door in the far wall of his office. As Tom passed the desk on his way to join him, he saw what seemed to be another, similar dossier in Miles’ wastebasket. He went on to Miles, who punched a button; and the brown door slid back to reveal the inside of a small private elevator. They stepped in and were carried up one floor, from which they emerged into the inner reception room of the office of Secretary Domango Aksisi.

  Chapter 2

  “Is the Secretary expecting—” a thin, young man behind the desk in the reception room began as, in the lead and without a word in answer, Miles marched past with Tom following. Miles led the way through the self-opening door behind the receptionist and into the Secretary’s office.

  The door shut behind them.

  “Ah, here you are,” said Domango Aksisi, looking up from some papers spread on his large desk.

  He had a soft voice husky with age. His dark face was surprisingly unlined, though his hair was gray and thinning. He had obviously been a big man once, but age had pared him down, making him look frail and thin.

  “Sit down, sit down Tom,” he said. “I needn’t keep you, Albert.”

  “I was just going to mention,” said Miles, “that Parent here can answer any questions you have about the candidates. He’s been around here longer than any of them.”

  “Yes, yes, I know about Tom,” said Domango, smiling at Tom as he came forward to the desk and sat down in the chair the Secretary had indicated. Tom balanced the pile of dossiers precariously on his knees. “As I say, Albert, you needn’t wait. I know how the pressures are on you. You’ll want to get going to that hearing.”

  “Well, I—” said Miles, and checked himself. “Yes, Mr. Secretary.”

  He stepped back into the reception room, which got its automatic door open just in time to let him pass, and then closed upon him. Tom and the Secretary were alone.

  “Ah, Tom,” said Domango, “we’ve seen each other more than a few times, but we’ve never really had a chance to talk, have we?”

  “No, Mr. Secretary,” said Tom.

  They had indeed had a few words on a number of occasions, but these were always official occasions where there was never the opportunity for the Secretary to say more than a few words or Tom to answer, other than briefly.

  Domango was in many ways the exact opposite of Miles. He was the Secretary for Alien Affairs mainly because he was the one person for the post upon whom all the delegates to the All-Earth Federation could agree. He had not really wanted the job; but had thought it his duty to take it because he had such general backing, which might be of benefit to Earth in his discussions with off-Earth Alien races.

  Actually, as Tom knew, what Domango really wanted to do was to retire. He was well past the age of retirement; and he had had a life that certainly entitled him to it. Of his fifty adult years, a total of thirty of them had been spent at one time in jails, or under detention. He had been tortured, mishandled and exiled for years; also separated from his family, of which his first wife and most of his family had been killed or died, so that only one daughter was left out of an original nine children.

  Yet as Tom looked at him now, it did not seem to have soured him either on life or on humanity. His large, calm face was peaceful. Tom found himself warming to the man even more than he had previously.

  “I understand you’ve had no extended contact at all with any of the other Aliens who’ve visited Earth?” asked Domango.

  “None, Mr. Secretary,” said Tom. “Just brief meetings at official affairs.”

  “Well,” went on Domango, “I think you’ll find the Oprinkians are among the best you’ll ever encounter—possibly the best there are, at least in our Sector of the galaxy. Mr. Rejilla, now, is of a very ancient Alien Race. His people have not only been civilized, but in space, for tens of thousands of years.”

  Domango broke off. “But I imagine you know that,” he said.

  “I knew they’d been in space for some time,” said Tom, “but I’d no idea it’d been that long.”

  “Mind-bending, isn’t it?” said Domango, smiling. “We were still hiding in caves when they were out among the stars. If all the forty-three Races who have seats as Representatives on the Council for our Galactic Sector, on Cayahno, were as mature, as helpful, and as—according to the Sector Charter, at least—as civilized as the Oprinkians are, our being in the same Sector wouldn’t be as worrisome as it could be, now. The fact of the matter is the Council contains a few of what the Oprinkians would politely consider barely civilized Races. That description applies to us, too, of course; and these others have been admitted to knowledge of galactic civilization simply because once in a millennium inevitably some problem occurs where all the Races in that Sector have to work together.”

  “Yes,” said Tom. But he was becoming more and more bewildered. Why was Domango telling him all this—unless he was just lonely for someone to tell it to?

  “But I’m afraid it’s a fact.” Domango sighed—a little wearily, Tom thought. “You may well eventually run into what you’d consider some very savage types of Aliens, if you ever end up having to do with some from many other worlds,” Domango went on. “Indeed some seem very savage, even by our standards; and, like us, they’re just recently into space. But some have already conquered and dominated other worlds with intelligent but even more primitive races on them. However, that doesn’t concern you at the moment; I only mention all this to make sure you understand ahead of time that you’ll find Mr. Rejilla a remarkable Being to know—and his people do want to help us as much as they can.”

