CHAPTER ONE

The whole operation had taken only five minutes. No risk really -- unless I was caught in the act. I'd pack up and be off planet within the hour.

I left the evidence at the scene of the crime, at first recapping the paint can and laying the brushes neatly at its side, then reconsidering and dashing the remaining paint across the wall. That action was really beneath my dignity, but I had special reasons to treat this house differently.

I left the mesh ladder pinned up there on the wall.

That caper gave me some measure of satisfaction, but in all I was not happy with my work. The first thing I did when the shuttle pilot put me aboard the Seychelles was to knock twice hard on the director's door and walk in.

Harry Cardip sat at his desk, head down absorbed in some paperwork. All I could see of him was the top of his bald head, his hunched shoulders, and hornrimmed glasses under which his pencil thin moustache danced as he silently counted out figures. I tapped my foot, cleared my throat, and at length Cardip looked up from his papers and said: "Good work, Jenkins. The report came in just after your assignment had been completed. "Nearly flawless."

"Nearly?" I asked. I knew Cardip. "Nearly" was bad news by his standards. Cardip rose from his chair, motioned at me with one hand. "Close the door, please," he said. "Yes, nearly. You forgot the slogan we assigned you."

The door banged metalically as it shut. I turned and looked at Cardip. "Didn't forget." Wrote my own. You know, special case."

"I know how special this case was," Cardip said, flopping back into his chair with a crashing symphony of ancient springs. "Have a seat, now. I want to talk to you. Important."

"That's good," I replied, sitting. "I came to talk to you about something anyway. I hate my job. I think I quit. Lousy pay and no chance for advancement-- in fact, I've been demoted-- from revolutionary planet buster first class to some kind of raspberry expert specializing in crank telephone calls, petty vandalism, and other lightweight stuff. What gives?"

"You are valuable to us."

"And you don't want me killed?"

"Exactly."

I threw my hands up. "Oh, brother! Now I've heard it all. My last assignment was practically a suicide mission. You put me up to it too, Cardip. You've got hundreds of agents with more training than I, and they're out risking their necks all over the galaxy. Now you tell me that you can't afford to have me killed?"

"You seem awfully eager to be," observed Cardip. "Are you?"

"Not really-- in fact, the thought terrifies me-- and my poor wife would carry on so-- I think. But I don't appreciate the assignments I'm getting, and I want to know why you're giving them to me."

"I've already told you."

"Come off it!" I snapped.

Cardip merely grinned. "I mean it," he said. "You mentioned hundreds of other agents. You know that I used to have many hundreds more."

"So what?"

"So they were killed trying to complete the same assignment you had some months ago."

"And hundreds succeeded as I did. What does that prove?"

Cardip thought for a moment, pulled open his desk drawer, and extracted a sheet of paper. He looked it over quickly and handed it to me. "What does that prove?" he parroted.

The sheet was simply a list of numbers:

56,487

16,333

4,055

482 etc.

"I don't even know what it is," I answered.

"Surely you do," Cardip laughed. "It's a list of mercenaries obtained in our special recruitment program. Each figure represents the number of men conscripted by each agent."

"And?" I asked irritably.

"And you top the list!" he congratulated, extending his hand.

I frowned, shook his hand across the desktop warily. "So where's my commission?"

"We don't award commissions, as you well know. Only rank. That's how you moved from private to staff sergeant in a single bound."

I snorted. "And how thrilling it was. There's just something about that uniform."

"Which you never wear," Cardip reminded.

"And look like a fed?" I sneered. I lowered my eyes. "Where's your dance set anyway, general?"

"I outrank every general in the Agency and therefore dress as I choose," he said matter of factly. "You may, too. Actually, uniforms and even rank itself are optional. We've found that promotion in title is a good work incentive for many of our soldiers, however."

"Not for me," I said.

"But that's what makes you so special to us, my friend."

"I'm special because I brought you back more recruits than anyone else. Your affection is purely mercenary, excuse the pun."

"Perhaps," he confessed. "But you haven't examined the list closely enough."

"What's to examine? A list of numbers, from largest to smallest--"

"But the spread--" Cardip was getting impatient. "Here, here, " he muttered irritably, pulling the sheet from my hands. "Don't be so dense. Yes, 56,487 is the top of the list. The next highest is only 16,111. The difference is substantial -- no, remarkable -- especially remarkable when you see the dozens of pitifully smaller numbers below."

