The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  Twombly said, “Well, we didn’t bring you back to Washington for a trade conference.”

  “I gathered that from your wire. What am I here for?”

  Twombly pushed his chair back and came to his feet. It occurred to Hank Kuran that his chief had aged considerably since the forming of this department nearly ten years ago. The thought went through his mind, a general in the cold war. A general who’s been in action for a decade, has never won more than a skirmish and is currently in full retreat.

  Morton Twombly said, “I’m not sure I know. Come along.”

  They left the office by a back door and Hank was in unknown territory. Silently his chief led him through busy corridors, each one identical to the last, each sterile and cold in spite of the bustling. They came to a marine guarded door, were passed through, once again obviously expected.

  The inner office contained but one desk occupied by a youthfully brisk army major. He gave Hank a one-two of the eyes and said, “Mr. Hennessey is expecting you, sir. This is Mr. Kuran?”

  “That’s correct,” Twombly said. “I won’t be needed.” He turned to Hank Kuran. “I’ll see you later, Henry.” He shook hands.

  Hank frowned at him. “You sound as though I’m being sent off to Siberia, or something.”

  The major looked up sharply, “What was that?”

  Twombly made a motion with his hand, negatively. “Nothing. A joke. I’ll see you later, Henry.” He turned and left.

  The major opened another door and ushered Hank into a room two or three times the size of Twombly’s office. Hank formed a silent whistle and then suddenly knew where he was. This was the sanctum sanctorum of Sheridan Hennessey. Sheridan Hennessey, right arm, hatchetman, alter ego, one man brain trust—of two presidents in succession.

  And there he was, seated in a heavy armchair. Hank had known of his illness, that the other had only recently risen from his hospital bed and against doctor’s orders. But somehow he hadn’t expected to see him this wasted. TV and newsreel cameramen had been kind.

  However, the waste had not as yet extended to either eyes or voice. Sheridan Hennessey bit out, “That’ll be all, Roy,” and the major left them.

  * * * *

  “Sit down,” Hennessey said. “You’re Henry Kuran. That’s not a Russian name is it?”

  Hank found a chair. “It was Kuranchov. My father Americanized it when he was married.” He added, “About once every six months some Department of Justice or C.I.A. joker runs into the fact that my name was originally Russian and I’m investigated all over again.”

  Hennessey said, “But your Russian is perfect?”

  “Yes, sir. My mother was English-Irish, but we lived in a community with quite a few Russian born emigrants. I learned the language.”

  “Good, Mr. Kuran, how would you like to die for your country?”

  Hank Kuran looked at him for a long moment. He said slowly, “I’m thirty-two years old, healthy and reasonably adjusted and happy. I’d hate it.”

  The sick man snorted. “That’s exactly the right answer. I don’t trust heroes. Now, how much have you heard about the extraterrestrials?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You haven’t heard the news broadcasts the past couple of days? How the devil could you have missed them?” Hennessey was scowling sourly at him.

  Hank Kuran didn’t know what the other was talking about. “Two days ago I was in the town of Machu Picchu in the Andes trying to peddle some mining equipment to the Peruvians. Peddle it, hell. I was practically trying to give it away, but it was still even-steven that the Hungarians would undersell me. Then I got a hurry-up wire from Morton Twombly to return to Washington soonest. I flew here in an Air Force jet. I haven’t heard any news for two days or more.”

  “I’ll have the major get you all the material we have to date and you can read it on the plane to England.”

  “Plane to England?” Hank said blankly. “Look, I’m in the Department of Economic Development of Neutral Nations, specializing in South America. What would I be doing in England?” He had an uneasy feeling of being crowded, and a suspicion that this was far from the first time Sheridan Hennessey had ridden roughshod over subordinates.

  “First step on the way to Moscow,” Hennessey snapped. “The major will give you details later. Let me brief you. The extraterrestrials landed a couple of days ago on Red Square in some sort of spaceship. Our Russkie friends clamped down a censorship on news. No photos at all as yet and all news releases have come from Tass.”

