Cardan watched intently.
The cloth flapped in the air, as if held on an invisible pin.
Maclane said, "I've been trying to tell Don, I can influence this picture."
Donovan suddenly groaned, then cursed in a low voice. Cardan snapped his attention back to the scene in the distance, beyond the power line, but could see only a confused whirl of motion. He handed the headset he was using to Maclane, and put on the second headset of the circuit Donovan was using.
The confused whirl Cardan had seen beyond the power lines now sprang into clear view. Men in battle dress were running forward, then dropping to the ground to take aim at a line of cylinders rolling toward them. Cardan could see mortars, machine guns, 3.5-inch rocket launchers, and some weapon or device that he didn't recognize. At first glance, he felt a grim sense of pleasure. Then he looked again.
The men were struggling with their weapons. There was no sign of rifle, mortar, or machine-gun fire, and the rockets were falling short and failing to explode. The men glanced up at each other, then looked out over the lowland.
The cylinders were closer now, and faint blurs flickered at the snouts of their guns.
Close by, directly in Cardan's field of view, chunks of dirt and snow flew up. Then the smoke blew away, and he could see endless puffs of black erupt across his field of view in a continuous churning that stopped thought, and left him looking on blankly as men, guns, and equipment blew into fragments.
Then the cylinders were rolling by.
Behind them walked coveralled individuals seven or eight feet in apparent height, carrying like tommy-guns large-breeched, long-muzzled weapons, with which they methodically shot the wounded.
Then they had passed by, too, and there was nothing left but fragments, motionless figures, torn uniform cloth lifting in the wind that swept across the lowland, and dirt falling down the sides of shellholes.
Cardan took off the headphones, snapped on the intercom, and said, "Miss Bowen, see if you can get General Whitely for me."
"Yes, Mr. Cardan."
Donovan got to his feet, and put his headphones on the table, "I can't watch that any more."
"Somebody has to keep an eye on it," said Cardan, "so we'll know if anything new develops."
"I'm going to watch it from a little closer range," said Donovan.
Cardan opened his mouth. Donovan went out, slamming the door.
Cardan got out a fresh cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it. He blew out a cloud of smoke. "That's the trouble with having a bunch of individualists around. When the crisis comes, they all boil off in their own direction."
Maclane took off his headset. "The only one to boil off in his own direction so far is Donovan."
"Wait a while," said Cardan.
The intercom buzzed. Miss Bowen said, "Mr. Cardan, the men are back with the groceries."
"Have them put the stuff down in the subbasement. How about the men who went out to the sporting goods stores?"
"They aren't back yet, sir."
"O.K. Keep trying to get Whitely."
"Yes, sir."
Maclane, holding the headset in one hand, was squinting at the wall. "I wonder, Chief," he murmured, "what Donovan's planning to do?"
Cardan glanced at Maclane, and took a fresh grip on his cigar.
Maclane said thoughtfully, "No ordinary car will get him near the place by now, I suppose. But our steam car can do it. And they'll be sure nothing we have can move."
Cardan looked at Maclane sourly. "Mac, listen a—"
Maclane abruptly tossed the headset on the table and jumped up.
"Stay at that set!" Cardan ordered.
The door slammed as Maclane went out.
"Lousy individualists!" roared Cardan. He now had two circuits giving a close-range view of the action, and no one to do the watching but himself.
The intercom buzzed. Miss Bowen said, "The men with the sporting goods are back, Mr. Cardan."
"Good. Have them put them down in the subbasement, and leave a few men to keep an eye on things."
"They're on the way up here right now, sir."
"Oh," said Cardan coldly. "Well, when they get here, send them in."
"Yes, sir."
"And keep trying for Whitely."
"Yes, sir."
Cardan picked up the headset Maclane had dropped, and studied the remaining wisps of smoking upholstery from the wrecked car. He eyed them thoughtfully, and adjusted the cigar in his mouth. Watching one particular bit of upholstery intently, he willed it to move to the left. A puff of wind blew it to the right and backwards. Cardan's teeth tightened on the cigar. Drawing all his conscious awareness into a tight focus centered on the wisp of blackened cloth, he commanded it to move forward, toward him. A puff of wind carried it farther away. Cardan absently took out his cigar. Then he centered his entire consciousness on that little bit of cloth, till he was aware of nothing else. The view seemed to waver and enlarge as Cardan focused his mind on the cloth, seeing each separate fiber, taking hold of it as he became fully aware of its every visible characteristic, and lifted it up and forward, toward him, against the wind, and held it in the air. He turned it from side-to-side before him, over and over, winding it into a tight ball and spreading it out flat almost as if it were a finger on a hand that he controlled through the direct action of nerves on muscles.
