268 move away from him. Almost half of the sofa was now unoccupied.
“And then everything started to happen at once. Did you know that Terran
Security sent two of its agents to interview me?”
“No, but I guessed it. What did you tell them?”
“Everything, of course. They were very kind and understanding.”
“And also clumsy,” said Duncan with deep bitterness.
“Oh, Duncan, that was an accident! You were an important guest-you had to be protected. There would have been an interplanetary scandal if something had happened just before you were going to address Congress. But you should never have gone after Karl, in such a dangerous place.”
“It wasn’t dangerous-we were having a perfectly friendly discussion. How did I know that trigger happy idiot was lurking in the next antenna?”
“What was he to do? He’d been ordered to protect you at all costs, and had been warned that Karl might be violent. It looked as if you were starting to fight and that laser blast would only have blinded Karl for a few hours.
It was all a terrible accident. No one was to blame.”
Perhaps, thought Duncan; it would be a long, long time before he could view the whole sequence of events dispassionately. If there was blame, it was spread thinly, and across two worlds. Like most human tragedies, this one had been caused not by evil intentions, but by errors of judgment, misunderstandings…. If Malcolm and Colin had not insisted that he have a showdown with Karl, confronting him with the facts… if he had not wanted Karl to prove his innocence, and deliberately given him the opportunity to assert it, even to the extent-unconsciously, but he was aware of it now-of putting himself in his power… Perhaps Karl had been really dangerous; that was something else he would never know.
It seemed as if they had both been enmeshed in some complex web of fate
from which there had never been any possibility of escape. And though the scale of that disaster was so much greater that the very comparison appeared ludicrous, Duncan was again reminded of the Titanic. She too had been doomed, as if the gods themselves conspired against her, by a whole series of apparently random and trivial chances. If the radioed warnings had not been buried under greetings and business messages… If that iceberg had not sliced so incredibly through all those watertight compartments… If the radio operator on the ship only twenty kilometers away had not gone off duty when the first of all
SOS signals was flashed into the Atlantic night… If there had been enough lifeboats … It was like the failure of a whole series of safety devices, one by one, against incalculable odds, until catastrophe was inevitable.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Duncan, trying to console himself as much as
Calindy. “I don’t really blame anyone. Not even Karl.”
“Poor Karl. He really loved me. To have come all the way to Earth..
.”
Duncan did not answer, though for a moment he was tempted. Surely Calindy did not believe that this was the only reason! Even a brain-burned man, imprinted by one of those diabolical joy machines, was driven by more than passion. And Karl’s main objective had been so awesome that, even now,
Duncan could scarcely believe the picture that was slowly emerging from his sketchbook and the guarded portions of his Minisec.
Karl had had a dream-or a nightmare-and Duncan was the only man alive who even partially understood it. How utterly baffled and bewildered the Argus
Committee must be! That thought gave Duncan a heady sense of power, though there were times when he wished that the burden of knowledge had reached him in some other way, or had not come at all…. For power and happiness were incompatible. Karl had reached for both, and both had
slipped through his fingers. How Duncan could profit by the lesson he did not yet know; but it would be with him for all the years to come.
But if happiness was perhaps unattainable, at least pleasure was not beyond his grasp, nor was it to be despised. For a few moments he could forget the affairs of state and turn his back upon an enigma far more profound than any of those that Calindy peddled to her clients.
It was strange how the wheel had gone full circle. Fifteen years ago, he and Karl had turned to each other in shared sorrow for the loss of Calindy.
Now he and Calindy were mourning Karl.
And presently Duncan knew, though it could be only a faint shadow of that unassuageable hunger, something of the disappointment Karl must have experienced. How true it was that one could never quite recover the past…. It was almost as good as he had hoped, but one thing was lacking.
Calindy no longer tasted of honey.
ARGUS PANOPTES
So they had the wrong Argus. If this were a time for humor, Duncan would have felt like laughing.
Colin had put him on the track, with one of his usual economical Telexes.
It should not have been necessary to go all the way to Titan to check such an elementary point.
WHICH ARGUS DO YOU MEAN? Colin had asked.
THERE WERE THREE.
A couple of minutes with the Comsole’s ENCYCLOPEDIA section had confirmed this. As Ambassador Farrell had recalled, Argus was indeed
Odysseus’ faithful old watchdog, who had recognized his master when the wanderer returned from exile. The name was certainly appropriate for a secret intelligence organization, though now that Duncan had started making inquiries, it turned out that the Argus Committee was not as secret as it might have wished. Bernie Patras (needless to say) had heard of it; so had
George Washington, who admitted with some embarrassment: “Of course they’ve asked me questions. But there’s nothing to worry about.”
Ivor Mandel’stahm had been more forthcoming even a little sarcastic.
“I’m used to secrecy in my business, and I could teach these people a thing or two. They wouldn’t have lasted five minutes under Stalin-or even the old czars. But I suppose they’re necessary. Society will always need some warning system to spot malcontents before they can cause real trouble. I only doubt if any system will really work, when it’s needed.”
The second Argus, had been the builder of Jason’s mythical—or perhaps not so mythical-ship, the Argo. Duncan had never heard of the Golden Fleece, and the legend fascinated him. Argo would be a good name for a spaceship, he thought; but even this association had nothing to do with Karl Helmees notes.
He wondered how Karl had ever come across the third Argus; his inquisitive mind had wandered down many byways of fantasy as well as science. And now that he had the key, Duncan understood why the project that had clearly dominated Karl’s later years could have only one name-that of the all-seeing, multiple-eyed god, Argus Panoptes, who could look in every direction simultaneously. Unlike poor Cyclops, who had only a single line of vision … There had been a delay of almost thirty hours before the legal computer on
Titan could probate Karl’s will. Then Armand Helmer reported that, as
Duncan had hoped, it contained a list of obvious code words -presumably the keys to the Minisec’s private memories.
Armand had been perfectly willing to Telex the codes, and Duncan had
stopped him just in time. 272 Thanks to recent experience, the naive young Makenzie who had arrived on
Earth only a few weeks ago had now developed a mild paranoia. He hoped that it would not become obsessive, as sometimes seemed to be the case with
Colin. Yet perhaps Colin was right…. Not until the Argus Committee had, with some reluctance, handed over Karl’s
Minisec did Duncan allow Axmand to radio the codes from Titan. Now it would not matter even if they were intercepted. He alone could use them.