The Trigger

by Arthur C. Clarke

  He took a sip of his ice water before continuing. 'Dr Bardeen's letter was two sentences long. It said, "Karl Brohier will do important work someday. I recommend his employment without reservation."'

  A startled laugh escaped Lee's lips. 'No!'

  'Oh, yes. But there's more - he'd written me a note, and stuck it to the bottom of the letter. "An old bull and a young bull don't belong in the same pasture. Don't take it personally - and don't stop pushing. Good luck - J.B."' He smiled a quiet smile. 'I still have that little yellow square of paper.'

  'I guess he knew talent,' said Gordon.

  'Or perhaps it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy,' said Brohier. 'No one was more surprised than I when Dr Bardeen's prediction came true - well, perhaps my parents. My parents must have been astonished to learn that I ended up doing anything of consequence. But that's another story.

  'I lived under the weight of those expectations for fifteen years before I managed to turn one of those wild notions Dr Bardeen had dismissed into the first working example of solid-state memory,' Brohier said, and smiled ironically. 'It took me that long to finally win an argument with him.'

  'Did you call him up and say, "I told you so"?' asked Gordon.

  'Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to. He had died a few months earlier. Of course, honor would have compelled me to admit that he'd been right about all the other wild ideas - so perhaps it's just as well.'

  Brohier picked up a napkin and began wiping his fingers, even though he had hardly touched the food in front of him. It seems to me that you two are living my life backwards. You have already done your most important work, at a very young age. The weight of its consequences is just now settling on you, and it isn't easy to see what can ever lift that weight.'

  He knows, Lee suddenly realized. The thought tightened the muscles of her ribcage, squeezing out the air, and paralyzed her face in a rictus of apprehension.

  Brohier went on, 'I made my biggest mistakes - the ones that proceed from naivete, and ignorant idealism, and egocentrism, the ones of which we can say, "I was young -I didn't know any better"

  - I made them when the only person affected by them was me. You no longer have that luxury.

  'I want you both to know that I feel great sympathy for you - sympathy limited only by the extent that your mistakes cross over the boundaries of my responsibilities. I warned you once before that what lay ahead of us was harder than the part that lay behind us. Well, what's the saying? Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.'

  Brohier glanced at his message watch, though whether to check the time or the display Lee could not say. The second caravan should be here now,' he said, standing. Time to wrap this up.'

  The relocation plan had seemed innocent enough when Donovan King had presented it to Gordon and Lee in the director's office. The prototypes would travel separately and under escort, with the original Davisson Lab unit masquerading as household furniture, and the portable unit's truck-and-trailer repainted as an electrician's van. The details of their routing King chose to keep to himself, but Gordon guessed that neither would follow a direct route, or complete the journey in the same vehicle in which it started out.

  Lee and Gordon would likewise travel separately, each in the company of a bodyguard. Gordon's first stop was Atlanta, Lee's Minneapolis, but the full itinerary and ultimate destination were still unknown to them - their tickets were in the custody of their traveling companions until boarding time. Gordon imagined that King had some scheme worked out to cover their tracks - a ticket swap at a plane change, perhaps - that would make it seem as though they had gone somewhere else.

  'By Monday afternoon, you'll all be reunited at the Annex,' King had promised.

  But then King drove off with the first caravan, which started Gordon wondering. And then Brohier started talking as though he were saying good-bye to more than Columbus, which turned Gordon's wonder into worry. Edging past Brohier in the hallway, Gordon ran ahead to the entrance and out into the courtyard. A single glimpse was enough to tell him how wrong everything had gone.

  Baby Two's truck and trailer had, indeed, been repainted. It now blended in perfectly with the other olive drab vehicles flanking it, and the green-uniformed soldiers standing guard with M-16s at all four corners. The vehicles carried the markings of the 612th Engineer Battalion of the Army National Guard. Gordon's tools, which were supposed to have been loaded aboard the truck, were still sitting on the sidewalk fifty meters away.

  His face suddenly flushed with anger, Gordon spun on his heels to confront the director. 'You son of a bitch - you lied to me -' he growled.

