virtually perfect for them. The worst danger we can conceive of is that they should chance across it.
“We thought they had been concentrating their efforts in a direction at right angles to Ymir. But if they’ve come as close as Regis once, they may come again. They may come at any time.”
He turned round and faced Jaroslav again. “Well?” he said.
“Working here on Ymir is like trying to plod through knee-deep mud. A dozen times I’ve had my eye on potential recruits, only to find–almost from one week to the next–that their defense against the received pattern of thinking here on Ymir is faulty, and they’ve succumbed. From being a trusted friend I turn overnight into an emissary of the devil. You say you want a potential recruit now. The only one I can honestly recommend is a girl, aged seventeen or so. And she probably isn’t mature enough to be of use.”
“She’ll have to do,” said Counce grimly. “Who is she?”
“Her name in Enni Zatok. Her father is in the power station; he’s a charge hand or overseer, I believe. He’s an infernal bigot, and probably in another ten years he’ll qualify for an elder’s post through sheer block-headedness. But the girl came to me of her own accord, and she’s kept on coming for a year. I think she has real possibilities.”
“She’ll do as a start. I want you to get her to Earth as fast as you can–by orthodox shipping routes. That’s essential. When she gets there, I’m going to arrange that Bassett should hear about her, get hold of her, and pick her mind clean of information about Ymir.” He gave a brief summary of the events that had led up to his decision.
Jaroslav whistled. “It sounds like a thin chance. How thin?”
Counce spread his hands and shook his head. “It’s the best we’ve got, and it’ll have to be tried. Can you do it?”
“Give me a moment to think it out,” Jaroslav requested, and sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Counce waited impatiently. After a minute, Jaroslav got hastily to his feet and crossed the room to consult a pile of papers. He riffled through them, and then, holding his fingers in the pile to mark the place, said over his shoulder, “Will eight days from now be soon enough?”
“To get this girl off Ymir? No, not nearly.”
“To get her to Earth is what I mean. She could leave on the Amsterdam– Captain Leeuwenhoek was the man who brought me back from Earth, my first and best friend among the spacecrews. He isn’t scheduled to touch Earth this trip, but it wouldn’t lose him anything to scrap his schedule for once.”
“Good,” said Counce succinctly. “Anything else?”
“Lord, yes! For one thing, although I’ve managed to convince Enni pretty thoroughly of the fact that Earth-born people aren’t invariably cruel and wicked, I doubt if she would voluntarily sever her ties with Ymir. After all, she still suffers the standard Ymiran family conditioning; deep down in her mind her father, bloody though he may be, is still a sort of god-figure. I’ll have to think up a pretty strong threat to make her give in.”
“Any ideas?”
“She’s been here on her own several times–I could make out that the elders have discovered the fact and will beat her into confessing that I seduced her. They would, too, if they had the chance. I saw one of the local misfits being whipped naked through the streets the other day. He’d missed three consecutive confession-meetings. I had to run out of sight, or I’d have tried to grab the whip or something. This is a hell of a place, Saïd.”
“Of course it is! This planet simply isn’t fit for human beings to live on. That’s the fundamental postulate behind all our present plans.” He mused for a moment. “Could you get her aboard the Amsterdam and off-world before anyone discovered she was missing?”
“Certainly. Enni herself could arrange that. She manages to alibi herself for two or three hours at a time twice a week or so, anyway,
“We thought they had been concentrating their efforts in a direction at right angles to Ymir. But if they’ve come as close as Regis once, they may come again. They may come at any time.”
He turned round and faced Jaroslav again. “Well?” he said.
“Working here on Ymir is like trying to plod through knee-deep mud. A dozen times I’ve had my eye on potential recruits, only to find–almost from one week to the next–that their defense against the received pattern of thinking here on Ymir is faulty, and they’ve succumbed. From being a trusted friend I turn overnight into an emissary of the devil. You say you want a potential recruit now. The only one I can honestly recommend is a girl, aged seventeen or so. And she probably isn’t mature enough to be of use.”
“She’ll have to do,” said Counce grimly. “Who is she?”
“Her name in Enni Zatok. Her father is in the power station; he’s a charge hand or overseer, I believe. He’s an infernal bigot, and probably in another ten years he’ll qualify for an elder’s post through sheer block-headedness. But the girl came to me of her own accord, and she’s kept on coming for a year. I think she has real possibilities.”
“She’ll do as a start. I want you to get her to Earth as fast as you can–by orthodox shipping routes. That’s essential. When she gets there, I’m going to arrange that Bassett should hear about her, get hold of her, and pick her mind clean of information about Ymir.” He gave a brief summary of the events that had led up to his decision.
Jaroslav whistled. “It sounds like a thin chance. How thin?”
Counce spread his hands and shook his head. “It’s the best we’ve got, and it’ll have to be tried. Can you do it?”
“Give me a moment to think it out,” Jaroslav requested, and sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Counce waited impatiently. After a minute, Jaroslav got hastily to his feet and crossed the room to consult a pile of papers. He riffled through them, and then, holding his fingers in the pile to mark the place, said over his shoulder, “Will eight days from now be soon enough?”
“To get this girl off Ymir? No, not nearly.”
“To get her to Earth is what I mean. She could leave on the Amsterdam– Captain Leeuwenhoek was the man who brought me back from Earth, my first and best friend among the spacecrews. He isn’t scheduled to touch Earth this trip, but it wouldn’t lose him anything to scrap his schedule for once.”
“Good,” said Counce succinctly. “Anything else?”
“Lord, yes! For one thing, although I’ve managed to convince Enni pretty thoroughly of the fact that Earth-born people aren’t invariably cruel and wicked, I doubt if she would voluntarily sever her ties with Ymir. After all, she still suffers the standard Ymiran family conditioning; deep down in her mind her father, bloody though he may be, is still a sort of god-figure. I’ll have to think up a pretty strong threat to make her give in.”
“Any ideas?”
“She’s been here on her own several times–I could make out that the elders have discovered the fact and will beat her into confessing that I seduced her. They would, too, if they had the chance. I saw one of the local misfits being whipped naked through the streets the other day. He’d missed three consecutive confession-meetings. I had to run out of sight, or I’d have tried to grab the whip or something. This is a hell of a place, Saïd.”
“Of course it is! This planet simply isn’t fit for human beings to live on. That’s the fundamental postulate behind all our present plans.” He mused for a moment. “Could you get her aboard the Amsterdam and off-world before anyone discovered she was missing?”
“Certainly. Enni herself could arrange that. She manages to alibi herself for two or three hours at a time twice a week or so, anyway,
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