“By heaven, yes!” snapped Kay. “They’re trying to wreck the Anti-War Conference, and I won’t have it. This is mankind’s chance for peace at last, a final peace that will endure a hundred thousand years. Any dog who’d try to stand in the way of that, try to plunge the world back into the nightmare of war after war, deserves no mercy!”
Ballister looked somewhat sick; the corners of his mouth drooped peculiarly, as though he tasted something unpleasant. Finally he looked square into the eyes of the girl and said without conviction: “Yes. Fight them tooth and nail. The best thing to do.”
THE next day at the Conference Auditorium a half-dozen delegates proposed a Defense Act, claiming general privilege to take precedence over other business. After a few hearty seconding speeches which pointed out the danger in which they all stood, there were read the concrete proposals.
The Conference disbanded the International Police, which had been their protective force, as ineffectual. There was organized on the spot an armed force to patrol all Oslo and vicinity, whose right of search was unquestionable, who were able to arrest on suspicion and defer trial indefinitely. The entire Act was passed, a few members abstaining, none voting the negative.
Ballister reported sick to Senator Beekman’s successor. He said that the strain of the work had broken him down, that he needed a few months’ rest. And indeed he was a pitiable sight—haggard, unkempt, eyes dilated, rambling again and again from his subject. The committee head insisted that he take a vacation.
Once outside the Auditorium, the change in Ballister was nearly magical. He slicked back his hair, straightened like a ramrod and generally became his old dynamic self.
At the flying field he took up his ‘gyro. He took it ‘way up, twenty thousand feet and more. Then he headed southeast across the continent. Somewhere over Germany he realized that he was being followed. There were no less than two ‘gyros on his tail, neither of them official.
Like his own craft they were converted warplanes, which, after the fighting had ceased, sold for a dime a dozen. Unlike his own, they carried no markings or national insignia.
Damning his thoughtlessness he set the controls for a straight course and went back to the tail compartment for arms. He found Kay curled up on a crate, blinking in the sudden light.
“Sweet,” he snapped. “I’ll bawl you out for this later. Right now there are two mean-looking rigs on our tail. Can you steer an eccentric course while I handle whatever guns there may be?”
“If there’s two,” she said, “we’d better both handle guns. You set her for flat loops at ceiling speed. I have a scattergun that throws its weight.”
“Right,” said Ballister. He stepped up the speed of the ship to its very top, and then jiggled twenty miles-per-hour more out of the exhaust turbines. He set the controls for a circle, tight and fast. As the setting took and the ship swung he braced himself hard against the wall.
The centrifugal force was enormous; all loose fixtures smacked against the outside wall; he couldn’t lift them off without a crowbar. Kay was battling the inertia, dragging herself along the outside wall into the storage compartment again. After a bit of heavy-handed rummaging she let out a scream of delight.
“Oh boy!” she gloated. “Look!” Painfully she hauled out and displayed a wire net, the kind used for quick repairs of the nacelle. “Get it?”
“I get it,” said Ballister, a slow grin spreading over his face. “Let’s hope they don’t get us first.” The two ships had hauled up nearly alongside and were angling off to the attack. They fired a few tentative bursts at Banister’s ‘gyro, presumably to judge the quality of his reply.
BALLISTER didn’t reply. It would have been practically impossible to handle a gun against the drag of the whirling ship. But he did unsnap the top hatch, ducking back as the hinges tore loose and the square of metal flew up and out.
“Take it,” said Kay. “I can’t handle this thing alone.” He eased his way along the wall, skirting the open hatch. Getting two big handfuls of the repair net, he dragged it behind him, snagging a corner on a rivet. Kay spread the net on her side while Ballister made ready on his own.
“When I say the word,” the girl ordered, “cast off.” She squinted against the sun, hunting for the two planes. With a whoop and a holler they came out of the dazzle firing at the midriff of the ‘gyro.
“Right,” she said calmly, unsnagging the net and chucking it through the hatch simultaneously with Ballister’s machine-like gestures. It spread beautifully in flight, came at the lead plane two square yards of metal moving at high speed.
