"Vacation trip to Nirva?!?" snapped Secad Screed—Galactic Sector Administrator J. Gomer Screed, a serious-minded man who rarely lost his temper. That was a pity; it was a lousy temper. "A mindless excursion, and completely outside my Sector at that! Woman, are both you and Garten out of your minds? Who do you think is going to run my administration with both Garten and I on a childish vacation to this absurd 'Dream Planet' of yours?" "Well—there is Deputy Assistant Prinot and—"
"Ha! And then what do you suppose would be left of my record here and my prospects of promotion—after Depast Prinot and the others put in five solid weeks wrecking all my work?"
Secast Garten, short, a little chubby, the opposite of his chief (who looked like a deep-thinking, bald stork scheduled for delivery of Siamese quintuplets in a typhoon,) grinned. He was seated out of the direct line of verbal fire, on a rock-hard hassock at one side of the barely furnished Screed apartment. He grinned, knowing what Secad Screed would do with a similar opportunity at Division Hq.
"Oh, now, dear," soothed Mrs. Screed, a mousey, chronically anxious little woman with five years experience as secretary and ten as wife in learning to soothe her husband. "Prinot is such a nice man. Don't worry so about things. Just put them out of your mind; they'll be all right."
"What?" Fifteen years experience she had soothing him, but she never did seem to get the knack of it. Or, perhaps, it was a matter of Screed's conscientiously refusing to be soothed, as a matter of discipline. A wife should know her place. Women being what they were, light minded, he felt it only fair that he should regularly point it out to her. He didn't want to spoil her. And he didn't either—unless it was in the matter of favoring her with his personal attentions weekly, at 11:30 p.m., each Friday.
This was big of him. She was lucky. Secad Screed was a big man, Administrative Officer in full command of a major sun system at only 56, wedded to his work and dedicated to becoming more and more important. Mrs. Screed's position was, in a way, almost bigamous. She had a rich, full fifteen minutes every Friday, and what more could any woman want of life?
At the moment, this one imagined she wanted to take a vacation trip to some nonsensical, little known, semi-mythical dream planet that Garten—the fool!—had been telling her about. "Garten—"
"You are so right, J.G., so right. Give Prinot and those boys an inch and they'll be measuring you out for a grave with it, while they sharpen their knives. Half a chance and they'd foul up your whole Sector Administration. But—you know, sir, after five straight years on the job for both you and me, a five-week vacation is compulsory. We do have our orders."
"Mf-f-f!" That was true and that was the rub. "But we don't have to chase off so far we can't keep an eye on things!"
"Of course, sir. Or—an idea you gave me just the other day, sir—with the recent Truad activity over in Sector Y, we could put this whole system into an emergency invasion alert drill, sir. For the duration—of our vacation. Then every move Prinot makes will have to follow the book—or a court-martial when we get back. With you presiding, eh?"
Secad Screed smiled a thin smile. "I thought of that, of course, Garten. Clever of you to see it. Given time, I may be able to make a passably capable assistant of you after all."
Garten was necessarily more skilled at soothing Screed than was Mrs. S., whose somewhat special status brought her very limited privileges but considerable job security. Garten had hung on, sometimes narrowly, for some five years now.
"Yes sir. I hope so, sir."
"But not as long as you come up with asinine suggestions for us to throw away valuable time on some scarcely heard of 'dream planet.' Even though Centrad does enforce these foolish compulsory vacations, there is no reason why the time cannot be turned to some useful account."
"But, dear," murmured Mrs. Screed wistfully.
"No! Viola, you seem to have lost whatever few wits you once possessed. Why in the Galactic Universe would I go to some tiny, sink-hole, single planet system not even important enough to have a Service Administration? Even I have scarcely heard of the place. Garten, what ever got into you?"
"Uh—ah, well, sir. You see I—uh—have always admired so your report on waste and extravagance on Primus that you made following your last vacation five years ago just before coming here. The way you toppled the entire Sector Administration, forced a dozen or more early retirements and—"
"And got me my promotion to Secad."
"Yes, sir. A sensational job, and much talked of at Centrad, I know. Well sir, I just thought that, since this Nirva is so little known, something of a mystery you know, and something of a sore point with Centrad too, perhaps it might be ripe for an expose."
"Mph. Nonsense, Garten. Not important enough—though, come to consider, it is odd how little public information there is about the place. Centrad is covering something.... Hm-m. Never bothered to check the secret files on it myself. Just for curiosity, Garten, what is the detail on the thing?"
Mrs. Screed leaned back in her chair; glanced blankly about the bare apartment; picked idly at a cuticle; tried, with apprehensively expressive features, to register total disinterest. Once, before discouragement set in, she had been a modestly pretty young woman. Now she was merely modest.
"Viola," snapped Screed, "go fix some refreshment. Ice water, crackers, something. Can't have you sitting there mooning over this Nirva nonsense of Garten's. Your mind has too great an affinity for nonsense."
