Dalt was impressed. The Nolevatol Rot was the scourge of the interstellar traveler. Superficially, it resembled a mild case of tinea and was self-limiting; however, the fungus produced a neurotoxin with invariably fatal central-nervous-system effects. It was highly contagious and curable only by early discovery and immediate excision of the affected area of skin ... until now.
"That product alone would finance the entire operation of IMC, I imagine."
El shook her head. "Not a chance. I can see you have no idea of the scope of the group. For every trail that pays off, a thousand are followed to a dead end. And they all cost money. One of our most costly fiascoes was Nathan Sebitow."
"Yes, I'd heard he'd quit."
"He was asked to quit. He may be the galaxy's greatest biophysicist but he's dangerous—complete disregard of safety precautions for both himself and his fellow workers. IMC gave him countless warnings but he ignored them all. He was working with some fairly dangerous radiation and so finally his funds were cut off."
"Well, it didn't take him long to find a new home, I imagine."
"No, Kamedon offered him everything he needed to continue his work within days after he supposedly 'quit' IMC."
"Kamedon ... that's the model planet the Restructurists are pouring so much money into."
She nodded. "And Nathan Sebitow is quite a feather in its cap. He should come up with something very exciting—I just hope he doesn't kill anybody with that hard radiation he's fooling around with." She paused, then, "But getting back to the question of knowledge for knowledge's sake: I find the concept unappealing, too. IMC, however, works on the assumption that all knowledge—at least scientific knowledge—will eventually work its way into some scheme of practical value. Existence consists of intra- and extracorporeal phenomena; the more we know about those two groups, the more effective our efforts will be when we wish to remedy certain interactions between them which prove to be detrimental to a given human."
"Spoken like a true behaviorist," Dalt said with a laugh.
"Sorry." She flushed. "I do get carried away now and again. Anyway, you see the distinction I was trying to make."
"I see and agree. It's good to know that I'm not headed for an oversized ivory tower. But why Tolive? I mean, I've—"
"Tolive was chosen for its political and economic climate: a noncoercive government and a large, young work force. The presence of IMC and the ensuing prosperity have stabilized both the government—and I use that term only because you're an outsider—and the economy."
"But I've heard stories about Tolive."
"You mean that it's run by a group of sadists and fascists and anarchists and whatever other unpleasant terms you can dig up, and that if it weren't for the presence of the IMC the planet would quickly degenerate into a hell-hole, right?"
"Well, not quite so bluntly put, perhaps, but that's the impression I've been given. No specific horror stories, just vague warnings. Any of it true?"
"Don't ask me. I was born there and I'm prejudiced. But guess who else was born there, and I think you'll know what's behind the smear campaign."
Dalt pondered a moment, baffled. Pard, with his absolute recall, came to the rescue. ("Peter LaNague was born on Tolive.")
"LaNague!" Dalt blurted in surprise. "Of course!"
El raised her eyebrows. "Good for you. Not too many people remember that fact."
"But you're implying that someone is trying to smear LaNague by smearing his homeworld. That's ridiculous. Who would want to smear the author of the Federation Charter?"
"Why, the people who are trying to alter that charter: the Restructurists, of course. Tolive has been pretty much the way it is today for centuries, long before LaNague's birth and long since his death. Only since the Restructurist movement gained momentum have the rumors and whispers started. It's the beginning of a long-range campaign: you watch—it'll get dirtier. The idea is to smear LaNague's background and thus….
"No, I'm on my way to Neeka. Have to lay over in orbit here to make a connecting jump. Never been down there," he said, nodding at the globe below. "But how come you sound so sure?"
"Because no one from 'down there' would ever say what you said," El replied, and promptly lost interest in the conversation. The portly man paused, shrugged, and then drifted off.
"What was that all about?" Dalt asked. "What did he say that was so un-Tolivian?"
"As I told you before, we have a different way of looking at things. The human race developed on a tiny planet a good many light-years away and devised a technology that allows us to sit in orbit above a once-alien planet and comfortably sip intoxicants while awaiting a ship to take us down. As a member of that race, I assure you, I feel anything but insignificant."
Dalt glanced after the man who had initiated the discussion and noticed him stagger as he walked away. He widened his stance as if to steady himself and stood blinking at nothing, beads of sweat dropping from his face and darkening the blue of his jumper. Suddenly he spun with outstretched arms, and with a face contorted with horror, began to scream incoherently.
El bolted from her seat without a word and dug a microsyringe from her hip pouch as she strode toward the man, who had by now collapsed into a blubbering, whimpering puddle of fear. She placed the ovid device on the skin on the lateral aspect of his neck and squeezed.
"He'll quiet down in a minute," she told a concerned steward as he rushed up. "Send him down to IMC Central on the next shuttle for emergency admission to Section Blue." The steward nodded obediently, relieved that someone seemed to feel that things were under control. And sure enough, by the time two fellow workers had arrived, the portly man was quiet, although still racked with sobs.
"What the hell happened to him?" Dalt asked over El's shoulder as the man was carried to a berth in the rear.
"A bad case of the horrors," she replied. "No, I'm serious."
"So am I. It's been happening all over the human sector of the galaxy, just like that: men, women, all ages; they go into an acute, unremitting psychotic state. They are biochemically normal and usually have unremarkable premorbid medical histories. They've been popping up for the past decade in a completely random fashion and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing we can do about them," she said with a set jaw, and it was obvious that she resented being helpless in any situation, especially a medical one.
Dalt gazed at El and felt the heaviness begin. She was a remarkable woman, very intelligent, very opinionated, and so very much like Jean in appearance; but she was also very mortal. Dalt had resisted the relationship she was obviously trying to initiate and every time he weakened he merely had to recall Jean's hate-contorted face when he had deserted her.
I think we ought to get out of microbiology, he told Pard as his eyes lingered on El.
("And into what?")
How about life prolongation?
("Not that again!")
Yes! Only this time we'll be working at IMC Central with some of the greatest scientific minds in the galaxy.
("The greatest minds in the galaxy have always worked on that problem, and every 'major breakthrough' and 'new hope' has turned out to be a dead end. Human cells reach a certain level of specialization and then lose their ability to reproduce. Under optimum conditions, a century is all they'll last; after that the DNA gets sloppy and consequently the RNA gets even sloppier. What follows is enzyme breakdown, toxic overload, and finally death. Why this happens, no one knows—and that includes me, since my consciousness doesn't reach to the molecular level—and from recent literature, it doesn't seem likely that anyone'll know in the near future.")