The secretary smiled. “If you can do as well as that unprepared and out of your field, you ought to get by on your new job. Yes, that’s the history of lovestonite— up till last month. Then all of a sudden a terrific demand from California. Imports jump around a thousand percent. The processing plant becomes a major industry. Of course, like all requests for raw materials, this was cleared through this secretariat. No questions at first, because there’s such a surplus of the clay there was no need for regulation. But eventually we began to wonder.”
Garrett whistled quietly. “Armslegging?”
“I don’t see how. It doesn’t seem scientifically conceivable that lovestonite could have any lethal powers. But there is something wrong. We queried the plant on what it was producing with lovestonite. They said mirrors.”
“Mirrors?”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. A lovestonite mirror is possible, I suppose, but it would cost double anything that’s on the market and wouldn’t work so well. So something is wrong. And when something is wrong in California, you know where to learn the secret.”
Garrett nodded. “Sollywood. The whole state’s just a suburb to that.”
“So—” the secretary opened a drawer and took out a small and gracefully carved plesiosaurus. At the top of the delicately curving neck was a gold collar from which a small chain ran. “You never wear jewelry on your identification bracelet, do you?” Garrett shook his head. “Function where function belongs. No trimmings.”
“But you’ll wear this. It’s by Kubicek, one of his best, I think. He says lovestonite is a surprisingly good vehicle for carving. It might help to start conversations. Beyond that, you’re on your own. No instructions but these: Do a good job as technical adviser, and find out what’s going on in California.”
The head of the plesiosaur was typical Kubicek. It had, not the anthropomorphic cuteness of gift-shop animals, but a prehistoric richness of reptilian knowledge and cynicism. “Between us,” said Gan Garrett, “we’ll find out all there is to know. And I hope,” he added, “that it is armslegging.”
The girl was looking at his mascot now. “That’s a nice thing. Kubicek, isn’t it? I usually somehow don’t think much of men who wear jewelry on their identification bracelets, but that’s such a lovely swizard.”
“A what?”
“That’s what I used to call a plesiosaur when I saw pictures of them when I was little. They looked like part swan and part lizard, so I called them swizards. But what’s it made out of? That isn’t a natural stone, and it doesn’t look like any of the usual carving plastics.”
“It’s lovestonite.”
“Oh,” said the girl.
“Odd stuff,” Garrett went on. “Not much use for it ordinarily.”
“Isn’t there?” There was an odd tone of suggestion underlying her remark.
“Is there? I’d never heard of any.”
“I don’t know . . . I’m damned if I know,” she said with quite disproportionate vigor. Her blue eyes flashed with puzzled irritation. “Damn lovestonite, anyway.” Gan Garrett held himself back. A technical authority on history should not be too pryingly eager with questions.
The girl changed the subject abruptly. “So you’re an authority on the War of the Twentieth Century? That must be exciting, kind of. I haven’t read so much serious history, but I know all the Harkaway novels. It must have . . . there was so much to living in those days.”
Secretly Garrett almost agreed, but he replied in character. “Nonsense, my dear girl. Those were days of poverty and oppression, of want and terror. Science had turned only its black mask to us then; the greatness of man’s intellect was expended on destruction.”
“I know all that. But think how much more it meant to be alive when you were face to face with death.”
“No. There is nothing glamorous about death from malnutrition, nor is there anything colorful about being blown to bits by a bomb.”
“Don’t be stuffy.”
“I’m not being stuffy. We invest the past with glamour; we always have. We say, ‘Mustn’t it have been wonderful to be alive in the days of Elizabeth! Or Napoleon, or Hitler?’ But the only good thing about the War of the Twentieth Century was its total badness. Only such complete evil could have prepared the world for the teachings of Devarupa.”
The girl looked sobered for a moment. “I know. Devarupa was . . . well, wonderful. But I’ve never thought he meant peace quite like this. He must have meant a peace that was alive—that gave off sparks, that made music. Peace isn’t just something to wallow in. Peace has to be fought for.”
“You’re Irish, aren’t you?” said Gan Garrett dryly.
“Yes; why?”
“It takes the Hibernian to produce that kind of statement. An Irish bull, technically, is it not? It was an Irish scientist on our faculty who told me that microbes are tiny all right, but a virus is littler than a dozen microbes.”
She laughed. “I know. I sound like the old Irish gag about ‘There ain’t gonna be no flightin’ here if I have to knock the stuffin’ out of every wan of yez.’ I know; my dialect gets mixed. But the whole world’s mixed now—and how is it we Irish still manage to stick out? Still, what I said is true, even if it does sound funny.”
“It’s been tried,” said Garrett as historian. “The Pax Romana worked that way: Peace, ye underlings; or Rome will crush you to the ground. But the Empire weakened