"Yes, sir. Well, sir—"
Mrs. Screed threw him a fleeting, timid smile over her shoulder as she left the room through the kitchen door, back of Screed's arm chair. Inside of two minutes she was back, standing very quietly in the doorway with a pitcher of water and a dish of plain, protein crackers on a tray. Garten talked on.
"Nirva, as you know, is the single planet of a small sun off on the fringes of this region of the Galaxy. It seemed so insignificant it was never even visited until something like fifty years ago. Then a questionable prospector ship had a minor breakdown and was forced to come out of an inter-space jump near the Nirva system. The prospectors had been ten years out. They were coming back empty-handed, nothing to show, not one valuable planet found. There they were. Spectroanalysis of Nirva didn't show much, but they decided to check anyway. They were desperate, dreaming out of all reason of a last-ditch success—dreaming of a civilized, friendly planet, hospitable natives, rich beyond belief, foolishly ready for exploitation, eager to load them up with fissionable minerals and so on. You know how those old space tramp adventurers used to be, sir."
"Hmph. Tramps, yes. So?"
"So they landed and discovered Nirva; the Dream Planet. Of course they didn't find that out at the time."
"What did they find?"
"They found a civilized, friendly planet, hospitable natives, rich beyond belief, foolishly ready for exploitation, eager to load them up with fissionable minerals and so on. There wasn't even a communication problem. The people, handsome, human type, were telepathic. Well. Their visit, although no two of the eleven men on the ship could agree on the details, was one glorious celebration. Liquor and no hangovers. Women, the most beautiful in the universe, competing with each other to do everything—I mean everything—for the pleasure of the space heroes. In fact, it seemed a space tramp's dream of heaven. They hated to leave."
"If the place was such a degenerate's delight, why did they leave?"
"Just simple greed, apparently. Their ship was loaded with the most valuable cargo in history. They couldn't resist the urge to take it back and cash in; to strut around and be big heroes, men of wealth and power back home. Finally, and with plenty of regrets, they blasted off. A couple of jumps, six months—travel was slow then, of course—and they landed at the regional capital. They reported their discovery and claims, turned in the cargo for analysis and sale—and, listening for the cheers, sat back to collect their fortunes. Instead of cheers, they got the universal horse laugh."
"A laugh? At a fortune? Why—oh, yes. Of course; turned out they made a pretty stupid mistake about that cargo, eh?"
"Well, it seemed a funny mistake. Their whole cargo of rare, fissionable elements was nothing but perfectly ordinary sand and rock. Now, this crew was rough, but prospecting was their business. They knew their business. It just wasn't possible that they could have made such a mistake. At first the officials were inclined to drop the whole thing as a pointless hoax. But it was so pointless. Somebody was sharp enough to push for an investigation on that account. They rounded up the prospectors, who were all hustling around trying to promote supplies to get them back to Nirva. They got a psychiatric team to run them all through a complete check. The clues to the truth of the matter turned up then; but they were not, at least not generally understood."
"What—?"
"The psychiatric team found that each of the eleven told a similar story, and actually had a similar mental picture of Nirva. But, examined closely, the detail, the artifacts, the—uh—types and—ah—um—habits of the women were startlingly, if not sensationally, different. So different that, in fact, the planet seemed to be perfect. Perfect according to each crewman's idea of the perfect planet. Some of them had pretty crude ideals of perfection, of course. The psychiatric team pushed through an order grounding all members of the crew. All of them ended badly, by the way—seven suicides, two murders, two violent mental cases. The team submitted a completely inconclusive report. Then they proposed that they all be sent to examine Nirva."
"Well? Get to the point, Garten!"
"The expedition went out. It never came back. No word ever came back. The administration jumped to a conclusion that the planet, Nirva, had become hostile and the expeditionary force captured. A battle cruiser, advised to expect resistance and with orders to use all force necessary to pacify the planet and rescue prisoners, was sent out. The cruiser went. It met resistance near Nirva and won a brilliant victory. The Nirva forces surrendered. The ship landed and officers and crew were feted by the defeated population. Prisoners were rescued. Finally, and with some little reluctance the captain, a devoted family man, gave orders and the cruiser headed back. But—at the first jump away, the prisoners and something like two-thirds of the cruiser's crew vanished. Naturally there was a good deal of excitement.
"Arrant nonsense."
"Yes, sir. Of course. But—two further rescue expeditions ran into much the same thing. It seemed that only individuals with the most vital and binding ties or absorbing interests back home ever came back from Nirva. Others, especially anyone with the least trace of instability, stayed there."
"A lunatic planet for the feeble-minded!"
