In Our Hands the Stars
Page 20
“Then the killings, the spies …”
“All waste. The secret of security is to never let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. A secret agency tries to steal the secret while other secret laboratories try to develop it. And once these agencies get rolling they are very hard to stop. It would be ironic if it were not so tragic. I have finally heard the entire story myself—I was up all night with the security people getting briefed on the whole story. Do you know how many countries already had a lead to the nature of the Daleth effect when the ship was blown up? I’ll tell you. Five. The Japanese thought they were first and tried to apply for international patents. Their applications were turned down by four countries because earlier patent applications had been filed in these countries and held under government security. Germany and India were two of these countries.”
“And the other two?” She gasped the words as though she already knew.
“America and the Soviet Union.”
“NO!”
“I’m sorry. It hurts me as much to say it as it does for you to hear it. Your husband, Arnie, my friends and colleagues died in that explosion. Wasted. Because the countries that caused it already knew the answer. But since the information was top secret they could not tell other agencies or men in the field. But I no more hold them to blame than I do our own security, who wired the explosives into the ship in the first place. Nor do I blame any other country involved in the mess. It is just institutionalized paranoia. All security men are the same, drawn to the work by their own insecurities and fears. They may be sincere patriots, but their sickness is what makes them demonstrate their patriotism in this manner. This kind of person will never understand that when it is steamboat time you build steamboats, airplane time you build airplanes.”
“I don’t understand you.” She wanted to cry now but she could not; she was beyond tears.
“The story always repeats itself. As soon as the Japanese even heard about American radar during World War II they went to work on it. They developed the magnetron and other vital parts almost as soon as the Americans did. Only internal squabbling and the lack of production facilities kept them from making it operational. It was radar time. And now … now it is Daleth time.”
Then there was a long silence. A cloud passed over the sun outside and the room darkened. Finally Martha spoke: she had to ask the question.
“Was it all a waste? Their deaths. A complete waste?”
“No.” Ove hesitated and tried to smile, but he could not do it. “At least I hope that it is not a complete waste. Men from a lot of countries died in that explosion. The shock of this could drive some sense into people’s heads, and maybe even into politicians’ heads. They might use this discovery for the mutual good of all mankind. Do the right thing just this once. Without bickering. Without turning it into one more fantastically destructive weapon. Used correctly the Daleth effect could make the world a paradise. The Japanese even went us one better—they’ve eliminated the separate power source. They looked into the energy conservation and found out that they could use the Daleth effect to power itself. So we now all live in the suburbs of the same world city. That fact will take some getting used to. But the world, all of us, must-get together and face that fact. Any person or country who tries to use this power for harm or for war will have to be stopped—instantly—for the greater good of all,
“Look at it that way and the deaths are not a waste. If we can learn something from their sacrifice it might all have been worthwhile.”
“Can we?” Martha asked. “Can we really? Make the kind of world we all say that we want but never seem able to attain?”
“We are going to have to,” he said, leaning forward and taking her hands. “Or we will certainly die trying.”
She laughed. Without humor.
“One world or none. I seem to have heard that before.”
The cloud passed and the sun came out again, but inside the house, in the room where the two people sat, there was a darkness that would not lift.
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