by Rex Gordon
Len tried to think of what kind of job he could be given that was connected with the army, but could think of nothing. As they went on approaching the building, he said to Berkeley, “Does this mean that I’m going to be conscripted?”
“No,” said Berkeley. “Not exactly that.”
Len could think of nothing to do with the army that was not formal and official. He tried to work out something that the army and the Information Office combined could use him for, and failed. But they were going to the Hexagon. When they reached the guard-point at the entrance to the grounds, which included an army airfield laid out in the desert at the back, Berkeley showed the guard a paper, and the soldier looked at the paper and at Len as though he had been expecting something of the kind, and been warned of it. “Closed section 203 E,” he said, pointing.
As soon as the car had stopped a group of armed soldiers had surrounded it. Berkeley had been right that Len had no chance of leaping out and making a bolt for it.
They drove not toward, but around the side of the extensive building, passing another guard-point where a sergeant checked the number of the car before he raised a barrier, then closed it again behind them. They were in a small enclosed part of the airport area then, and Berkeley drove up to where a group of soldiers seemed to be waiting for them. Before they got out of the car, he touched Len, looked straight at him, and said, “Goodbye, Len. Remember you are Gorlston’s and my selection, and try to live up to us, won’t you?”
Len did not get the significance of that remark, except that, Berkeley was talking as though he would not see him again.
“I think you might tell me what this is about,” he said.
“You and the Chief of Staff?” said Berkeley. He looked at Len for a moment. "You’ve been picked,” he said. Then he got out of the car.
He was right about what would happen when they got out. A sergeant waved Berkeley into an office, and a soldier jerked a thumb to Len and said, “This way, you,” and set off with him while a squad of men fell in behind them. It was more the treatment given to a prisoner than a recruit or someone who was to do a job, Len thought. Berkeley had disappeared and they were heading toward the airfield.
The soldiers took Len to an isolated and guarded waiting room not far from the planes. Len did not ask them what it was all about because he guessed that they, unlike Berkeley, would not even know. A young man was being brought from the planes toward the waiting room at the same time Len got there. Inside, there was a surprise. Besides three young men already waiting there, there were five girls.
Len stood in the doorway looking at them. They looked like student types like himself, and when the door opened to let him in, they looked up as though they were expecting something to happen, though they did not know what. He only had to look at them to know in advance that they knew about as much as he did.
So this is not something that has happened just to me, Len thought, and he stood aside to let the new young man come in; he entered and looked around the room as though expecting to see someone there who could tell him something. “What is this?” the new young man said to everyone.
Whatever it was, both the army and the Information Office were involved in it, Len thought, and it was not a small thing, since it was being handled directly through the army headquarters at the Hexagon. Including himself there were twelve disgruntled young people altogether after another girl and a young man had come in from the planes and asked the same question, and he wondered if he ought to feel better or worse about it. What worried him was the memory of the somewhat doubtful and equivocal way that Berkeley had said goodbye to him.
XIV
From the Yellow Party archives:
Documents normally housed in a vault under the Information Office Emergency H. Q. at Parker’s Knoll outside Davis City.
Minutes of a meeting of the Yellow Party Security Council held in the Information Office secrecy-annex on November 1, 502 A. L.
Agenda
To consider a recent interview between the Commandant of the Information Office Anti-Yellow Division, Capital Area, and General J. Adolf Koln of the Arcon First Army and Chiefs of Staff.
Present: The Chairman, C. Q. Lankowitz, current President;
Delegates: T. Chinn (Southern Provinces and Inland Seas), F. Longman (Western Sector), P. Vulmany (Eastern Sector), and R. Khan (Northern); Staff: G. Berkeley (District Captain, new appt.), and W. Loti and Mary Johnstone (Lieutenants).
The Chairman opened the discussion by explaining why a Yellow Party Council had been called and describing the recent interview he had had in his alternate capacity as Commandant of the Anti-Yellow Division, with General Adolf Koln. The Chairman played back parts of the interview from the recording made by the Yellow Party instrument, and indicated that the matter was serious in that it did represent a penetration by military intelligence into the Information Office to a depth that allowed them to establish that the Yellow Party did have some degree of control of that office. It was significant that the bribe offered by the General, i.e. that the Information Office should create the supposition that Arcon had an external enemy, which could only mean in space, was such as to appeal to the Yellow Party.
"We have slipped, gentlemen," the Chairman said, “And we can make no excuses. The party has been getting lax and inclined to take too much for granted over recent years, so that the military intelligence units set up by the predecessors of General Koln, and used with such vigor and purpose by the General himself, have scored a success of a kind not recorded for many decades. There is no question that our anti-espionage measures will have to be intensified, especially in the capital area, and a start has been made on this by our new District Captain, G. Berkeley, following the dismissal and not unexpected death of Captain Pilsen. But these matters are being taken care of, and this is not the matter directly before you.
