these United Planets of ours. It’s the quickest method of indoctrination we’ve hit upon; the agent literally teaches himself by observation and participation. Usually, it takes four or five stops, on this planet and that, before the probationary agent begins sympathizing with the efforts of this elusive Tommy Paine. Especially since every Section G agent he runs into, including the Tog, of course, fills him full of stories of Tommy Paine’s activities.
“You were one of the quickest to stumble on the true nature of our Section G. After calling at only three planets you saw that we ourselves are Tommy Paine.”
“But…but what’s the end?” Ronny said plaintively. “You say our job is advancing man, even in spite of himself when it comes to that. We start at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder in a condition of savagery, clan communism in government, simple animism in religion, and slowly we progress through barbarism to civilization, through paganism to the higher ethical codes, through chattel slavery and then feudalism and beyond. What is the final end, the Ultima Thule?”
Metaxa was shaking his head again. He poured himself another drink, offered the bottle this time to the others. “We don’t know,” he said wearily, “perhaps there is none. Perhaps there is always another rung on this evolutionary ladder.” He punched at his order box and said, “Irene, have them do up a silver badge for Ronny.”
Ronny Bronston took a deep breath and reached for the brown bottle. “Well,” he said. “I suppose I’m ready to ask for my first assignment.” He thought for a moment. “By the way, if there’s any way to swing it, I wouldn’t mind working with Supervisor Lee Chang Chu.”
GUN FOR HIRE
Joe Prantera called softly, “Al.” The pleasurable, comfortable, warm feeling began spreading over him, the way it always did.
The older man stopped and squinted, but not suspiciously, even now.
The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the other even saw the circle of steel that was the mouth of the shotgun barrel, now resting on the car’s window ledge.
“Who’s it?” he growled.
Joe Prantera said softly, “Big Louis sent me, Al.”
And he pressed the trigger.
And at that moment, the universe caved inward upon Joseph Marie Prantera.
There was nausea and nausea upon nausea.
There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve.
There was pain, horror and tumultuous fear.
And he came out of it as quickly and completely as he’d gone in.
He was in, he thought, a hospital and his first reaction was to think, This here California. Everything different. Then his second thought was Something went wrong. Big Louis, he ain’t going to like this.
He brought his thinking to the present. So far as he could remember, he hadn’t completely pulled the trigger. That at least meant that whatever the rap was it wouldn’t be too tough. With luck, the syndicate would get him off with a couple of years at Quentin.
A door slid open in the wall in a way that Joe had never seen a door operate before. This here California.
The clothes on the newcomer were wrong, too. For the first time, Joe Prantera began to sense an alienness—a something that was awfully wrong.
The other spoke precisely and slowly, the way a highly educated man speaks a language which he reads and writes fluently but has little occasion to practice vocally. “You have recovered?”
Joe Prantera looked at the other expressionlessly. Maybe the old duck was one of these foreign doctors, like.
The newcomer said, “You have undoubtedly been through a most harrowing experience. If you have any untoward symptoms, possibly I could be of assistance.”
Joe couldn’t figure out how he stood. For one thing, there should have been some kind of police guard.
The other said, “Perhaps a bit of stimulant?”
Joe said flatly, “I wanta lawyer.”
The newcomer frowned at him. “A lawyer?”
“I’m not sayin’ nothin’. Not until I get a mouthpiece.”
The newcomer started off on another tack. “My name is Lawrence Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken, you are Joseph Salviati-Prantera.”
Salviati happened to be Joe’s mother’s maiden name. But it was unlikely this character could have known that. Joe had been born in Naples and his mother had died in childbirth. His father hadn’t brought him to the States until the age of five and by that time he had a stepmother.
“I wanta mouthpiece,” Joe said flatly, “or let me outta here.”
Lawrence Reston-Farrell said, “You are not being constrained. There are clothes for you in the closet there.”
Joe gingerly tried swinging his feet to the floor and sitting up, while the other stood watching him, strangely. He came to his feet. With the exception of a faint nausea, which brought back memories of that extreme condition he’d suffered during…during what? He hadn’t the vaguest idea of what had happened.
He was dressed in a hospital-type nightgown. He looked down at it and snorted and made his way over to the closet. It opened on his approach, the door sliding back into the wall in much the same manner as the room’s door had opened for Reston-Farrell.
Joe Prantera scowled and said, “These ain’t my clothes.”
“No, I am afraid not.”
“You think I’d be seen dead wearing this stuff? What is this, some religious crackpot hospital?”
Reston-Farrell said, “I am afraid, Mr. Salviati-Prantera, that these are the only garments available. I suggest you look out the window there.”
Joe gave him a long, chill look and then stepped to the window. He couldn’t figure the other. Unless he was a fruitcake. Maybe he was in some kind of pressure cooker and this was one of the fruitcakes.
He looked out, however, not on the lawns and walks of a sanitarium but upon a wide boulevard of what was obviously a populous city.
And for a moment again, Joe Prantera felt the depths of nausea.
This was not his world.
He stared for a long, long moment. The cars didn’t even have wheels, he noted dully. He turned slowly and faced the older man.
Reston-Farrell said compassionately, “Try this, it’s excellent cognac.”
Joe Prantera stared at him, said finally, flatly, “What’s it all about?”
The other put down the unaccepted glass. “We were afraid first realization would be a shock to you,” he said. “My colleague is in the adjoining room. We will be glad to explain to you if you will join us there.”
“I wanta get out of here,” Joe said.
“Where would you go?”
The fear of police, of Al Rossi’s vengeance, of the measures that might be taken by Big Louis on his failure, were now far away.
Reston-Farrell had approached the door by which he had entered and it reopened for him. He went through it without looking back.
There was nothing else to do. Joe dressed, then followed him.
* * * *
In the adjoining room was a circular table that would have accommodated a dozen persons. Two were seated there now, papers, books and soiled coffee cups before them. There had evidently been a long wait.
Reston-Farrell, the one Joe had already met, was tall and drawn of face and with a chainsmoker’s nervousness. The other was heavier and more