  “Pardon me, sir,” said Tom, feeling a mild sort of desperation, “I’m afraid I haven’t completely understood. Am I to meet Mr. Rejilla?”

  “Be rather difficult otherwise, don’t you think?” said Domango, with a chuckle. “Yes, of course, you must meet him as soon as he arrives. You’ll have some security people with you; but that’s beside the point. Now, let me just check a few things on your dossier.”


  He reached out and unearthed from among the other papers on his desk what seemed to be an exact duplicate of one of the bound personal histories Tom was balancing on his knees.

  “It says here that Albert Miles’ Computer/Manager loves you,” said Domango, staring at a page. “Can that be correct?”

  “Well …” Tom struggled for a way of answering that would save him both embarrassment and any possible reflection on Dory, “she said so. I think it’s something about her circuits, or her programming, or something like that.”

  “Possibly,” Domango frowned at the page he was looking at. “It also says everybody else, with a few rare exceptions, loves you.” He lifted his eyes to meet those of Tom. “That’s rather a strong statement, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Tom, “it is. I don’t quite know how I happen to be described that way.”

  “Further,” went on Domango, looking at the page again, “am I to understand that, just in the last couple of hours, you made a strong effort to direct a lesser species of this world to escape from this building into the open air, where it would be happy and safe? Can this be correct?”

  Once more he looked at Tom. Tom was beginning to sweat slightly.

  “I was sort of talking out loud to a spider in Miles’ reception room,” he said. “You know how you can do something like that?”

  “Not all of us do it,” said Domango. “But I’m interested to hear that it’s a fact. The spider, then, did escape?”

  “Yes, as far as I know, anyway,” said Tom. “It disappeared into a ventilator grille connected with the duct work of the building. It should be able to find its way to the ground floor and out the fresh air intake into the grass and the sunshine. I don’t really believe it understood the directions I gave it to find the ventilator grille. It was probably just coincidence.”

  “Still,” said Domango, “surprisingly few people take that kind of interest in a spider. However, leaving that aside—you are married, of course. In fact I think I met your wife—a charming young woman. Her name is Lucy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Tom. “She was in the Linguistic section of our Secretariat here. But she’d climbed the promotion ladder very quickly; and Miles persuaded her to—er, take a temporary leave of absence of about six months. She’s been writing a book on linguistics with her time off. It’s almost done.”

  “Indeed!” said Domango. “Not one to let grass grow under her feet, I take it? Come to think of it, didn’t she have a second name as well?”

  “Yes sir. Thorsdatter—her maiden name. It’s Scandinavian in origin. Thor was the Norse God of War; and ‘datter’ would mean she’s his daughter.”

  “Is that so?” said Domango. “You mean her own family gave her that name originally? A rather powerful name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But it fits her. Small, but unstoppable.”

  “Well, well,” said Domango, looking back at the pages in front of him, “also, you have a dog, a Great Dane named Rex, it says here.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Tom, brightening. “He’s the great-grandson of Rex—the Great Dane with the English-accented bark, who used to help Sherlock Holmes in so many films, some years back. But, come to think of it, sir, you might never have heard of Rex Regis.”

  “I certainly have,” said Domango. “I think I’ve seen every one of his films, most of them as recordings. I particularly liked the one where he saved the people who were trapped in the trans-Atlantic tunnel, when it was thought there was no hope of rescuing them. And then there was that other great one in which he solved the mysterious case of the missing Empire State Building; and the one in which he sought out and brought back in handcuffs the world’s master criminal, Wallaby Xanzadau.”

  “Yes,” said Tom, carried away by his own enthusiasm for the films made by Rex’s great-grandfather. “The people who handled him said that he could do everything but talk, but didn’t need to do that because he could read people’s minds.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Domango. “But I can believe it. Yes, it’s thoroughly believable. So you’ve got a dog like the original Rex, have you?”

  Tom’s enthusiasm evaporated suddenly, leaving a cold, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

  “Well, not exactly,” he said. “In fact—our Rex isn’t really anything like his great-grandfather, as far as being that remarkable. But he’s an awfully good dog. He has a good heart.”

  “That,” said Domango, “is an important thing in any Being, human, animal or Alien. Well, in any case, that’s all I was going to ask you. It really was a matter of satisfying my own curiosity about these little things mentioned in your dossier. If you’re that lovable it could be an asset for someone dealing with Aliens of all types and varieties, but especially the Oprinkians. And your attitude toward the spider trapped in a building like this, also shows compassion for a different life-form. Not that any of this was absolutely necessary. I think I would have chosen you anyway, out of the six candidates I had Albert submit to me, to play host for Mr. Rejilla. Lucy and Rex were the only necessary qualifications.”

