“That’s been postponed, too,” Stetson said. “She sends her regrets. There’s a visocube in that stuff on the cart—her regrets, her love and all of that, but she hopes you’ll understand the purpose of her sudden departure.”
Orne’s voice came out in a growclass="underline" “What purpose?”
“The purpose of getting her out of your hair. You’re leaving for Amel in six days, not in six months, and there’s a mountain of preparation before you’re ready to go.”
“You’d better explain a little more about Diana.”
“She knows she would have wasted your time, distracted you, diverted attention which you absolutely require now. She’s off to Franchi Primus to deliver some important personal information explaining to the Nathian underground there why they no longer are underground and why their handpicked candidate had to withdraw from the election so abruptly. She’s perfectly safe and you can get married when you return from Amel.”
“Provided you don’t dream up some new emergency,” Orne snarled.
“You’re the ones who took the I-A oath,” Stetson said. “She takes her orders just like the rest of us.”
“Oh, this I-A is real fun,” Orne growled. “I must recommend it whenever I find a likely young fellow looking for a job!”
“Amel, remember?” Stetson asked.
“But why so sudden?”
“Amel… well, Lew, Amel isn’t quite the picnic ground you may have imagined.”
“Not the… but it is the place for advanced psi training. You put through my application, didn’t you?”
“Lew, that’s not quite the way it works.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t apply to Amel, you are summoned.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s only one way to go there if you’re not on the approved list, a graduate or priest or some such. That’s as a student—summoned.”
“And I’ve been summoned?”
“Yes.”
“What if I refuse to go as a student?”
Hard lines formed beside Stetson’s mouth. “You took an oath to the I-A. Do you remember it?”
“I’m going to rewrite that oath,” Orne growled. “To the words ‘I pledge my life and my sacred honor to seek out and destroy the seeds of war wherever they may be found’ let us add: ‘and I will sacrifice anything and anybody in the process.’”
“Not a bad addition,” Stetson said. “Why don’t you propose it when you get back?”
“If I get back!”
“Granted there’s always that possibility,” Stetson said. “But you have been summoned and the I-A wants desperately for you to accept.”
“So that’s why none of you questioned my request.”
“That’s part of it. Our Psi Branch confirmed that you were a genuine talent… and we had our hopes raised. We want someone of your caliber on Amel.”
“Why? What’s the I-A’s interest in Amel? Never been a war anywhere near the place. The big shots are always afraid of offending their gods.”
“Or their priests.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone having trouble getting to Amel,” Orne said.
“We’ve always had trouble.”
“The I-A?”
“Yes.”
“But our Psi Branch technicians were trained there.”
“They are assigned to us out of Amel at Amel’s insistence, not at ours. We’ve never been able to send a genuine investigative agent, trustworthy and dedicated, to Amel.”
“You think the priests are cooking up something?”
“If they are, we’re in trouble. How do we handle psi powers? What do we do to confine someone like that guy on Wessel who can jump to any planet in the universe without a ship? How do we deal with a man who can remove our instruments from within his flesh and without making an incision?”
“So you know about that, eh?”
“When our transceiver stopped giving us the noises of your surroundings and started giving us fish-gurgles, yes, we knew,” Stetson said. “How’d you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And maybe you’re telling me the truth,” Stetson said.
“I just wished for it to happen,” Orne said.
“You just wished! Maybe that’s why you’re going to Amel.”
Orne nodded, dazzled by this thought. “It could be.” But he still felt the premonition, not focused on the cart now, but going beyond it to Amel. “Are you sure it’s me they’ve summoned?”
“We’re sure and we’re anxious.”
“You haven’t explained that, Stet.”
Stetson sighed. “Lew, we just had confirmation on it this morning: At the next session of the Assembly there’s going to be a motion to do away with the I-A, turning all of its functions over to Rediscovery & Reeducation.”
“Oh, you must be joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Under Tyler Gemine and his Rah-Rah boys?”
“None other.”
“Why… that political hack! Half our problems come from Rah-Rah stupidities. They’ve damn near bumbled us into another Rim War dozens of times. I thought Gemine was our target number one for removal from office.”
“Mmmmm, hmmmm,” Stetson agreed. “And at the next Assembly session, less than five months away now, this motion will come up and it has the full support of Amel’s priesthood.”
“All of the priesthood?”
“All of it.”
“But that’s asinine! I mean, look at the…”
“Do you have any doubts that religious heat can carry this motion through?” Stetson asked.
Orne shook his head. “But there are thousands of religious sects on Amel… millions, maybe. The Ecumenical Truce doesn’t allow for…”
“The Truce doesn’t say anything about not gunning for the I-A,” Stetson said.
“But it doesn’t fit, Stet. If the priests are after us, why would they invite me as a student at the same time?”
“Now you see why we’re so anxious,” Stetson said. “Nobody—repeat: nobody!—has ever before been able to put an agent onto Amel. Not the I-A. Not the old Marakian Secret Service. Not even the Nathians. All attempts have been met with polite ejection. No agent has ever gone farther than twenty meters from his landing site.”
“What’s on that cart you brought?” Orne asked.
“All of the stuff you were supposed to study for the next six months. You have six days.”
“What provisions will there be for getting me off if Amel goes sour?”
“None.”
Orne stared at him incredulously. “None?”
“Our best information indicates that your training on Amel—they call it ‘The Ordeal’—takes about six months. If there’s no word from you within that limit, we’ll make inquiries.”
“Like: ‘What’ve you done with his body?’” Orne snarled. “Hell! There might not even be an I-A to make inquiry in six months!”
“There will, at least, be some concerned citizens, your friends.”
“The friends who sent me in there!”
“I’m sure you see the necessity. Diana saw it.”
“She knows all this?”
“Yes. She cried, but she saw the necessity and she went to Franchi Primus as ordered.”
“I’m your last resort, eh?”
Stetson nodded. “We have to find out why the center of all religions has turned against us. We haven’t a prayer, if you’ll excuse the reference, of going in there and subduing them. We might try it, but it’d start religious uprisings all through the federation. Make the Rim Wars look like a game of ball at a girls’ school.”
“But you haven’t ruled that out?”
“Of course not. But I’m not certain we could get enough volunteers to do the job. We never qualify personnel by religion. But I’m damned sure they qualify us if we made a move against Amel. That’s touchy ground, Lew. No, we have to find out why! Maybe we can change whatever’s bothering them. It’s our only hope. Maybe they don’t understand our…”