It made sense. Kepler was eliminated from the last dive. With his keen insight he might have detected Bubbacub’s trick with the “Lethani relic.” Also his aberrant actions would have helped in the long run to discredit Sundiver.
It hung together, but to Jacob all of these deductions tasted like a dinner of protein-flakes. They were enough to persuade but they had no flavor. A bowl full of suppositions.
Some of Bubbacub’s misdeeds were proven. The rest would have to remain speculation since the Library representative had diplomatic immunity.
Pierre LaRoque joined them. The Frenchman’s attitude was subdued. “What is the verdict, Doctor Laird?”
“It’s quite clear that Mr. LaRoque is not an asocially violent personality and that he does not qualify for Probation,” Laird said slowly. “In fact, he betrays a rather high social conscience* index. That may be part of his problem. He’s apparently sublimating something and he would be well-advised to seek the help of a professional at his neighborhood clinic when he gets home.” Laird looked down at LaRoque sternly. LaRoque merely nodded meekly.
“And the controls?” Jacob asked. He had been the last to take the test. Dr. Kepler, Helene deSilva, and three randomly selected crewmen had also taken their turns at the machine. Helene hadn’t given the test a second thought and had taken the crewmen with her when she left to supervise the hurried pre-launch checkout of the Sunship. Kepler had scowled as Physician Laird read him his own results privately, and stalked off in a huff.
Laird reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, just below the eyebrow.
“Oh, there isn’t a Probationer in the bunch, just as we expected after your little show downstairs. But there are problems and things I don’t quite understand, bubbling in the minds of some of the people here. You know, it’s not easy for a country sawbones like me to have to fall back on his internship training and look into people’s souls. I would have missed half a dozen nuances if Dr. Martine hadn’t helped. As it is, I find it hard to interpret these hidden darknesses, especially of men I know and admire.”
“There’s nothing serious, I hope.”
“If there were you wouldn’t be going on this rush-job dive Helene’s ordered! I’m not grounding Dwayne Kepler because he has a cold!”
Laird shook his head and apologized. “Forgive me. I’m just not used to this. There’s nothing to worry about, Jacob. You had some awfully strange quirks in your test but the basic reading is as sane as any I’ve ever seen. Decidedly positive-sum and realistic.
“Still, there are some things that confuse me. I won’t go into specifics that might cause you more worry than they’re worth while you’re on this dive, I’d just appreciate it if you and Helene would each come and see me when you get back.”
Jacob thanked the man and walked with him, Mar-tine, and LaRoque toward the elevator.
High overhead, the communications pylon pierced the stasis dome. All around them, beyond the men and machines of the chamber, the blistered rocks of Mercury sparkled or shone dully. Sol was an incandescent yellow ball above a low range of hills.
When the elevator car arrived, Martine and Laird entered, but LaRoque’s hand on his arm kept Jacob back until the door had dosed, leaving the two of them alone.
Pierre LaRoque whispered to Jacob.
“I want my camera!”
“Sure, LaRoque. Commandant deSilva disarmed the stunner and you can pick it up any time,now that you’re cleared.”
“And the recording?”
“I’ve got it. I’m holding onto it, too.”
“You have no business…”
“Come off it, LaRoque,” Jacob groaned. “Why don’t you just once cut the act and give someone else credit for some intelligence! I want to know why you were taking sonic pictures of the stasis oscillator in Jeffrey’s ship} And I also want to know what gave you the idea my uncle would be interested in them!”
“I owe you a great deal, Demwa,” LaRoque said slowly. The thick accent was almost gone. “But I have to know if your political views are at all like your uncle’s before I answer you.”
“I have a lot of uncles, LaRoque. Uncle Jeremy is in the Confederacy Assembly, but I know you wouldn’t be working with him! Uncle Juan is pretty, big on theory and very down on illegality… my guess is that you mean Uncle James, the family kook. Oh I agree with him about a lot of things, even some things the rest of the family doesn’t. But if he’s involved in some sort of espionage plot, I’m not going to help to dig him deeper… especially in a plot as clumsy as yours appears to be.
“You may not be a murderer or a Probationer, LaRoque, but you are a spy! The only problem is figuring out who you’re spying for. I’ll save that mystery for when we get back to Earth.
“Then, maybe, you can visit me; you and James can both try to talk me out of turning you in. Fair enough?”
LaRoque nodded curtly.
“I can wait, Demwa. Just don’t you lose the recordings, eh? I have been through the very hell to get them. I want to get that chance to persuade you to hand them over.”
Jacob was looking at the Sun.
“LaRoque, spare me your meanings. You haven’t been to hell… yet.”
He turned away and headed for the elevators. There was time enough for a few hours under a sleep machine. He didn’t want to see anyone until it was time to leave.
PART VII
In all evolution there is no transformation, no “quantum leap,” to compare with this one. Never before has the life-style of a species, its way of adapting, changed so utterly and so swiftly. For some fifteen million years the family of man foraged as animals among animals. The pace of events since then has been explosive… the first farming villages… cities… supermetropolises… all this has been packed into an instant on the evolutionary time scale, a mere 10,000 years.
21. DEJA PENSE
“Have you ever wondered why most of our starships jump out with crews that are seventy percent female?”
Helene handed Jacob the first liquitube of hot coffee and turned back to the machine to punch out another for herself.
Jacob peeled back the outer seal on the semi-permeable membrane, allowing steam to escape while keeping the dark liquid contained. The liquitube was almost too hot to hold, in spite of its insulation.
Trust Helene to think up another provocative topic! Whenever they were alone together, as alone as one could get on the open deck of a Sunship, Helene deSilva had. never missed a chance to engage him in mental gymnastics. The odd thing was that he didn’t mind a bit. The contest had lifted his spirits considerably since they had left Mercury ten Hours before.
“When I was an adolescent, my friends and I never really cared about the reasons. We just thought it was an added bonus for being a male on a starship. ‘Of such thoughts are pubescent fantasies born…’ Who was it who wrote that, John Two-Clouds? Have you ever read anything by him? I think he was born in High London, so you may have known his parents.”
Helene sent him an accusing glare. Jacob had to fight back, for the nth time, a temptation to tell her that the expression was endearing. It was, but what fully-grown female professional wanted to be reminded that she still had dimples? It wasn’t worth getting a broken arm, anyway.
“Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I’ll stay on the subject. I suppose the male-female ratio has to do with the way women respond better to high acceleration, heat and cold… better hand-eye coordination and superior passive strength. That must make them better spacemen, I guess.”