The plane tried to shoot it out of the sky first, then tried to dodge. The metal netting slammed dead into the prop, splintering and wrecking as it passed on, balled up, into the stabilizer-vane.
The second plane pulled up sharply, fired a parting burst at the ‘gyro and cold-bloodedly bombed the crippled and falling companion. There was nothing left but a few drifting fragments by the time Ballister had pulled out of the flat circles.
“Now why did he do that?” wondered Kay.
“It wasn’t a mercy-shot by any means,” said Ballister. “They have their secrets, whoever they are. Put that in your notebook: they don’t let themselves be taken alive.”
“Sinister people,” said Kay with a small shudder. “They tend to distress me.”
CHAPTER III
PROGRESS
THEY were ready to fire on the ship that overtook them above the south of France, but Kay held back Ballister’s hand.
“I’m blowed,” she declared, “if I’ve ever seen a ship as big and fancy as that one with a single-passenger rating on its side. Probably some rich coot who wants to talk to us.”
It was a magnificent ship—big, enormously roomy, considering that its regulation number registered it as a single-seater. It had one of the biggest and latest engines, capable of five hundred and upwards, was amphibian, had auxiliary parachute packs and all the trimmings of a luxury liner.
Ballister tuned in on his wave. “Stop crowding me,” he snapped. “There’s lots of air for you.”
A familiar voice came back: “Sorry, old man. I didn’t want to contact you until I was sure it was you. This is Gaffney speaking, by the by.” There was a good-humored chuckle.
“Oh—Sir Mallory!” exclaimed Ballister, aghast. “Sorry I barked at you. How come you’re following me—if you are?”
“I am, right enough. Don’t worry—I feel like a vacation, same as you. And—”, a sinister note of strain crept into the baronet’s voice—“I know when my life’s in danger. There’ve been no less than three attacks on me before I decided to light out. Used this old crate—gift from the grateful Royal Academy and all that—to follow you; you left a decently marked trail over Europe. One—ah—one presumes you’re heading for the Pyrenese Peoples’ Republic?”
“Exactly. I won’t hobble your ship, Sir Mallory. You go on ahead and I’ll taxi in. It ought to be a few minutes ahead. Have they got a landing field?”
“The best. I was talking with that delegate chap of theirs—Rasonho—tells me that once the traditionally anarchistic Basques got together they’ve worked miracles in a dozen years. Mountains rich in ores—loan from Germany—got smelters and all.”
BALLISTER looked down and saw the landing field he had been promised. It was a honey; hard-surfaced, triple-tracked, on a small scale perhaps the best in Europe.
“Set it down, Sir Mallory. I’ll follow.” The big plane landed with mechanical ease; Ballister cross-winded and touched Mother Earth again. He emerged with Kay to shake hands with the nobleman.
“Charmed to see you here!” exclaimed Sir Mallory. “But—?” He left the question unanswered.
Sternly Ballister explained: “This young lady, with the romantic misconceptions common to the gentlemen and ladies of the press assumed that I was going off on a secret mission for the Conference. Naturally she could think of no simpler way to spy on me than to stow away in the tail of my ‘gyro.”
/> “And a lucky thing for him that I did,” snapped Kay. She explained the dodge, the attack, and the happy ending. The baronet was fascinated and enraged.
“Who could it be?” he exploded. “Russia? Germany? Britain?”
“Dunno,” said Ballister. “Whoever it is has lots on the ball—and a couple of blind spots.”
Mechanics, burly, tall fellows, drove out to their planes in a sort of motorbike. “Speak English?” asked one, after sizing them up.
“Rather well,” answered the nobleman with a grin. “We’re by way of being unofficial delegates of goodwill from the Anti-War Conference at Oslo. Whom do you suggest we see?”
“Mayor—Pedro Marquesch. We attend to planes—drive you into city. We are honored.”
