He glanced quickly through the conference schedule which Miss Timoney had made up the previous afternoon, then laid it aside and spent the rest of his half-hour in dictating notes to Pembun, Keith-Ingram and Dr. Baustian.
The note to Pembun repeated yesterday's question, word for word.
Keith-Ingram's reported the condition of Colonel Cassina and gave Pembun's analysis of the situation, without comment.
Baustian's requested him to submit, as soon as possible, a reliable procedure for identifying Rithians masquerading as human beings.
Pembun's reply popped into his in-box almost immediately; the man must have prepared it last night and held it ready for Spangler's formal request.
Spangler put the spool viciously into the screen slot and skimmed through it. It was in reasonably good Standard; so good, in fact, that Spangler conceived an instant suspicion that Pembun could speak Standard acceptably when he chose.
The document read, in part:
In my judgment, the most serious weakness of Empire executive personnel is an excessive reliance on prescribed methods and regulations, and inadequate emphasis on original thinking and personal initiative. I am aware that this is in accord with overall policy, which would be difficult if not impossible to alter completely within the framework of the Empire, but it is my feeling that attention should be given to this problem at high policy levels, and efforts made to alter existing conditions if possible.
It is not within my competence to suggest a model of procedure, especially since the problem appears to be partly philosophical in nature. The tendency of Empire executive personnel to interpret regulations and directives in a rigid and literal manner, is in my opinion clearly related to the increasing tendency toward standardization in Home World art, manners, customs and language. In the final category, 1 would cite the obsolescence of all Earth languages except Standard, and in Standard, the gradual elimination of homonyms and, synonyms, as well as the increasing tendency to restrict words to a single meaning, as especially significant.…
Spangler removed the spool and tossed it into his "awaiting action" box. A moment later it was time for his first conference.
He had left word with Gordon to give him any message from Baustian as soon as it arrived. Forty-five minutes after the conference began, a spool popped into the in-box in front of him.
Colonel Leclerc, Cassina's replacement, had been giving a long and enthusiastic account of certain difficulties encountered by the Fleet in maintaining the supra-Earth cordon, and the means by which they were being overcome. Leclerc was the oldest man at the table, and fairly typical of the holdovers from the last generation but one, when, owing to the shortage of governmental and military personnel caused by the almost-disastrous Cartagellan war, standards had been regrettably lax. He was the sort of man one automatically thought of as "not quite class." His manner was a little too exuberant, his gestures too wide, his talk imprecise and larded with anachronisms. Spangler waited patiently until he paused to shrug, then cut in smoothly: "Thank you, Colonel. Now, before we continue, will you all pardon me a moment, please?"
He slipped the spool into place and lighted the reading screen. The note read:
Baustian, G. B., BuAlPhyl
Spangler, T., DeptSecur
MS MU
12/29/2521
BAP CD18053990
Ref DS CD50347251
1. Recommended procedure for identifying members of the Rithian race masquerading as humans is as follows:
2. Make 1.7 cm. vertical incision, using instrument coated with paste of attached composition (Schedule A), in mid-thigh or shoulder region of subject. Reagent, in combination with Rithian body fluids, will produce brilliant purple precipitate. No reaction will take place in contact with human flesh.
3. For convenience of use, it is recommended that incision be made by agency of field-powered blade in standard grip casing, as in attached sketches. (Schedule B)
4. If desired, blade coating may also contain soporific believed to be effective in Rithian body chemistry. (Schedule C)
5. End.
Att BAP CD18053990A
BAP CD18053990B
BAP CD18053990C
Spangler smiled and cleared the screen.
"The information is satisfactory, Commissioner?" Colonel Leclerc demanded brightly.
"Quite satisfactory, Colonel." Quickly, so as to give Leclerc no opportunity to launch himself into his subject again, Spangler turned to Pemberton, the mayor's aide. "Mr. Pemberton?"
The young man began querulously, "We don't want to seem impatient, Commissioner, but you know that our office is under considerable strain. Now, you, you've given us to understand that the Rithian has already been captured and killed, and what we want to know is, how much longer…"
Spangler heard him out as patiently, to all outward appearance, as if he had not heard the same complaint daily since the embargo began. He put Pemberton off smoothly but noncomittally, and adjourned the conference.
Back in his office, Spangler finished reading Baustian's note and dictated an endorsement of paragraphs one to three. Paragraph four was a good notion, but anything with a rider like that on it would take twice as long to go through channels.
Spangler rewound the spool and set the machine to make three copies, one of which he addressed to Keith-Ingram, one to Baustian, and the third to the man in charge of the fabricators assigned to Security, with an AAA priority. Then he took out Pembun's message and read it through carefully.
With regard to the assumed success of the Rithian pseudo-hypnosis against Empire agents, (Pembun had added) I would again suggest that the basic fault may be deeply rooted in the social complex of Earth, and in the rigid organization of Empire administration. On most of the Outworlds of the writer's experience, good hypnotic subjects are in a minority, but my impression is that this is not the case on Earth, at least among Empire personnel. It may be said that a man who has successfully absorbed all the unspoken assumptions and conditioned attitudes required of him by responsible position in the Empire is already half hypnotized; or to put it differently, that non-suggestive minds tend to he weeded out by the systems of selection and promotion in use. For example, the addressee, Commissioner T. Spangler, is in the writer's opinion suggestible in the extreme. …
Spangler grinned angrily and rewound the spool.
How typical of the man that report was!—a solid gelatinous mass of naïveté surrounding one tiny thorn of shrewdness. In Pembun's place, Spangler would simply have disclaimed ability to answer the question. Since Pembun was not employed by any department concerned, the reply would have been plausible and correct; nothing more could ever have come of it.
That must have occurred to Pembun; and yet he had gone stolidly ahead to answer the question fully, and, Spangler was ready to believe, honestly. It was a damaging document; some phrases in it, particularly "within the framework of the Empire," were clearly treasonable. But he had written it; and then he had slipped in that comment about Spangler.
That comment was just damaging enough to Spangler to offset the mildly damaging admissions Pembun had made about himself. Therefore Pembun had actually taken no risk at all. But why had he troubled to dictate a carefully-phrased quarter-spool to be buried in the files, when a disclaimer, in two lines, would have served? Just for "something to do?"