by Various
"Eh? How do you mean?"
"Three men--volunteers for the project--vanished as soon as they found out that they had to submit to all the physicals, mental tests, and so forth. I don't know what they were afraid of. They were already on the reservation. Found out they'd have to be tested again, and vanished. One a known suicide, but the body's still in the river."
"'Tested again'?" the President echoed.
"That's right, John. They'd gone through it before. This was just a recheck for this particular project. Of course, I don't know that they were agents."
"Mmm! So they can't stand a recheck. All right, recheck everybody."
"John! A third of the population works for the government!"
"I mean everybody connected with new projects, the most important installations. This might be a weapon for us."
When he received the Secretary's report a week later, John grinned happily. The rechecks had begun, and the disappearances were mounting. But the grin faded when he read the rest of it. Two of the men had been caught attempting to escape. They had been lodged in a local jail to await transfer to the capitol. During the night, the jailer became aware of a blinding light from the cell-blocks and the stench of burnt organic matter. By the time he reached their cells, the men were gone, and there were only sickening fumes, charred ashes, and a pair of red-hot patches on the floor. Somehow they had gotten incendiary materials into their cells, and the cremation was complete--too complete to be credible.
Then the disappearances began to taper off--until finally, after a few weeks, they ceased completely. He wondered: were the culprits all ferreted out, or had some of them managed to get around the rechecks?
He had spoken to the Asian leader several times, and Ivan was growing curt, even bitingly nasty at times. The President hopefully interpreted it as a sign that his probe was successful enough to worry the Red. He tried to strengthen his position with respect to the proposed conferences, and made only minor concessions such as agreeing to a coastal city in Mexico as the site, rather than the shifting capitol. Ivan sneeringly made equally minute adjustments eastward from Singapore. There was apparently going to be a deadlock, and John was somehow not sorry.
Then the cold-eyed face on the screen did an abrupt about-face, and announced, "I propose that the delegates, including the leaders of both states, meet at a site of your selection in either of the neutral polar regions, not later than Seventhday of Veto Week--which, I think is your Fried Pie Week?--and come prepared to discuss and exchange information relating to size of armament-inventories and future plans. This is my last proposal."
* * * * *
They stared at each other coldly. John started to utter a refusal, then paused. Seventhday of ... it was one day before the satellite program began moving into space. If he could keep the Eastern Leader tied up for a few weeks afterwards--
"I'll consider your proposal and give you a reply tomorrow," he said bluntly.
The Peoplesfriend gave him a curt nod and clicked off the screen. John chuckled. The enemy's espionage program was evidently getting badly hurt. About one percent of the West's population had been executed, imprisoned, or shifted to other jobs as a result of the congressional probe. The one percent probably included quite a few guilty citizens.
"Rodner, I want a Strike-Day set, a full-scale blitz-operation readied as soon as possible," he told the defense-chief. "I know that a lot of your target information is forty years old, but work out the best plan you can. A depopulation strike, perhaps; there are only two opinions in the world, so 'world-opinion' is not one of the things we need to consider."
The Defense Secretary caught his breath and sat stiffly erect. "War?" he gasped.
"Don't use that word."
"Sorry, peace-effort."
"No. At least I hope not. I want a gun aimed at them as a bargaining point. But I want it to be a damned big gun, and one that's capable of shattering every major city in the East on a few hours' notice. How effective could you make it--if you had to?"
The Secretary frowned doubtfully and tugged at his ear. "Well, John, our strategic command has kept a running plan in effect, revising it to allow for every tidbit of information we can get. Planning continental blitzes is a favorite past-time around high-level strategic commands; it keeps the boys in trim. A plan could probably be agreed upon in a very short time, but its nature would depend on your earliest deadline date."
"Two dates," grunted the tragedy-mask. "The first is Seventhday, Fried Pie Week. I want a maximum possible effort readied by then, with a plan that allows for a possible stand-by at that date, and a continued build-up to a greater maximum--to be reached when the satellite station is in space and ready for battle. Include the station in the extended plan."