They stowed the planes into solidly built hangars, then loaded the visitors into the back of a big, new-style car. “Autos,” the mechanic explained, “were import from Germany. We use not many—twenty among us, perhaps.”
The car sped along a neat, narrow highway chiseled from the living rock of the Pyrenees. Their mechanic, with a sort of stolid pride in his people, pointed out the waterworks, the gasworks and a couple of outlying factories. With a smile at Sir Mallory he explained: “All smells to leeward of city. Not like London.”
“After the Conference, my friend,” said the noble, in a good humor, “we’ll strive to overstrip your very high degree of civilization.”
The car was pulled up to a halt. The driver pointed proudly: “Hydroelectric dam. Big power output. No smell. Two years old.”
Ballister stared at the work. It wasn’t as big as Dnieperstroy had been, but in its own way it was a work of genius, plain to see. Every block of concrete seemed to have a peculiar rightness about it; the solitary blockhouse that surmounted the turbine house seemed somehow to be perfectly situated.
“Masterly,” said Ballister. Kay nodded soberly. The man smiled a little as he drove on.
SUDDENLY they were in the city. It wasn’t centralized and there were no skyscrapers; one skyscraper, indeed, could have held the entire population of the Pyrenese Peoples’ Republic. But there were clearly defined sections. The residential city was a series of houses of ample size, in the Basque tradition of sturdy construction, each with its acres of lawn automatically sprinkled and presumably cut. The factory district was tree-shaded and sprawling; though there were no more than a dozen buildings.
The driver pointed out the business, administrative and scientific area, the tallest buildings in the city. They were symbolically white and severe, tall and thin like ascetic monks.
They were dropped at a hotel-like affair of three stories.
“Completely automatic,” said their driver. “No pay—guests of the state. We have a few of them. This was for German and French tradesmen.”
Wondering, they went in. There were clean, spare accommodations; signs in French advised them that they could eat at such-and-such a place at certain hours.
Sir Mallory excused himself, with a regretful, though humorous, confession that he was aging out of all proportion.
“Well?” asked the girl, inspecting their communal sitting-room.
“Uncanny,” said Ballister. “Damned if I know whether I should be delighted or annoyed. I’m both. There’s something so awfully queer going on that I shudder to think of it. Little over a dozen years ago these Basques were an anarchistic lot, living family lives.
“Lord! In those twelve years they’ve completely transferred their allegiance from the family to the state, obviously gone in for heavy cooperation—remember that dam—built a model city, and, it seems, done away with crime. It’s impossible. It’s against all reason.”
“You must be terribly afraid of progress,” said Kay thoughtfully.
“NO,” said Ballister. “Not development. Not normal evolution. That’s growth. But this lunatic speed is more like a cancer than normal social achievement. I think—I’m sure! there’s something behind this slew of nonconformities.”
“And,” exploded Kay, her temper snapping like a rubber band, “I’m dead certain that this is a milestone in the history of man—and that this Pyrenese Peoples’ Republic is destined to be one of the great powers of the world!” She slammed into her room.
“Good night!” yelled Ballister after her.
He slept that night to dream of cancerous proliferations spreading their sickly-white fingers over the map of Europe, then snaking across the ocean and plunging a dagger into the heart of the Western Hemisphere.
Kay couldn’t stay mad, no more than could Ballister. They apologized sweetly to each other at breakfast under the paternal eyes of Sir Mallory, then set out for the Mayor’s office. People on the streets, big men and solid, tall women stopped to stare at them for a moment before hurrying on to the day’s work. The mayor was the Basque type, but bald as an egg. His grin was slow and agreeable; he had a firm handshake.
“You like our small country?” he asked.
“We admire it enormously,” hedged Ballister. “I was commenting last night on your excessively rapid growth.” He shot a malicious glance at Kay.
“Indeed? We explain that, you know, with the theory that the Basque spirit has been in its infancy for many centuries and is now at last growing up. That you may tell the outside world—but not too much of it. We should not wish to become an attraction for tourists. It is our opinion that there is work to be done, that we Basques are well-suited to do it. You would be amazed at the spirit of collaboration that exists among us.”
