“Now I know you’re out of your head. I never said a word about granting concessions to them, I told you to let them know that if they weren’t off this planet by my deadline I’d be compelled to destroy them. Not a syllable about concessions. And—”
“I beg to contradict you, sir, but—”
Sighing, Wharton rang for his orderly. A moment later the man stuck his head in the door. Wharton said, “Rogers, take Captain Breckenridge to the infirmary and have him detained for a psychiatric examination. And send Smithson to me.”
Smithson entered a few minutes afterward. The enlisted man stood diffidently near the door.
Wharton said, “Tell me exactly what transpired between Captain Breckenridge and the aliens.”
Smithson shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t, colonel. I didn’t go into the alien ship. Captain Breckenridge wanted me to wait outside in the sled.”
Keeping his voice tight, Wharton said: “Oh. In that case you can’t help me, Smithson. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wharton waited until the door closed, and put his head in his hands. His shoulders slumped wearily.
He hadn’t given Breckenridge any instructions to parley. Yet the linguist swore up and down that he had. What would make a solid man like Breckenridge snap like that?
Wharton shook his head. They told stories about the Halivanu, vague stories of vaguer mental powers. But that stuff was—Breckenridge himself had put a name to it—jetwash, Wharton was certain of it. In his time he had seen too many legends fade like the dreams they were to be taken in by anything new. Imaginative spacemen always attributed mystical powers to little-known races, but such attributions had to be discounted pretty near to one hundred per cent.
Drawing in his breath sharply, Wharton jabbed down on his call-button. The orderly appeared.
“Send me Lieutenant Crosley, quick-quick.”
Crosley arrived five minutes later. It was nearly night now. The lieutenant looked paler, less relaxed than ever. He was a recent Academy product, not much past thirty.
Leaning forward, Wharton said, “We’ve got some complications, lieutenant. Incidentally, I’m making a tape recording of this conversation.”
Crosley nodded. “Complications, sir?”
“I sent Breckenridge to the aliens with an ultimatum this afternoon. I wanted him to tell them they had three hours to get off the planet, or I’d open fire. But instead he granted them permission to stay here until they finished their observations, and now he claims he said so on my authority.”
“I wondered why he was taken to psych ward.”
“Now you know. I don’t pretend to understand why he cracked up, Crosley, but I do know we’ve got. to send another man to the Halivanu right away, withdrawing Breckenridge’s permission and telling them to get moving,”
“Of course, sir.”
“I’d like you to go, Crosley. Right now. Take one of the enlisted men with you, and make sure you both go into the Halivanu ship. Tell them that the previous messenger was unauthorized, that you’re the authorized messenger, that if they don’t blast off by sunrise we’ll be farced to let them have it.”
Crosley looked a little paler, but he remained steady. “I’ll leave right away, sir.”
“Before you go: repeat the message you’re bearing,”
Crosley repeated it.
“You won’t attempt to negotiate with them, lieutenant. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll deliver the ultimatum and leave. It isn’t essential that you wait around for an answer. If they’re still here by morning, we’ll blast them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You understand what I’m saying now? You won’t tell me later that I authorized you to negotiate?”
Crosley smiled. “Of course not, sir.”
“Get going, then.”
The hours passed. Taps sounded, but Wharton remained awake, pacing his office uneasily. Starlight, bright in the moonless dark, filtered through his windows. Wharton clenched his fists and stared out into the night.
He pitied Breckenridge. It was a hellish thing to lose your grip on actuality. To maintain that something is true when it’s flatly false. The psych tests had shown nothing; Breckenridge firmly and positively believed that he had been instructed to parley. Schizophrenia, the psych officer said. But schizophrenia wasn’t something a person got suddenly, like a twisted ankle, was it? It was a slowly building pattern of action and belief. And Breckenridge had always seemed one of the most stable men of all.
Inescapably Wharton came to the conclusion that the Halivanu had done something to him. But Breckenridge said they hadn’t, and the EEG tests revealed no hint of recent drugging or hypnosis. Not that the EEG was necessarily infallible—
Wharton glowered at his faint reflection in the window. He was certain the Halivanu had no mysterious powers. They were just another isolationist race, bent on their own destinies and aloof from the rest of the universe. That was no reason for crediting them with magical abilities.
A light glimmered outside. Wharton heard the roar of the jetsled. Crosley was returning.
Impatiently, Wharton dashed outside. The night air was clear, cold, tangy, Crosley and his driver, an enlisted man named Rodriguez, were getting out of the sled.
They saluted when they saw him. Returning the salute with a shaky arm, Wharton said, “Did you run into any trouble?”
“No, sir. But we didn’t find him, either,” Crosley replied. “We searched for hours, but—”
“What in the name of the cosmos are you babbling about?” Wharton demanded in a choked voice, “You didn’t find whom?”
“Why, Breckenridge, of course,” Crosley said. He exchanged a puzzled glance with Rodriguez. “We traveled in wide circles just as you said, until—”
Wharton felt dizzy, “What’s this about looking for Breckenridge?”
“Didn’t you send us out to look for him? He got lost in the plains coming back from his trip to the alien ship, and we were ordered to look for him. Sir? Sir, are you feeling all right?”
Cold fingers seemed to be encircling Wharton’s heart. “Come inside with me, lieutenant. You too, Rodriguez.”
He led them into his office and played for them the tape he had made of his conversation with Crosley earlier. The two men listened in growing confusion.
When the tape had run its course, Wharton said, “Do you still maintain that I sent you out to look for Breckenridge?”
“But… yes—”
“Breckenridge is asleep in the infirmary. He was never lost. He came back hours ago. I sent you out to deliver an ultimatum. Didn’t you recognize your own voice, Crosley?”
“It sounded like me, yes. But … I don’t remember… that is—”
Further questioning led down the same dead end. The tape transcript only bewildered Crosley. He grew paler and paler. He was certain they had merely traveled in wide circles looking for Breckenridge, and Rodriguez backed him up on that. Even when Wharton assured him that he had watched their path on the radar, and they had gone direct to the Halivanu ship and returned straightaway, they shook their heads.
“We never went near that ship, sir. Our orders—”
“All right, lieutenant. Go to bed. You too, Rodriguez. Maybe in the morning you’ll have better memories.”
Wharton could not sleep. First Breckenridge, then Crosley and Rodriguez, all of them returning from the Halivanu ship with insane stories. The first cracks began to appear in Wharton’s self-confidence. Maybe there was something in those spacehounds’ tales of the Halivanu.