Last Enemy Page 4

number of future lives as well. Ifind this title, 'Independent' Institute, suggestive. Independent ofwhat? Possibly of partisan affiliation."

  "But wouldn't these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries,which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations moreintelligently?" Tortha Karf asked.

  "Oh, chief!" Verkan Vall reproached. "You know better than that! Howmany times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines becausethey divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with thelocally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish somereligious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine menwhose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence whichcontradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of suchevidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, onthe Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working,there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory undertheir control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established factsof genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit theworld-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the samesector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sectionssuccessfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by naturalselection."

  Tortha Karf nodded. "I remember some stories my grandfather told me,about his narrow escapes from an organization called the HolyInquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, aboutfour hundred years ago. I believe that thing's still operating, on theEuropo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dallamay have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnationtheories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining thosetheories is trying to stop her?"

  "You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to haveoriginated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That wouldsuggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature ofreincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark thedividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get tothis Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?"

  "No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities atRavvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city ofGhamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transposethrough there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation toDarsh. It'll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mechindoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turnedblack. I'll notify Zortan Brend at once that you're coming through.Is there anything special you'll want?"

  "Why, I'll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to RhogomFoundation. It's likely that there is some clue among them as to whomher discoveries may have antagonized. I'm going to be a Venusian_zerfa_-planter, a friend of her father's; I'll want full hypno-mechindoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I'll want tofamiliarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. Ithink that will be all, chief."

  * * * * *

  The last of the tall city-units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight asthe ship passed over them--shaft-like buildings that rose two or threethousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, oneat each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Eachof these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five milessquare; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from itsnearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown ofripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals anddotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,stacklike granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at thefifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats dartedback and forth on different levels, depending upon speed anddirection. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Seaand the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.

  Verkan Vall--the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily--stood at theglass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a differentVerkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in thelatter's office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists hadworked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a softchocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes.And in his subconscious mind, instantly available to consciousness,was a vast body of knowledge about conditions on the Akor-Neb sector,as well as a complete command of the local language, all hypnoticallyacquired.

  He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincialcities of a very respectably advanced civilization. A civilizationwhich built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteractgravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cerealsfor food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use ofits soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw wasas good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal ofbuildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomicwars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come tolove the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and hadcontinued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity hadpassed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been rearedby a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat oftotal war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities ofthe Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand parayears distant.

  Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. One was,like himself, a disguised paratimer from the First Level--the OuttimeExport and Import man, Zortan Brend, here known as Brarnend of Zorda.The other two were Akor-Neb people, and both wore the black tunics andthe winged-bullet badges of the Society of Assassins. Unlike VerkanVall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their shorttunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on theirbelts.

  "We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal," ZortanBrend said. "We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you couldtravel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suitefor you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are yourAssassins--Olirzon, and Marnik."

  Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.

  "Virzal of Verkan," he identified himself. "I am satisfied to intrustmyself to you."

  "We'll do our best for you, Lord Virzal," the older of the pair,Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: "Understand,Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving andprotecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?"

  "Not from our side," Verkan Vall told him. "The Lady Dallona is ascientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a businessman; he doesn't meddle with politics as long as the politicians leavehim alone. And I'm a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, withthe natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the _zerfa_ plants, andpoison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. Butpsychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the LadyDallona's work had evidently tended to discredit the theory ofStatistical Reincarnation."

  "Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?" Olirzongrinned. "In the last six months, she's knocked StatisticalReincarnation to splinters."

  "Well, I'm not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don't know muchabout Terran politics," Verkan Vall replied. "I know that theStatisticalists favor complete socialization and political control ofthe whole economy, because they want everybody to have the sameopportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believethat everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favorcontinuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth andprivate profit under a system of free competition. And that's aboutall I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title ofnobility, I'm a Volitionalist in politics, but the socializationissue isn't important on Venus. There is still too much unseated landthere, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialismattractive to anybody."

  "Well, that's about it," Zortan Brend told him. "I'm not enough of apsychicist to know what the Lady Dallona's been doing, but she'sknocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,and that's the basis,
in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we'llfind that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whateverhappened to her."

  Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, thenaddressed Verkan Vall:

  "Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in thismatter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it notpossible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gonesomewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has manyqualities which women find attractive, and he is by no meansindifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal--"

  "I understand all too perfectly, Marnik," Verkan Vall replied, out ofthe