Somewhere in the background, Cardan could hear voices. He drew a deep breath, and carefully took off the headset. He felt somewhat like a man awakening from anesthesia, or from a vivid dream. But his last glimpse with the headset on showed him the bit of cloth fluttering down from a position well upwind of the smoldering wreckage of the cars.
Miss Bowen was saying urgently, "Mr. Cardan, I have General Whitely on the line. And the men are back from the sporting goods stores, and they're quite insistent—"
Cardan picked up his cigar. "Put Whitely on, then let them in but tell them to be quiet."
Miss Bowen put the phone in Cardan's hand, then stepped outside to quiet angry voices.
"Hello?" said Cardan into the phone.
The door opened, and Cardan's men shoved in, rifles and shotguns thrust out in all directions.
"Bugs?" Whitely's voice jumped out of the phone.
"Right here," said Cardan, holding up his hand to quiet his men.
"Listen," said the general, "they've stepped up the power of that circle. We can't get anything through or over, and what we had inside is used up."
"What about missiles?"
"We attacked them hand-to-hand a little bit ago, Bugs. Not a gun would fire. As a last resort, we had a nuclear device in there, and if nothing else worked, we intended to set it off. We set it off. Nothing happened."
Cardan frowned. "How about missiles?"
"We've tried missiles. They seem to get through, but they don't explode—unless you want us to beat them to death with warheads."
Cardan set his cigar in the tray. "What are you going to do?"
"So far we've been fighting blind and off-balance. There are too many unknowns. We don't know who we're fighting, what they've got, or what they'll spring on us next. They've knocked us into a kind of punch-drunk stupor, and the only way out of it I can see is to get in there fast, smash their airhead while it's still little, and grab enough material and prisoners so we can start to figure out what's going on."
"What are you going to fight them with?"
"We're going to try to get at them close-range with gas and anything else that's not based on explosives. But, Bugs, how do we get close enough to do it in time? You drove through that barrier. How many of those steam cars do you have?"
"Just one, and I'm pretty sure someone just took off in it. The devil with that. Listen, Tarface."
"I'm listening."
"What you want is steam locomotives. Get after every roundhouse and railroad repair yard for one that isn't torn down yet. Get in touch with the Canadians. I think they're still using them, and theirs will be in good shape. There
's a track that runs only a few miles to the east of that landing site, and—"
The general's voice cut in abruptly. "I've got the picture, Bugs. Thanks."
There was a click at Cardan's ear. He set the dead phone in its cradle and looked up at the men across the desk, bristling with guns. The powerfully-built, belligerent towhead stood directly in front of Cardan, and seemed to be the spokesman.
The door opened up, and Maclane came in, looking furious.
Cardan glanced at Maclane. "Don went off in the steam car, did he?"
"He whizzed right out of the parking lot as I was yelling to him to wait a minute."
"So you could run out with him, eh?"
"It's a free country," blazed Maclane. "You don't own me!"
There was a mutter of sympathy from the rest. Cardan was on his feet and had Maclane by the collar before he knew what had happened. "You fool, do you think I want to own you!" He gave him a shake, and let go. "Get out! Beat it, the lot of you!" He sat down, threw his dead cigar into the wastebasket, and pulled out a fresh one. When he looked up, they were all standing there, watching him pugnaciously.
He paused with the cigar in his hand and eyed them one-by-one. They looked back unflinchingly. "All right," he snarled. "Donovan has gone roaring off on his own, and you want to, too. Do you think I don't? But we've got something better here." He jerked a thumb at the circuits. "Mac was telling me he could influence the picture! When he left a minute ago, I discovered I could influence the picture. Do you know what that 'influencing the picture' means? What's the only way to move the image of an object on an ordinary TV screen without distorting the rest of the picture?"
Maclane, his eyes glinting, said, "Move the object itself in the studio."
"Right. And it seems to me exactly what happens here."
Smitty scowled. "So therefore, what?"
Cardan lit the cigar. "So therefore Mac can move a small light object down on that highway. So can I."
The big towhead said, "We'll never beat them by moving 'small light objects'! We've got to go down there and smash them!"
"What with?" said Cardan contemptuously.
"With what we've got. We can figure out what to do when we get there."
Cardan blew out a cloud of smoke. "If you think you're a one-man armored division, go ahead and try it. Maybe you can succeed where a paratroop battalion and nuclear missiles fail."
"All right, then, what do we do?"
"If you'll shut up for a minute, I'll tell you."
The towhead was watching him as if he had a bonfire lit behind each eye. Cardan blew a cloud of cigar smoke in his face, eyed the rest of the men, noted that all of them looked tense, and some appeared so keyed up as to be ready to spring at his throat any time. Cardan knocked the ash off his cigar and growled, "I don't know if you realize it or not, but one basic principle of either war or business competition is to hit your opponent's weak point. If you go charging out there with those guns, you're going to run against him where he's strong. Another basic principle is to do what your opponent doesn't expect, and isn't ready for, and get him off-balance. If you go after him head-on, you'll be doing exactly what he does expect, and he'll polish you off by simple routine. Now, if you want to go, go ahead."
