Spangler had an instant's vision of what it would be like if the whole thing were to stop: the miles of empty corridors, the darkness, the drifting dust, the slow invasion of insects. The dead weight of the Hill, bearing invisibly down upon you, the terrible, unsentient weight of a corpse.
Swallowing bile, he put his hand over the doorplate.
There was a long pause before the door slid open. Pembun, in underblouse and pantaloons, blinked at him as if he had been asleep. "Oh—Commissioner Spangler. Come awn in."
Spangler said hesitantly, "I'm disturbing you, I'm afraid. It isn't anything urgent; I'll talk with you tomorrow."
"No, please do come in, Commissioner. I'm glad you came. I was getting a little morbid, sitting 'ere by myself."
He closed the door behind Spangler. "Drink? I've still got 'alf the w'iskey left, and all the soda."
The thought of a drink made Spangler's stomach crawl. He refused it and sat down.
On the table beside the recliner were several sheets of paper and an ornate old-fashioned electro-pen.
"I was jus' writing a letter to my wife," Pembun said, following his glance. "Or trying to." He smiled. "I can't tell 'er anything important without violating security, and I know I'll prob'ly get back to Ganymede before a letter would, after the embargo is lifted, any'ow, so there rilly wasn' much sense to it. It was jus' something to do."
Spangler nodded. "It's a pity we can't let you leave the Hill just now. But there's an amusement section right here, you know—cinemas, autochess, dream rooms, baths—"
Pembun shook his head, still smiling. "I wouldn' take any pleasure in those things, Commissioner."
His tone, it seemed to Spangler, was half regretful, half indulgent. No doubt they had other, more vigorous pleasures on Manhaven. Narcotics and mixed bathing would seem to them effete or incomprehensible.
Without knowing what he was about to say, he blurted, "Tell me truthfully, Pembun—do you despise us?"
Pembun's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed, and his whole face subtly congealed. "I try not to," he said quietly. "It's too easy. Did you come 'ere to ask me that, Commissioner?"
Spangler leaned forward, elbows on knees, clasping his hands together, "I think I did," he said. "Forgive my rudeness, Pembun, but I really want to know. What's wrong with us, in your view? What would you change, if you could?"
Pembun said carefully, "W'at would you say was your motive for asking that, Commissioner?"
Spangler glanced up. From this angle, Pembun looked somehow larger, more impressive. Spangler stared at him in a kind of rapture of discovery: the man's face was neither ugly nor ludicrous. The eyes were steady and alive with intelligence; the wide mouth was firm. Even the outsize ears, the heavy cheeks, only gave the face added strength and a curious dignity.
He said, "I want information. I've misjudged you grossly— and I apologize, but that's not enough. I feel that there must be something wrong, with my basic assumptions, with the Empire. I want to know why we failed in the Rithian affair, and you succeeded. I think you can help me, if you will."
He waited.
Pembun said slowly, "Commissioner, I think you 'ave another motive, w'ether you realize it consciously or not. Let me tell it to you, and see if you agree. Did you ever 'ear of pecking precedence in 'ens?"
"No," said Spangler. "By the way call me Spangler, or Thorne, won't you?"
"All right—Thorne. You can cawl me Jawj, if you like. Now, about the 'ens. Say there are twelve in a yard. If you watch them, you'll find out that they 'ave a rigid social 'ierarchy. 'En A gets to peck all the others, 'en B pecks all the others but A, C pecks all but A and B, and so on down to 'en L, 'oo gets pecked by everybody and can't peck anybody back."
"Yes," said Spangler, "I see."
Pembun went on woodenly, "You're 'en B or C in the same kind of a system. There are one or two superiors that lord it over you and you do the same to the rest. Now, usually w'en anybody new comes into the yard, you know right away w'ether it's someone 'oo pecks you or gets pecked. But I'm a different case. I'm a different breed of 'en, and I don't rilly belong in your yard at all, so you try not to peck me excep' w'en I provoke you; it would lower your dignity. That's until you suddenly find that I'm pecking you. Now you've got to fit me into the system above yourself, becawse all this pecking wouldn' be endurable if you got it from both directions. So you came 'ere to say, 'I know you're 'igher in the scale than me, so it's all right. Go a'ead—peck me.' " Spangler stared at him in silence. He was interested to observe that although he felt humiliated, the emotion was not actually unpleasant. It's a species of purge, he thought. It's good for us all to be taken down a peg now and then. "What's more," Pembun said, watching him, "you enjoy it. It's a pleasure to you to kowtow to somebody you think is stronger, especially w'en your status and seniority aren't in any danger. Isn' that true?"
"I won't say you're wrong," Spangler answered, trying to be honest. "I've never heard it expressed just that way before, but it's certainly true that I'm conditioned to accept and exert authority—and you're quite right, I enjoy both acts. It's a necessary state of mind in my profession, or so I've always believed. I suppose it isn't very pretty, looked at objectively."
Pembun started to reach for the whiskey decanter, then drew his hand back. He looked at Spangler with a wry smile. "Wat you don' realize," he said, "is that I get no pleasure out of it. This may be 'ard for you to understand, but it's no fun for me to beat a man 'oo's not trying to 'it me back. This 'ole conversation 'as been unpleasant to me, but I couldn' avoid it. You put me in a position w'ere no matter w'at I said, even if I rifused to talk to you at all, I'd be doing w'at you wanted. And this is the funny part, Commissioner— in making me 'urt your self-esteem, you've 'urt mine twice as bad. I expec' I'll 'ave a bad taste in my mouth for days."
Spangler stood up slowly. He took two deep breaths, but his sudden anger did not subside; it grew. He said carefully, "I don't need to have a mountain fall on me. That's a quaint expression we have, Mr. Pembun—it means that one clear and studied insult is enough."
Suddenly Pembun was just what he had seemed in the beginning: an irritating, dirty-faced, ugly little beast of a colonial. Pembun said, "You see, now you're angry. That's becawse I wouldn' play the pecking game with you."
Spangler said furiously, "Mr. Pembun, I didn't come here for insults, or for barnyard psychology either. I came to ask you for information. If you are so far lost to common civility—" The sentence slipped out of his grasp; he started again: "Perhaps I had better remind you that I'm empowered to demand your help as an official of the Empire."
Pembun said, unruffled, "I'm 'ere to 'elp if I can, Commissioner. W'at was it you wanted, exactly?"
"I asked you," said Spangler, "to tell me what, in your opinion, were the causes of Security and War Department failure in the Rithian case." As Pembun started to speak, he cut in: "Put your remarks on a spool, and have it on my desk in the morning." His voice sounded unnaturally loud in his own ears; it occurred to him with a shock that he had been shouting.
Pembun shook his head sadly, reprovingly. "I'll be glad to— if you put your request in writing, Commissioner."
Spangler clenched his jaw. "You'll get it tomorrow," he said. He turned, opened the door and strode away down the empty corridor. He did not stop to signal for a scooter until he had turned the corner, and Pembun's doorway was out of sight.
He found Joanna in the tower room, lying against a section of the couch that was elevated to form a backrest. The room was filled, choked to bursting by a male voice shouting incomprehensible syllables against a strident orchestral background. Spangler's brain struggled futilely with the words for an instant, then rejected them in disgust. The recording was one of Joanna's period collection, sung in one of the dead languages. German; full of long vowels and fruity sibilants.