“He’s trying to drive a wedge between you and me,” said Littlejohn.
Brad saw that the chief of the anthropology department looked downcast. It was midafternoon. The two of them were sitting alone at a table in the nearly empty cafeteria, Brad’s lime juice barely touched, Littlejohn’s steaming cup of tea also still brimming.
“You mean because he’s put Larry on my team?”
“I’ve only got twelve people in my department,” Littlejohn said, almost wistfully. “He’s put you and Larry onto this special team to plan our procedure for contacting the Gammans. That’s one-sixth of my manpower. And two more of my people have asked to join your team.”
“I don’t want two more people,” Brad said. “I didn’t want to have a team in the first place!”
Littlejohn’s red-rimmed eyes stared at Brad.
“Kosoff is trying to wedge us apart,” he repeated.
“But why?”
“Because I’ve been explaining his motives to you. I’ve been protecting you from him, a little.”
Brad said, “No, I think it’s because he doesn’t want you to continue with your study of how he operates.”
“Our work isn’t aimed at him. You know that. We’re studying the entire community here, the evolution of a community that’s separated from the rest of human society.”
“But inevitably,” Brad pointed out, “your study becomes a critique of how he runs things.”
Littlejohn shook his head.
“That’s how he sees it, I’ll bet you.”
“How egocentric.”
“That’s the way he is.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“But you could test it,” Brad said.
“Test it? How?”
“You go to Kosoff and volunteer to put the whole anthropology department to work on my team. You tell him you want to help me.”
“But that would mean…” Littlejohn’s voice trailed off as he realized the implications of Brad’s suggestion.
Brad said, “That would mean you’d have to suspend the department’s study of the ship’s personnel and the development of our unique society.”
“Give up our study?”
“On the surface,” Brad said. “Kosoff’ll jump at the chance to get your department to stop spying on the people here—”
“We’re not spying!” Littlejohn bleated.
“But that’s the way most of the people in the ship think of us. That’s the way Kosoff sees us: we anthropologists are nothing more than snoops sticking our noses where they’re not wanted.”
“So if I offer to put my people to work helping you…”
“You’ll have to stop studying the other people of this expedition.”
“And that’s what he’s really after.”
“It’s not the only thing he’s after,” Brad replied. “But he’ll be happy to have you stop the anthro study. I’m certain of it.”
A slow smile spread across Littlejohn’s face. “That in itself would be a significant anthropological finding.”
Hunching forward over the table, Brad added, “And although our original study will be sidetracked, we’d still have all the behavioral data that Emcee gathers automatically, every day.”
“Yes, we would, wouldn’t we.”
“It’s worth a try.”
Littlejohn’s smile winked out. “But we can’t tell anyone else about this.”
“Not Larry, certainly,” said Brad. “He couldn’t keep a secret like this. I’m not even sure he’d want to keep this secret. He’d blab it to Kosoff right away.”
“Making points with the Big Boss,” Littlejohn mused. “Perhaps you’re right.”
Brad prompted, “So you go to Kosoff instead—”
“And volunteer the entire anthropology department to help in drawing up a plan for contacting the Gammans.”
“I’ll offer to step down as team director, and let you take over in my place.”
“No,” said Littlejohn. “That might be too obvious. It might tip Kosoff to the idea that we’ve concocted this scheme together.”
Brad thought it over briefly. “Maybe you’re right. But it’ll seem awfully weird for me to be your boss.”
“Fortunes of war, my boy. Stranger things have happened.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
* * *
Kosoff stared across his desk at Littlejohn.
“The entire anthropology department?” he asked.
“There’s only twelve of us,” said the Aborigine. “Ten, actually, with Brad and Untermeyer working on the contact plan.”
“But what about the work you’re already doing?” Kosoff asked. “You can’t give that up, can you?”
“We can mothball it for the present and then resume the study after the contact plan is completed.”
Kosoff drummed his fingers on his desktop for a few moments. Then, “Once we’ve actually established contact with the Gammans I imagine you’ll have a whole new area of study to occupy you.”
Littlejohn allowed himself to smile a little. “Yes, I suppose we will.”
Frowning slightly, Kosoff said, “Technically, this would mean you’d be working under MacDaniels. Would that bother you? Cause any problems?”
“Brad and I have always gotten along quite well,” Littlejohn replied. “He’s not much of a one for organization charts and lines of command, anyway.”
“He’s an unusual one.”
With a forced sigh, Littlejohn said, “I know he’s caused his share of problems for you.”
Kosoff grunted. “I should have a dozen like him.”
“What do you mean?”
“MacDaniels is a very unusual young man. He goes outside the lines of authority, true enough, but he gets things done. We would never have realized the octopods on Alpha have a language if Brad hadn’t pushed us into it. And now he wants to study Beta more closely.”
“He can be troublesome,” Littlejohn agreed.
“That’s the kind of trouble I need,” said Kosoff. “That’s the kind of trouble that makes progress, makes breakthroughs.”
Surprised, Littlejohn admitted, “I thought you were upset by Brad’s attitude.”
“Of course I was upset when he first started defying me. But more and more I realize that he has an instinct for making discoveries. He follows his own drummer, that boy.”
“And he gets others to follow along after him.”
“He certainly does. None of us gave a thought to the possibility that there’s significant life on Beta. But he did. He just about forced me to increase our surveillance of the planet.”
“Are field mice significant?” Littlejohn asked.
“They certainly are. And this coming conjunction between Beta and Gamma—the astronomers are agog with anticipation and now MacDaniels has the biologists getting interested in watching what happens when the two planets pass each other.”
“I didn’t realize…”
Kosoff was smiling now. “The big challenge with an intellect like MacDaniels is to channel his energy, harness his curiosity.”
“To use him,” Littlejohn murmured.
Nodding vigorously, Kosoff said, “That’s right. From what Untermeyer has showed me of the plan they’re developing, they’re going to recommend sending one or more of our people to the surface of Gamma and initiating actual physical contact with the humanoids.”
“Before the near-passage with Beta?”
“Yes. Perhaps staying on the planet’s surface during the near-passage.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?”
“Of course it will. That’s why we need to choose the contact person very carefully.”
Littlejohn realized where Kosoff was heading. “You’re thinking of sending Brad.”
“I think he’s ideal for the job: bright, knowledgeable, adventurous … he’s ideal.”
Littlejohn stared at Kosoff’s bearded, smiling face and wondered, Does he actually believe Brad should make first contact with the aliens, or is he trying to get rid of the lad permanently?