The Trigger

by Arthur C. Clarke

  'Now one of the aerosols from Three,' Wilkins said, taking the cylinder from the guard and moving toward Horton. 'You see, Doctor, we're very, very good with our guns, and we hardly ever hit anything we haven't aimed at. But if you do manage to take our precision tools away from us, don't ever think that leaves us unarmed.

  'Maybe you've forgotten that gasoline makes a perfectly fine explosive, and it's conveniently available most everywhere.' The guard reappeared then, holding what looked like a small pressurized bottle. 'And when it comes time to start killing traitors faster than we can do it with K-Bars and garrottes, well, the Lord shall provide.'

  He held the olive-drab cylinder up in front of Horton's face, allowing him to read the words and numbers stenciled on the side. Beside him, the guard did the same with his burden.

  'What is this?' Horton asked.

  'Chemical weapons and biological aerosols don't require conventional explosives, Dr Horton,' Wilkins said with smug triumph. 'What do you think about that?'

  Horton slowly raised his gaze from the stenciled lettering to Wilkins's chiseled face. 'I think it means my work's not finished - and the sooner I get back to it, the better,' he said quietly.

  'Son of a - get this bastard out of my sight,' Wilkins said, the cold malevolence of his soul finally revealed in the bloodless hate in his eyes. Throw this animal back in his cage - now, before I rip his fucking throat open.'

  'Yes, sir!'

  Horton was unceremoniously dragged backward out of the shed. Wilkins's voice followed him, rising in pitch and volume with each succeeding word. 'You better think about this! Think long and hard, Mr Fucking Boy-Genius Presidential Hero. You're gonna decide which of these weapons gets used - the ones on the wall, or the ones in the hole! You, Jeffrey goddamned Horton, you're going to decide how many we have to kill and how ugly they die. Think about that, Doctor - you think about that!'

  But all Horton could think as they threw him down into Shelter Six and clanged the hatch shut above him was, I got to you -I finally got to you - and now I know exactly who you really are -

  Aron Goldstein watched as the Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric eased into Broad Street Station pulling a string of six purple and white passenger cars - the 8.40 from Newark. Just below it, a long slow freight made up principally of Erie & Lackawanna boxcars trundled northward along the river.

  On the broad panel display before him was the engineer's-eye view from the tiny camera in the scale model GG-1. Since it would be stationary for several minutes while the mail was unloaded, Goldstein touched a control bar and changed to the view from the freight's Number 1 engine, just before it passed under a stone trestle. The track ahead included a pair of tunnels and a glimpse of the Zoo - one of his favorite sections of the lay-out, and an agreeable meditation to distract him from other matters.

  But before the freight reached the first tunnel, Goldstein was disturbed in his sanctuary by one of the nurse-practitioners who had adopted house staff attire so that they could monitor his house guest in person. 'Mr Goldstein, Dr Brohier is asking to see you.'

  Thank you,' Goldstein said, starting to shut down the running trains. 'Is he in his workroom?'

  'No, he's still in bed.'

  That report hastened Goldstein's hands. 'Has he said anything else?'

  'Only that he's tired. He ate almost none of his breakfast.'

  'Let's get Dr Hubbs up there, now,' Goldstein said. 'I've given that old curmudgeon his way long enough.'

  'I'll go get the doctor.'

  Goldstein found Brohier lying propped up against a mound of pillows, his digital desktop resting untouched beside him on the blankets. His gaze tended in the direction of the east window, but seemed slack and unfocused.

  'And what's with you this morning, Karl?' Goldstein asked gently, approaching the foot of the bed. Too much wine with your veal marsala last night?'

  'Ah - Aron. There you are. What did you ask me? Oh, the food. No, I do not blame your cooks.' The effort expended for just a half-smile and those few words left him momentarily breathless, and the deep breath he drew to catch up started him coughing. 'Nothing feels right, and I hardly have the energy to care. If I were younger, I might suspect something like the flu. Of course, in my dissolute state, the flu can surely kill me as well as anything.'

  'I've asked Dr Hubbs to come over and take a look at you,' said Goldstein. 'I expect you to behave when he gets here.'