“What is directly before you is the problem of how we shall react to General Koln’s threat to make substantial allegations against the Information Office. You will be aware that should such allegations be made to the cabinet they would do little harm, since most of the politicians concerned are already well aware of what we are, but the fact must be faced that General Koln is a man of such character that he might well make his material public, in which case the suggestion that the Information Office has been penetrated by Yellows, the very party which it is designed to suppress, will cause such public indignation that membersof the government will have to take notice of it lest the opposition Green Party seek to make capital out of it.”
Delegate F. Longman said, “We delegates from the outer regions cannot allow the Chair to pass over the surely criminal negligence of the Capital Division which has allowed a security penetration of such magnitude as to put the whole party in peril.” The new captain of the Capital Division, G. Berkeley, assured the delegate that steps were being taken, and explained his own vigorous actions since he had taken office, after which this part of the discussion was ruled out of order by the Chair.
Delegate R. Khan then said that, disastrous as the events associated with Captain Pilsen had been, surely they need not look at the situation as entirely gloomy. The General had not only made a threat, he had also offered them an opportunity, by allowing them to invent an external enemy for Arcon, and so allow the army to start a secret space program, which was more fortunate in the light of Yellow Doctrine than anything that had happened in a hundred years.
Delegate T. Chinn then rose to say that it was all very well for R. Khan to speak in that way, but they must face the facts. What the General was suggesting was not a space program controlled by Yellows and' in accordance with Yellow Doctrine, but some purely spurious objective, the sole purpose of which would be to allow the army to increase its estimates and construct expensive installations in secret places to counter a threat which they knew in advance to be nonexistent. That was not Yellow Doctrine but a mockery of it, and the General must know that by suggesting it he was adding insult to injury.
Delegate F. Longman asked if that was so. No one felt more strongly than he did that this situation should not have arisen, but if the army did allow them to get in the thin edge of the wedge of a space program, however spurious, could they not turn it to their own advantage? He felt that if the Chairman had pursued this matter with sufficient energy and intelligence, then they might well have ended up with a genuine space program, however limited, in which they, by use of ingenuity and the well-known political methods, could play their part.
Delegate P. Vulmany said that, much as he appreciated
Delegate F. Longman’s desire to attack the Chair, he doubted if it did any good to F. Longman or anyone else.
The Chairman intervened to say that he wished to point out that General Koln’s language at die meeting had been about pieces of cake, and that while matters were in that vague, initial and necessarily diplomatic stage, it would have been unwise to attempt any detailed planning. That could come later, when the Council had made up its mind.
Requesting the patience of the Council, P. Vulmany then said that if they looked at the matter clearly they would see that they had three matters before them. First was the question of whether they could in fact convince the government that there was an external threat from space to Arcon. In view of the fact that in five hundred’ years there had been absolutely no activity in space around Arcon, that might be difficult. Then there were the questions of whether they could turn a spurious space program into a real one, and whether they could somehow get the Yellow Party into control of it, despite the army. He asked the Staff to comment.
Captain G. Berkeley then rose to ask the Council to let him try to do exactly those things. Since this matter had arisen, he had had a small team working on it, comprising Lieutenants W. Loti and Mary Johnstone, and they had ideas. The enormous advantage of the General’s offer was that to begin with it would look like they were conveying information to the government from which the army and not themselves would benefit. That would be enough to convince any politician. They had also to remember that politicians were incapable of sifting scientific data. The security surrounding the project would also be sufficient to enable the Information Office to intervene massively at every stage. In short, it was tricky, and they would have to play it by ear, but if the Council was willing to give him the authority, he was game to try it, and risk his reputation to reinstate the Capital Division.
Mary Johnstone rose to make a personal statement, saying how emotionally moved she was by an opportunity to do something real for Yellow Doctrine, and pleading with the Council to give a chance to Captain Berkeley, who was of the highest character. Regretting that time was short, the Chairman intervened to ask the Staff to withdraw.
When the Staff returned the record showed that a motion for positive action was taken and passed on the Chairman’s casting vote.
XV
It was no use looking on the black side of it, Len thought when he found himself placed with eleven other students in a guarded waiting room at the back of the Hexagon budding on the fringe of Davis City. If anything unpleasant was to happen to them, it clearly wasn’t yet, in the busy official area, with planes arriving and taking off every few minutes; so the thing to do obviously was get to know the people he was with, and hear their stories.
A blonde girl was talking to another with long black hair. A much tinier blonde was sitting with a big man on one of the waiting room seats, obviously waiting for something to happen. Two young men were in earnest conversation. Some of the young men were just standing around the walls looking as though they had been pushed around a little and resented it, and two girls with brown hair and one redhead also looked as though, given a chance, they would make some kind of protest. After looking at the expressions, Len frowned, thinking that these people looked more like him- in their reactions than the average run of students.