“I already am,” said Ballister. “Your city is the finest example of communal activity I have ever seen.” There was something flat and deadly in his tone which even he could not explain.
THEY had been spending a marvelously restful five days in the Republic, not bothering to think. Alone for a couple of moments Kay abstractedly confessed: “Isn’t it remarkable that even the great Sir Mallory Gaffney, Baronet, can be a hell of a bore after some period of unmitigated companionship?”
“His conversation sparkles,” said Ballister noncommittally. “It scintillates like the morning sun on dewdrops. He’s a generous and a kindly old gentleman. He’s wise and good and noble—but I tend to agree with you; I’m sick of the sight of him. Sir Mallory tends to inhibit intellection. I haven’t been able to buckle down to a problem in the last few days without his kindly interrupting and helping out with horribly confusing results.”
“You’ve noticed that?” she asked, with wide-open eyes. “Is he just trying to help us relax?”
“Dunno. He has a technique—I’m working with something in social growth, say. He interrupts. I expound. He ponders, then throws in so damned many elements that I don’t know what to make of it. He may be right! He’s near the genius level, I know. But I believe in tackling one problem at a time. He, obviously, doesn’t.”
“Or,” suggested the girl, “pretends he doesn’t.”
They dummied up as Sir Mallory reentered. He sensed the tension and then went through a curious process of winking, snickering slightly and balancing on one foot.
Kay and Ballister exchanged glances. Sir Mallory grinned happily. “Aha!” he said.
Ballister caught on. “Well, dear,” he said, “shall we go for a ride?” The glance he gave the girl was saccharine refined with an eye for sweetness. It was so paralyzingly mushy that Kay reeled beneath the wealth of sloppy sentiment. She studied for one wild moment the silly smile on his face—then caught on.
“Anything you say, sweetness,” she cooed.
They twined arms then, and after another sloppy pair of looks ambled out. Sir Mallory called after them with huge delight:
“Be good, children!” His chuckle followed them down the rustic lane they chose. Out of sight and earshot they untwined and sat heavily on a bench. “Explain all that,” she said. “What was in the air?”
“Lo-o-ove,” said Ballister, polishing his horn-rims. “Not the kind that means anything, the kind that mates people for life and after. But the kind of p
uppy-love that you can hardly call an emotion, it’s so animal and unreasoning. I refer to the sort of stuff that every middle-aged man has a soft spot in his head for. Further, he reasoned correctly—on incorrect premises—that we’d be incapable of comparing notes on him and this hellish place if we were otherwise occupied. His error.”
“Hellish?” asked Kay. “That’s strong.”
“Agreed. Do you recall the exact population of this place?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Never mind just yet. It’s 7,776. Half male and half female. Note that it’s a perfect number, divisible by the whole slew of integers, a perfect radical, it evolves into an integral root—”
“Sure!” she exploded. “I see! So they’re—they’re—” Kay paused, baffled.
“I know how you feel.” Ballister smiled sympathetically. “There’s something stuck away in the back of one’s head that’s just a little distance beyond explanation, just a little too deeply buried for unearthing. What is it? Damned if I can tell you, but it’s very important.” He laughed sardonically.
“The baronet comes,” said Kay. Ballister embraced her violently; she nearly bit a hunk out of his ear.
“Excuse me,” said the noble kindly. “The mayor—Marquesch—suggested that we inspect the landing field. He wants to know if we can offer any suggestions for improving traffic-flow. Thinks that there’s going to be lots of commerce on that hunk of soil.”
“May well be,” said Kay, dropping her eyes with maidenly modesty. “These wonderful people of the Republic! How do they do it?”
“Cooperation,” said Ballister, straightening his tie. “They work as one man. That’s the secret.” He went into a brown study, trailing behind the two others as they walked along the rustic path to the waiting auto. “Cooperation as one man,” he muttered to himself more than once.
CHAPTER IV
FLIGHT
Collected Short Fiction Page 63