  'Yes,' Brohier said. 'As you did to me. And we'll talk about it in my office, in just a few minutes.' He brushed past Gordon and raised a hand, calling out, 'Captain Brandt!'

  'Damn it, come back here!' Gordon took a step toward the older man, but then Lee caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

  'Don't,' she said, tight-voiced.

  He shook off her touch and retreated a step. 'Don't you understand what this means?' he demanded, sweeping an arm in the direction of the convoy. 'He's turning our work over to the goddamn Pentagon.'

  'I understand what it means,' she said harshly. 'It means we screwed up, and he knows it. It means he trusts them more than he trusts us now. We are on the way out, and I can't say we don't deserve it. Go on, keep after him, maybe you can get him to turn us over to them, too. What would it be, Gordie, espionage or treason? Or maybe just three counts of first-degree murder.'

  Taken momentarily aback by the intensity of her assault, Gordon could not find a comeback worth voicing. Chafing at his impotence, he watched in silence as Brohier stood talking with what was obviously the officer in charge of the convoy. As the two shook hands, Gordon belatedly realized that the captain's camouflage uniform bore no unit insignia.

  'Why would they have the National Guard make this pickup?' he said under his breath. 'Answer - they wouldn't, so they're not. Probably Army Intelligence. But no one'll wonder at seeing a few weekend warriors out on the highway - and they can go right to Camp Perry, or Camp Grayling, offload Baby Two onto a V-22 tilt-rotor, and take it anywhere.'

  'It doesn't matter,' said Lee. 'It's out of our hands.'

  Gordon slowly shook his head. 'I don't accept that.'

  While they were talking, the captain had climbed into one of the three waiting HMMVs. There were no orders shouted, but engines began roaring to life, and the four sentries left their posts, scattering one to each vehicle.

  'Accept it,' Lee said curtly as Karl Brohier backed out of the driveway and rejoined them. The lead HMMV lurched forward, and the other vehicles followed with crisp precision. Gordon felt the anger returning as Baby Two's truck passed in front of where the trio was standing. But neither he nor anyone else said anything until the convoy had passed through the inner gate and disappeared down the drive.

  'Let's go talk about you,' said Brohier, and turned away toward his office without waiting for their reply.

  Brohier was waiting for them behind his desk. 'Sit,' he said, gesturing. 'I have one more story to tell.'

  Gordon and Lee exchanged glances, then sorted themselves into the two closest chairs.

  'Last night, I had a call from a member of the Joint Chiefs,' said Brohier. 'He was trying to evaluate a report he received from the NS A, which now has its ears up for any hint of anything that might be related to your discovery. Of course, they weren't expecting to find it in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.' He turned his desk display toward them. 'The security logs show that you and the truck were off campus when this happened, Dr Greene. The truck's mileage - well, this is not a court. You and I both know that this was your doing.'

  Greene glanced briefly at the news item displayed on the screen. 'Yes,' he acknowledged. 'I am sorry about the fires. The collimator didn't work as I thought it would.' He shrugged. "Truth is, I don't really understand this Trigger field very well yet - not once it leaves the emitter, anyway.'

  'You und
erstood the effect it would have on that car full of kids.'

  'That car full of kids with guns,' Greene corrected. 'Yes, I did. But don't fool yourself - those "kids" didn't deserve to be labeled with a word that evokes five-year-olds saying "Mommy, I want a hug".'

  'So you say,' said Brohier. 'But as I said, this is not a court, and I am not interested in your justifications.'

  'Why are you only talking to Gordie?' Lee said. 'I was there, too.'

  Brohier raised an eyebrow in her direction. 'I have no information about that.'

  'What are you talking about?' she demanded, sitting forward on her chair. 'The guard must have logged us both out. It's my sister we went up there to help. It's more my responsibility than Gordie's. He did it for me.'

  'You don't need to do this, Lee,' Gordie said quietly. 'Dr Brohier, I drove the truck. I pushed the button. I did it on my own initiative, and for my own reasons. Nothing else matters. The weight falls on me.'

  'Gordie -'

  But Lee was ignored by both men.