"I picked a good planet," I explained. "The people there are aggressive, like to fight, easy to enlist."

"Easier to anger," Cardip countered. "Yet you survived. You produced. And there's more-- yes, there's much more. From nothing you became Prime Chancellor of Marion, the most successful non-federal world the galaxy has ever produced. And the feds still can't figure out its success -- even though they conquered it."

"All my late father's doing," I reminded, becoming wary of this praise.

"But you helped-- you helped" Cardip maintained, waving me to silence. He seemed unwilling to consider any facts to contradict whatever theory he was developing. Irrational at best but flattering-- and he was right I had been elected as Prime Chancellor of Marion. I had busted the planet Tuukar and simultaneously converted over 50,000 stoneage savages to our revolutionary cause.

"You were saying?"

"Things like that simply do not take place by chance. It takes a special gift."

I swelled.

"I think I understand what that gift is now," he continued. "At least I think I do." He hesitated a moment and then said in a sober tone that nobody could ever have faked: "You were born lucky."

"Huh?"

"So I knew your worth! The only thing left to determine was loyalty and..."

"Loyalty!'

Cardip stood from his chair and pointed a finger at my nose. "Because of your promising background, I for one am sorry to find that you are sadly lacking in that aspect of service!"

"I--"

"Shut up!" Cardip exploded. "You had your orders! You were to write a scientifically-researched and specially-composed slogan. Where is it?" He rummaged through a pile of papers on his desk. "Where-- ah, here: Proletariots of the World , Unite. That slogan cost 5,000 man hours to develop. What did you write?"

"Something quite different," I admitted. "A description of the dwelling's inhabitant."

Cardip scowled, and nodded accusingly. "You mean Saul Tillinghass?"

"You know who I mean," I told him.

"Just because he bombed your planet to smithereens and exiled you, you would hold a grudge?"

"I'm like that."

"Insubordinate. Are you like that?" Cardip slammed his fist on the table. "You get orders, and you interpret them to carry out your own vendettas! I don't require blind obedience, Jenkins. But restraint and professionalism-- those I do require!"

I leaned back in my chair. "I thought it might be something like that," I said. "It really couldn't have been very many other things. Not loyalty. Professionalism-- interesting."

Cardip gaped. "What are you saying?"

I laughed in his face. "When you assigned me Saul Tillinghass's personal residence for vandlizing, did you think for one minute I wouldn't wonder why? I knew I was being tested!"

"You did? So why did you deliberately fail the test?"

"I passed with flying colors. Look!" I reached into my pocket, produced a heavy adjustable gas grenade, and tossed it in the center of Cardip's desk. It landed with a thump and rolled to one side, its yellow lettered dialsetting within Cardip's view. "I had this on me when I painted the wall."

Cardip looked down at the army green lump of iron on his desk. "Lord!" he breathed.

"I wanted to write something personal to Tillinghass of course -- not just a slogan -- but I wanted much more to flip that old fashioned dial-o-matic through his window. I also wanted to pass your test. That's why I brought the grenade in the first place. If it was restraint or professionalism you were testing, I have passed. The grenade stayed in my pocket. You can also see that I have exactly the kind of keen if twisted mind you need for some of your more challenging operations. You shouldn't be so niggling just because I got in a harmless bite against an arch enemy of mine while carrying out your orders."

"But you changed the words," Cardip argued "And as I said over 5,000 man hours -- "

"Were never ever needed for your dopey slogan." I interrupted. "I looked it up myself in the Encyclopedia Universial. Proletariots of the World, Unite-- a witless chant taken up by practicioners of an ancient and ridiculous social system called communism, which professed that people should give everything they own to the feds while the feds repay them by dictating what color socks they wear-- red ones if I understood the article.

"I passed your test, Cardip. Now, what happens after graduation?"

Cardip blanched, picked up the gas grenade, and shook it in my face. "You should be grateful that you are part of an organization that detests slogans. We've never taught you any and haven't used any to recruit. The organization that does falls only too quickly into brainwashing and its members take on a glazed, fish-like quality. But this!" He opened his palm to let the gas grenade lie in more complete view. "This is where your professionalism flew out the window. You took a wide-range gas grenade onto a federal planet?"

"I said I did."

"Jenkins, you know why we gave you some unassuming duties down there. If you got nabbed defacing a wall, our lawyers would present it as a prank, not a crime. You'd be out of jail in two hours. Couldn't even extradite you. The grenade, however-- "

"Is a dial-o-matic, as you can see," I interjected. "Set on the harmless rotten egg mode."

