XV

The _Harriet Barne_ settled comfortably at the dock, the bunting-swathed tugs lifting away from her. They had the outside sound pickups turned as low as possible, and still the noise was deafening.

The s.p.a.ceport was jammed, people on the ground and contragravity vehicles swarming above, with police cars vainly trying to keep them in order. All the bands in Storisende seemed to have been combined; they were blaring the "Planetary Hymn";

_Genji Gartner"s body lies a-moldering in the tomb, But his soul goes marching on!_

When they opened the airlock, there was a hastily improvised ceremonial barge, actually a farm-scow completely draped in red and white, the Planetary colors. They all stopped, briefly, as they came out, to enjoy the novelty of outdoor air which could actually be breathed. Conn saw his father in the scow, and beside him Sylvie Jacquemont, trying, almost successfully, to keep from jumping up and down in excitement. Morgan Gatworth to meet his son, and Lester Dawes to meet his. Kurt Fawzi, Dolf Kellton, Colonel Zareff, Tom Brangwyn.

He didn"t see his mother, or his sister. Flora he had hardly counted on, but he was disappointed that his mother wasn"t there to meet him.

Sylvie was embracing her father as he shook hands with his; then she threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Conn, I"m so happy! I was watching everything I could on-screen, everything you saw, and all the places you were, and everything you were doing...."

The scow--pardon, ceremonial barge--gave a slight lurch, throwing them together. Over her shoulder, he saw his father and Yves Jacquemont exchanging grins. Then they had to break it up while he shook hands with Fawzi and Judge Ledue and the others, and by the time that was over, the barge was letting down in front of the stand at the end of the dock, and the band was still deafening Heaven with "Genji Gartner"s Body," and they all started up the stairs to be greeted by Planetary President Vyckhoven; he looked like an elderly bear who has been too well fed for too long in a zoo. And by Minister-General Murchison, who represented the Terran Federation on Poictesme. He was thin and balding, and he looked as though he had just mistaken the vinegar cruet for the wine decanter. Genji Gartner"s soul stopped marching on, but the speeches started, and that was worse. And after the speeches, there was the parade, everybody riding in transparent-bodied aircars, and the _Lester Dawes_ and the two ships of the new Planetary Air Navy and a swarm of gunboats in column five hundred feet above, all firing salutes.

In spite of what wasn"t, but might just as well have been, a concerted conspiracy to keep them apart, he managed to get a few words privately with Sylvie.

"My mother; she didn"t get here. Is anything wrong?"

"Is anything anything else? I"ve been in the middle of it ever since you went away. Your mother"s still moaning about all these companies your father"s promoting--he never used to do anything like that, and it"s all too big, and it"s going to end in a big smash. And then she gets onto Merlin. You know, she won"t say Merlin, she always calls it, "that thing.""

"I"ve noticed that."

"Then she begins talking about all the horrible things that"ll happen when it"s found, and that sets Flora off. Flora says Merlin"s a big fake, and you and your father are using it to rob thousands of widows and orphans of their life savings, and that sets your mother off again. Self-sustaining cyclic reaction, like the Bethe solar-phoenix.

And every time I try to pour a little oil on the troubled waters, I find I"ve gotten it on the fire instead. And then, Flora had this fight with Wade Lucas, and of course, she blames you for that."

"Good heavens, why?"

"Well, she couldn"t blame it on herself, could she? Oh, you mean why the fight? Lucas is in business with your father now, and she can"t convince him that you and your father are a pair of quadruple-dyed villains, I suppose. Anyhow, the engagement is _phttt_! Conn, is my father going back to Koshchei?"

"As soon as we can round up some people to help us on the ship."

"Then I"m going along. I"ve had it, Conn. I"m a combat-fatigue case."

"But, Sylvie; that isn"t any place for a girl."

"Oh, poo! This is Sylvie. We"re old war buddies. We soldiered together on Barathrum; remember?"

"Well, you"d be the only girl, and...."

"That"s what you think. If you expect to get any kind of a gang together, at least a third of them will be girls. A lot of technicians are girls, and when work gets slack, they"re always the first ones to get shoved out of jobs. I"ll bet there are a thousand girl technicians out of work here--any line of work you want to name. I know what I"ll do; I"ll make a telecast appearance. I still have some news value, from the Barathrum business. Want to bet that I won"t be the working girl"s Joan of Arc by this time next week?"

That cheered him. A girl can punch any kind of a b.u.t.ton a man can, and a lot of them knew what b.u.t.tons to punch, and why. Say she could find fifty girls....

