he demanded.
“Supreme,” Kom Rmmon said.
Darzek backed up to a chair and sat down heavily. He continued to stare at Kom Rmmon. “The director is engaged in an activity that must be kept secret from Supreme?”
“Yes.”
“And—this room was built solely to have a place for conferences where Supreme can’t listen?”
“Yes. The director supervised the construction himself. Supreme is everywhere else.” Kom Rmmon shuddered.
This probably was true. Supreme’s infinity of tentacles stretched into every building, every public and private place, every fissure of the planet. Supreme was Primores, a world-sized computer with its surface utilized for the governmental workers who were in fact its servants.
Darzek had never given a thought to the possibility that Supreme might be listening and making a record of his every chance remark. Even if he had, he doubted that he would have cared. “Is the director on the world of Kamm?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What is there about the world of Kamm that must be kept secret from Supreme?”
“There’s a pazul.”
“What’s a pazul?” Darzek asked.
“A death ray.”
Mentally Darzek twiddled his thumbs. The concept of a death ray conveyed no special menace to him. Among the strictly controlled products of a galaxy’s science and technology were devices that could serve as frightful instruments of death. As far as he knew the legendary death ray was not among them, but he doubted that its presence could have added much to their destructive potential.
Then, with a start, he saw the problem as Rok Wllon had seen it.
Such products from member worlds of the Synthesis were not a menace because they could be controlled. But if the world of Kamm, an Uncertified World and a non-member of the Synthesis, had in fact produced a pazul, the implications were terrifying. No wonder Supreme had listed it as a potential trouble spot! Its science and technology must be enormously advanced, especially in their more destructive aspects. Darzek said as much.
Kom Rmmon remarked gloomily, “It has a vegetable technology.”
Darzek stared at him. “Nonsense!”
“But it does. It has some very unusual tree-like plants. One—our agents call it the sponge tree—has a flabby bark and a soft, pithy interior, but when the core is aged and dried properly, and treated, it becomes enormously hard and durable. It provides the basis for a technology without metal. They use metals only for coining money.”
“But they do have metals. I was wondering how they could evolve electrical circuitry with a wood technology.”
Kom Rmmon’s gloom deepened. “They haven’t discovered electricity.”
Darzek said gravely, “If they can produce a death ray with a wood instrument that uses neither metal nor electricity, they’re an astonishingly talented species. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Our agents have seen it,” Kom Rmmon said.
“Were they able to photograph it, or make drawings of it?”
“It’s a pazul!” Kom Rmmon protested. “The agents who have seen it are dead!”
Darzek leaned forward. The hilarious notion of a wood pazul had suddenly become unfunny. “The Synthesis has lost agents on Kamm?”
“Nine.”
Darzek winced. “Nine? What makes you think a pazul killed them?”
“Because nothing killed them. There was no cause of death, but they died.”
“Some worlds have strange diseases,” Darzek said. “The victim of one might seem to have died without cause.”
“We’ve had agents on Kamm for more than a hundred years. We know the diseases. A pazul caused those deaths.”
Darzek remained unconvinced, but at least he finally had an inkling of what was bothering Rok Wllon. The Department of Uncertified Worlds occasionally lost an agent, through accident or disease, but one in a hundred years would have been a reasonable average. If nine had died within a short time, there assuredly was something wrong on the world of Kamm.
“Tell me about Kamm,” he said.
“It’s the Silent Planet,” Kom Rmmon whispered.
“What’s so horrifying about that? Surely there’s no natural law that requires a world’s life forms to develop and retain a sense of hearing. Obviously the Kammian life forms have managed to survive and evolve without one, and even to create a civilization. What is there about Kamm that has to be kept secret from Supreme?”
“The pazul.”
“Does Kamm have space travel, or anything approaching it?”
“No. Its technology is at level three.”
Darzek felt increasingly perplexed. Kamm’s technology ranked slightly below that of Earth during the Middle Ages. He asked slowly, “Why should Supreme care if an Uncertified World without space travel has a pazul? At worst, the people of Kamm can only destroy themselves. The Synthesis never intervenes in the internal affairs of such a world.”
Kom Rmmon’s blue-tinted expression was anguished. “There’s a Mandate.”
“Ah! What is it?”
“An Uncertified World with a pazul must be destroyed.”
Darzek pursed his lips for a silent whistle. Supreme’s Mandates dated from a distant past long since forgotten except by Supreme. Obviously in some crisis at the dawn of the galactic government’s history a pazul had been flaunted, and Supreme’s designers had provided the computer with an automatic response. Supreme learned new facts with appalling ease, but it had difficulty in unlearning old solutions; and it possessed a stubborn craftiness in its fondness for supporting old solutions with new facts. Darzek had attempted unsuccessfully on more than one occasion to reform Supreme’s thinking.
Normally the only harm done was measured in inefficiency. Supreme could not be changed, but with patience, bureaucrats could be taught when to ignore a computer and what information to conceal from it.
But a Mandate was a procedure Supreme could carry out itself. It was programmed to react to certain situations with automatic orders to whomever or whatever was best placed to accomplish the Mandate. Once Supreme had positive proof of a pazul on Kamm, it would use whatever means were at hand and destroy the planet.
No wonder Rok Wllon had built an eavesdrop-proof conference room! The Director of the Department of Uncertified Worlds maintained a love-hate attitude toward his charges. He deplored their depraved conduct, their stunted moral senses, their barbarian institutions; but let an outsider utter a word of criticism, and Rok Wllon girded himself for the defense. If a Mandate required the destruction of one of his worlds, he would seek to prevent it with any legal means at hand.
But he would be incapable of resorting to an illegal means, however unjust the Mandate. He would keep a rumor, an assumption, a speculation from Supreme—but on a discretionary basis only while he investigated it thoroughly. Once he found proof, he would feel duty-bound to report it. No doubt this dilemma had brought about his peculiar conduct. He was obligated to search for proof, and he feared that he would find it.
Darzek said, “I come from an Uncertified World. My planet has developed atomic weapons, and probably laser beams that could kill at enormous distances, or microwaves that would cook a victim’s liver before he became aware of it, or instruments to produce far worse atrocities that I couldn’t even guess at. What’s to prevent Supreme from deciding that my world has a pazul and proceeding to destroy it?”
“The death ray does not burn or cook or explode. It simply stops life.”