Authors: Endgame Enigma
Naturally, others had noticed this, too. Some of the inmates argued that it simply reflected the pointlessness of having Earth-style security in a space colony; others saw it as consistent with a purpose of rehabilitation and reeducation, not punishment; while McCain for his part had come to the conclusion that the Russians had cultivated these impressions deliberately to camouflage the real purpose of Zamork, which he had described as an “information mine.” It was all designed to
encourage
people to mix freely, and therefore talk. And there were many people around who would have much to talk about that the Russians would be very interested to hear. Oh, true, the Russians did go through the motions of interrogations, searches, punishments for infractions, and the like, but with time it had all come to strike McCain more and more as not quite genuine – a charade to dull critical examination by satisfying expectations.
Very clever, McCain had conceded. Everything operated at a double level. There were the apparent reasons for things being as they were, which most people worked out for themselves and were happy with, as they were meant to. And then there was the real reason, which only a few, such as he, had fathomed. And taking advantage of that insight, he had turned the Russians’ own tactic back on them by exploiting the very freedoms that they had built into the system – for their own purposes – to set up and run his own miniature espionage operation. Even cleverer.
Now he was beginning to suspect there had been not two, but three levels to the deception all along. And far from being cleverer, he had been duped all the way down the line.
For the same facts that had led him to the information-mine explanation were also consistent with the supposition that he had been meant to believe just that, and that the actions he’d imagined himself to be carrying out freely had in reality all been part of the same plan. In other words, what he’d been doing was exactly what the Soviets had wanted him to do. And now it all made sense why prisoners inside Zamork should have found all the resources they needed to organize themselves as they had, why the security system had turned out to be ridden with loopholes,, and why Paula had just happened to gain access to a supposedly secret communications channel back to Western intelligence at the same time: The weapons did exist. The information that Foleda had supplied regarding their locations, however, was false – planted over a period of several years through phony defectors and leaks. The whole thing had been staged to feed misinformation to the West from a source they would believe: their own, trusted agents on the inside. The real weapons were in the places that McCain and his people had never been able to get into.
McCain stopped suddenly, staring at the compound wall in front of him, as the full implication of that line of thought became clear. If Magician had been a double agent and part of that same stratagem, then the Tangerine file had never existed. The whole story had been fabricated to lure the US into doing exactly what it had done; send somebody after it.
That explained his and Paula’s capture. They hadn’t goofed somehow. The Soviets had set the whole thing up from the beginning, specifically so that the agents the US sent would be captured. That was how they had obtained the “inside people” whom Western intelligence would trust. It wasn’t an information mine at all; it was a misinformation factory.
He sought out Rashazzi. “Razz, have you ever gotten the feeling that everything we’ve been doing has been steered?”
One thing McCain had noticed over the months was that Rashazzi was never surprised by anything. “I’m listening,” was all Rashazzi said.
McCain went on to summarize his latest thoughts. The young Israeli listened intently, nodding and agreeing occasionally, but without interrupting. “Just for two people?” he queried dubiously when McCain had finished. “They would set up a deception as elaborate as that, just for two people?”
McCain shook his head. “I never said that. My guess is that they’ve been grabbing all kinds of different candidates apd shipping them up to Zamork on one pretext or another for a long time – people like Peter Sargent, for example, who I’m sure is from British intelligence. You might have been on the list, even. The Russians have been auditioning for months before they made a final choice of which ones to use.”
“And these weapons we’ve been looking for, You think they really are here, but in the places we haven’t been to.”
“The places we haven’t been
steered
to,” McCain said. “Our side was fed faked information to make us look in the wrong places.”
“So where ought we to start looking?”
“In the places we’ve been steered away
from
.”
“For example?”
“Underneath Zamork, for a start.”
Rashazzi frowned, trying to follow what McCain meant. “Explain,” he invited finally.
