Manshape by John Brunner Page A

more constructive to put into words than her annoyance with Thorkild, who should have delayed his decision until the quarantine report was through, the solido projector on the far side of the office uttered its shrill priority signal. They all turned, to see Responsible van Heemskirk’s image appear. He wore an illtempered expression, and patches of sweat were darkening his robe.
    An extraordinary sense of unreasoning excitement gripped Alida. Never before had she seen this suave politician in such a state of agitation. And his voice corresponded.
    “Have you been discussing Azrael?” he barked.
    “Yes, of course!” she answered. “Not in detail, but-”
    “You wasted your time. There weren’t any details to speak of until now. You know we sent Jacob Chen there to sort out the social analysis? Well, he got caught up in some local ritual.
    “And they killed him.”
    All their eyes fastened in horror on van Heem-skirk’s round face, gleaming with perspiration.
    “And what’s more!” he pursued. “We’ve had to put Jorgen Thorkild under sedation. He’s had a break-down and insulted the representative from Ipewell, and the System feels as though it’s grinding to a halt.”
    There was a dead pause. At length Alida rose.
    “I guess I’d better abort this meeting and come see you,” she said.
    “Yes, it’s nothing one should discuss remotely. And bring Laverne with you. Any planet with mores thatresult in the murder of a top pantologist is going to require exceptional adjustment!”
    A tall woman wearing scarlet uniform was physically present in van Heemskirk’s office, her face as still and noble as an ebony carving; she was introduced as Captain Lucy Inkoos, newly returned by Bridge from Azrael. Also present, but only in image-actually he was half around the world, in the Gobi Gardens—was Minister Shrigg. It was his task to liaise between the governors and the governed, to act as a spokesman before the public when there was any risk of the latter doubting the competence of the administrative èlite. As Alida and Laverne arrived, he was saying loudly, “There will have to be an inquiry, of course!”
    His tone was that of someone to whom official inquiries were the main business of life. And that was so. Earth, a single planet, had for half a millennium been too populous to be ruled in any traditional sense. It had to be run, like a machine of immense complexity, by dedicated experts. As for trying to govern
forty
planets—! No, the most that could be hoped for was that they would regard it as in their own best interests to co-operate in the scheme devised a century ago on Earth.
    Passive but suspicious, the mass of humanity had to be constantly placated. Sometimes that meant resorting to the ancient practice of naming a scapegoat; sometimes it was enough to apologise for an error and accept that a lesson would be learned from it. But the death of a pantologist whose fame for decades had been interstellar…
    Alida would not have cared to be in Shrigg’s position. (Position? But they were present, and he was not… The constant paradox recurred! How could youdeal with a
real
problem if you yourself were absent? Even given their chance to visit facsimiles of the colony worlds at Bridge City, even granted that simply by applying for a number on the permanent open list they could visit whichever other planet they chose, did not in fact the citizens of Earth think of the rest of the galaxy as inferior to the solido images in their own homes?)
    Well, maybe the shocking death of Jacob Chen…
    She caught herself. Saxena’s suicide should have taught her better than to try and make death into a positive event.
    But Captain Inkoos was replying to Shrigg.
    “The inquiry will tell you nothing that I can’t Chen decided to take part in a deadly ritual. Local custom permits them. Afterwards the victims are avenged. We were invited to attend the execution.”
    Shrigg promptly put the kind of questions that the