Sixth Column (7 page)

"Shouldn't be surprised. What does he want Frank Mitsui so bad for?"

"Well, that's somewhat involved. They've proved that the original

Ledbetter effect depends on a characteristic of the life form involved-you

might call it a natural frequency. It seems that everybody has his own

wavelength, or wavelengths. The notion seemed like so much astrology to

me, but Dr. Brooks says that it is not only the straight dope; it isn't even new.

He showed me a paper by a chap named Fox, at the University of London,

'way back in 1945--Fox showed that each individual rabbit had hemoglobin

with its own individual wavelength; it absorbed that wavelength in

spectroscopic analysis, that one wavelength and no other. You could tell two

rabbits apart with it, or you could tell a rabbit from a dog, simply by the

spectra of their hemoglobins.

"This Dr. Fox tried to do the same thing with humans, but it didn't workno distinguishable difference in wavelengths. But Calhoun and Wilkie have

rigged a spectroscope for the spectrum Ledbetter was playing with, and it

shows clearly separate wavelengths for each sample of human blood.

Conversely, if they set up a tuned Ledbetter projector and start running down

or up the scale, when they come to your individual, unique frequency, your

red blood cells start absorbing energy, the hemoglobins protein breaks down

and-Spung!-you're dead. I'm standing right beside you and I'm not even hurt;

they haven't come to my frequency. Now Brooks has an idea that these

frequencies come by groups according to races. He thinks they can tune it to

discriminate by races, to knock over all the Asiatics in a group and not touch

the white men, and vice versa."

Thomas shivered. "Whew! That would be a weapon. "

"Yes, it would. It's just on paper so far, but they want to test it on Mitsui.

As I gather what they intended to do, they don't intend to kill him, but it's

bound to be dangerous as all hell to Mitsui."

"Frank won't mind chancing it," Thomas commented.

"No, I don't suppose he would." It seemed to Ardmore that it would

probably be a favor to Mitsui to give him a clean, painless death in the

laboratory. "Now about another matter. It seems to me we ought to be able to

work up a sort of permanent secret service, using your hobo pals and their

sources of information. Let's talk about it."

Ardmore gained a few days' respite in which to consider further the

problem of military use of the weapons at his disposal while the research

staff tested their theories concerning the interrelation between racial types

and the improved Ledbetter effect. The respite did him no good. He had a

powerful weapon, yes; in fact, many powerful weapons, for it seemed that the

new principles they had tapped had fully as protean possibilities as electricity.

It seemed extremely likely that if the United States defense forces had had,

one year earlier, the tools now available in the Citadel, the United States

would never have fallen.

But six men cannot whip an empire-not by brute force. The emperor

could, if necessary, expend six million men to defeat six. The hordes of the

empire could come at them barehanded and win, move over them as an

avalanche moves, until they were buried under a mountain of dead flesh.

Ardmore had to have an army to fight with his wonderful new weapons.

The question was: how to recruit and train such an army?

Certain it was that the PanAsians would not hold still while he went into

the highways and byways and got his forces together. The thoroughness with

which they had organized police surveillance of the entire population made it

evident that they were acutely aware of the danger of revolution and would

stamp out any such activity before it could possibly reach proportions

dangerous to them.

There remained one clandestine group, the hobos.

He consulted with Thomas as to the possibility of organizing them for

military purposes. Thomas shook his head at the idea.

"You can't understand the hobo temperament, Chief. There is not one in

a hundred who could be depended on to observe the strict self -discipline

necessary for such an enterprise. Suppose you were able to arm all of them

with projectors -I don't say that is possible, but suppose you could-you still

would not have an army; you would simply have an undisciplined rabble."

"Wouldn't they fight?"

"Oh, sure, they'd fight. They'd fight as individuals, and they would do

quite a bit of slaughter until some flatface caught them off guard and winged

them. "

"I wonder if we can depend on them as sources of information. "

"That's another matter. Most of the road kids won't have any idea that

they are being used to obtain military information. I'll handpick not over a

dozen to act as reporters to me, and I won't tell them anything they don't

have to know."

Any way he looked at it, simple, straightforward military use of the new

weapons was not expedient. Brutal frontal attack was for the commander

who had men to expend. General U. S. Grant could afford to say, "I will fight

it out on this line if it takes all summer," because he could lose three men to

the enemy's one and still win. Those tactics were not for the commander who

could not afford to lose any men. For him it must be deception, misdirectionfeint and slash and run away-"and live to fight another day." The nursery

rhyme finished itself in his mind. That was it. It had to be something totally

unexpected, something that the PanAsians would not realize was warfare

until they were overwhelmed by it.

It would have to be something like the "fifth columns" that destroyed the

European democracies from within in the tragic days that led to the final

blackout of European civilization. But this would not be a fifth column of

traitors, bent on paralyzing a free country; but the antithesis of that, a sixth

column of patriots whose privilege it would be to destroy the morale of

invaders, make them afraid, unsure of themselves.

And misdirection was the key to it, the art of fooling!

Ardmore felt a little better when he had reached that conclusion. It was

something he could understand, a job suited to an advertising man. He had

been trying to crack it as a military problem, but he was not a field marshal

and it had been silly of him to try to make a noise like one. His mind did not

work that way. This was primarily a job in publicity, a matter of mob

psychology. A former boss of his, under whom he had learned the racket,

used to tell him, "I can sell dead cats to the board of health with a proper

budget and a free hand."