  Hank Kuran was bug-eying him.

  Hennessey said, “I know. Most of the time I don’t believe it myself. The extraterrestrials represent what the Russkies are calling a Galactic Confederation. So far as we can figure out, there is some sort of league, United Planets, or whatever you want to call it, of other star systems which have achieved a certain level of scientific development.”

  “Well…well, why haven’t they shown up before?”

  “Possibly they have, through the ages. If so, they kept their presence secret, checked on our development and left.” Hennessey snorted his indignation. “See here, Kuran, I have no details. All of our information comes from Tass, and you can imagine how inadequate that is. Now shut up while I tell you what little I do know.”

  Henry Kuran settled back into his chair, feeling limp. He’d had too many curves thrown at him in the past few minutes to assimilate.

  “They evidently keep hands off until a planet develops interplanetary exploration and atomic power. And, of course, during the past few years our Russkie pals have not only set up a base on the Moon but have sent off their various expeditions to Venus and Mars.”

  “None of them made it,” Hank said.

  “Evidently they didn’t have to. At any rate, the plenipotentiaries from the Galactic Confederation have arrived.”

  “Wanting what, sir?” Hank said.

  “Wanting nothing but to help.” Hennessey said. “Stop interrupting. Our time is limited. You’re going to have to be on a jet for London in half an hour.”

  He noticed Hank Kuran’s expression, and shook his head. “No, it’s not farfetched. These other intelligent life forms must be familiar with what it takes to progress to the point of interplanetary travel. It takes species aggressiveness—besides intelligence. And they must have sense enough not to want the wrong kind of aggressiveness exploding into the stars. They don’t want an equivalent of Attila bursting over the borders of the Roman Empire. They want to channel us, and they’re willing to help, to direct our comparatively new science into paths that won’t conflict with them. They want to bring us peacefully into their society of advanced life forms.”

  Sheridan Hennessey allowed himself a rueful grimace. “That makes quite a speech, doesn’t it? At any rate, that’s the situation.”

  “Well, where do I come into this? I’m afraid I’m on the bewildered side.”

  “Yes. Well, damn it, they’ve landed in Moscow. They’ve evidently assumed the Soviet complex—the Soviet Union, China and the satellites—are the world’s dominant power. Our conflicts, our controversies, are probably of little, if any, interest to them. Inadvertently, they’ve put a weapon in the hands of the Soviets that could well end this cold war we’ve been waging for more than twenty-five years now.”

  The president’s right-hand man looked off into a corner of the room, unseeingly. “For more than a decade it’s been a bloodless combat that we’ve been waging against the Russkies. The military machines, equally capable of complete destruction of the other, have been stymied Finally it’s boiled down to an attempt to influence the neutrals, India, Africa, South America, to attempt to bring them into one camp or the other. Thus far, we’ve been able to contain them in spite of their recent successes. But given the prestige of being selected the dominant world power by the extraterrestrials and in possession of the science and industrial know-how from the stars, they’ll have won the cold war over night.”

  His old eyes flared. “You wa
nt to know where you come in, eh? Fine. Your job is to get to these Galactic Confederation emissaries and put a bug in their bonnet. Get over to them that there’s more than one major viewpoint on this planet. Get them to investigate our side of the matter.”

  “Get to them how? If the Russkies—”

  Hennessey was tired. The flash of spirit was fading. He lifted a thin hand. “One of my assistants is crossing the Atlantic with you. He’ll give you the details.”

  “But why me? I’m strictly a—”

  “You’re an unknown in Europe. Never connected with espionage. You speak Russian like a native. Morton Twombly says you’re his best man. Your records show that you can think on your feet, and that’s what we need above all.”

  Hank Kuran said flatly, “You might have asked for volunteers.”

  “We did. You, you and you. The old army game,” Hennessey said wearily. “Mr. Kuran, we’re in the clutch. We can lose, forever—right now. Right in the next month or so. Consider yourself a soldier being thrown into the most important engagement the world has ever seen—combating the growth of the Soviets. We can’t afford such luxuries as asking for volunteers. Now do you get it?”