He was not altogether sure that twelve people like himself would be a good idea. It might be a few too many.
He tried one of the bigger, brown-haired frowning girls who happened to be nearest “Any idea,where they’re sending us, or what we’re supposed to do?”
“Search me,” she said with some asperity, and Len could only reflect she had probably told him all she knew.
It may not be altogether easy to control this crowd, Len thought after looking them over. He knew he himself was not always easy to control, as Gorlston had discovered, and sure enough, when a sergeant opened the door and said, “Come on out to the plane,” no one moved.
Len found himself catching the eye of a large fairhaired young man across the room, and when the sergeant decided to send some soldiers in to get them, Len and the blue-eyed man moved simultaneously and blocked the door by obeying the sergeant just as the soldiers were coming in.
Whatever the students in that room were, they were not slow to see situations or make up their minds about them.
Apparently the door blocked itself by accident, but it stayed blocked for quite a time, and the sergeant’s language did not improve things. Some of the girls proved more awkward than the men. The redhead complained loudly about both the soldiers and the sergeant, yet when Len glanced at her a moment later, she was grinning with some secret satisfaction, as though she had been looking for a way to fight back for a long time.
All right, Len thought. The guard placed on them had looked over-elaborate at first sight, but now he was not sure it was.
But they walked out to the plane on the army airfield calmly, and Len tried to get to know the people and why they were there. “I’m Len Thomas from this town,” he told a slim young man. “Are you from around here?”
The young man kept his voice down and glanced at the soldiers. “David Ropotsky. This Davis City?” He said much without apparently being able to say anything, and he seemed to have more experience of the kind of transport they were getting than Len had.
He was visibly sizing up the situation and making up his mind on it, including the big long-range transport to which they were led, and when the little blonde showed a lot of leg on entering, he glanced at Len and said, "Why the girls?”
Len nodded. He had been thinking things over too, and if one feature of the situation was to be picked out, he thought that a highly intelligent remark.
The sunset was glowing over the airfield when they got into the aircraft. The soldiers stood all around the aircraft pointing weapons at it. Len knew they had had a little trouble, but all the same they seemed to be going to absurd lengths. When they got inside the aircraft, it was worse.
Some of the guards had got into the aircraft before them and were evidently intending to accompany them. They had set up a canister-type spray-gun in the front of the plane, pointing aft, and another in the back of the plane pointing forward. The only place for the twelve to sit was in the middle seats, between the two guns. Len felt contrite about it, because they were now evidently going to have an uncomfortable and restricted journey. “Now look what we’ve done,” he said to David.
David Ropotsky looked out of the windows of the plane and pretended he did not see the guards. He and Len were last aboard, and when they were in the door was closed behind them, and the engines started. Len looked out the windows too. It was not merely to watch the outside guards, who for some reason were still looking doubtfully at the plane as it moved away from them, but it was interesting to see the takeoff, and to speculate what they could about their destination when they discovered that they were heading northward, straight for the Arcon desert.
There was no destination to the north. The area .was blank on all the Arcon maps.
A conversation broke out in the body of the plane. The young people were evidently observant, and the sunset gave them their direction as clearly as if they had a compass. The soldier in the fore-part of the plane yelled out, “No talking.” Len looked at the soldier with interest. Even he could have told him that it was no use saying that. They would have had to use chloroform.
Len and David Ropotsky
were sitting in seats near the front of the plane facing the gun. That was a penalty for coming aboard last. Ropotsky, with a taste for which Len did not blame him, looked around and sized up the situation and then turned and began to talk to the larger and more luscious blonde behind him, whom he was calling Susan.
“Not a biologist exactly, Susan. More an organic chemist, a biochemistry research student.”
How wonderful to be that, Len thought. Why, from what he had heard, to be an organic chemist meant being one of the most important men on Arcon.
Susan seemed to know something of Arcon life too. “They gave you extra privileges for that, David?”
“Sure,” Ropotsky said. “Such as having my telephone tapped, my friends vetted, and all my mail opened before I got it. It depends on your research being in accordance with what they call positive thinking. Have you ever tried to apply positive thinking to biochemistry?”
Susan glanced at the soldier. “Why did they send you here?”
“I made a public statement on our most advanced research techniques, and said the results were negative.”
Len wondered if all the company he was in had been selected in some peculiar way. He had a word of his own with Susan. He too glanced at the soldier, and kept his voice down. “Can we do anything about this?”
Susan saw where he was looking. “Who knows?” she said. But after a moment she turned around and said something to the people in the row behind her. They talked among themselves and then turned around to those in the row behind them. They looked at Len, but they seemed to think his suggestion entirely reasonable.
The fact they were under guard in an aircraft in flight did not seem to impress them as it might. Susan took it in her stride and turned back to resume her talk with Ropotsky. “That’s interesting, David.”