  'Do you think you know how much weight that is?' Brohier asked. 'We have a one-time opportunity to make certain uses of the Trigger, preemptive strikes if you will - an opportunity that will vanish as soon as knowledge of its existence becomes commonplace. I choose not to offer specific examples, but suffice it to say that there are some actors on the stage who can't be given a chance to rearm. And there's one obvious countermeasure against the Trigger that some governments are not above using -placing prisoners, hostages, in their armories as human shields. The lives of good people are at risk, Dr Greene - good soldiers, and innocent civilians. The kind of people we want the Trigger to help, not harm.

  'Now, you may be thinking that what you did in Cleveland Heights was done in exactly that spirit - a preemptive attack in the defense of good people. But by acting unilaterally, by taking untested equipment into the field, by putting the second prototype on the road, unprotected, by attracting public attention and handing the police a curious puzzle, you may have done incalculable damage.' Brohier tapped the top of the display with his forefinger. 'There's no telling how many people are out there tonight thinking, "Hmm, I wonder what happened here". And the moment the first one figures it out, our window of opportunity starts to close.'

  'I think you give people too much credit,' said Greene. 'No one cares. It's already old news.'

  I'm sure the Cleveland Heights police department cares,' said Brohier. 'And we can't afford to have their investigation reach Terabyte's front door.'

  'It won't,' said Greene. 'No one saw me. Not even the targets. Everyone thinks it was an accident - a car wreck.'

  'You can't promise me that. You don't know if there was a video camera in an upstairs window, a man out walking his dog.'

  'It was clean, I tell you,' Greene insisted. 'There's no way this comes home to you.'

  'No? Then explain why the NSA called me,' said Brohier. 'You put us on record. All the essential elements are there. And just knowing something is possible is motivation enough sometimes.

  'That's why I decided to turn the portable system over to the Defense Department now. It was always going to go to them for testing, but I thought it best that it disappear now - and do so in the hands of people who can slam the door on a mere city detective's curiosity.'

  'I suppose you expect us to disappear now, too,' said Lee.

  'If that's all I needed of you, I'm sure one call would be enough to make it happen,' Brohier said. 'No, I have something harder to ask of each of you, now that you've had your moment of selfishness - I need you both to set aside your personal baggage and do the right and necessary thing.'

  'As you define it?' Greene said challengingly.

  'As I define it,' said Brohier. 'Dr Thayer, would you mind stepping out into the anteroom for a minute or two?'

  'She can stay,' said Greene. 'I don't mind.'

  'I do,' said Brohier. 'Please, Dr Thayer.'

  'You don't have to let him push you around, Lee,' said Greene, coming to his feet as Lee did.

  'It's all right, Gordie,' Her fingertips lightly grazed the back of his hand as she passed him.

  When the door closed and the two men were alone, Greene turned back to the director. 'Well?'

  'You are an excellent engineer, Dr Greene,' said Brohier. 'But you're only an average hacker, and the NSA has whole buildings full of people who are better at it than you are - better at it than almost any freelancer. It's a point of pride with them that when they sift cyberspace, they don't miss very much. In addition to this news clip, they also found the extra copy of the research database you banked in pieces all over the net. And one of our people found the Trojan horse you tried to attach to Terabyte's employment records - the one that would have published the database to half a dozen servers when your termination was posted.'

  I had to try,' said Greene.

  'No, you didn't. You had to trust - and you weren't up to it.'

  'Are you going to turn me in? Or do you expect me to turn myself in?'

  'Neither. I'm going to give you another chance,' he said. 'Another chance to rise above your cozy cynicism, and to show that you're worth trusting. Does it still matter to you to protect Dr Thayer?'

  He thought hard before answering. 'Yes.'

  'Even if she doesn't know that you're doing it?'

  'Even if.'

  Then what I need you to do is resign, today -'

  'What does that accomplish?'

  'To begin with, it means I won't have to put your name on the list for FBI background checks, because you'll never officially be part of what the Trigger project has become,' said Brohier. 'I don't have to explain why I fired you - you simply decided you weren't interested in relocating with the project.'

  Is that all you want? To avoid embarrassment?'