  Hank Kuran could feel impotent anger rising inside him. He was off balance. “I get it, but I don’t like it.”

  “None of us do,” Sheridan Hennessey said sourly. “Do you think any of us do?” He must have pressed a button.

  From behind them the major’s voice said briskly, “Will you come this way, Mr. Kuran?”

  * * * *

  In the limousine, on the way out to the airport, the bright, impossibly cleanly shaven C.I.A. man said, “You’ve never been behind the Iron Curtain before, have you Kuran?”

  “No,” Hank said. “I thought that term was passé. Look, aren’t we even going to my hotel for my things?”

  The second C.I.A. man, the older one, said, “All your gear will be waiting for you in London. They’ll be sure there’s nothing in it to tip off the KGB if they go through your bags.”

  The younger one said, “We’re not sure, things are moving fast, but we suspect that that term, Iron Curtain, applies again.”

  “Then how am I going to get in?” Hank said irritably. “I’ve had no background for this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  The older C.I.A. man said, “We understand the KGB has increased security measures but they haven’t cut out all travel on the part of non-Communists.”

  The other one said, “Probably because the Russkies don’t want to tip off the spacemen that they’re being isolated from the western countries. It would be too conspicuous if suddenly all western travelers disappeared.”

  They were passing over the Potomac, to the right and below them Hank Kuran could make out the twin Pentagons, symbols of a military that had at long last by its very efficiency eliminated itself. War had finally progressed to the point where even a minor nation, such as Cuba or Portugal, could completely destroy the whole planet. Eliminated wasn’t quite the word. In spite of their sterility, the military machines still claimed their million masses of men, still drained a third of the products of the world’s industry.

  One of the C.I.A. men was saying urgently, “So we’re going to send you in as a tourist. As inconspicuous a tourist as we can make you. For fifteen years the Russkies have boomed their tourist trade—all for propaganda, of course. Now they’re in no position to turn this tourist flood off. If the aliens got wind of it, they’d smell a rat.”

  Hank Kuran brought his attention back to them. “All right. So you get me to Moscow as a tourist. What do I do then? I keep telling you jokers that I don’t know a thing about espionage. I don’t know a secret code from judo.”

  “That’s one reason the chief picked you. Not only do the Russkies have nothing on you in their files—neither do our own people. You’re safe from betrayal. There are exactly six people who know your mission and only one of them is in Moscow.”

  “Who’s he?”

  The C.I.A. man shook his head. “You’ll never meet him. But he’s making the arrangements for you to contact the underground.”

  Hank Kuran turned in his seat. “What underground? In Moscow?”

  The bright, pink faced C.I.A. man chuckled and began to say something but the older one cut him off. “Let me, Jimmy.” He continued to Hank. “Actually, we don’t know nearly as much as we should about it, but a Soviet underground is there and getting stronger. You’ve heard of the stilyagi and the metrofanushka?”

  Hank nodded. “Moscow’s equivalent to the juvenile delinquents, or the Teddy Boys, as the British call them.”

  “Not only in Moscow, they’re everywhere in urban Russia. At any rate, our underground friends operate within the stilyagi, the so-called jet-set, using them as protective coloring.”

  “This is new to me,” Hank said. “And I don’t quite get it.”

  “It’s clever enough. Suppose you’re out late some night on an underground job and the police pick you up. They find out you’re a juvenile delinquent, figure you’ve been out getting drunk, and toss you into jail for a week. It’s better than winding up in front of a firing squad as a counterrevolutionary, or a Trotskyite, or whatever they’re currently calling anybody they shoot.”

  The chauffeur rapped on the glass that divided their seat from his, and motioned ahead.

  “Here’s the airport,” Jimmy said. “We’ll drive right over to the plane. Hid your face with your hat, just for luck.”

  “Wait a minute, now,” Hank said. “Listen, how do I contact these beat generation characters?”

  “You don’t. They contact you.”

  “How.”