  'Witch-doctor nostrums,' Brohier said disdainfully. There is no antidote for entropy, Aron.'

  'Perhaps not. But there's no substitute for letting a good geriatric diagnostician have a look at you now and again.'

  'I already know everything he can tell me, and none of it is important,' said Brohier. 'But I'll let him poke and prod me if that means we can talk about something else.'

  'Of course, Karl.' Goldstein moved to the side of the bed and sat down. 'Been doing some work?' he asked, nodding toward the digital desk.

  'I was trying to write a letter,' he said. 'Where did you go last night? I heard the helicopter.'

  'Washington,' Goldstein said. 'Another boring meeting.'

  'Meetings - yes, thank you, now I remember what I wanted to say. Aron -'

  'Right here, Karl.'

  'Don't turn Jeffrey into an administrator. Don't let him do that to himself. Find someone else to write the letters and run the meetings. He needs to be in the laboratory. He needs to hear his own voice above the noise.'

  'All right, Karl.'

  'That's what he's been having trouble with. That's why he went away, you know. I want to know that you'll keep the door open for him to come back.'

  'Of course. Only -' Goldstein sighed. 'Karl, at that meeting last night - I'm not supposed to tell you, but I don't know how they can expect me not to. Although maybe that's why they didn't tell me until now.'

  'Stop babbling, Aron, or I may not be here when you finish.'

  Goldstein nodded apologetically. 'Karl, I have some news about Jeffrey. He's missing. He was kidnapped a week ago - they think possibly by some sort of domestic terrorist group. There's been no word of him or from him.'

  The only visible reaction from Brohier was the way his gaze darted about the room. 'That's all right,' he finally said.

  'A week's a long time for a kidnapping,' Goldstein said, shaking his head. 'They're doing everything, but - Karl, the FBI didn't hold out much hope.'

  'Jeffrey will be all right.'

  'Of course that's what we all want,' said Goldstein. 'I just thought we might talk about what we'd want to do with Terabyte if for some reason Jeffrey doesn't come back.'

  'A waste of time and energy - something I find myself rather sensitive about at the moment! He'll be back, Aron,' Brohier said. 'He knows where he belongs.' Then he let himself sag into the pillows, almost as though he were attempting to hide under them. 'Your doctor friend is here.'

  Goldstein looked behind him to see Dr Hubbs standing just inside the doorway.

  'I have your word, Aron?' asked Brohier.

  'Yes, Karl.'

  Then come on, Doctor, and don't tarry. You're the last promise I have left to keep.'

  For more than a day, Jeffrey Horton was left alone in the dank, claustrophobic confines of Shelter Six. No one came to check on him, or take him to use the toilet. No one brought him food or drink. No one threw open the metal hatch to allow so much as a few seconds of light and fresh air to relieve the gloom.

  He made the best use he could of the neglect: within an hour of being returned to the dirt-walled cell, he started trying to dig his way out.

  The only tool available was one waffle-soled ankle-height hiking boot. His captors had taken his boots along with his clothes on the first day, but had returned the boots to him - sans laces - during his probation. Somehow, he had managed to keep the right boot on while being dragged to and from the armory shed. Where the left boot had ended up, he did not know, but the right had kept him company when he was enthusiastically and unceremoniously dumped through the
hatch.

  After seeing the tunnels in the armory, Horton wondered if all the camp's structures were connected underground, even the shelters - especially the shelters. But rather than search for a sealed-up tunnel that might not be there, he chose what he hoped would be the fastest and shortest way out - making a shimmy-hole under the edge of the steel cone roof. He started at the top of the wall directly beneath the hatch, where it would be hardest to see from outside, and spread the dirt evenly across the shelter floor with his bare feet as he worked.

  Even near the surface, the soil was dense and claylike. The boot quickly proved better suited to scraping than digging, and not terribly well suited to that - the cleats clogged up after only a few passes, and it took longer to clear them with his fingertips than it did to fill them again. After a while, he stopped bothering, finding that the edge of the heel gave him the best leverage, and the two-handed grip that required gave him the best results for his effort.