"But this grenade has other settings," Cardip insisted. "From simple smoke signals to a city-destroying nerve gas."

I shook my head. "Incorrect. Look again. That small tab next to the dial."

Cardip turned the grenade over, inclined his head to peer through his bifocals. "A weld!"

"And the whole pineapple frozen as a simple stink bomb."

Cardip dropped the grenade on the desk. "Not good enough, Jenkins. The prosecution would argue that this device could be rearmed by simply breaking the weld. You'd pull fifteen years, federal pen, minimum."

I rather doubt that. Antigov lawyers are top flight. Covalent dipole weld. Couldn't break it with a jackhammer. Stink bomb. Prank. Out of jail in two hours." I smiled at the director. "Come on, Cardip. Concede defeat. I'm better at this kind of infighting than you are. That's why you hired me -- for that and my money!-- now tell me all about the new assignment you've planned out for me."

"Assignment?"

"Please. Your character test was given for a reason. You've got something lined up for me. Something big. I can almost taste it. Don't rush. Tell me about it slowly; I want to savor each detail." (Friend, kindly scroll to following page for chapter two)

CHAPTER TWO

The man's dossier was enough to qualify him for Cardip's position, probably much more than enough. It was a thick, aluminum-bound collection of documents describing the life and works of one late George Seek, Colonel, espionage expert, and top-rated battle commando. I flipped to the last page, closed the dossier, and handed it across the desk to Cardip.

"Impressed?" Cardip asked.

"As impressed as I ever am when I read about a dead man I never heard of."

Cardip frowned, nothing more. He knew it was my nature to be difficult when information was trickled out to me in this way. "That part of the report was, of course, falsified. Seek is quite alive and at work on deeds quite in keeping with the grandness of his dossier." Without elaborating further, Cardip slid some blueprints across the desk. "Recognize these?"

I scanned the papers and said: "P-657, battlesled, world cruncher. One of those huge ships the feds have."

Correct," Cardip said. "So huge that the typical blueprint page contains a scale of miles."

"And so huge that the feds do not dare use them for the effect it would have on public opinion." I added. "Why are you showing me these things? If battleships that size were used, the federal state would have revolution on a thousand worlds that presently wave their banner. Don't tell me we're worried about them now."

"We have to be," Cardip said abruptly. "George Seek has requisitioned one!"

For a moment I just stared. Then, I couldn't help but grin. Cardip kept a deadpan face, but I didn't recognize it for what it meant. "A P-657?" I finally blurted out, wanting to laugh. I could hardly believe it. "This is great news! The federal police will be scared out of their wits, and the Special Task Force, those planet-busting hoodlums, will be outgunned by us antigovs! I can go back to Marion! Yay!"

"Stop it!" Cardip snarled. "Do you think we would ever try to commandeer a thing like that? This was not a sanctioned operation. Colonel Seek did it all on his own."

"Even so," I replied. "You couldn't really blame him if the opportunity presented itself."

Cardip snorted. "I'll blame him all right." He muttered heatedly. "He made his own opportunity. A goddamned one-man army. Thought he knew how to run things better than his superiors. You may have wondered why I've been so touchy about subordinates doing things their way instead of the way they are told."

"I noticed," I said, for some reason feeling nervous. "But I was a step ahead of you, if you remember. No harm done. I knew your grafitti assignments were a test and not important to the cause."

"You did? Well, then you're mighty presumptuous. Since when is it your place to decide what is good for anything? You follow orders!"

"Well, yes sir!" I cried, throwing him a crisp salute. "What happened to the comradely state of semi-equality that made this underground revolution business tolerable?"

"It's right where it always has been. You obey orders because you agree to. If you deviate, it throws everything out of whack. Cooperation helps one and all." Cardip took off his glasses and looked directly at me. "Administration sticks in my craw. This agency may be the only example in history where the administrators weren't the moral and intellectual dregs of an organization. I made sure of that by sending anyone with administrative ambition to the front lines. That kind of artificial selection may someday help to purify the human race. In the meantime, however, I have to live with my own duties -- some of which are pretty tough -- like sending those pathetic dolts with pretentions of an administrative nature to dangerous places."

"Did they ever guess why they were winding up as cannon fodder?"

"Hell, I told them up front!"

"And they went along with it?"

Cardip stared at me. "Are you kidding? They quit to the last man. And good riddance!"

