Planet in Peril Page 14

  Charles remembered the incident of the finger-watch; with the false-Sara’s explanation out of the way, it assumed its earlier importance. He smiled slightly.

  “I gather she did,” Professor Koupal said. “Well, never mind that now. The point of all the preparations was to throw United Chemicals, and any other managerial that happened to be interested, off the scent. We seem to have been helped by the local rivalry; even when the genuineness of the deaths was suspected, they were too eager to lay the blame at each other’s doors.”

  Charles nodded. Only now was he beginning to grasp the scope of the plan underlying the work of Humayun, the disappearances, his own abduction. Keeping his voice even, he said:

  “His idea, I suppose, is of some sort of aggression by Siraq against the rest of the world—a foray for fresh territory.” Professor Koupal was smiling at him benignly. “How long has that been in preparation?”

  “A very long time. On an old Japanese analogy, Dai and I were members of the war party. There was a peace party; our temporary eviction was the result of a temporary defeat in an earlier skirmish. The position has now been rectified.”

  “You want war. Why?”

  Professor Koupal raised his hands. ‘Wanting doesn’t enter into it. The world outside is breaking up. There will be chaos there, anyway, within a couple of decades, and, as the only state with any vitality at all, we should have to go out then and reclaim the chaos. It would be a long job and a painful one—unnecessarily so. It is simpler, and a lot more efficient, to precipitate matters. Has Dai mentioned the Cometeers to you? We’ve found confirmation for our views there, and it is of great help in the softening-up.”

  Charles said: “Let me see if I can understand what you are talking about. You mean—Siraq taking the whole planet over?”

  “Exactly.”

  “With a handful of aerial soldiers and a heat ray that only works at close quarters, and when the sun happens to be shining?”

  “I should put it somewhat higher than that,” Professor Koupal said judiciously. “Let me explain something of the art of warfare to you, Charles. That art, throughout the centuries, has seen a continual alternation in the status of the individual warrior, through the alternation in the kind of weapons at man’s disposal. To render the situation down, you may say that artillery dwarfs the individual soldier, while small-arms magnifies him. Of course, you can pick your own variations of the theme, from the conflict between the giant sling and the javelin in Roman times, to the conflict between the big guns and the musket in the eighteenth century.

  “During the twentieth century, the balance swung— irretrievably as it seemed—away from the soldier. Massed artillery barrages, pattern bombing, and finally the atomic and hydrogen bombs seemed to tilt the scales finally toward the mass-weapon. And weapons, of course, affect society. The musket was typical of capitalism, just as the H-bomb is typical of managerialism, even though it was the last stage of world capitalism that produced it.”

  “The managerial world,” Charles observed, “still has a stock of H-bombs.”

  “Which are quite useless. The mass-weapon has grown too big to use. Yes, I know it was used in the last war, but the results bear me out, don't they? Do you think your friends will use H-bombs? On what targets? We shall have Africa within a week, Europe within ten days. Do you know what the situation resembles? It resembles a small iron-walled room, full of big men holding Klaberg pistols. And a child comes in with a water-pistol and drenches them. They can’t hit back because they haven’t got any water-pistols, and wouldn’t know how to use them if they had. And if they fire their pistols, the charges will ricochet off the walls; they are as likely as not to kill themselves, and they know it.”

  “As far as I can see, a longbow would out-shoot your new weapon, Professor Koupal.”

  Professor Koupal smiled. “And which managerial has a stock of longbows? I take your point, though. The heat ray is not the weapon that restores the initiative to the soldier. The flying apparatus is. We've had the essential design for some time, but it’s heavy on power—as you might expect. The sun, fortunately, is an inexhaustible power-house. That makes the weapon worth having. Wings on every soldier. A flying army. Even without the added advantages of surprise and an enemy that has, in the main, lost interest in everything but its hypothetical damnation, this new factor would be sufficient to do the trick. In all probability. We have taken the elementary precaution of mapping out the key points. There isn't one that can't be taken by half a dozen of our flying soldiers. And we have more than that to spare.”