"This is a very dangerous business, John."
The mask whirled. "Do you presume to--?"
"No, Sir. The strike-effort will be prepared as soon as possible." He bowed slightly, then left the presidential study-vault.
Smith turned to gaze at his Stand-ins. "You will go," he said, "all of you, to the examining authorities for the standard loyalty tests and psych-phys rechecks."
The nine masked figures glanced at one another in surprise, then nodded. There were no protests. The following day he had only seven Stand-ins; Four and Eight had been trapped in a burning building on the outskirts of the rabble city, and their remains had not been found.
Smith kept a tight cork on his rage, but it seethed inside him and threatened to burn through as the time approached to speak again with Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The enemy's infiltration into the very ranks of the Presidency robbed him even of dignity. Furthermore, now that the two scoundrels were uncovered, and dead, he remembered a very unpleasant but significant fact: he had, even before his "election" by the rabble, discussed the televiewphone conferences with the Primaries. The idea of contacting Ivan had started, as most ideas start, from some small seed or other that could scarcely be remembered, some off-hand reference to the costly aspects of the Big Silence perhaps, and it had grown into the plan for contact. But how had the idea first come to him? Had one of the guilty Stand-ins perhaps planted the seed in his mind? After he proposed it, they had seemed demurring at first, but not too long.
Grimly, he realized that the idea might have originated on the far side of the Pacific.
"Who, pray, is the potter, and who the pot?" he grunted, glowering at the nearest Stand-in.
"I beg your pardon?" answered the man, who could not see the glower for the mask.
"Khayyam, you fool!"
"Oh--"
"Sixteen o'clock!" cheeped the timepiece on the wall. "Fifthday, Anti-Rabies Week, Practice-Eugenics Week; Happy 2073; Peep!"
* * * * *
Ivan came on the screen, but John did not bother to remove his mask. He sat down quickly and began speaking before any greeting could be exchanged.
"I have decided to accept your last proposal. I specify the meeting place as the deserted weather station at the old settlement of Tharviana in the Byrd-Ellsworth Sector of Antarctica. Date to be Seventhday of Fried Pie Week. Advance cadres of personnel from both sides should meet at the site two weeks earlier to make repairs and preparations. Do you agree?"
Ivan nodded impatiently, his dark eyes watching the President closely. Smith went on to suggest limits for the size of both cadres, their equipment, and the kind of transportation. Ivan made only one suggestion: that the details, such as permissible arms and standards of conduct, be left to the cadre commanders to settle between themselves before the leaders' parties arrived.
"Your continual espionage activities," Smith said coldly, "do not recommend your government as one to be trusted in the matter of agreements without guarantees. My cadre commander will be instructed as to details."
The Asian grunted. "You speak of trust, yet violate it in advance by preparing an assault against us."
They glared at each other. After a few more words, the conversation ended abruptly, and the matter was tentatively
settled.
* * * * *
It was Antarctic Summer. The sun lay low in the north, but clouds threatened to obscure it, and a forbidding coastline hulked under the ugly sky. A small group of ships sulked to the east, and watched another group that sulked to the west. Two rows of buoys marked an ice-free strip across the choppy face of the sea.
A speck appeared in the north, grew larger, became a giant sea-plane. It circled once, then swooped majestically down between the rows of buoys, its atomic-fired jets breathing heat over the water. It slid between streamers of spray until slowly it came to a coasting halt and rode on the rise and the fall of the sea. A section of its back rolled open. It pushed a helicopter up into view. The helicopter unfolded its rotors, spun them, then climbed lazily aloft like a beetle that had ridden the eagle. It soared, and travelled inland. The sea-plane taxied west to join one group of ships.
The helicopter landed near a long, windowless concrete building which lay in the shadow of an old control-tower's skeleton. The tower was twisted awry, and the concrete was pock-marked by shrapnel or bullets dating back to one of the peace-efforts. The President, two Stand-ins, and the pilot climbed from the helicopter. A small detachment of troops presented arms. The cadre commander, a major general, approached the delegation formally, gave it a salute, and took the President's hand.