“Think back nine weeks to when you and I found the original route, underneath B-three. One level down, in the first machinery space, the floorpanels were spot-welded – which we could have cut around with the tool you’d made. But just in case we didn’t have anything like that, there was also an easy way down through the lighting panel, and we took it.
Our original intention was to keep on going down. But the floor of the pump bay below was solid and seam-welded. Yes? That was why we started exploring outward at that point. Doesn’t that say to you that perhaps we were deliberately headed off in that direction? And what do you think we might find if we went back now and carried on going straight down?”
“But… Are you saying we were
meant
to find that route down from under B-three? Wouldn’t that mean that the Russians knew all along that we’d set up the Crypt?”
“Or something like it, somewhere down there.” McCain nodded. “Sure. That’s what I think. It was essential to their plan. Without some of the stuff that we thought we were making secretly, we wouldn’t have been able to get out and about. And that would explain why they put scientists like you and Albrecht in with us, too. The effort had to be real to make the setup look genuine.” Rashazzi cupped a hand over his mouth as he strove to assimilate the torrent of new suggestions. He shook his head wonderingly. McCain stared at him expectantly. “Well, what do you think it would take to cut down through the floor of the pump bay? Could we do it?”
“Would we be allowed to?” Rashazzi asked. “From what you’ve just said, mightn’t that whole area – the Crypt, all of it – have been under surveillance all along? I know we’ve checked it enough times and never found anything, but still…”
“I’ve got a hunch that it really might be clean,” McCain said. “If there were bugs and we discovered them, the whole game would be up. So maybe the Russians wouldn’t risk it.”
“You mean they’d rely on stooges to know what’s going on down there?”
“Exactly.”
Rashazzi’s eyes flickered over McCain’s face. “Any guesses who?”
“Any of the escape committee, maybe. I’ve never trusted that Indian, Chakattar. Then there’s our bunch… Who knows?”
“Albrecht is okay,” Rashazzi said.
“I guessed that.” McCain nodded. “Okay, so how about that floor? Let’s assume that whatever’s down there, nobody will be expecting anyone to be coming through that way.”
Rashazzi thought for a while before replying. “With a slow drill and plenty of lubrication, we could bore a pilot hole through quietly, with a good chance of not attracting attention. Then we could push a fiber-optic pipe down for a look around. We’ve got a good range of tools now. The only real limit on how long a man-size hole would take is the amount of noise we could afford to risk. That would depend on what we find down there.”
“Then, let’s start right away,” McCain said.
Rashazzi nodded. “I assume this is like the geometric anomalies – we keep it to ourselves?”
“Absolutely.” McCain nodded emphatically. “And one more thing. Obviously we can’t trust any method of communication out of here that’s controlled by the Russians. That means we’ll want the laser. How’s it going? Has Paula finished what you wanted on the power supply?”
“Yes, just about.”
“So you and Albrecht can do the rest?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I want to have it operating ASAP.”
It was late morning. In Hut 8 on the surface level, Eban Istamel had connected the output from a cassette player to the wire that had been uncovered from the bug hidden in the ceiling vent, in order to confound any unwelcome listeners. Two of the hut’s other occupants were on work assignments at Turgenev and one of the agricultural stations, and the third was away in the Services Block library. Paula sat staring wearily across the table at the electronic chip that Olga was showing in the palm of her hand. Olga’s voice was appealing but firm. “There isn’t a lot of time, Paula. The bus will be leaving soon, and I’m due to be back at work in Turgenev for the rest of the day. From the way you described it, the situation sounds serious. Nobody could blame you for deciding to act on your own initiative. So I did take it upon myself to preload the message that I asked you to draft this morning. It’s in this chip now, ready to be sent.” She gestured toward the sheet of paper lying by Paula’s elbow. The message Olga had written was directed to Tycoon/from Pangolin/in the standard format that Paula used, but had blank spaces after the slashes. The text listed the hub X-ray-module emplacement, the Agricultural Station 3 laser, the Landausk microwave projector, and the other installations that Tycoon had specified in his request to Sexton. Along with each item was a summary of what had been found there and a terse concluding assessment:
FINDINGS
NEGATIVE
–
SOURCE
INVALIDATED
.