  They could do it, too. Charles could visualize the situation very clearly. The Cometeers running hog-wild ... he had already learned that a Cometeer did not pause to consider managerial loyalty when a call came in the name of The Lord... and then the trained, disciplined and efficient Siraqi troops dropping through the air. . It was a cast-iron scheme. Understanding this, it occurred to him to wonder why it had all been explained to him. His skill wasn't wanted now. The only advantage he represented to Siraq was the negative one—assurance that he would not be doing anything for the managerials.

  He said: “One thing interests me.” Professor Koupal raised his head slightly. “Why you have told me all this.” “A reasonable question. Because I am going to ask you to give me your parole.” Charles looked baffled. “An old expression—your promise of honor that you will not try to escape or communicate with anyone outside Siraq. That given, you will have a good deal of liberty. And if you are to give it, I think you must be told enough of your situation to make its implications clear to you. This is the world’s new capital. We want you to understand that.”

  "How long before you attack?”

  “Not long.”

  That startled him. “Now—in winter? It will take the edge off your weapon, won’t it?”

  “Unfortunately. Though not as much as you might think. The cloud is generally low at this time of year, and it will not be difficult to rise above cloud height for recharging.”

  Charles, with a twinge midway between guilt and regret, thought of airsphering with the false-Sara, and the world of blue and gold and stillness.

  “But in any case,” Professor Koupal went on, “timing is now a matter of some urgency. It isn’t that we have any fears of the managerials duplicating the battery or the weapon within six months—for that matter, within six decades—but they might get round to suspecting the true state of affairs, given six months’ grace. We can’t bank on their mutual mistrust holding out. And surprise is going to be very important. So we shall go ahead in the very near future.”

  “In which case,” Charles said, “surely it would be simpler to keep me under lock and key?”

  Professor Koupal smiled benevolently. “There are personal considerations.”

  Sara. It was a warming thought. As though he had been tunneling toward her for months, through miles of rock and had become aware of a tapping, answering him and directly ahead. At the same time—

  He said: “I’d like to have the opportunity of talking things over with Dinkuhl.”

  Professor Koupal nodded. “Naturally. Dai will take you back.”

  Dinkuhl was sitting up in bed, in a small but not unattractive room. There was a table beside his bed, with a large bowl full of fruit on it. Dinkuhl grinned wryly.

  “Come to devour the grapes?”

  Humayun said: "I'll leave you here, Charles. I'm afraid we have to post a guard outside, for the time being. He will take you to me whenever you want that.”

  “Adios,” Dinkuhl said. “Back to the detector screen? Why not just crawl under the bed?”

  Humayun looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, I get it. No, you're private in here. Our privacy regulations forbid the installation of detector equipment.”

  He smiled and went out. Dinkuhl looked after him. “You know,” he said, “I believe he's telling the truth.” “Probably. How are you feeling?”

  Dinkuhl rubbed his head gingerly. “Regretful. Death was more
welcome. But it will pass. The number who takes my pulse will help it to pass, I feel.”

  Charles said: “It will need to. You will need all your faculties to think up a scheme for getting us out of this.” Dinkuhl’s look was quizzical. “Maybe you'd better let me have anything you know.”

  He listened in silence while Charles told him what he had been told by Humayun and Professor Koupal. He said at last:

  “I can think of one thing that's likely to prevent them from doing it.”

  Charles said eagerly: “Yes?”

  “The sun blowing up.” Dinkuhl looked at him. “Relax. Relax, Charlie boy. You want my advice? Give your parole. And then enjoy yourself.”

  The flippancy was the same, but it didn’t seem to be the same Dinkuhl. In the past the flippancy had been only the cover for a mind driving hard on its course. He examined Dinkuhl's features more closely; he thought he could detect something he had never seen there before: indifference that somehow was more harsh than despair.

  Dinkuhl took an orange and began to peel it. “Help yourself, Charlie.”