  The one advantage of the boot was that it was virtually silent, no matter how hard or how quickly he worked - even when he accidentally struck the metal roof itself. So it did not take him very long to find that the way was blocked - the roof did not merely rest on top of the ground, but atop a circular steel collar that extended down into the ground. There would be no quick and easy shimmy-hole.

  Undeterred, he scoured his way down the wall until he found the bottom edge of the collar. There he started working his way sideways again, worrying out a hollow that slowly grew into something that could aspire to be called a tunnel. He worked until his face was streaming with sweat and his arms were screaming with fatigue, and then a little longer. He rested until his chest stopped heaving, and then started all over again.

  They were singing hymns in the women's long house when Horton started to uncover roots. The farther he went, the thicker and denser they got, until he could no longer tear them away with his aching hands. Trying not to think about the wasted effort, he turned to another part of the wall and started over.

  By the time morning light showed at the vents, the tunnel was half as long as Horton was tall, and, by his guess, a little more than half-way to the surface. It was not enough. He sat atop a mound of freshly dug earth, exhausted and discouraged, fully expecting his efforts to be discovered at any moment, and, in discovery, defeated.

  But they did not come for him. And when he belatedly realized that the moment had not yet passed, he attacked the tunnel with renewed vigor. The boot was long past being useless - squeezed into the confined space, he clawed and dug at the packed dirt with his bare hands, nails bitten down to the quick to try to save those he had not already torn and bent back. The dirt caked his face and hair, choked his every breath. But he did not stop until his fingers reached the outside edge of the conical roof, and he knew that all that separated him from the surface was a few inches of overburden he could clear in minutes.

  He stopped then because he had a decision to make - whether to chance an escape in the daylight, or chance waiting until night returned.

  If their neglect of him was the product of nothing more than Wilkins's rage, then it could end at any moment. But if it was the beginning of a calculated effort to break him, it was likely to go on for days.

  Morton guessed the latter, and decided to wait.

  He guessed wrong. They came for him just before the dinner hour.

  Colonel Robert Wilkins cocked his head questioningly at Jeffrey Morton's appearance as his guards pushed him down on the log bench. 'What's this about?' Wilkins said, gesturing at Morton's filthy clothes.

  'We found him trying to tunnel out of the shelter, sir.'

  The militia leader clucked disapprovingly and shook his head. 'Really, Doctor, you should have known better -'

  Watching Wilkins's eyes, it came upon Morton with a sudden sinking certainty that this was not news to him. 'You have some kind of monitor in the shelter.'

  That would be telling.'

  'You just wanted me to start to think I was going to make it, so you could take it away -'

  'Dr Morton, the only reason I have for locking you up is to keep you from getting hurt. Honestly, now, you're only a threat to yourself. And if you happened to wander away without telling anyone, you'd stand an unacceptably high chance of getting yourself shot. Have you ever been shot, Dr Morton? Have you ever seen anyone shot with a NATO round from a combat rifle?'

  'No,' Morton said quietly.

  'Well, I hope you'll take my counsel on this - it's definitely something you want to avoid.' He looked up and away toward the three other men standing nearby. 'Frank, are you ready?'

  'Yes, Colonel.'

  'Let's have it, then,' he said, patting the bench beside him.

  Schrier came forward and laid a Celestial 3000 comset and its battery pack on the bench. There was a familiar scuff mark on the edge of the comset's plastic case - it was Morton's.

  Thank you,' said Wilkins, making no move to pick up the unit. 'Would you tell Dr Horton what it is you've done to his property?'

  'I pulled the GPS locator module and then dropped a dummy module in its place. That way the system diagnostics won't know the difference, and there won't be any fault messages sent to your provider.'

  'And this is the same treatment you give all our comsets, correct?'

  'Yes, sir. Nothing special. Takes more time to set up the workbench than it does to do the work. But remember, we don't have any helpers upstairs anymore - they can still triangulate on a comset call if we give them enough time.'