"The Peoplesfriend is already in the conference hall, Sir, with several of his aides. Do you wish to enter now, or--"
"Where are their troops?"
"Over there, Sir. As you know, we could not agree to completely disarm the site. Only inside the building itself."
"Any unpleasantness?"
"No, sir. Their men are well-disciplined."
"Then let's go and get started. I assume that you're in constant contact with the capitol?"
"Yes, Sir. Televiewphone relay chain all the way up."
John looked around. The Peoplesfriend's helicopter was parked not far away, and beyond it stood a platoon of the Peoplesfriend's troops, lightly armed as his own.
An Asian and a Western guard flanked the entrance to the building, but their only weapons were police-clubs. The party entered slowly and stood for a moment just inside the heavy door that swung closed behind them. John Smith removed his mask.
"Greetings, human."
* * * * *
The dull voice called it from the far end of the gloomy hall where Ivan Ivanovitch IX sat facing him, flanked by a pair of aides, at a long, plain table. John Smith XVI advanced with dignity toward him. Curt bows were exchanged, but no handshakes. The Western delegation took their seats.
John nudged the Stand-in on his right, who immediately opened a portfolio to extract a sheaf of papers.
"Would you care to exchange prepared statements to begin with?" Smith asked coolly.
"We have no--" The Peoplesfriend stopped, smirked coldly at his deputies but continued to frown. He peered thoughtfully at his huge knuckles for a moment, then nodded slowly. "A statement--yes."
John slid a section of the sheaf of papers to the Peoplesfriend. The Red leader ignored them, spoke to a deputy curtly.
"Give me a sheet of paper."
The deputy fumbled in a thin briefcase, shook his head and muttered. Finally he found a dog-eared sheet with only a few lines typed across the top. He glanced questioningly at his leader. Ivan snatched it with a low grunt, tore off the good half, produced a stubby, gnawed pencil, and wrote slowly as if his hands were cramped with arthritis. John could see the big block-letters but not the words.
"My prepared statement," said the Peoplesfriend.
With that he pushed the scrap of paper across the table. John stared, and felt the blood leaving his face. The prepared statement said:
I VETO YOU.
"Is this a joke?" he growled, keeping his voice calm. "You cannot mean that you reject proposals before they are made? I fail to see the humor in--"
"There is no humor."
John pushed back his chair, glanced at his men. "Gentlemen, it would appear that we have come to the bottom of the world for nothing. I think we had better retire to discuss--"
"Sit down," the Asian growled.
"Why--" The President stopped. One of the Red deputies had produced a gun. He sat, and stared coldly at the eastern leader. "Have your man dispose of that weapon. This is a conference table."
The Peoplesfriend grunted an order to the other deputy instead. "Search them."
"Stay back," Smith droned. "I can kill you all quite easily."
The deputy hesitated. The leader started laughing, then checked it. "May I ask how?"
John smiled. "Stay back, or you will find out too quickly." He unzipped his heavy Arctic clothing, removed a heavy container, shaped to conform to his chest, and laid it on the table. A cord ran from the container into his sleeve.
The Peoplesfriend laughed. "High explosives? You would not set them off. However--Jacob, let them keep their weapons. This will be over shortly."
They glared at each other for a moment.
"There is no conference?"
"There is no conference."
"Then why this farce?"
The eastern leader wore a tight smile. He glanced at his watch, began counting backwards: "Seven, six, five, four--"
When he reached zero, there was a long pause; then a sharp whistle from outside.
"Your men are now disarmed," said the Asian. "Your cadre commander is ours."
"Impossible! The recheck--"
"He joined us since the recheck. Further, three of your televiewphone stations in the relay chain are ours, and are relaying recorded broadcasts prepared especially for the purpose."
"I don't believe it!"
