Dr. Urth paused a moment for breath and-Davenport thought-for dramatic effect.
“Now I come to the point of all this. The insidious parasite Agrobacter causes a tumorous swelling-a crown gall.” Dr. Urth’s voice rose in wrath. “Can you imagine? That nasty procedure was Flammersfeld’s elaborate way of fitting his poor little intelligent hybrid King Cole with a crown!”
Davenport gazed upon the image, saw only a rotted cabbage, and tried to picture it as it had been in life-a being with reasoning power, and therefore memory and foresight; with feelings, and therefore the need to love and hate. It would have been mostly head, the face framed in leaves. He shivered. For a flash he visualized its round face superimposed upon Dr. Urth’s round face, another bud of Buddha. He glanced at Dr. Urth.
Dr. Urth looked melancholy. It hit Davenport that Dr. Urth had been a child prodigy. Dr. Urth would have fellow feeling for freaks of any kind. Dr. Urth must have felt his look and sensed his thoughts, for Dr. Urth met his gaze and smiled sadly.
“We all-ourselves and our matrix-are interference patterns. So it comes natural to think of crossing this with that. It’s the nature of the beast-meaning the universe. All in all, it’s just as well Flammersfeld and his creature died when they did-if not as they did. We humans need a minimum of levity; there can be too much gravity. But Flammersfeld went too far, interfered too much.” His brow darkened. “ And meant to go on interfering. Remember his last requisition-for swine embryo and eagle eggs? And remember the line from Lewis Carroll-’whether pigs have wings’? We humans need a minimum amount of gravity; there can be too much levity.” His face closed. “That’s it, then.”
Davenport put the holograms away and got up to go. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Urth.”
Dr. Urth waved that away. He bounced to his feet and shook hands.
His voice halted Davenport on the threshold. “Inspector.”
Davenport turned around. “Yes, Dr. Urth?”
“About my fee…”
Davenport smiled. “I wondered when that would come.”
“Now you know. It comes now. A few trifles.”
“You know I’ll do my best. They are?”
“First, two bits of information to satisfy my curiosity. When you get back to New Washington, kindly stop by Near-earth, Ltd., and retrieve the file on Terrarium Nine. See if you can find out from Flammersfeld’s requisitions, and other documents, the genetic history of the cabbage and of the hemophiliac blood.” He smiled. “I’ve a mind bet that the cabbage was a savoy cabbage and that the blood came from a descendant of the House of Savoy.”
Davenport blinked. “Savoy? Why would Flammersfeld have specified savoy cabbage and Savoy blood?”
“For the same reason that impelled James Joyce to frame a view of Cork in cork-the sense of fitness.”
Davenport thought about that, then shook his head.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, the sense of fitness can carryover into madness.”
Dr. Urth hooded his mouth with a pudgy hand. “You take my point so exactly that I almost hesitate to name the balance of my fee.”
Davenport eyed him warily but felt compelled to say, “Name it.”
“Arrange for the researcher who has taken over Terrarium Nine to cross tortoise with cricket.”
Davenport tried to imagine what that would look like. “What on earth for?”
“So when I lose my eyeglasses a frame made of the shell will lead me to them-by the chirp.”
Trantor Falls
by Harry Turtledove
The imperial palace stood at the center of a hundred square miles of greenery. In normal times, even in abnormal times, such insulation was plenty to shield the chief occupant of the palace from the hurly-burly of the rest of the metaled world of Trantor.
Times now, though, were not normal, nor even to be described by so mild a word as “abnormal.” They were disastrous. Along with magnolias and roses, missile launchers had flowered in the gardens. Even inside the palace, Dagobert VIII could hear the muted snarl. Worse, though, was the fear that came with it.
A soldier burst into the command post where the Emperor of the Galaxy and his officers still groped for ways to beat back Gilmer’s latest onslaught. Without so much as a salute, the man gasped out, “ Another successful landing, sire, this one in the Nevrask sector.”
Dagobert’s worried gaze flashed to the map table. “Too close, too close,” he muttered. “How does the cursed bandit gain so fast?”
One of the Emperor’s marshals speared the messenger with his eyes. “How did they force a landing there? Nevrask is heavily garrisoned.” The soldier stood mute. “ Answer me!” the marshal barked.
The man gulped, hesitated, at last replied, “Some of the troops fled, Marshal Rodak, sir, when Gilmer’s men landed. Others” He paused again, nervously licking his lips, but had to finish: “Others have gone over to the rebel, sir.”
“More treason!” Dagobert groaned. “Will none fight to defend me?”
The only civilian in the room spoke then: “Men will fight, sire, when they have a cause they think worth fighting for. The University has held against Gilmer for four days now. We shall not yield it to him.”
“By the space fiend, Dr. Sarns, I’m grateful to your students, yes, and proud of them too,” Dagobert said. “They’ve put up a braver battle than most of my troopers. “
Yokim Sarns politely dipped his head. Marshal Rodak, however, grasped what his sovereign had missed. “Majesty, they’re fighting for themselves and their buildings, not for you,” he said. Even as he spoke, another sector of the map shone in front of him and Dagobert went from blue to red: red for the blood Gilmer was spilling allover Trantor, Sarns thought bitterly.
“Have we no hope, then?” asked the Emperor of the Galaxy.
“Of victory? None.” Rodak’s military assessment was quick and definite. “Of escape, perhaps fighting again, yes. Our air- and spacecraft still hold the corridor above the palace. With a landing at Nevrask, though, Gilmer will soon be able to bring missiles to bear on it-and on us.”
“Better to flee than to fall into that monster’s clutches,” Dagobert said, shuddering. He looked at the map again. “I am sure you have an evacuation plan ready. Implement it, and quickly.”
“Aye, sire.” The marshal spoke into a throat mike. The Emperor turned to Yokim Sarns. “Will you come with us, professor? Trantor under Gilmer’s boots will be no place for scholars.”
“‘Thank you, sire, but no.” As Sarns shook his head, strands of mouse-brown hair, worn unfashionably long, swirled around his ears. “My place is at the University, with my faculty and students.”
“Well said,” Marshal Rodak murmured, too softly for Dagobert to hear.
But the Emperor, it seemed, still had one imperial gesture left in him. Turning to Rodak, he said, “If Dr. Sarns wishes to return to the University, return he shall. Detail an aircar at once, while he has some hope of getting there in safety. “
“Aye, sire, “ the marshal said again. He held out a hand to Yokim Sarns. “ And good luck to you. I think you’ll need it.”
By the time the aircar pilot neared the University grounds, Yokim Sarns was a delicate shade of green. The pilot had flown meters-sometimes centimeters-above Trantor’s steel roof, and jinked like a wild thing to confuse the rebels’ targeting computers.
The car slammed down on top of the library. Dr. Sarns’s teeth met with an audible click. The pilot threw open the exit hatch. Sarns pulled himself together. “Er-thank you very much,” he told the pilot, unbuckling his safety harness.
“Just get out, get under cover, and let me lift off,” she snapped. Sarns scrambled away from the aircar toward an entrance. The wash of wind as the car sped away nearly knocked him off his feet.
The door opened. Two people in helmets dashed out and dragged Sarns inside. “How do we fare here?” he asked.
“Our next few graduating classes are getting thinned out,” Maryan Drabel answered somberly. Till Gilmer’s revolt, she had been head librarian. Now, Sarns supposed, chief of staff best summed up her job. “We’re still holding, though-we pushed them out of Dormitory Seven again a few minutes ago. “