  Wilkins nodded. That's all for now, Frank.' He turned his attention back to Horton. 'People don't think about the fact that every time they use their comset, they're notifying the government where they are - all because some dumb bitch with a cell phone got herself lost in a snowstorm and almost died, twenty-five years ago. Every time something bad happens, you can count on some liberal to come along with an idea about how, for just a little bit of our freedom, we can keep this terrible calamity from ever happening again. Personally, I have a philosophical objection to advertising my location to anyone who might be interested. You can understand that, I expect.'

  'I can sure understand why you wouldn't want your location known.'

  'I hope you're not holding a grudge over words spoken in anger, Dr Horton - especially since I had the fellows fetch you here as a courtesy.'

  'A courtesy?'

  That's right. A little while ago, I got word that Dr Karl Brohier has died -'

  That's a good start,' one of the guards said snarkily.

  'Now, Michael, don't be insensitive,' Wilkins said. 'Dr Horton and Dr Brohier were friends.'

  'Why should I believe you?' Horton demanded. 'You've lied to me before to get me to do what you wanted.'

  'I anticipated you might have a certain degree of skepticism.'

  Wilkins picked up the comset and slid the battery into its recess. 'So I'm going to let you call the President, and hear it from him. And while you have him on the line, I'll have a few words with him myself.' Cradling the comset loosely in his right hand, he offered it to Horton.

  Morton's hands stayed in his lap. The fact that you want me to do this is enough to make me want not to.'

  Wilkins gestured with his other hand, and the rifles of the two men standing with Schrier came down off their shoulders. With no further warning, one fired a three-round burst that whistled just above Morton's head and thudded into the trunk of a tree a dozen meters behind him.

  'Please,' said Wilkins.

  His heart racing and his mouth suddenly dry, Horton took the comset.

  'An authenticated call, please, so you can both be sure who you're talking to.'

  'What makes you think the President takes my calls?'

  'I think he will,' Wilkins said. 'I'll even bet that his address is in your personal directory.'

  'Do you really think I'm worth enough to them that they'll give you what you want?'

  'With Dr Brohier dead, I should imagine your market value has gone up consider
ably. And I don't intend to ask for very much. Besides, isn't that the liberal mantra? "If it saves one person's life -" They can save yours.'

  Horton placed the comset back down on the bench and pushed it toward Wilkins. 'No, thank you. The price is too high. You can call the President yourself. I'm not going to help.'

  Wilkins moved with catlike quickness - Horton never saw the blow coming. One moment they were both sitting on the bench, and the next Morton's head was snapped sideways by a slap so powerful that it knocked him to the ground. Dazed, he tried to struggle to his hands and knees, only to have Wilkins shove him back down with his foot.

  'Do you think you're too valuable to hurt?' the colonel screamed, standing over Horton. 'Is that it? You think you're something precious now?' The kick to the abdomen that followed was hard enough to nearly lift Horton off the ground. Gasping for breath, he tried to roll away from the next assault. As he did, Wilkins grabbed his right hand and bent the thumb down toward the wrist until Horton could not hold back any longer, and screamed in pain.

  There, that's better, now you're starting to understand,' Wilkins said, maintaining the excruciating hold as he settled back on the log bench. 'Doctor, there are a lot of ways to hurt you that will leave you quite capable of coming back an hour later to be hurt some more. I've been giving you benefit of the doubt, assuming that as an intelligent man you'd be insulted by such crude tactics. But maybe I've overestimated you. Right now, you don't seem nearly as bright as your press clippings claim.'

  Every word of Horton's answer was an effort. 'What do you want from me?'

  'You're not paying attention. Doctor,' Wilkins said, squeezing harder. 'I want to know how to beat the Jammer. I want that goddamned disable code.'

  Horton squeezed out his answer from between clenched teeth. 'There - is - no - code.'

  'Your credibility is suspect. Doctor. I want to ask someone else - someone who might value your life a little more than you seem to.' Abruptly, Wilkins released Horton and walked away toward his men, leaving Horton writhing in the dirt. 'Gaylord, you keep up with these things. Has anyone tested to see how long an amputated thumb will green-light a comset's fingerprint authenticator?'