Expediter Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  EXPEDITER

  His assignment was to get things done; he definitely did so. Not quite the things intended, perhaps, but definitely done.

  by MACK REYNOLDS

  ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE SCHELLING

  * * * * *

  The knock at the door came in the middle of the night, as Josip Pekichad always thought it would. He had been but four years of age whenthe knock had come that first time and the three large men had givenhis father a matter of only minutes to dress and accompany them. Hecould barely remember his father.

  The days of the police state were over, so they told you. The cult ofthe personality was a thing of the past. The long series of five-yearplans and seven-year plans were over and all the goals had beenachieved. The new constitution guaranteed personal liberties. Nolonger were you subject to police brutality at the merest whim. Sothey told you.

  But fears die hard, particularly when they are largely of thesubconscious. And he had always, deep within, expected the knock.

  He was not mistaken. The rap came again, abrupt, impatient. JosipPekic allowed himself but one chill of apprehension, then rolled fromhis bed, squared slightly stooped shoulders, and made his way to thedoor. He flicked on the light and opened up, even as the burly, emptyfaced zombi there was preparing to pound still again.

  There were two of them, not three as he had always dreamed. As threehad come for his father, more than two decades before.

  His father had been a rightist deviationist, so the papers had said, afollower of one of whom Josip had never heard in any other contextother than his father's trial and later execution. But he had notcracked under whatever pressures had been exerted upon him, and ofthat his son was proud.

  He had not cracked, and in later years, when the cult of personalitywas a thing of the past, his name had been cleared and returned to thehistory books. And now it was an honor, rather than a disgrace, to bethe son of Ljubo Pekic, who had posthumously been awarded the titleHero of the People's Democratic Dictatorship.

  But though his father was now a hero, Josip still expected that knock.However, he was rather bewildered at the timing, having no idea of whyhe was to be under arrest.

  The first of the zombi twins said expressionlessly, "Comrade JosipPekic?"

  If tremor there was in his voice, it was negligible. He was the son ofLjubo Pekic. He said, "That is correct. Uh ... to what do I owe thisintrusion upon my privacy?" That last in the way of bravado.

  The other ignored the question. "Get dressed and come with us,Comrade," he said flatly.

  At least they still called him comrade. That was some indication, hehoped, that the charges might not be too serious.

  He chose his dark suit. Older than the brown one, but in it he felt hepresented a more self-possessed demeanor. He could use the quality.Five foot seven, slightly underweight and with an air of unhappyself-deprecation, Josip Pekic's personality didn't exactly dominate ina group. He chose a conservative tie and a white shirt, although heknew that currently some frowned upon white shirts as a bourgeoisaffectation. It was all the thing, these days, to look proletarian,whatever that meant.

  The zombis stood, watching him emptily as he dressed. He wondered whatthey would have said had he asked them to wait in the hallway until hewas finished. Probably nothing. They hadn't bothered to answer when heasked what the charge against him was.

  He put his basic papers, his identity card, his student cards, hiswork record and all the rest in an inner pocket, and faced them. "I amready," he said as evenly as he could make it come.

  They turned and led the way down to the street and to the blacklimousine there. And in it was the third one, sitting in the frontseat, as empty of face as the other two. He hadn't bothered to turnoff the vehicle's cushion jets and allow it to settle to the street.He had known how very quickly his colleagues would reappear with theirprisoner.

  Josip Pekic sat in the back between the two, wondering just where hewas being taken, and, above all, why. For the life of him he couldn'tthink of what the charge might be. True enough, he read the usualnumber of proscribed books, but no more than was common among otherintellectuals, among the students and the country's avant garde, ifsuch you could call it. He had attended the usual parties and informaldebates in the coffee shops where the more courageous attacked thisfacet or that of the People's Dictatorship. But he belonged to noactive organizations which opposed the State, nor did his tendenciesattract him in that direction. Politics were not his interest.

  At this time of the night, there was little traffic on the streets ofZagurest, and few parked vehicles. Most of those which had been rentedfor the day had been returned to the car-pool garages. It was the oneadvantage Josip could think of that Zagurest had over the cities ofthe West which he had seen. The streets were not cluttered withvehicles. Few people owned a car outright. If you required one, youhad the local car pool deliver it, and you kept it so long as youneeded transportation.

  He had expected to head for the Kalemegdan Prison where politicalprisoners were traditionally taken, but instead, they slid off to theright at Partisan Square, and up the Boulevard of the NovemberRevolution. Josip Pekic, in surprise, opened his mouth to saysomething to the security policeman next to him, but then closed itagain and his lips paled. He knew where they were going, now. Whateverthe charge against him, it was not minor.

  A short kilometer from the park, the government buildings began. TheSkupstina, the old Parliament left over from the days whenTransbalkania was a backward, feudo-capitalistic power of third class.The National Bank, the new buildings of the Borba and the Politica.And finally, set back a hundred feet from the boulevard, the sullen,squat Ministry of Internal Affairs.

  It had been built in the old days, when the Russians had stilldominated the country, and in slavish imitation of the architecturalhorror known as Stalin Gothic. Meant to be above all efficient andimposing and winding up simply--grim.

  Yes. Josip Pekic knew where they were going now.

  * * * * *

  The limousine slid smoothly on its cushion of air, up the curveddriveway, past the massive iron statue of the worker strugglingagainst the forces of reaction, a rifle in one hand, a wrench in theother and stopped before, at last, the well-guarded doorway.

  Without speaking, the two police who had come to his room opened thecar door and climbed out. One made a motion with his head, and Josipfollowed. The limousine slid away immediately.

  Between them, he mounted the marble stairs. It occurred to him thatthis was the route his father must have taken, two decades before.

  He had never been in the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,before. Few Transbalkanians had, other than those who were employed inthe MVD, or who came under the Ministry's scrutiny.

  Doors opened before them, closed behind them. Somewhat to JosipPekic's surprise the place was copiously adorned with a surplus ofmetal and marble statues, paintings and tapestries. It hadsimilarities to one of Zagurest's heavy museums.

  Through doors and down halls and through larger rooms, finally to asmaller one in which sat alone at a desk a lean, competent and assuredtype who jittered over a heavy sheaf of papers with an electro-markingcomputer pen. He was nattily and immaculately dressed and smoked hiscigarette in one of the
small pipelike holders once made _de rigueur_through the Balkans by Marshal Tito.

  The three of them came to a halt before his desk and, at long last,expression came to the faces of the zombis. Respect, with possibly anedge of perturbation. Here, obviously, was authority.

  He at the desk finished a paper, tore it from the sheaf, pushed itinto the maw of the desk chute from whence it would be transported tothe auto-punch for preparation for recording. He looked up in busyimpatience.

  Then, to Josip Pekic's astonishment, the other came to his feetquickly, smoothly and with a grin on his face. Josip hadn't consideredthe possibility of being grinned at in the Ministry of InternalAffairs.

  "Aleksander Kardelj," he said in self-introduction, sticking out alean hand to be shaken. "You're Pekic, eh? We've been waiting foryou."

  Josip shook, bewildered. He looked at the zombi next to him,uncomprehendingly.

  He who had introduced himself, darted a look of comprehension fromJosip to the two. He said disgustedly,