Well, he had a free hand, all right, and the budget was no problem. Of

course, he could not use the newspapers and the old channels of advertising,

but there would be a way. The problem now was to figure out the weak points

of the PanAsians and decide how Calhoun's little gadgets could be used to

play on those weak points until the PanAsians were sick of the whole deal

and anxious to go home.

He did not have a plan as yet. When a man is at a loss for a course of

action, he usually calls for a conference. Ardmore did.

He sketched out to them the situation up to date, including all that

Thomas had learned and all that had come in by television through the

conquerors' "educational" broadcasts. Then he discussed the powers that

were made available to them by the research staff, and the various obvious

ways in which they could be applied as military weapons, emphasizing the

personnel necessary to use each type of weapon effectively. Having done so,

he asked for suggestions.

"Do I understand, Major," Calhoun began, "that after rather pointedly

telling us that you would make all military decisions you are now asking us to

make up your mind for you?"

"Not at all, Colonel. I have still the responsibility for any decision, but this

is a new sort of military situation. A suggestion from any source may prove

valuable. I don't flatter myself that I have a monopoly on common sense, nor

on originality. I would like for every one of us to tackle this problem and let

the others criticize it. "

"Do you yourself have any plan to offer us?"

"I am reserving my opinions until the rest of you have spoken."

"Very well, sir"-Dr. Calhoun straightened himself up-"since you have

asked for it, I will tell you what I think should be done in this situation-what, in

fact, is the only thing that can be done.

"You are aware of the tremendous power of the forces I have made

available." Ardmore noticed Wilkie's mouth tighten at this allocation of credit,

but neither of them interrupted. "In your resume, you underestimated them, if

anything. We have a dozen fast scout cars housed here in the Citadel. By

refitting them with power units of the Calhoun type they can be made faster

than anything the enemy can put into the air. We will mount on them the

heaviest projectors and attack. With overwhelmingly superior weapons it is

only a matter of time until we will have the PanAsiatic empire beaten to its

knees!"

Ardmore wondered how any man could be so blind. He did not himself

wish to argue against Calhoun; he said, "Thank you, Colonel. I'll ask you to

submit that plan written up in more detail. In the meantime does anyone wish

to amplify or criticize the colonel's suggestion?" He waited hopefully, then

added, "Come now, no plan is perfect. You must have some details to add, at

least."

Graham took the, plunge. "How often do you expect to come down to

eat?"

Calhoun cut in before Ardmore could call on him. "Well, I'm damned! I

must say that I consider this no time for facetiousness."

"Wait a minute," protested Graham, "I didn't mean to be funny. I'm quite

serious. That's my department. Those scout cars are not equipped to keep

the air very long, and it seems to me that it will take quite a long time to

reconquer the United States with a dozen scout cars, even if we located

enough men to keep them in the air all the time. That means you have to

come back to base to eat."

"Yes, and that means the base will have to be held against attack,"

Scheer put in suddenly.

"The base can be defended with other projectors." Calhoun's tone was

scornful. "Major, I really must ask that the discussion be confined to sensible

issues."

Ardmore rubbed his chin and said nothing.

Randall Brooks, who had been listening thoughtfully, pulled a piece of

paper out of his pocket and began to sketch. "I think Scheer has something,

Dr. Calhoun. If you will look here for a moment here, at this point, is your

base. The PanAsians can encircle the base with ships at a distance greater

than the range of the base projectors. The greater speed of your scout cars

will be unimportant, for the enemy can well afford to use as many ships as

necessary to insure our craft not getting past the blockade. It's sure that the

scout cars will have the projectors with which to fight, but they can't fight a

hundred ships at once, and the enemies' weapons are powerful, too-we

mustn't forget that."

"You're right they're powerful!" added Wilkie. "We can't afford to have a

known base. With their bombardment rockets they could stand back a

thousand miles and blow this whole mountain out of the ground, if they knew

we were under it."

Calhoun stood up. "I'm not going to remain here and listen to misgivings

of pusillanimous fools. My plan assumed that men would execute it." He

walked stiffly out of the room.

Ardmore ignored his departure and went hurriedly on, "The objections

made to Colonel Calhoun's scheme seem to me to apply to every plan for

open, direct combat at this time. I have considered several and rejected them

for approximately those reasons, at least for reasons of logistics-that is to

say, the problem of military supply. However, I may not have thought of some

perfectly feasible solution. Does anyone have a direct warfare method to

suggest, a method which will not risk personnel?"

No one answered. "Very well, bring it up later if you think of one. It

seems to me that we must necessarily work by misdirection. If we can't fight

the enemy directly at this time, we must fool 'em until we can."

"I see," agreed Dr. Brooks, "the bull wears himself out on the cape and

never sees the sword."

"Exactly. Exactly. I only wish it were as easy as that. Now do any of you

have any ideas as to how we can use what we've got without letting them

know who we are, where we are, or how many we are? And now I'm going to

take time out for a cigarette while you think about it."

Presently, he added, "You might bear in mind that we have two real

advantages: the enemy apparently has not the slightest idea that we even

exist, and our weapons are strange to them, even mysterious. Wilkie, didn't

you compare the Ledbetter effect to magic?"

"I should hope to shout, Chief! It's safe to say that, aside from the

instruments in our laboratories, there just isn't any way in existence to detect

the forces we are working with now. You don't even know they're there. It's