The Noblest Experiment in the Galaxy
Author: Louis Trimble
Published: 1970 by Ace (Ace Doubles series)
Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan (frontispiece also by Jack Gaughan)
Publisher Blurb: In the midst of his uneventful life, Zeno Zenobius awaoke to find himself a gentried citizen of Wooten Dorset, England-- a most unusual little town. A utopia of perfect, pleasant weather. A cornucopia of jasmine, eucalyptus and banana trees. He gave little thought to the amazing anachronisms amid the Victorian elegance: hovercrafts, electric lights, typewriters, and Zeno's very own computer.
But then a nagging worry just below the depths of his conscious finally burst out like an infected boil, and Zeno discovered there were two of him: Zeno Past and Zeno Present, Zeno I and Zeno II. And the purpose of Zeno I was to find out what Zeno II was doing in Wooten Dorset....
Notes: Published as an Ace double with The Communipaths by Suzette Haden Elgin on the reverse side.
This one is best not to think about too much. Particularly, do not think about the horrific implications of all the very convenient brain "programming" going on. Or the setup of the experiment itself. And so on. That said, especially considering the age of the novel, it's refreshing that while the protagonist is a male computer programmer, the character who carries the story is the woman inventor/spy/adventurer counterpart he meets partway through.
Summary: A series of reports and memos give backstory first on the violent defection of eight officers of the Galactic Military Forces, and on their possession of a mysterious weapon and their equally mysterious disappearance; and second on a secret conference of several mining concerns who want to protect their right to monopoly and will do anything to assure that right. During this secret conference, Ralon Gloque, on behalf of the Galactic Institute for Sociological Perfection, introduces the work his institute has underway, which, under the Federation-approved nonprofit guise of a sociological experiment, should further the goals of the monopoly and effectively hide them in plain sight. Other key players in this struggle include freebooter systems and the privateering system called Jondee.
Computer programmer Zeno Zenobius, employed at Intra-Galactic Investigations, Incorporated (aka Eye-3) within Federation space, is happiest and at his best working on data. Still, when his boss Londres and his boss Marlowe summon him to the top floor, he bumbles his way up. As it turns out, his unique way of looking at and working with data has already proved useful on this case of the missing defectors. He's debriefed on the situation, learning about the Galactic Institute for Sociological Perfection's experiment on the planet Noblisse. On that barren world, the Institute has created a replica of Victorian England under glass. And the head of this experiment has invited volunteers from all sorts of places to participate in the experiment. Eye-3 has received such an invitation, and Marlowe has in mind sending Zeno. Zeno agrees and willingly submits to multiple layers of brain programming, first through his employer and then through the Institute. Theoretically, the brain programming from Eye-3 should protect him from whatever the Institute has in mind.
Zeno begins his life anew in Wooten Dorset, England, with no memory of his previous life in the Federation. There are a number of incongruencies that don't particularly bother him: the perfect, changeless, and very un-English weather; the flora that could never survive in an English climate; the computer technology developed long after the Victorian era; and his own role as a private investigator in what appears to be a society without any crime at all. And yet, he occasionally has a spell of something come over him-- a sort of nagging at the back of his mind that he's incomplete.
Zeno's social circle here is also well established: his friends of the Select, his secretary Petra, even the barmaid Jenny are all familiar and friendly fixtures of his daily life here.
Meeting his friends of the Select at the pub one day, conversation triggers one of his strange, nagging spells-- the feeling of incompleteness. But the spell doesn't stop there. His programming from Eye-3 kicks in, and he remembers who he is and why he has come: uncover the purpose of this experiment, determine who the key players here are. Suddenly aware of himself, aware also of the Select's knowledge of their true selves, Zeno realizes he is playing a dangerous game where no one's allegiance is certain. The members of the Select are waiting for another member who will provide them instructions on what to do next, and Zeno doesn't know who everyone's working for. Surely among the 'awakened' people caught up in the experiment, some are from Federation's Anthropol, and others are in Gloque's employment. There may even be plants from the privateering system Jondee. So he decides to play it safe. He lets the Select know he's awakened, but he does not reveal Eye-3's programming. Instead, he plays along with the Institute's programming, in which light he is meant to be a supporting member of the Select with very little knowledge of the context that has brought him here.
The Select's first assignment for him is to spy on Petra, his secretary. But Petra is faster and gets to him first, and shortly has his story out of him. In turn she reveals they are, at least for the time being, on the same side: her real name is Chloe Helos, and she is companion to the Baron of Jondee. Petra and Zeno work together to uncover the final member of the select-- the barmaid Jenny-- and subdue her, while Petra pretends that role. This allows Zeno and Petra to uncover the truth: the experiment underway on Noblisse is a distraction for the real work on that planet, which is the manufacture of an extremely deadly weapon that had been banned and purportedly destroyed centuries ago. Arming the monopoly's people with these weapons will allow them to overthrow the Federation and pursue their own profit. Naturally, it's up to Zeno and Petra to foil this plan, which they eventually do.