  Charles said: “I don't know about getting out of Siraq. The odds are against us. In fact, they're so much against us that a more limited objective might be a good deal easier than it seems on the surface.”

  Dinkuhl dropped a curl of peel on the floor. “A limited objective?”

  “I don’t believe there is a detector on this room. It’s part of the business of one guard outside the door, of being taken around by Humayun, in person and alone. They are so confident that we couldn’t get out of the country that they take hardly any precautions on the spot. Listen, Hiram. This building is served for TV by a single transmitter-receiver room. I know where it is because Humayun took me past it and the door was open. There is only one duty operator—I suppose they can manage with one because so much is covered by landlines.”

  Dinkuhl sectioned his orange. "I am ahead of you by a neck. We are in the TV room. We have laid out the solitary operator. Pick it up from there.”

  "To my mind there’s only one man who might be able to do anything worthwhile with the information we could give him.”

  "Raven?”

  "Yes. Do you agree?”

  Dinkuhl nodded: "I agree.”

  Charles said: "Right. I suggest we call the guard in, and I’ll stand behind the door and hit him as he comes in. It may be elementary, but I think it will work.” Dinkuhl shook his head. "Charlie boy, it’s you should be in bed. Wait till I recover a little more, and you can have it. I’ll go get the nurse for you. Don’t thank me. It will be a pleasure.”

  "What’s wrong with the idea?”

  "Look,” Dinkuhl said. "You wanted the girl. You’re within ten minutes of her. You only have to go and tell Humayun you are retiring from the cloak and dagger business. You never were cut out for it, anyway.”

  "You won’t come in on this?”

  "The nail goes to the woodwork in. I won’t.”

  ‘"You’ll be content to see the Siraqis running the world?”

  “That nurse can run me any day. The hell with the world.”

  “I'm serious.”

  “That’s your bad luck. I lost my girlish laughter too long ago to be serious at my time of life. Lookit, Charlie, you’ve got what you wanted.”

  Charles paused. He said slowly: “What about you, Hiram? What was it you wanted?”

  There was another silence. Dinkuhl said: “O.K. What did I want? Your girl for you? I wish I could rate myself as high for altruism. I told you once, Charlie—you were the H-bomb. You were what was going to blow the top off. You were the Destruction, and I served the Destruction. You aren’t now, are you? Go in peace, brother, if go you must.”

  “You’ve found a bigger bomb?”

  “Just that. Now I wait. I don’t know what I wait for, but I wait. I don’t kid myself the Siraqis have got much more than the managerial, except in the military line, but it looks like being an interesting year. Go and get the word through to Raven, if your loyalties are still stronger than your common sense. I don’t say it won’t affect the issue. But it will still be an interesting year, whatever you do.”

  Charles looked toward the door.

  “I’m a neutral,” Dinkuhl said. “I won’t call for nurse. That’s a big sacrifice I’m making, the way I feel right now.”

  Charles called out to the guard. His own voice seemed unnatural to him. He posted himself behind the door, grasping, by its projecting handle, the heavy wooden fruit bowl; he had emptied the fruits on to Dinkuhl’s bed. Dinkuhl was watching with every sign of interest.

  The door opened and the guard came in. He wasn’t very tall; it was an easy matter to crash the bowl down on the back of his head. He pitched forward in a falling arc and hit the floor with a cracking thud. Dinkuhl leaned down to look at him.

  “Pretty. I see now what they mean about the spectator seeing the wood for the trees. You have at least quarter of an hour, Charlie boy. I should take the howl with you.”

  The corridor was deserted and it was no more than ten yards to the service lift. He called it down, and got in with relief—leaving the scene of the crime. The TV room was ground floor. He made his movements in closing the lift gate studied and deliberate. There were two or three people in this corridor, between him and his quarry. He walked along, swinging the fruit bowl casually. A girl looked at him curiously as he passed her, but no more.

  The door of the TV room was closed now. That was bad luck. Fortunately whistle locks did not seem to be in use in Siraq. The door had a handle; he was going to turn it when he found it gave under the pressure of his hand. He pushed it open, gently.