"I didn't think it was like you to have anybody eliminated. Not so coldbloodedly, at any rate."

"I may yet," said Cardip. "At least when I think about people like Seek."

"I'll bet your wrath will be tempered somewhat by the sight of that battlewagon. It's one heck of a bargaining chip."

Cardip put his glasses back on, took a deep breath, and let the air escape. He shook his head as he observed me with what seemed to be pity. "Jenkins Basil Lai," he intoned. "You may be a very smooth-tongued and capable if lucky man, but you have no grasp of interplanetary politics."

"I never professed to be an administrator," I countered, looking directly at him.

"Just a huckster?"

"Perhaps."

Again a sigh. "A battlesled is a problem, Jenkins-- not an asset. It represents a responsibility no one in his right mind wants or needs."

"But--"

"'But' nothing! If the feds are afraid to use one of those monsters, then what the hell am I going to do with one? Picture yourself as a discontented yet placated Federal Worlder. The government makes life dull, but if you tow the line, you and the members of your family are left alone. You can even advance to a certain stage before your path to a higher-paying job is blocked by federal nepotism. You probably don't approve of the fact that the government is stomping the devil out of defenseless thirdworlders-- but those thirdworlders don't join the glorious federation, so that's the way they want it, right?"

"Wrong!"

"I know it's wrong, and you know it's wrong-- but what does your average federal world inhabitant know?"

"Not much."

"He knows nothing!" Cardip affirmed with conviction. "-- and he's the one we'd like to convince of our sincerity and decency. For all the information he gets, his government hasn't done anything drastic without the most severe provocation. Nobody sane loves those world crunchers, yet it's an historical fact that the feds haven't so much as killed a mosquito with one in over four-hundred years. The Federation's half-loyal subjects have noted that fact. What condition do you think their nerves will be in when they learn that some mad revolutionary group has stolen the means to lay planets to waste at will?"

"Frazzled, I should think."

"And they'll demand that the government do anything and everything possible to reestablish the status quo-- including..."

Cardip broke off and looked at me with a pained expression.

"Including what?" I asked irritably. "Don't tell me you are straying onto a classified topic."

"No," he said. "I just hate talking about it-- or even thinking about it. Including the use of L-80 proximity bombs directed at the Seychelles herself ."

This caught me by surprise. "The Seychelles?" I sputtered. "They know about us?"

"Of course," Cardip said with an indifferent cough. "They always have, you know. We've avoided trouble by playing hide and seek. Our crew simply punches the ship into ultra drive and makes random turns on our way to any particular destination. The feds can't catch us that way, but they often can guess our general location."

"But they can't just detonate L-80 proximity bombs. I've read about them. Not bombs, really; a field, rather, which when activated, appears anywhere in the galaxy, instantly destroying all matter within one to two parsecs. And the aim is haywire. To get us, they'd have to risk punching holes through shipping lanes and knocking out worlds and worldlets all over the galaxy."

Cardip shrugged and smiled wryly. "Drastic circumstances require drastic measures," he said simply. "Which would you rather have: a calculated risk or a madman doing the unexpected? I'll answer for you: you'd pick the known evil over the unknown, and you'd be right. Just as the feds would be right in destroying us."

"Destroy us?" I gasped. Yet I knew exactly what Harry Cardip meant. One does much to trust a government duly elected. A dictatorship? Never. Revolutionaries? They could be trusted in troubled times, reluctantly. But who could be trusted with such power? Nobody. That was the problem since the first atom bomb.

Cardip seemed to have read my thoughts. "The feds should have destroyed the P-657's centuries ago. They preferred instead to parade those hideous engines of destruction around for political purposes, underscoring the glorious achievements of the Federation. I honestly believe that in recent times they have all but forgotten that those lethal machines are weapons. The ships became more like symbols of technological accomplishment. Now I believe the feds have finally seen them for what they are and regret very much that they exist-- as I do."

"But this is our chance!" I shouted. "We can at least destroy one of them. Pack it full of explosives. You can publicize the event. The galaxy made safer-- and all in the name of the Antigovernmental Agency of Sovereign Worlds!"

"I can't."

"What?" I thought he must not have been listening. "Why the hell not?"

"Because George Seek will not surrender the ship. He's giving the feds all kinds of ultimatums and threatening to blow up half the galaxy-- all, as you say, in our name."

(Friend, kindly open file CHAPTER3AND4 on disk, PLANET MASTER to continue this fascinating narrative.)