He had a slightly better chance to talk to his father before the banquet at the Executive Palace that evening. They shared the same suite at the Ritz-Gartner, and even welcoming committees seldom chase their victims from bedroom to bath.

"Yes, I know all about it," Rodney Maxwell said bitterly. "I was home, a couple of weeks ago. Flora simply will not speak to me, and your mother begged me, in tears, to quit everything we"re doing here. I tried to give her some idea of what would happen if I dropped this, even supposing I could; she wouldn"t listen to me." He finished putting the studs in his shirt. "You still think this is worth what it"s costing us?"

"You saw the views we sent back. There"s work on Koshchei for a million people, at least. Why, even these two makeshift ships they"re putting together here at Storisende are giving work, one way or another, to almost a thousand. Think what things will be like a year from now, if this keeps on."

Rodney Maxwell gave a wry laugh. "Didn"t know I had a real Simon-pure altruist for a son."

"Pardner, when you call me that, smile."

"I am smiling. With some slight difficulty."

He didn"t think well of the banquet. Back in Litchfield, Senta would have fired half her human help and taken a sledgehammer to her robo-chef for a meal like that. Even his father"s camp cook would have been ashamed of it. And there were more speeches.

President Vyckhoven managed to get hold of him and Yves Jacquemont afterward, and steered them into his private study.

"Have you any real reason for thinking that Merlin might be on Koshchei?" the Planetary President asked.

"Great Ghu, no! We weren"t looking for Merlin, Mr. President. We were looking for a hypership. We have one, too. Calling her _Ouroboros II_.

Twenty-five-hundred-footer. We expect to have her to s.p.a.ce in a few months. I surely don"t need to tell you what that will do toward restoring planetary prosperity."

"No, of course not; a hypership of our own. But...." He looked from one to the other of them. "But I understood.... That is, Mr. Kurt Fawzi was saying...."

"Mr. Fawzi is looking for Merlin here on Poictesme. If anybody finds it, that"s where it"ll be found. I"m interested in getting business started again. If Merlin is found, it would help, of course." He shrugged.

"Don"t look at me," Jacquemont said. "Mr. Maxwell--both of them, father and son--want some s.p.a.ceships. They hired me to help build them. That"s all I have in it." Then he relit the cigar the President had given him and leaned back in his chair, staring at the stuffed alcesoid head with the seven-foot hornspread above the fireplace.

Conn described the interview to his father after they were back at the hotel.

"I hope you convinced him. You know, he"s afraid of Merlin. A lot of people have been saying that if Merlin"s found, it should be used to determine Government policy. A few extremists are beginning to say that Merlin ought to _be_ the Government, and Jake Vyckhoven and his cronies ought to be dumped. Into the handiest ma.s.s-energy converter, preferably. You know, if anybody found Merlin and started it auditing the Planetary Treasury, Jake Vyckhoven"d be the one who"d be wanting a hypership."

Tom Brangwyn ran him down the next morning in the dining room.

"Conn, I wish you"d come along with me," he said. "Some of us are up in Kurt"s suite; we"d all like to talk to you."

Somehow, he was acting as though he were making an arrest. That might have been nothing but professional habit. Conn went up to Fawzi"s suite, and found Fawzi and Judge Ledue and Dolf Kellton and close to a dozen others there.

"I"m glad you could come, Conn," the Judge greeted him. Now that the defendant had arrived, the trial could begin. "I wish your father could have gotten here. I asked him to come, but he had a prior engagement. A meeting with some of the financial people here, about some company he"s interested in."

"That"s right; Trisystem & Interstellar s.p.a.celines."

"Interstellar!" Kurt Fawzi almost howled. "Great Ghu! Now it isn"t enough to go out to Koshchei; he wants to go clear out of the Trisystem. That"s what we wanted to talk about; all this nonsense you and your father are in. Merlin"s right here on Poictesme. It"s right at Force Command, and if your father hadn"t robbed us of all our best men, like Jerry Rivas and Anse Dawes, we"d have found it by now. I don"t think you and your father care a hoot if we ever find Merlin or not!"

"Kurt, that"s a dreadful thing to say," Dolf Kellton objected in a shocked voice.

"It"s a dreadful thing to have to say," Fawzi replied, "but you tell me what Conn Maxwell or Rodney Maxwell are doing to help find it."

"Who showed you where Force Command was?" Klem Zareff asked.

n.o.body could think of any good quick comeback to that.

Conn took advantage of the pause to ask, "Why do you want to find Merlin?"