  “That’s up to them. Maybe they won’t at all; they’re plenty careful.” Jimmy snorted without humor. “It must be getting to be an instinct with Russians by this time. Nihilists, Anarchists, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, now anti-Communists. Survival of the fittest. By this time the Russian underground must consist of members that have bred true as revolutionists. There’ve been Russian undergrounds for twenty generations.”

  “Hardly long enough to affect genetics,” the older one said wryly.

  Hank said, “Let’s stop being witty. I still haven’t a clue as to how Sheridan Hennessey expects me to get to these Galactic Confederation people—or things, or whatever you call them.”

  “They evidently are humanoid,” Jimmy said. “Look more or less human. And stop worrying, we’ve got several hours to explain things while we cross the Atlantic. You don’t step into character until you enter the offices of Progressive Tours, in London.”

  * * * *

  The door of Progressive Tours, Ltd. 100 Rochester Row, was invitingly open. Hank Kuran entered, looked around the small room. He inwardly winced at the appearance of the girl behind the counter. What was it about Commies outside their own countries that they drew such crackpots into their camp? Heavy lenses, horn rimmed to make them more conspicuous, wild hair, mawkish tweeds, and dirty fingernails to top it off.

  She said, “What can I do for you, Comrade?”

  “Not Comrade,” Hank said mildly. “I’m an American.”

  “What did you want?” she said coolly.

  Hank indicated the travel folder he was carrying. “I’d like to take this tour to Leningrad and Moscow. I’ve been reading propaganda for and against Russia as long as I’ve been able to read and I’ve finally decided I want to see for myself. Can I get the tour that leaves tomorrow?”

  She became businesslike as was within her ability. “There is no country in the world as easy to visit as the Soviet Union, Mr—”

  “Stevenson,” Hank Kuran said. “Henry Stevenson.”

  “Stevenson. Fill out these two forms, leave your passport and two photos and we’ll have everything ready in the morning. The Baltika leaves at twelve. The visa will cost ten shillings. What class do you wish to travel?”

  “The cheapest.” And least conspicuous, Hank added under his breath.

  “Third class comes to fifty-five guineas. The tour
lasts eighteen days including the time it takes to get to Leningrad. You have ten days in Russia.”

  “I know, I read the folder. Are there any other Americans on the tour?”

  A voice behind him said, “At least one other.”

  Hank turned. She was somewhere in her late twenties, he estimated. And if her clothes, voice and appearance were any criterion he’d put her in the middle-middle class with a bachelor’s degree in something or other, unmarried and with the aggressiveness he didn’t like in American girls after living the better part of eight years in Latin countries.

  On top of that she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, in a quick, red headed, almost puckish sort of way.

  Hank tried to keep from displaying his admiration too openly. “American?” he said.

  “That’s right.” She took in his five-foot ten, his not quite ruffled hair, his worried eyes behind their rimless lenses, darkish tinted for the Peruvian sun. She evidently gave him up as not worth the effort and turned to the fright behind the counter.

  “I came to pick up my tickets.”

  “Oh, yes, Miss.…”

  “Moore.”

  The fright fiddled with the papers on an untidy heap before her. “Oh, yes. Miss Charity Moore.”

  “Charity?” Hank said.

  She turned to him. “Do you mind? I have two sisters named Honor and Hope. My people were the Seventh Day Adventists. It wasn’t my fault.” Her voice was pleasant—but nature had granted that; it wasn’t particularly friendly—through her own inclinations.

  Hank cleared his throat and went back to his forms. The visa questionnaire was in both Russian and English. The first line wanted, Surname, first name and patronymic.

  To get the conversation going again, Hank said, “What does patronymic mean?”

  Charity Moore looked up from her own business and said, less antagonism in her voice, “That’s the name you inherited from your father.”

  “Of course, thanks.” He went back to his forms. Under what type of work do you do, Hank wrote, Capitalist in a small sort of way. Auto Agency owner.

  He took the forms back to the counter with his passport. Charity Moore was putting her tickets, suitcase labels and a sheaf of tour instructions into her pocketbook.