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Agents of Vega

James A Schmitz

"That was an epiphany. . . ."

Mercedes Lackey

There's a commercial on cable stations lately that talks about moments of epiphany—moments when you understand

something that changes your life.

I've had at least one of those moments—and when it was over, my life had been changed forever.

It was when, when I was eleven or thereabouts, I went looking in the living room for something to read.

Now, in my house, books were everywhere and there was very little my brother and I were forbidden to read. We

both had library cards as soon as we got past "Run, Spot, run," and by the time I was nine I was coming home with

armloads of books every week and still running out of things to read before the week was over. By the time I was

ten, I had special permission to take books out of the adult section—yes, in those dark days, you needed a

permission slip from your parents to read things that weren't in the children's section.

Now, the peculiar thing here is that although I read anything that looked like a fairy-tale and every piece of historical

fiction I could find, I hadn't discovered classic juvenile science fiction. I can't think why— unless it was because my

library didn't have any. It was a very small branch library, and I hadn't yet learned that you could request anything

that was in the card-catalog for the whole county-wide system. It might also have been because my branch library

had helpfully segregated the juvenile section into "Boys" and "Girls," and I wasn't brave enough to cross the

invisible line-of-death dividing the two. I do recall reading two little books called Space Cat and Space Cat Meets

Mars and loving them—and also something called City Under the Back Steps about a kid who gets shrunk and joins

an ant colony—but that was in a different library, before we moved, and perhaps the books hadn't been so helpfully

segregated there. Be that as it may, although I was knee-deep in the historical novels of Anya Seton and Rosemary

Sutcliff by then, I hadn't ventured into the adult Science Fiction section. I hadn't fallen headfirst into Andre Norton's

myriad worlds, I hadn't joined Heinlein's resourceful heroes, I hadn't discovered Anderson, Asimov, Clarke, Nourse,

Simak. . . .

All that was about to change. Because my father had.

My father was a science fiction reader; in our house, where library books were everywhere, it was my father who

bought the paperbacks. They were divided pretty equally in thirds—suspense (including spy-novels), war, and

science fiction.

It was the start of summer vacation, I had already bored through my stack of nine books, and we weren't going back

to the library for another two days. I was desperate. I ventured into the living room, and picked up James Schmidt's

Agent of Vega.

I'm not sure why. It certainly wasn't the cover—in those days, science fiction books were sporting rather odd

abstract paintings—possibly trying to divorce themselves from the Bug Eyed Monsters of the pulp covers so that

they could be taken Seriously. That wasn't going to happen, not in the Sixties, but you couldn't fault the editors for

trying. It wasn't the title—I hadn't a clue what, or who, Vega was, and I wasn't interested in the James Bond books

(yet) that featured the only other "agent" I knew of. Perhaps it was just desperation. I asked politely if I could read it,

was granted permission, and trotted away to my room with my prize.

Five minutes later, it was true love.

It was an epiphany.

Here was everything I had been looking for—exotic settings, thrills, adventure, heroines who were just as

resourceful and brave as the heroes, and something more. There was a magic in the words, but there was more than

that. It was imagination.

No one, no one, since my fairy-tales, had written like this. This James Schmitz fellow seemed as familiar with

androids and alien planets as I was with the ice-cream man and the streets of my home town.

And here, for the first time, I encountered psionics.

Psi! There was even an abbreviation for it! Telepathy! Telekinesis! Teleportation! Empathy! Precognition!

Oh, these were words to conjure with! Better than the magic of the fairy-tales, these were scientific which meant that

someone, somewhere (oh let it be me! Me!) might find a way to get one of these powers for himself!

Much has been made of the "sense of wonder" that science fiction evokes, and believe me, there was nothing to

evoke that sense quite like the worlds of James Schmitz. Especially for someone who had never read anything like

this before. The man had the right stuff; no doubt of it. By the time that I was done with that book, I was well and

truly hooked.

And my life had just taken that irrevocable, epiphanal change.