  'No.' Brohier slid the right drawer of his desk open a few inches and plucked something from it. When he slid it across his desk toward Greene, the engineer saw what it was: a ten-gigabyte solid-state data block. 'I want you to hold onto that.'

  'What is it?'

  'It's a copy of the Trigger research archive, identical to the one you tried to hide - same encryption scheme, same password lock,' said Brohier, leaving Greene blinking in surprise. 'If you leave us the way I'm asking, voluntarily, without a cloud hanging over you, I believe I can ensure that no one we work with will wonder if you might be hiding something - or from something.'

  'I don't understand. What do you expect me to do with this?'

  'Hold on to it. Hide it. Wait a year. If, after a year, nothing has happened, or the wrong things are happening, take that to Senator Grover Wilman and his group, and help them put it to good use. But give us that year to start things moving. Give us that year of opportunity.'

  Greene leaned forward in his chair and picked up the memory block, holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger. 'How do you know I won't publish this tomorrow, and then just disappear?'

  'I'd like to be able to say that I simply choose to trust you,' said Brohier, closing the drawer. 'But I also know that you must realize if you do, it'll all come out - and Lee will be the one hurt, because they'll be able to reach her. She'll pay the price for your egotism.'

  'So Lee's the hostage in your armory, eh?'

  'I'm giving you a chance to choose, Dr Greene —which is frankly more consideration than you've earned.'

  Frowning, Greene let the memory block drop into the palm of his hand. 'What are you going to tell the NSA?'

  'As little as necessary. That you were asked to archive the research off site. We can let the fact that you tried to add another copy for yourself pass without comment.'

  'And the Cleveland Heights police?'

  'Didn't you assure me no one saw you?'

  'I did,' Greene said. He stared for a moment at the memory block, then slipped it into a pocket. 'Where are you sending Lee? Is she still going to the Annex?' When Brohier hesitated, Greene patted the bulge in his pocket. 'If you're going to trust me with this -'
/>
  Brohier acquiesced. 'If she agrees, she's going to follow Baby Two to the DARPA test site, and spend a few weeks training some people to operate and maintain the system. Then she'll join us at the Annex.'

  Nodding, Greene stood. That will be hard for her,' he said. 'An out-of-cocoon experience.'

  'I know,' said Brohier, following suit. 'But if you can carry your weight, I'm sure she can carry hers.'

  'I have the feeling you'll make her believe she ought to try.' Greene released a sigh that dropped his shoulders and carried away his coiled defensiveness. 'Dr Brohier - if this year goes the way you hope it will -'

  Then you'll be able to color me amazed,' Brohier said with a half-grin.

  'I was just wondering -'

  'I know,' said Brohier. The answer is yes. If we don't need you for something more important a year from now, you can come back in.' He offered his hand.

  A year's probation. A year's penance. Little enough for what I did - what I was ready to do. Greene took the director's hand.

  'Good luck,' he said, with unexpected feeling. 'I'll see you next October.'

  * * *

  13: Enginery

  Paris, France - Hunting for a special gift for the folks at home? At the biennial European Defense Exposition, which opened its doors to invitation-only customers on Monday, you can try out and buy Iranian tanks, French armor-piercing rockets, and Chilean antitank mines. 'It's just like any other trade show,' said Henri Dessault, organizer of the week-long event. 'Glitzy booths, salesmen in suits, beautiful models, and silly giveaways. Except for the product demonstrations, it's actually rather boring.'

  Complete Story Top 10 Arms Exporters

  Secretive EDEX Attendees Speak Softly, Carry Big Checkbooks

  The first of the Mark I systems rolled out of the Brass Hat plant in North Sioux City five days before Christmas. It had a formal and unpronounceable Pentagon designation (XM9M1, for Experimental Munition 9, Mark I) and a serial number (0001 -1), but was otherwise a close twin of the hand-built prototype portable. The only changes of note were the replacement of the three-kilowatt Caterpillar DuoCat with the US Army's battlefield-tested Advanced Tactical Quiet Generator with the Toyota cold decoupling fuel cell, and the addition of military-standard safing mechanisms to what was now being called the firing controller.