"They"re not stupid--"
"Please, dear. Go on."
His fingers clamped on the edge of the notebook.
"_Unnumbered we must wander, Break, and bleed, and die.
Implacable as ocean, Our tide must drown the sky._
"_What is our expiation, For what primeval crime, That we must go on marching Until the crash of time?_
"_What hand has shaped so cruelly?
What whim has cast such fate?
Where is, in our creation, The botch that makes us great?_"
"Oh, that"s good, darling! That"s very good. I"m proud of you, David."
"I think it stinks," he said evenly, "but, anyway, there are two more verses."
"_David!_"
Grimly, he spat out the last eight lines.
"_Why are we ever gimleted By empire"s irony?
Is discontent the cancered price Of Earthman"s galaxy?_"
Leonora, recoiling from his cold fury, was a shaking pair of shoulders and a ma.s.s of lank hair supported by her hands on her face while she sobbed.
"_Are our souls so much perverted?
Can we not relent?
Or are the stars the madman"s cost For his inborn discontent?_
"Good night, Leonora."
VI.
The light flickered on Marlowe"s interphone.
"Good morning, Mr. Secretary."
"Good morning, Mary. What"s up?"
"Harrison"s being deported from Dovenil, sir. There"s a civil crime charged against him. Quite a serious one."
Marlowe"s eyebrows went up. "How much have we got on it?"
"Not too much, sir. Harrison"s report hasn"t come in yet. But the story"s on the news broadcasts now, sir. We haven"t been asked to comment yet, but Emigration has been called by several news outlets, and the Ministry for Education just called here and inquired whether it would be all right to publish a general statement of their exchange students" careful instructions against violating local customs."
Marlowe"s glance brooded down on the ma.s.s of papers piled in the tray of his IN box. "Give me a tape of a typical broadcast," he said at last.
"Hold everything else. Present explanation to all news outlets: None now, statement forthcoming after preliminary investigation later in the day. The Ministry regrets this incident deeply, and will try to settle matters as soon and as amicably as possible, et cetera, et cetera.
O.K.?"
"Yes, sir."
He swung his chair around to face the screen let into a side wall, and colors began to flicker and run in the field almost immediately. They steadied and sharpened, and the broadcast tape began to roll.
Dateline: Dovenil, Sector Three, Day 183, 2417 GST. Your Topical News reporter on this small planet at the Union"s rim was unable today to locate for comment any of the high officials of this alien civilization directly concerned with the order for the deportation of exchange student-observer Hubert Harrison, charged with theft and violent a.s.sault on the person of a Dovenilid citizen. Union citizen Harrison was unavailable for comment at this time, but Topical News will present his views and such other clues when more ensues.
Marlowe grunted. Journalese was getting out of hand again. That last rhyming sentence was sure to stick in the audience"s brains. It might be only another advertising gimmick, but if they started doing it with the body of the news itself, it might be well to feed Topical enough false leads to destroy what little reputation for comprehensibility they had left.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
He touched his interphone switch.
"Uh ... Mary, what was the hooper on that broadcast?"
"Under one per cent, sir."
Which meant that, so far, the Body Politic hadn"t reacted.
"Thank you. Is there anything else coming in?"
"Not at the moment, sir."
"What"s--" Cabbage. "What"s Dalish ud Klavan doing?"
"His residence is the Solar Hostel, sir. The management reports that he is still in his room, and has not reserved s.p.a.ce on any form of long-distance transportation. He has not contacted us, either, and there is a strong probability that he may still be unaware of what"s happened."
"How many calls did he make yesterday, either before or after he was here, and to whom?"
"I can get you a list in ten minutes, sir."
"Do that, Mary."
He switched off, sat slapping the edge of his desk with his hand, and switched on again.
"Mary, I want the GenSurvs on the Dovenil area to a depth of ten cubic lights."
"Yes, sir."
"And get me Mr. Mead on the phone, please."
"Yes, sir."
Marlowe"s lips pulled back from his teeth as he switched off. He s.n.a.t.c.hed a candy bar out of his drawer, tore the film part way off, then threw it back in the drawer as his desk phone chimed.
"Here, Chris."
"Here, Mr. Marlowe."