There was no going back; when we got to the library, I flew to the science fiction section, and (once I had cleaned

out the Schmitz) proceeded to work my way down the alphabet. I did the same in the school library (earning some

peculiar looks from the librarian, I can tell you, since girls weren't supposed to like science fiction). Shortly after

that, I discovered that there were whole stores devoted just to books —I had always lived in suburbs, and back in

those days, there weren't Malls. There were a few—a very few—strip-malls, few of which devoted any space to

anything other than stores with "Boutique" in the name, and there were no real chain bookstores. But we went to

Chicago for dental and optometrist appointments, and there in Chicago were bookstores.

And after that, thanks to the helpful little bits in the back of the books (oh, Ace Doubles! two books—all right,

novellas—for the price of one!) I learned that you could actually order books from the company.

Bliss limited only by my allowance!

But my allowance didn't allow me to buy all the books I craved, nor did the librarian oblige by ordering nothing but

science fiction with the meager budget allocated to her. So, there was nothing for it.

I had to write my own.

Now, I never would have come to this moment, if not (again) for James Schmitz. The novels arranged in their

imposing hard covers on the library shelves could not possibly have been written by mere human beings, right? I

couldn't aspire to that. (Even if the dust jackets had actually featured any information about the authors, thus

removing them to the realms of mortals, the librarian had helpfully taken them off because "they always got torn and

dirty.") But there was lots of information on the paperback covers—and more, much more about those authors in the

science fiction magazines I had discovered in the local drugstore! Why, they even argued with each other in the

letter columns, sounding exactly like myself and my little brother in the midst of a squabble! Yes indeed, these

books were written by human beings just like me. If they could write books, so could I.

So, thanks to James Schmitz, I became an author—first an under-the-bed author (who hid my notebooks full of

illustrated stories under the bed where my brother wouldn't find them), then turning in my stories to high-school

literary contests, then writing as a hobby in college— then writing fanfic and actually getting published (!!!).

And then, finally, actually, making the big leap into Professional Status.

Through it all, the memory of that book, that moment, has stayed with me. The sense of wonder and excitement has

never faded, and never will.

Thank you, James Schmitz, wherever you are.

And thank you, Eric Flint and Jim Baen, for bringing his Right Stuff back again. Maybe some other kid, desperate

for something to read, will have an epiphany of his or her own.

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THE CONFEDERACY OF VEGA

Agent of Vega

"It just happens," the Third Co-ordinator of the Vegan Confederacy explained patiently, "that the local Agent—it's

Zone Seventeen Eighty-two—isn't available at the moment. In fact, he isn't expected to contact this HQ for at least

another week. And since the matter really needs prompt attention, and you happened to be passing within convenient

range of the spot, I thought of you."

"I like these little extra jobs I get whenever you think of me," commented the figure in the telepath transmitter

before him. It was that of a small, wiry man with rather cold yellow eyes—sitting against an undefined dark

background, he might have been a minor criminal or the skipper of an aging space-tramp.

"After the last two of them, as I recall it," he continued pointedly, "I turned in my final mission report from the

emergency treatment tank of my ship—And if you'll remember, I'd have been back in my own Zone by now if you

hadn't sent me chasing a wild-eyed rumor in this direction!"

He leaned forward with an obviously false air of hopeful anticipation. "Now this wouldn't just possibly be another

hot lead on U-1, would it?"

"No, no! Nothing like that!" the Co-ordinator said soothingly. In his mental file the little man was listed as "Zone

Agent Iliff, Zone Thirty-six Oh-six; unrestricted utility; try not to irritate—" There was a good deal more of it,

including the notation:

"U-1: The Agent's failure-shock regarding this subject has been developed over the past twelve-year period into a

settled fear-fix of prime-motive proportions. The Agent may now be entrusted with the conclusion of this case,

whenever the opportunity is presented."

That was no paradox to the Co-ordinator who, as Chief of the Department of Galactic Zones, was Iliff's immediate

superior. He knew the peculiar qualities of his agents—and how to make the most economical use of them, while

they lasted.

"It's my own opinion," he offered cheerily, "that U-1 has been dead for years. Though I'll admit Correlation doesn't

agree with me there."

"Correlation's often right," Iliff remarked, still watchfully. He added, "U-1 appeared excessively healthy the last

time I got near him."

