When Jirik convened the crew meeting at midnight, he was exhausted. From their appearance, the rest of the crew were in little better shape. Valt was evidently drunk again. Several new cuts and bruises indicated that he'd had an eventful evening. Bran was looking haggard and drawn. It had been a very long day in high gravity for him. Only Tor appeared to be his usual voluble self. Jirik had stopped in his quarters on his way to the mess decks to change his tattered and stained clothing, and he knew what he looked like.
Various cuts adorned his face. A large bruise on his cheek highlighted what was going to be a colorful black eye. The eye itself was already swollen half-shut. A variety of aches and pains did nothing to improve his already sour disposition. He decided that there had to be a better way to get Tomys his information. Jirik put a fresh memory crystal in the log recorder and called the meeting to order.
"All Right, let's get to it. I know that we all want to hit the rack, so let's make this short and sweet. What looked easy this afternoon wasn't easy after all. Tomorrow, This morning, actually, I'm going to give us a little break. Work will start at 0900 instead of 0700."
"I think that we can all use the extra rest, especially with this damned gravity pulling at us. I will have to have one volunteer get up early to meet the repair crew at 0700."
"Let me do it, Captain." It was Tor, of course, eager to prove himself. "I can do it. I'll meet them, and escort them to Engineering, and then I'll stay with them until Bran gets there."
"I'll do it, Captain," Bran put in wearily. "They'll have the old bitch down around our ears if I don't watch them."
"No, Bran," Jirik replied, "Tor can handle it; and if he can't, we'd better find out now. You're worn out. If you get completely exhausted, you'll be useless to us just when we need you the most. You'll have to check out their work after they've finished, and before we sign it off as completed."
Bran started to interrupt, but Jirik held up his hand. "No arguments, Bran. You know I'm right, and we're all just too damned tired to argue about it. I'm ordering you to sleep in tomorrow morning. If you show up in Engineering before 0900, you're going to be in deep dreck!"
"Now, to business," Jirik continued firmly, "Tor, did you talk to anyone, find out anything interesting?"
Tor was flushed with pride at the responsibility Jirik had given him a moment ago. "Y-Y-Yessir! I went over to the University and hung around with some of the students over there. They sure got excited that we might bring back a load of bookchips. Everybody wanted to talk about it."
A puzzled look came over his face. "One thing, though, everybody seemed mostly to want technical and scientific books, and lots of political stuff. I don't understand it. I can understand them wanting technical and scientific stuff, but it seems weird that college kids on a rim planet would be so interested in politics. It seems that a lot of them are what they call 'Actionists'. I never heard of that party before." Jirik was amused at how Tor's usual stammering and stuttering disappeared when he forgot his self-consciousness.
'"Actionists', huh?" Jirik said in a thoughtful tone, "I came across that name, too. Did they tell you anything about themselves?"
"Well, that's kinda funny, too," Tor replied. "They kept saying that they were gonna make sure that man was ready for the fall of the Empire. That's kinda silly, isn't it? I mean, the Empire covers thousands of star systems and millions of planets. Why should it fall?"
Jirik continued to draw Tor out. "Yeah, well, I heard that stuff, too. What did your friends say about it?"
"They said that the Empire was gonna fall within 200 years, and that mankind had to be ready. One of 'em said something about 'When we take over', but one of the others kicked him to shut him up, and said that he was just joking."
Tor shrugged. "I got the feeling that they didn't want to talk to an outworlder about something. The last thing I wanted was trouble, so I didn't push it. Anyway, it seems to me that there's a lot of enthusiasm about us bringing a load of books out here. I mentioned that we could be talking about millions of chips, but the main idea seemed to be 'the more the better'. They said that even if Boondock by itself couldn't afford them, some other planets in the sector would be willing to either buy them or help Boondock buy them. I guess the planets in this sector cooperate a lot, help each other out."
"Good," Jirik replied. "You've done well." he stifled a grin at Tor's flush of pleasure. His incipient grin vanished as he turned disgustedly to Valt. "How about you, Valt? Did you find out anything useful before you got flashed?"
Valt's bloodshot eyes labored to focus as he looked up dully. "Whaddaya want from me? I told you these groundhogs don' wanna talk about anything but politics. I don't think they give a crap about books. It's 'Atmos this' and 'when we take over, that'. Imagine these groundhogs thinkin' they're gonna take over the Alliance! They're a buncha nuts."
Jirik was carefully casual. "Take over the Alliance? What the hell do you mean?"
Valt snorted disgustedly. "Thass what I mean! Couple a them nuts gimme this bull about how they was gonna take control of the Gov'ment of Boondock, and then some other places. After they got eight or nine systems under 'em, they said they was gonna take over the Alliance, so that as the Empire abandoned systems, they could move in an' save 'em. See what I mean? Nuts!"
Jirik and Bran exchanged significant glances. So that was it! That was why a Class I agent was hanging around. These people were planning to take over the Alliance, presumably by force. They hadn't a hope in hell of converting all of the populations of a hundred and fifty-odd planets to "Atmosism".
Jirik sighed. It was obvious that he and Bran would have to postpone sleeping until they got some things figured out! In the meantime, he would have to carry out the rest of the charade for Tor and Valt.
"Okay, Valt, good job. Keep it up. Anything you hear, no matter how crazy it sounds, may turn out to be information that we can use. Bran, how about you?"
"Well, I went back to the bookstore I visited yesterday," Bran replied, "I figured that they might talk more freely with me. I did find out that there is no single union of booksellers who could buy a cargo. There is a bookseller's organization, but I gather that it's more social than economic. Unlike everybody else, the dealer I talked with wasn't pleased with our idea. I gather that he felt that a cargo of several million bookchips would severely depress the market. The size of the cargo is the only objection he had, however. He suggested that we consider breaking the cargo down among eight or nine of the rim worlds, with each taking a piece. He did seem to feel that the bookseller's organization could put together a cooperative offer with the organizations of the other rim worlds, but we would have to deliver a part of the cargo to each of the participating worlds." Bran sighed doubtfully. "It doesn't sound too good to me, Captain. Unless the Library can come up with something better, I don't think I can recommend the deal."
"Well," Jirik replied, "We'll find out about that tomorrow. I didn't learn anything fantastic either. Everybody gets excited about having the books, but they all seem to be obsessed with politics. Well, we'll just have to keep listening and keep thinking. If a cargo of books won't do it, maybe something else will. Market information is valuable. Meanwhile, let's all turn in and get a good night's sleep. We're going to be busy, all of us." He looked meaningfully at Valt. "Let's go, get the hell out of here!"
As Tor and Valt filed out of the compartment, Jirik signed to Bran to remain, and turned off the log recorder. They had a lot to discuss. As the others' footsteps in the passage outside faded, Jirik sighed deeply and turned to Bran.