  He closed the folder before him. Tom was staring at him, and reaching for words.

  “Sir?” he said. “You mean me? You mean you chose me to be the host for Mr. Rejilla, in his experience with a human family and pet?”

  “Of course,” said Domango, looking at him. “Nothing against the other five who had dossiers submitted, but you and your family will be just ideal.”

  “But—” Tom hesitated. “There weren’t six candidates, sir. Miles said there were only five. I’ve only got five folders here with me, so I could refer to them if you had specific questions about things in them that I could enlarge upon for you. They were all dossiers on five other people.”

  “Your own dossier must have fallen out then, somehow,” said Domango. “I certainly asked Miles to give me half a dozen to choose from and he sent up a stack for me to look at—”

  He frowned slightly and turned back to the front page of the dossier in front of him.

  “Though it’s true,” he went on in a thoughtful voice, looking at it, “one of them must have been missing from those he sent me, because it was sent up separately directly from his C/M machine—the one you call Dory—a few moments later. One of the original stack must have dropped out. How many do you have there on your knees?”

  Tom had never actually counted them. He did so now.

  “There’s six!” he said.

  “I thought so,” said Domango. “See if your own dossier isn’t one of them.”

  Tom hastily flipped through the first pages of each one and, sure enough, the third one down was his.

  “You’re right, sir,” he said, holding it up.

  “I thought so,” said Domango. “Evidently there must have been some small mix-up somewhere. Strange, when Albert’s usually so efficient and correct.”

  Dory was the one who was efficient and correct, thought Tom, but he did not say the words aloud.

  “On the other hand,” said Domango, looking again at the first page of his copy of Tom’s dossier, “have you looked at this first page of yours closely?”

  “No sir,” said Tom. He did so now.

  At the top of the first page in block letters was the legend (replacement copy—direct from d.o.r.y.)

  “Oh,” he said.

  A memory of the folder in Miles’ wastebasket flashed in his mind. He could imagine Miles barking at Dory.

  “Here! Find me six candidates to meet this Oprinkian, for Domango to look at!”

  —Then forgetting all about it until Tom’s dossier turned up as one of the six.

  “Well, in any case,” Domango was going on now, “if you hadn’t realized that you were the one chosen to play host to Mr. Rejilla, I suggest you take the rest of the afternoon off and get in touch with Lucy Thorsdatter right away. Mr. Rejilla will be coming to your particular suburban area on this evening’s helicopter; and I imagine Lucy will like some time to get things ready, if
she’s anything like my wife. By the way, here’s my private phone number at where my wife and I’ll be staying over the weekend. Call me if you run into a real emergency.”

  Chapter 3

  Tom was not allowed to move. He sat in the large, red overstuffed chair in the living room, with his feet drawn up out of the way. From the back of the house came the plaintive single bark of a Great Dane who was tired of being shut in the bedroom, out of the way.

  “Rex wants out,” said Tom.

  “Well, he can wait a little longer,” said Lucy, rapidly running her Single-Swipe cleaning wand over the living room walls.

  “It’s time for his food, too,” said Tom.

  “He won’t starve,” said Lucy. She put down the wand and went back into the little annex they called the library, to bring out the dust collector and set it in the middle of the living room. She turned it on. It hummed comfortably; and everything from dust motes down to large molecules that were floating around in the air or clinging to any surfaces in the living room, rushed to it, as if it offered their only hope of survival. Tom felt the device’s attraction plucking at microscopic foreign bodies in his clothing.

  “I would have said,” Tom said, “that it’d be completely impossible for anyone to do a complete equivalent of a spring house cleaning of a house this size in two hours. I think you decided to do the whole thing just because any ordinary person would know doing it was impossible. That’s also why you don’t let me help. You’re always starting things like that; and the irritating thing is you end up managing to get them done. It’s not normal.”

  “Of course not,” said Lucy from the dining room, having picked up her cleaning wand and gone on. “It could be, but most people won’t make the effort; and as for helping, you just get in my way. That’s the difference between us, you and I.”

  “Only because you always decide to work where I’m working,” said Tom.

  “No, it’s because I catch up to you. You daydream until you have to do something. I block everything else out. I make a sort of tunnel vision for myself, in which there’s only this one thing to be done; and then I have all my forces to devote to it. When I concentrate like that, there’s nothing to distract me.”