* * * * *
The Asian shrugged. "In addition, your entire defense system will be in our hands within six days--while your nation imagines that we are here conferring on disarmament."
"Ridiculous!" the President sputtered. "No system of infiltration or subversion could--"
"Your people were not subverted, Smith. They were merely replaced by ours. Your two Stand-ins, for instance, the ones that died in the fire. They were not the original men."
"You could not possibly find exact doubles--" Something about the Asian's smile made his voice taper off.
He picked up the container of explosives and prepared to rise. "I am going to walk out. And you are going with me. We will return in a helicopter to my plane. Let me explain this mechanism. I have no control over the detonator, for it is not a suicide device. The detonator can be triggered only by either of two events."
"Which are?" The Peoplesfriend was smiling.
"The relay would be closed by a sudden drop in my arterial pressure. Or by an attempt to remove it without knowing how. I am going out, and you are going with me."
"Why?"
"Because I am about to reach in my pocket and produce a gun. Your deputy cannot shoot without blasting a fifty-foot crater where this building now rests." Gingerly, while he watched the wavering deputy, he made good the promise. He kept the snub-nosed automatic aimed at the easterner's belly.
But the Peoplesfriend continued to smile. "May I say something before we go?"
There was a sour mockery about it that made Smith pause. He nodded slowly.
"I hoped to keep you here alive, so that we would not have to destroy the whole mission, including the ships. Of course, when the building is blown up, your little fleet will see and hear and try to respond, and we shall have to destroy it before word can be gotten to your capital. Our plans included that possibility, but it is unfortunate."
"Our aircraft will--"
"You do not seem to realize the nature of our weapons yet. And there is no harm in telling you now, I suppose."
"Well?"
"We have a microscopic crystalline relay, so small that millions of them can be packed into a few cubic inches. The crystals are minute tetrahedrons, with each pointed corner an electrical contact. And there is a method for arranging them in circuits without indiv
idual attention to each connection. It involves certain techniques in electro-plating and the growing of crystals."
Smith glanced questioningly at one of his Stand-ins, a weapons expert. The man shook his head.
"I can see," he muttered, "how it might replace a lot of bulky circuit elements in some electronics work--particularly computers and servo-mechanisms--but--"
"Indeed," said Ivan, "We have built many so-called 'thinking-machines' no larger than a human brain."
"For self-piloting weapons, I suppose?" asked the Stand-in.
"For self-piloting weapons."
"I fail to see how this could do what you seem to think."
The Peoplesfriend snorted. "Jacob--?" He nodded to the deputy, who immediately fumbled in his pocket, found a penknife, opened it, and handed it to Ivan.
He laid his finger on the table. He cut it off at the second joint with the penknife. There was no blood. Flesh of soft plastic. Tendons of nylon. Bones of bakelite.
"Our leader," the robot said, "is still in Singapore."
The President looked at the robot and a great, weariness swept over him. Suddenly it all seemed futile--a senseless game, played by madmen, dancing over countless graves--playing tag among the tombstones.
Check and checkmate. But always there was a way out. Never a final move. Life eternal and with life, the eternal plotting and scheming. And never a final victor.
Almost regretfully, the President turned his mind back to the affair at hand.
* * *
Contents
DEATH OF A SPACEMAN
By Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The manner in which a man has lived is often the key to the way he will die. Take old man Donegal, for example. Most of his adult life was spent in digging a hole through space to learn what was on the other side. Would he go out the same way?
Old Donegal was dying. They had all known it was coming, and they watched it come--his haggard wife, his daughter, and now his grandson, home on emergency leave from the pre-astronautics academy. Old Donegal knew it too, and had known it from the beginning, when he had begun to lose control of his legs and was forced to walk with a cane. But most of the time, he pretended to let them keep the secret they shared with the doctors--that the operations had all been failures, and that the cancer that fed at his spine would gnaw its way brainward until the paralysis engulfed vital organs, and then Old Donegal would cease to be. It would be cruel to let them know that he knew. Once, weeks ago, he had joked about the approaching shadows.