The Currents Of Space

"Yes?" said Fife. "Then you don't see the significance of the events of the last two weeks?"

"Which particular events?" asked Bort.

"It seems a Spatio-analyst has disappeared. Surely you've heard of that."

Bort looked annoyed and in no way soothed. "I've heard from Abel of Trantor about it. What of it? I know nothing of Spatioanalysts."

"At least you've read a copy of the last message to his base on Sank before he turned up missing."

"Abel showed it to me. I paid no attention to it."

"What about the rest of you?" Fife's eyes challenged them one by one. "Your memory goes back a week?"

"I read it," said Rune. "I remember it too. Of course! It spoke of destruction also. Is that what you're getting at?"

"Look here," Steen said shrilly, "it was full of nasty hints that made no sense. Really, I do hope we're not going to discuss it now. I could scarcely get rid of Abel, and it was just before dinner, too. Most distressing. Really."

"There's no help for it, Steen," said Fife with more than a trace of impatience. (What could one do with a thing like Steen?) "We must speak of it again. The Spatio-analyst spoke of the destruction of Florina. Coincident with his disappearance, we receive messages also threatening the destruction of Florina. Is that coincidence?"

"You are saying that the Spatio-analyst sent the blackmailing message?" whispered old Balle.

"Not likely. Why say it first in his own name, then anonymously?"

"When he spoke of it at first," said Balle, "he was communicating with his district office, not with us."

"Even so. A blackmailer deals with no one but his victim if he can help it."

"Well then?"

"He has disappeared. Call the Spatio-analyst honest. But he broadcast dangerous information. He is now in the hands of others who are not honest and they are blackmailers."

"What others?"

Fife sat grimly back in his chair, his lips scarcely moving. "You ask me seriously? Trantor."

Steen shivered. "Trantor!" His high-pitched voice broke.

"Why not? What better way to gain control of Florina? It's one of the prime aims of their foreign policy. And if they can do it without war, so much the better for them. Look here, if we accede to this impossible ultimatum, Florina is theirs. They offer us a Iittle"-he brought two fingers close together before his face- "hut how long shall we keep even that?

"On the other hand, suppose we ignore this, and, really, we have no choice. What would Trantor do then? Why, they will spread rumors of an imminent end of the world to the Florinian peasants. As their rumors spread the peasants will panic, and what can follow but disaster? What force can make a man work if he thinks the end of the world will come tomorrow? The harvest will rot. The warehouses will empty."

Steen lifted a finger to smooth the coloring on one cheek, as he glanced at a mirror in his own apartments, out of range of the receptor-cube.

He said, "I don't think that would harm us much. If the supply goes down, wouldn't the price go up? Then after a while it would turn out that Florina was still there and the peasants would go back to work. Besides, we could always threaten to clamp down on exports. Really, I don't see how any cultured world could be expected to live without kyrt. Oh, it's King Kyrt all right. I think this is a fuss about nothing."

He threw himself into an attitude of boredom, one finger placed delicately upon his cheek.

Balle's old eyes had been closed through all of this last. He said, "There can be no price increases now. We've got them at absolute ceiling height."

"Exactly," said Fife. "It won't come to serious disruption anyway. Trantor waits for any sign of disorder on Florina. If they could present the Galaxy with the prospect of a Sark that was unable to guarantee kyrt shipments, it would be the most natural thing in the universe for them to move in to maintain what they call order and to keep the kyrt coming. And the danger would be that the free worlds of the Galaxy would probably play along with them for the sake of the kyrt. Especially if Traritor agreed to break the monopoly, increase production and lower prices. Afterward it would be another story, but meanwhile, they would get their support.

"It's the only logical way that Trantor could possibly grip Florina. If it were simple force, the free Galaxy outside the Trantorian sphere of influence would join us in sheer self-protection."

Rune said, "How does the Spatio-analyst fit in this? Is he necessary? If your theory is adequate it should explain that."