"Well, that was twelve standard years ago," the Co-ordinator murmured. "If he were still around, he'd have taken a

bite out of us before this—a big bite! Just to tell us he doesn't think the Galaxy is quite wide enough for him and the

Confederacy both. He's not the type to lie low longer than he has to." He paused. "Or do you think you might have

shaken some of his supremacy ideas out of him that last time?"

"Not likely," said Iliff. The voice that came from the transmitter, the thought that carried it, were equally impassive.

"He booby-trapped me good. To him it wouldn't even have seemed like a fight."

The Co-ordinator shrugged. "Well, there you are! Anyway, this isn't that kind of job at all. It's actually a rather

simple assignment."

Iliff winced.

"No, I mean it! What this job takes is mostly tact—always one of your strongest points, Iliff."

The statement was not entirely true; but the Agent ignored it and the Co-ordinator went on serenely:

" . . . so I've homed you full information on the case. Your ship should pick it up in an hour, but you might have

questions; so here it is, in brief:

"Two weeks ago, the Bureau of Interstellar Crime sends an operative to a planet called Gull in Seventeen Eighty-

two—that's a mono-planet system near Lycanno, just a bit off your present route. You been through that

neighborhood before?"

Iliff blinked yellow eyes and produced a memory. "We went through Lycanno once. Seventeen or eighteen

Habitables; population A-Class Human; Class D politics—How far is Gull from there?"

"Eighteen hours' cruising speed, or a little less—but you're closer to it than that right now. This operative was to

make positive identification of some ex-spacer called Tahmey, who'd been reported there, and dispose of him.

Routine interstellar stuff, but —twenty-four hours ago, the operative sends back a message that she finds positive

identification impossible . . . and that she wants a Zone Agent."

He looked expectantly at Iliff. Both of them knew perfectly well that the execution of a retired piratical spacer was

no part of a Zone Agent's job—furthermore, that every Interstellar operative was aware of the fact; and finally, that

such a request should have induced the Bureau to recall its operative for an immediate mental overhaul and several

months' vacation before he or she could be risked on another job.

"Give," Iliff suggested patiently.

"The difference," the Co-ordinator explained, "is that the operative is one of our Lannai trainees."

"I see," said the Agent.

* * *

He did. The Lannai were high type humanoids and the first people of their classification to be invited to join the

Vegan Confederacy—till then open only to Homo sapiens and the interesting variety of mutant branches of that old

Terrestrial stock.

The invitation had been sponsored, against formidable opposition, by the Department of Galactic Zones, with the

obvious intention of having the same privilege extended later to as many humanoids and other nonhuman races as

could meet the Confederacy's general standards.

As usual, the Department's motive was practical enough. Its king-sized job was to keep the eighteen thousand

individual civilizations so far registered in its Zones out of as much dangerous trouble as it could, while nudging

them unobtrusively, whenever the occasion was offered, just a little farther into the path of righteousness and order.

It was slow, dangerous, carefully unspectacular work, since it violated, in fact and in spirit, every galactic treaty of

nonintervention the Confederacy had ever signed. Worst of all, it was work for which the Department was, of

necessity, monstrously understaffed.

The more political systems, races and civilizations it could draw directly into the Confederacy, the fewer it would

have to keep under that desperately sketchy kind of supervision. Regulations of membership in Vega's super-system

were interpreted broadly, but even so they pretty well precluded any dangerous degree of deviation from the ideals

that Vega championed.

And if, as a further consequence, Galactic Zones could then draw freely on the often startling abilities and talents of

nonhuman peoples to aid in its titanic project—

The Department figuratively licked its chops.

* * *

The opposition was sufficiently rooted in old racial emotions to be extremely bitter and strong. The Traditionalists,

working chiefly through the Confederacy's Department of Cultures, wanted no dealings with any race which could

not trace its lineage back through the long centuries to Terra itself. Nonhumans had played a significant part in the

century-long savage struggles that weakened and finally shattered the first human Galactic Empire.

That mankind, as usual, had asked for it and that its grimmest and most powerful enemies were to be found

nowadays among those who could and did claim the same distant Earth-parentage did not noticeably weaken the old

argument, which to date had automatically excluded any other stock from membership. In the High Council of the

Confederacy, the Department of Cultures, backed by a conservative majority of the Confederacy's members, had,

naturally enough, tremendous influence.

James H. Schmitz - Agents of Vega.pdf

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