"Uh—yes, sir. In a manner of speaking. At least the officially approved conclusion regarding Nirva is this. No way to be certain but, presumably, from sample materials and distance observation, it appears a rather ordinary, Earth-type planet physically. It is inhabited by a race, physical characteristics doubtful, probably humanoid, having, unique mental properties. Imaginative, very powerful, hypnotic. And, the theory goes, these people exercise a sort of group mind power with individualistic overtones. To all intents and purposes, they modify their physical—and social—surroundings to suit themselves. Each then lives quite literally in a world of his own. The world of his dreams. For visitors from outside, same thing. Each person who lands on Nirva, or even approaches it without a powerful force shield, sees what he imagines he should see. He finds whatever he may be looking for. A man who has mental air castles, you might say, can go to Nirva and move right into them. As they say, sir, the planet of dreams."
"Hallucinations!"
"Yes, sir. But controlled, pleasant—and having all the force, feel and effect of reality. So the theory has it, that is. Of course, travel to Nirva is so restricted as to be almost completely prohibited now and the information wiped from public records. The administration could see that it might become disastrously over popular."
"Why not wipe out the whole lunatic asylum of a system?"
"Ah—yes. Well—uh—perhaps some of the men at the top thought perhaps it might turn out to be useful in—uh—some way."
"There have been rumors of mysterious disappearances of officials. Weakness."
"Yes sir. Exactly."
"A haven for weak-minded idiots to be taken in by stupid, parlor hypnotics. Why should I waste my time and talent exposing something so totally and transparently stupid?"
"Of course, sir. It would be a difficult thing to try to manage. I'm sure—in spite of the enormous publicity and promotional possibilities in clearing up the mystery—that it's not the sort of thing a solid administrator would care to get mixed up in."
The Secad looked interested.
"A perfectly horrible sounding place," interrupted Viola from her doorway, "I had no idea it would be anything like that. It sounds immoral, actually. I wouldn't go."
The Secad looked thoughtful.
"Besides," added Garten, "I'm certain, now I consider it, we couldn't possibly manage to get a clearance to visit Nirva anyway."
"Well, then," said Viola firmly. "You know how the Secad needs a rest. I do hope you can find something more suitable for our vacation than that. Some place that's quiet and respectable and—"
The Secad looked convinced. "Oh, shut up, Viola. And you too, Garten. If we must go on a vacation, we must—but I shall decide where we will go. Is that clear?"
That was clear.
Nirva stuck in the mind of Secad Screed. He was, certainly, the sanest, soundest, solidest and most sensible of men. It was not possible to trick him into any hasty, ill-considered action.
Still, it rankled to have Garten and, of all people, Viola tell him he couldn't go to Nirva—and couldn't succeed in doing anything about it if he did.
Of course, it is true that a man can trust no one but himself. It was transparently obvious that Viola and that pip-squeek Garten were trying to con him into taking them to Nirva. But it was an irritation. And maybe the thing did, actually, offer the possibility for something sensational in the way of a coup.
Naturally, Garten and Viola were interested only in the supposed cheap thrills of the dream planet, the chance to escape from practical, business-like reality into some degenerate make-believe. They both needed a lesson. They should be shown how poor and weak a thing a romantic dream is, when brought up short by the trained, superior, analytical administrative mind.
The next day at work he set Garten to work drafting up orders for an emergency invasion alert drill "just in case." He then consulted with his Neuro-Surgeon General.
"Naturally, Dr. Treadmel, I would never dream of directing any illegal actions within my own jurisdiction—where, of course, I am Secad and therefore the judge of all questions of legality. And of your Department too, Doctor, you may take note. However, the information I am endeavoring to extract from you I shall apply, if at all, solely to the planet Nirva. Not to any of ours."
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, Doctor. Now. You are familiar with hypnotics, are you not?"
"Sir!" The Doctor was hurt. "One of the primary duties—"
"All right. You are familiar with hypnotics. You use them all the time in legal questions, crime, employment interviewing in depth and so on. Naturally. And you are also aware of various measures—yes, yes, I know they are specifically barred by the Public Safety Amendment—some mechanical and some narcotic, that may be taken to counteract or prevent hypnosis. So. My question is this. Would such measures as your low power, hyper-electronic broadcast and your anti-hypnotic drugs be effective against the spell or illusion the inhabitants of Nirva use on visitors and, perhaps, themselves?"
"Well, now, Secad Screed, that is an extremely interesting question."
"I am interested only in the answer, Doctor."
"Uf. Yes, sir. Well, I can see no reason why they wouldn't be effective—always supposing the subjective hypnotic theory of the place is correct. That is—in theory—this group mind, which is supposed to provide the basis, should be totally disrupted by the random or scrambling effect of the electronic broadcast. The drugs, on the other hand, would render the individual who took the drug, during the period of its effectiveness, totally un- or non-receptive to the impulse, whereas—"
"All right, Doctor. You are trying to say, in your obfuscating manner, that the measures would be effective. Right?"
"Subjectively, not taking into account the hypothetical possibility of random foci—and, of course, barring circumstances outside the range of—"
"Doctor! Yes? Or no?"
"We............