Ultima Thule Read online

  Ultima Thule

  by

  Dallas McCord Reynolds

  Illustrated by John Schoenherr.

  Analog Science Fact & Fiction

  March 1961

  [Transcriber's Note: This text was produced from Analog Science Fact &Fiction March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  [Illustration.]

  At least he'd got far enough to wind up with a personal interview. It'sone thing doing up an application and seeing it go onto an endless tapeand be fed into the maw of a machine and then to receive, in a matter ofmoments, a neatly printed rejection. It's another thing to receive anappointment to be interviewed by a placement officer in the Commissariatof Interplanetary Affairs, Department of Personnel. Ronny Bronston wasunder no illusions. Nine out of ten men of his age annually made the sameapplication. Almost all were annually rejected. Statistically speakingpractically nobody ever got an interplanetary position. But he'd made stepone along the path of a lifetime ambition.

  He stood at easy attention immediately inside the door. At the desk at thefar side of the room the placement officer was going through a sheaf ofpapers. He looked up and said, "Ronald Bronston? Sit down. You'd like aninterplanetary assignment, eh? So would I."

  Ronny took the chair. For a moment he tried to appear alert, earnest,ambitious but not _too_ ambitious, fearless, devoted to the cause, andindispensable. For a moment. Then he gave it up and looked like RonnyBronston.

  The other looked up and took him in. The personnel official saw a man ofaverages. In the late twenties. Average height, weight and breadth.Pleasant of face in an average sort of way, but not handsome. Less thansharp in dress, hair inclined to be on the undisciplined side. Brown ofhair, dark of eye. In a crowd, inconspicuous. In short, Ronny Bronston.

  The personnel officer grunted. He pushed a button, said something into hisorder box. A card slid into the slot and he took it out and staredgloomily at it.

  "What're your politics?" he said.

  "Politics?" Ronny Bronston said. "I haven't any politics. My father andgrandfather before me have been citizens of United Planets. There hasn'tbeen any politics in our family for three generations."

  "Family?"

  "None."

  The other grunted and marked the card. "Racial prejudices?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Do you have any racial prejudices? Any at all."

  "No."

  The personnel officer said, "Most people answer that way at first, thesedays, but some don't at second. For instance, suppose you had to have ablood transfusion. Would you have any objection to it being blood donatedby, say, a Negro, a Chinese, or, say, a Jew?"

  Ronny ticked it off on his fingers. "One of my greatgrandfathers was aFrench _colon_ who married a Moroccan girl. The Moors are a blend ofBerber, Arab, Jew and Negro. Another of my greatgrandfathers was aHawaiian. They're largely a blend of Polynesians, Japanese, Chinese andCaucasians especially Portuguese. Another of my greatgrandfathers wasIrish, English and Scotch. He married a girl who was half Latvian, halfRussian." Ronny wound it up. "Believe me, if I had a blood transfusionfrom just anybody at all, the blood would feel right at home."

  The interviewer snorted, even as he marked the card. "That accounts forthree greatgrandfathers," he said lightly. "You seem to have made a studyof your family tree. What was the other one?"

  Rocky said expressionlessly, "A Texan."

  The secretary shrugged and looked at the card again. "Religion?"

  "Reformed Agnostic," Ronny said. This one was possibly where he ran into abrick wall. Many of the planets had strong religious beliefs of one sortor another. Some of them had state religions and you either belonged orelse.

  "Is there any such church?" the personnel officer frowned.

  "No. I'm a one-man member. I'm of the opinion that if there are anygreater-powers-that-be They're keeping the fact from us. And if that's theway They want it, it's Their business. If and when They want to contactme--one of Their puppets dangling from a string--then I suppose They'll doit. Meanwhile, I'll wait."

  The other said interestedly, "You think that if there is a Higher Powerand if It ever wants to get in touch with you, It will?"

  "Um-m-m. In Its own good time. Sort of a _don't call Me_, thing, _I'llcall you_."

  The personnel officer said, "There have been a few revealed religions, youknow."

  "So they said, so they said. None of them have made much sense to me. If aSuper-Power wanted to contact man, it seems unlikely to me that it'd beall wrapped up in a lot of complicated gobbledegook. It would all be veryclear indeed."

  The personnel officer sighed. He marked the card, stuck it back into theslot in his order box and it disappeared.

  He looked up at Ronny Bronston. "All right, that's all."

  Ronny came to his feet. "Well, what happened?"

  The other grinned at him sourly. "Darned if I know," he said. "By the timeyou get to the outer office, you'll probably find out." He scratched theend of his nose and said, "I sometimes wonder what I'm doing here."

  Ronny thanked him, told him good-by, and left.

  -------------------------------------

  In the outer office a girl looked up from a card she'd just pulled fromher own order box. "Ronald Bronston?"

  "That's right."

  She handed the card to him. "You're to go to the office of Ross Metaxa inthe Octagon, Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, Department ofJustice, Bureau of Investigation, Section G."

  In a lifetime spent in first preparing for United Planets employment andthen in working for the organization, Ronny Bronston had never been in theOctagon Building. He'd seen photographs, Tri-Di broadcasts and he'd heardseveral thousand jokes on various levels from pun to obscenity aboutgetting around in the building, but he'd never been there. For thatmatter, he'd never been in Greater Washington before, other than a longago tourist trip. Population Statistics, his department, had its mainoffices in New Copenhagen.

  His card was evidently all that he needed for entry.

  At the sixth gate he dismissed his car and let it shoot back into thetraffic mess. He went up to one of the guard-guides and presented thecard.

  The guide inspected it. "Section G of the Bureau of Investigation," hemuttered. "Every day, something new. I never heard of it."

  "It's probably some outfit in charge of cleaning the heads on spaceliners." Ronny said unhappily. He'd never heard of it either.

  "Well, it's no problem," the guard-guide said. He summoned a three-wheel,fed the co-ordinates into it from Ronny's card, handed the card back andflipped an easy salute. "You'll soon know."

  The scooter slid into the Octagon's hall traffic and proceeded up onecorridor, down another, twice taking to ascending ramps. Ronny had readsomewhere the total miles of corridors in the Octagon. He hadn't believedthe figures at the time. Now he believed them. He must have traversedseveral miles before they got to the Department of Justice alone. It wasanother quarter mile to the Bureau of Investigation.

  The scooter eventually came to a halt, waited long enough for Ronny todismount and then hurried back into the traffic.

  He entered the office. A neatly uniformed reception girl with a harassedand cynical eye looked up from her desk. "Ronald Bronston?" she said.

  "That's right."

  "Where've you been?" She had a snappy cuteness. "The commissioner has beenawaiting you. Go through that door and to your left."

  Ronny went through that door and to the left. There was another door,inconspicuously lettered _Ross
Metaxa, Commissioner, Section G_. Ronnyknocked and the door opened.

  Ross Metaxa was going through a wad of papers. He looked up; a man in themiddle years, sour of expression, moist of eye as though he either dranktoo much or slept too little.

  "Sit down," he said. "You're Ronald Bronston, eh? What do they call you,Ronny? It says here you've got a sense of humor. That's one of the firstrequirements in this lunatic department."

  Ronny sat down and tried to form some opinions of the other by hisappearance. He was reminded of nothing so much as the stereotype cityeditor you saw in the historical romance Tri-Ds. All that was needed wasfor Metaxa to start banging on