Spangler thought not. There was a curious coherence in Pembun's oddities: they all hung together somehow. Wincing, he forced himself to go back over the recollection of last night. There again, from the normal point of view, Pembun had given himself unnecessary difficulty. Confronted with that inconvenient question of Spangler's, "What's wrong with the Empire?" and the even more embarrassing, "Do you despise us?", any ordinary person would simply have lied.
At any rate, Pembun, by his own statement, had got no pleasure from telling the truth. What was that remark? "… a bad taste…" Never mind. What emerged from all this, Spangler thought, was the picture of a man who was compulsively, almost pathologically honest. Yes, that expressed it. His frankness was not even ethico-religious in character: it was symbolic, a gesture.
Spangler felt himself flushing, and his lips tightened. The question remained: What did the man want? He had no answer yet; but he had a feeling that he was getting closer.
At eleven hours a report came from the head of the infirmary's psychiatric section. The information Security wanted from Colonel Cassina was still unavailable and in PsytSec's opinion could not be forced from him without a high probability of destroying the subject's personality. Did Spangler have the necessary priority to list Colonel Cassina as expendable?
At eleven-ten, a call came through from Keith-Ingram.
"On this Cassina affair, Thorne, what progress are you making?"
Spangler told him.
Keith-Ingram rubbed his square chin thoughtfully. That's unfortunate," he said. "If you want my view, the Empire can spare Colonel Cassina, all right, but I'll have to go to the High Assembly for permission, and the Navy will fight it, naturally. I rather wish there were another way. Have you consulted Pembun about this?"
"The report had just come in when you called."
"Well, let's get this cleaned up now, if we can. Get him on a three-way, will you?"
Face stony, Spangler made the necessary connections. The image of Keith-Ingram dwindled and moved over to occupy one half of the screen. In the other half, Pembun appeared.
Keith-Ingram said, "Now, Mr. Pembun, you've helped us out of the stew right along through this affair. Have you any suggestions that might be useful in this phase of it?"
Pembun's expression was blandly attentive. He said, "My, that would be a 'ard decision to make. Let me think a minute."
Out of screen range, Spangler's fingers moved spasmodically over the edge of his desk.
Finally Pembun looked up. "I got one notion," he said. "It's kind of a long chance, but if it works it will get you the information you want without 'urting the Colonel. I was thinking that w'en the Rithi planted that information, they mus' 'ave given their subject some kind of a trigger stimulus to unlock the message. Now, if the trigger is verbal, we 'aven' got a chance of 'itting it by accident. But it jus' now struck me that the trigger might be a situation instead of a phrase or a sentence. I mean, it might be a combination of diff'rent kinds of stimuli—a certain smell, say, plus a certain color of the light, plus a certain temperature range, and so on."
"That doesn't sound a great deal more hopeful, Mr. Pembun," Spangler put in.
"Wait," said Keith-Ingram, "I think I see what he's getting at. You mean, don't you, Mr. Pembun, that the Rithians might have used as a stimulus complex the normal conditions on their home world?"
"That's it," Pembun told him with a smile. "We can't be sure they did, of course, but it seems to me there's a fair chance. Any'ow, it isn' as far-fetched as it sounds, becawse those conditions would be available to the Rithi on any planet w'ere any number of them live. You wawk into a Rithch's 'ouse, an' you think you're on Sirach. They're use' to living in those vine cities of theirs, you see. They 'ate to be penned up. So w'en they 'ave to live in 'ouses, they put up vines in front of illusion screens, an' use artificial light an' scents, an' fool themselves that way."
"I see," said Keith-Ingram. "That sounds very good, Mr. Pembun; the only question that occurs to me is, can we duplicate those conditions accurately?"
"I should think so," Pembun answered. "It shouldn' be too 'ard."
"Well, I think we'll give it a trial, at any rate. What do you say, Thorne? Do you agree?"
Spagler could tell by the almost imperceptible arch of Keith-Ingram's right eyebrow, and the frozen expression of his mouth, that he knew Spangler didn't, and was enjoying the knowledge.
"Yes, by all means," said Spangler politely.
"That's settled then. I'll leave you and Thorne to work out the details. Clearing." His smile faded out, leaving half the screen blank.
Spangler said coldly, This is your project, Mr. Pembun, and I'll leave you entirely in charge of it. Requisition any space, materials and labor you need, and have the heads of sections call me for confirmation. I'll want reports twice daily. Are there any questions?"
"No questions, Commissioner."
"Clearing."
Spangler broke the connection, then dialed Keith-Ingram's number again. He got the "busy" response, as he expected, but left the circuit keyed in. Twenty minutes later Keith-Ingram's face appeared on the screen. "Yes, Spangler? What is it now? I'm rather busy."
Spangler said impassively, "There are two matters I wanted to discuss with you, Chief, and I thought it best not to bring them up while Pembun was on the circuit."
"Are they urgent?"
"Quite urgent."
"All right, then, what are they?"
"First," said Spangler, "I've sent you a note on a new testing method of Baustian's, for detecting any future Rithian masqueraders. I'd like to ask you for permission to use it here in the Hill, in advance of final approval, on a provisional test basis."
"Why?"
"Just a precaution, sir. We've found one Rithian here; I want to be perfectly sure there aren't any more."
Keith-Ingram nodded. "No harm in being sure. All right, Thorne, go ahead if you like. Now what else was there?"
"Just one thing more. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a sound idea to open the question of Cassina's expendability anyhow, regardless of this scheme of Pembun's. If it turns out to be a frost, there'll be less delay before we can go ahead with the orthodox procedure." His stress on the word "orthodox" was delicate, but he knew Keith-Ingram had caught it.
The older man gazed silently at him for a moment. "As a matter of fact," he said, "it happens that I'd already thought of that. However, I may as well say that I have every confidence in Pembun. If all our personnel were as efficient as he is, Thorne, things would go a great deal more smoothly in this department."
Spangler said nothing.
"That's all then? Right. Clearing."
Recalling that conversation before he went to bed that night, Spangler thought, Well see how much confidence you have in Pembun this time tomorrow.
Everything was ready by ten hours.
There was no puzzle, Spangler thought with satisfaction, without a solution. No matter how hopelessly involved and contradictory a situation might appear on the surface, or even some distance beneath it, if you kept on relentlessly, you would eventually arrive at the core, the quiet place where the elements of the problem lay exposed in their basic simplicity.
And this was the revelation that had been vouchsafed to Spangler:
The real struggle was between savagery and civilization, between magic and science, between the double meaning and the single meaning.
Pembun was on the side of ambiguity and lawlessness. Therefore he was an enemy.