  The operator was sitting at the main control panel with his back to the door. He had not yet become aware of the open door, but he might at any moment. Charles ran toward him, raising the fruit bowl above his head as he did so. The operator turned around, in time to take the blow on his forehead, instead of on the base of his skull. It was as effective. His breath exhaled in a dull groan and he slumped forward onto his desk.

  Charles went back and closed the door. It had a lock on this side—an old-fashioned key lock—and he secured it. Then he went back and examined the operator; he was out, all right. On the panel in front of the desk a spotlight lit up a figure 21. Someone wanting attention. How long could he count on before someone came to see why there was no response? Perhaps as long as it would take the guard to come around in Dinkuhl’s room. The point was, with a meagre knowledge of TV communications, to get on to the outside circuits and get Raven in that time.

  It would have been easy with Dinkuhl, of course.

  It took him five minutes to master the controls to the extent of getting through to Athens, the nearest managerial booster station. He had rolled the operator onto the floor, out of sight of the screen.

  The sight of the neat chrome-and-plastic Telecom desk stirred strange feelings; after recent events and the time spent earlier with the Cometeers, he had almost forgotten what it would look like. The operator was a girl; above the neat uniform her face had the typical dreamy remoteness of a mesc-taker. She registered no surprise at his bearded and disheveled appearance; after all she would take him for a Siraqi, and would hardly be surprised at anything.

  He said: "El Majalem for Atomics HQ, Philadelphia.” Even that did not surprise her, although it was a safe bet that that particular link was not made once in a decade. She said sleepily:

  "El Majalem for Philadelphia. Stand by, El Majalem.” He said: "It’s urgent.”

  She smiled and barely nodded. “Yuh.”

  He thought, while he watched her making the call to the space station that would provide the junction between the world’s continents, of what Raven would do when he gave him the news. He would put it on record, of course, to carry weight at the Council meeting he would have to call. The managerial, under such a threat, would be forced into unity. They would have to unite, if they were to defend themselves.

  And then? The Siraqis would go throu
gh with it—they had gone too far to draw back now. A bitter war, a long war. They would be unlikely to save Africa; Europe might go, too. But the Americas were defensible, especially if Raven took the obvious precaution of rounding up the leaders of the Cometeers.

  For Raven, it would be a good war: the natural, the automatic leader. His thoughts were wryly humorous. Let Raven have it. All he wanted himself was peace of mind: the feeling that, dragged from obscurity into temporary greatness, he had kept his faith with the society that had bred him—whether shot through with evil, whether condemned to die despite everything, he had kept faith. For that he was willing to let the rest go—his personal liberty, his life if they required it... and Sara.

  The girl was talking again, though not to him.

  “Station Q Five? Athens has a call for Philadelphia.”

  Was there a discrepancy between his action now, and his refusal to stay with Raven and work for Atomics in the past? Perhaps, perhaps not. Raven had seen catastrophe coming, but Ravens word had been suspect. And it had been a different catastrophe even so. Civil war is something you never believe in until it breaks out. So is the collapse of a state from within. It was the outside shock that stimulated half-forgotten patriotism.

  It was hard to think of losing Sara when he had come so very close to finding her again. So hard that he mistrusted his ability to keep his purpose steeled if he did think of that. The picture was plaguing him now; he thrust it back, finding crazy jingles of thought to keep it at bay. “Raven the Raven, Ravens ravin—”

  “Raven’s ravin—”

  It became a real thought, with the clear sharpness of ice. What would Raven do? Call the Council—round up the leaders of the Cometeers? He saw suddenly that he would do nothing so half-hearted as that; he had been underestimating Raven. Professor Koupal had been contemptuous of the H-bomb because by the time the managerials had awakened to the fact of invasion, the airborne Siraqi armies would be all over Africa and Europe. In those conditions it would be impossible to use the H-bomb. But Charles was creating different conditions—the Siraqis still locked within their relatively small territory were a target impossible to miss. Raven would not miss it.