Ryeland stood silent. There was no reasoning with this man; there was a power and assurance that a gun might shatter, but no human power ever could. After a moment Ryeland said: "I haven't forgotten." Nor ever would, he thought. Not while the collar weighed around his neck.
"The collar bothers you," said the Planner surprisingly, and grinned. It was as though he had read Ryeland's thoughts—easy enough, Ryeland realized. "But we all wear them, boy. Each one of us, from the Planner down to the castoffs waiting for salvage in the Body Bank, must account to the Machine for every hour of every day; and each of us wears the Machine's shackle. On some of us they're intangible," he explained gravely, "and I admit that that does make a difference."
Unwillingly Ryeland smiled. Not only power, he realized; the man had personality, charm—even to use on a Risk.
"But if you like," the Planner added, off-handedly, "you can get that particular collar off your own particular neck."
For a moment Ryeland couldn't believe what he had heard. "Get the collar off, sir?"
The Planner nodded majestically. He shifted his position again, touching a button. The massive, cushioned chair inclined slightly backward. The raven flapped with a tinkling metallic sound into the air, hovering, as a neck-rest rose out of the chair's back and enveloped the Planner's silver head. The subtrain sphere was well into its upward thrust now. A faint squeal filtered through the soundproofing of the room—testimony of the pressure that forced the car against the invisible, unfeelable wall of electrostatic force. It wasn't friction that made the squeal, but a heterodyne of vibrations from the generators that drove the car. Ryeland staggered as his weight grew.
The Planner said suddenly: "We are all bound to the Plan in one way or another. I must try to find unbreakable links that can replace your iron collar—or you must find them yourself; then the collar can come off."
Ryeland said desperately: "Surely my work proves that I am loyal."
"Surely it does not!" the Planner mocked. He shook his head like a great father bear with a naughty cub. "It is not what you have done already," he reproved, "but what you can do now that will matter. You have worked freely, Ryeland; perhaps brilliantly, but you must work within the Plan. Always. Every moment. The Planning Machine will assign you a task. If you complete it—"
He shrugged, with an effort.
Ryeland was gasping now, the sag of his flesh a trap as the subtrain sphere forced its way up from Earth's molten center. He wanted to talk —question the Planner—perhaps leave the secret of those missing days. But his body refused. All around them was white-hot rock under pressure; only the electrostatic hoops kept it out; they were down many miles, but now rising. It was like an elevator again, but going up. The vertical component of the sphere's speed was rapidly reaching a hundred and fifty miles an hour; and even the Planner's voice, cushioned and protected as he was, began to grow hoarse and slow.
"You'd better go now, Ryeland," he grumbled. "But would you like to know what your task will be?"
Ryeland didn't answer—he couldn't; but his eyes answered for him. The Planner chuckled slowly. "Yes, of course. The Machine thinks you can handle it. It sounds—Well," said the Planner thoughtfully, "we each have our part to play, and mine is not necessarily to understand everything the Machine requires. Your task is to develop a jetless drive."
Ryeland rocked, and clutched frantically at the edge of the Planner's huge desk. "A—a jetless drive?"
The Planner looked somberly amused. "I see," he said. "Perhaps your task does not include understanding it either? But that is what the Machine asks of you."
"You mean—" Ryeland tried to recover his breath. "You mean, a reactionless propulsion system?"
"Precisely."
"Do you know that your torture experts—your reconstruction therapists—have been trying for three years to make me tell them how to build a jetless drive? They seem to think I know how."
"I know." The big man shrugged. "I know their efforts failed. The Machine had received information that you had designed such a mechanism. Apparently that information was mistaken. But the past three years have made such a device more than ever essential to the security of the Plan—more than ever dangerous to the Plan, if it should fall into unfriendly hands.
"The Machine requires a jetless drive. Its records of your abilities and achievements indicate that you are qualified to develop such a device. I have decided to disregard the evidence of your unplanned behavior, the problem of whether your amnesia is real or assumed, voluntary or not. If you want to come out of your collar in one piece, you will design a working method of reactionless propulsion. Now," he said in an exhausted voice, "you must go."
Through a haze Ryeland saw him make a faint motion with the huge gnarled hand that lay on the arm of his chair. The raven shifted position ever so little and beat the air frantically with its steel wings. Across the room a door opened.
One of the Planner's guard officers came in. He was a giant of a man, but he stepped very carefully under the thrust of the sphere's climb.
"Ryeland," whispered the great old man behind the desk.
Ryeland turned, half leaning on the officer in guard blue.
"About my daughter," said the Planner softly. The squeal had become a roar, almost drowning him out. "Donna has a soft heart, which she inherited from her mother; but her brain she inherited from me. Do not attach importance to the fact that she allowed you to talk with her in her bath." And the old man's eyes closed, as the Planner allowed his head to slump back at last.
Machine Major Chatterji said comfortingly: "You'll like us here, Ryeland. We're a brisk outfit, brisk."
"Yes, sir." Ryeland looked around him. He was in a steel-walled cubicle with a Security designation. He had no idea where on, or under, Earth he might be.
"You don't have to worry about nonsense," the major chattered. "Get the work done, that's all we care about."
Ryeland nodded. The little major moved with the youthful grace of a kitten. He wore the radar-horned helmet of a risk-pusher debonairely, as though it were part of a fancy-dress costume. He caught Ryeland's glance.
"Oh, that," he said, embarrassed. "Confounded nuisance, of course. But you are a Risk and the Machine's orders—" "I'm used to it."
"Not that you're the only Risk here," Major Chatterji added quickly. "Heavens, no! Some of our best men, and all that."
Ryeland interrupted, "Excuse me, Major." He bent to the teletype and rapidly typed out his identification number and the fact that he had arrived. Without delay the teletype rapped out:
R. Information. Machine Major Chatterji is authorized to reconsider your status. Action. Requisition necessary equipment for expansion of equations re unified force field and steady-state hypothesis.
Ryeland frowned. Major Chatterji, peeking over his shoulder at the gray teletype, cried: "At once, Steve! Oh, we move fast here. I'll have a six-deck calculator and a room to put it in before you can change your clothes, I'll bet you a lakh of dollars!"
Ryeland said: "I don't understand. 'Unified force field and steady-state hypothesis'—what's that about?" But the major was cheerfully ignorant. Administration was his job; Ryeland would find out everything else in due course, wouldn't he? Ryeland shrugged. "All right. But I won't need the calculator—not if Oporto is still around."
"The other Risk?" Machine Major Chatterji winked. "Always stick together," he nodded. "I'll have him detailed to you."