IN CASE OF FIRE
By RANDALL GARRETT
Illustrated by Martinez
n his office apartment,on the top floor of theTerran Embassy Buildingin Occeq City, BertrandMalloy leafedcasually through the dossiers of thefour new men who had been assignedto him. They were typical of the kindof men who were sent to him, hethought. Which meant, as usual, thatthey were atypical. Every man in theDiplomatic Corps who developed atwitch or a quirk was shipped toSaarkkad IV to work under BertrandMalloy, Permanent Terran Ambassadorto His Utter Munificence, theOcceq of Saarkkad.
Take this first one, for instance.Malloy ran his finger down the columnsof complex symbolism thatshowed the complete psychologicalanalysis of the man. Psychopathicparanoia. The man wasn't technicallyinsane; he could be as lucid as the nextman most of the time. But he wasmorbidly suspicious that every man'shand was turned against him. Hetrusted no one, and was perpetuallyon his guard against imaginary plotsand persecutions.
Number two suffered from somesort of emotional block that left himcontinually on the horns of one dilemmaor another. He was psychologicallyincapable of making a decisionif he were faced with two or morepossible alternatives of any majorimportance.
Number three ...
Malloy sighed and pushed the dossiersaway from him. No two menwere alike, and yet there sometimesseemed to be an eternal samenessabout all men. He considered himselfan individual, for instance, but wasn'tthe basic similarity there, after all?
He was—how old? He glanced atthe Earth calendar dial that was automaticallycorrelated with the Saarkkadiccalendar just above it. Fifty-ninenext week. Fifty-nine years old. Andwhat did he have to show for it besidesflabby muscles, sagging skin, awrinkled face, and gray hair?
Well, he had an excellent record inthe Corps, if nothing else. One of thetop men in his field. And he had hismemories of Diane, dead these tenyears, but still beautiful and alive inhis recollections. And—he grinnedsoftly to himself—he had Saarkkad.
He glanced up at the ceiling, andmentally allowed his gaze to penetrateit to the blue sky beyond it.
Out there was the terrible emptinessof interstellar space—a great, yawning,infinite chasm capable of swallowingmen, ships, planets, suns, andwhole galaxies without filling its insatiablevoid.
Malloy closed his eyes. Somewhereout there, a war was raging. Hedidn't even like to think of that, butit was necessary to keep it in mind.Somewhere out there, the ships ofEarth were ranged against the shipsof the alien Karna in the most importantwar that Mankind had yetfought.
And, Malloy knew, his own positionwas not unimportant in that war.He was not in the battle line, noreven in the major production line, butit was necessary to keep the drug supplylines flowing from Saarkkad, andthat meant keeping on good termswith the Saarkkadic government.
The Saarkkada themselves were humanoidin physical form—if one allowedthe term to cover a wide rangeof differences—but their minds justdidn't function along the same lines.