The men glanced at each other uneasily. There was a brief silence. Smitty said, "What's your idea, Chief?"
Cardan glanced at their faces, saw they were all listening intently, and said, "It isn't just how much power a man has that counts. A lot depends on how he uses it, and where he brings it to bear. The armed forces have the power to flatten the opposition down at that highway, but they can't bring their power to bear. They're tied up. They've been hit by devices they can't strike back at. Now, what do you think that circuit there represents for our side?"
"Sure, but you said yourself, all you can do is move a little light object with it."
Cardan grinned. "That's all."
"But look, Chief—"
"Benjamin Franklin said, a couple of hundred years ago, 'There is no little enemy.'"
The men were squinting from Cardan to the circuit. Maclane scowled, and put his hands on the contacts.
Cardan said, "In the first world war, the British outnumbered the Turks in Palestine. But the Turks were dug into a system of trenches. The British couldn't bring their superiority to bear. Then Lawrence of Arabia went to work on the Turkish communications. Once he had these worn to a thread, the British threatened an attack in one direction, secretly switched their forces, and smashed through elsewhere. The British Army won the actual victory. But first Lawrence and the Arabs wore the opposition down and drove them to distraction."
The men all looked thoughtful. Smitty was massaging his chin with his hand. "We're like Lawrence, and the Armed Forces are like the British?"
"Exactly."
The towhead said curiously, "But if we can only move small light stuff, how does that help?"
Cardan said, "A pin is a very small light object. Do you know any man who can do efficient work with a little light pin stuck in him? And yet—he'd better do efficient work, with the Armed Forces closing in on him."
"H-m-m," said the towhead.
Maclane, his hands on the contacts of one of the sets, said, "Whatever we're going to do, Chief, we'd better hurry up and do it. They're setting up some kind of framework of long shiny rods on the highway. They're working as if they want to get it set up in a hurry."
Cardan snapped on the intercom.
"Miss Bowen, we're going to move down into subbasement. There's a switchboard down there, so we can keep in touch with the outside. The telephone lines are underground, so if worst come to worst, we should be able to keep in touch with the outside for quite a while. Are you willing?"
"Yes, sir."
Cardan looked up. "Let's go."
They went out the door in a rush, and headed downstairs.
The "subbasement," Cardan was thinking, was the reason for one of the worst squabbles he'd ever had with the major stockholders of the company. Every feature of it had infuriated them, from the massive, heavily-reinforced ceiling, to the small production facilities and self-contained water, sewage, and power supply. Why, the big stockholders demanded, should the profits of the company be sunk into this slab of masonry instead of turned back into useful production, or distributed in dividends?
In reply, Cardan mobilized the small stockholders, played the national anthem, waved the flag, puffed the Cold War into an imminent threat of missile and bombing attack, and scattered smoke, dust, and confusion in all directions. He squeezed through a violent stockholders meeting with a narrow margin of control and well-heeled opponents breathing fire and brimstone down his neck.
Cardan knew the subbasement was still spoken of acidly.
About the kindest name for it was "Cardan's Folly."
And Cardan knew that there was still a few diehards who automatically voted against everything they thought he wanted, just in commemoration of that subbasement fight. But he also know that the majority of the big stockholders were again behind him, with one reservation "So long as he doesn't want another bomb shelter."
As the massive doors slid back, Cardan eyed the subbasement approvingly, then walked in with the rest of the men.
Smitty, carrying one of the sets, said curiously, "Chief, why did you build this?"
"I thought we might need it."
"But why?"
"With people waving H-bombs and missiles around, what's wrong with having a hole to crawl into?"
"I think you had some kind of hunch."
Cardan shifted the cigar in his mouth, and blew out a noncommittal cloud of smoke. Overhead, the lights faded out, then snapped on more dimly. Someone called, "Power's been knocked out!"
Underfoot, there was a faint vibration as the subbasement generators began to turn over.
Cardan glanced around. Canned goods were regularly kept stored away down here, and now he noted a large pile of fresh groceries. "Good," he said approvingly
, and gave directions for putting the food away.
Maclane, he saw, was at a table with a group of men huddled around a number of sets.
The towhead said, "What about these guns, Chief? We got the whole assortment—shotguns, rifles, air guns, CO2 guns. You ask for it, and we've got it. We even picked up a few of these slingshots that shoot ball bearings."
Cardan nodded approvingly. "Sort 'em out, with the right ammunition by each weapon. I think the CO2 guns and those slingshots are going to be the handiest."
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