FINDINGS
NEGATIVE
–
SOURCE
INVALIDATED
…
FINDINGS
NEGATIVE
–
SOURCE
INVALIDATED
. “All I need from you now,” Olga said, “is your completion code for Moon and a new initializer.” “Moon” had been the initializer in Foleda’s last incoming communication.
Paula got up and crossed the room to stare out through the window. The Polish historian from the hut in the next row higher up the slope was out fussing with his tomato plants again. Paula crossed her arms in front of her and rubbed her shoulders as if she were cold. They had been through all this earlier, before Olga went to Turgenev. Although Paula was surer than ever of the stand she had taken with Earnshaw, her anger had abated. Now she just felt tired of it all.
“If the information is true, what harm can it do to set the West’s suspicions at rest?” Istamel asked from where he had been leaning by the side of the washroom door, listening. “They’re always telling everybody about how incurably suspicious
Russians
are, after all. And don’t get me wrong – I’ve got no reason to feel especially friendly toward Russians. But I’ve always said American propaganda exaggerates everything just as much. They’re all as bad as each other. It’s the line of work that does it. Which side they’re on doesn’t make any difference.”
Olga had told Istamel simply that they had a way of communicating secretly with one of the American intelligence services. She hadn’t said how. Paula would have been happier if Olga hadn’t said anything at all, but Olga evidently regarded the whole business as sufficiently serious to warrant his involvement and advice. Paula wasn’t sure what position or influence the Turk had that should cause Olga to value his opinion in this way – but people didn’t ask unnecessary questions in Zamork. And besides, Olga must have had good reason to consider him reliable, for they were talking about her own channel to Ivan, too.
“Look, I’m not sure you quite understand,” Paula said. “What my opinions might be as an individual, and my capacity in the mission that I came here on, are not the same thing. Intelligence work isn’t what I do. I’m a scientist. I was only in a technical-support role.”
“But you came on an intelligence mission, all the same,” Olga said. “Doesn’t that make it just as much your duty to report back what you can?”
Paula drew a deep breath. “I still don’t like the thought of deciding something like this on my own. Why can’t we get Lew Earnshaw up here? Maybe if you two tried talking to him, it might make him see sense. Couldn’t we at least give it a try first?”
“The Crypt is cut off,” Istamel reminded her. “We can’t get him up here.”
“Is that maintenance crew still working down the shaft?”
“It’s worse than it was this morning. They’ve got half the wall opened up and cables everywhere. It could go on for days.”
“And do you have days?” Olga asked. “Remember how urgent Tycoon’s last message sounded. We don’t know what might be going on down there. A crucial situation may have developed, and its outcome could depend on what we know. Nobody’s going to hold anything against you for doing what you thought might help prevent a war.”
“Yes, it might prevent a war,” Eban repeated, nodding gravely as if the realization had only just struck him. “A war that would affect everybody in the world, wherever they are, whatever side they are on, and even if they’re not interested in either side. Perhaps this is a situation where it is not possible to permit the luxury of thinking like an American. You must try to think just as a member of humanity – of a community that knows no frontiers, whose only interest lies in truth.”
“Like a
scientist
!” Olga said.
A long silence followed. Paula continued staring out the window. The scene outside hadn’t changed, and wouldn’t change. Neither would her predicament. The decision had to be faced. There was no escaping it. She turned. Olga and Istamel were waiting silently, she at the table, he still leaning by the far door. Paula looked at them for a moment longer, but capitulation was already written in her eyes. She came back to the table, sat down heavily, looked across to Olga, and nodded, “The completion for ‘Moon’ is ‘Rise,’” she said.
Olga drew the sheet of paper over and wrote the word in the first of the blank spaces. She looked up. “And a new initiation word from your list?”