“Faraday
is much more difficult, but I needn’t repeat that, need I?” Archer and his mate were sworn to the cause, but it had not been feasible to hand-pick the rest of that crew. Those persons had inevitably rejoiced at the reappearance of
Emissary
and had made a fuss over leading her into quarantine not as a public health precaution but as if she were an enemy. After consultation with his masters, the captain told his men, in effect, “It turns out she may really have brought back something dangerous—maybe not, but the government wants to investigate
thoroughly and cautiously, and meanwhile does not want public hysteria. So to make dead sure of preserving security, we’re off to Hades on a scientific assignment.” Fast and versatile, watchships often did serve as exploratory vessels; and the outermost world in the Phoebean System did have curious features about which the planetologists would like to know more. “Yes, this will keep you from the families and friends you expected to see before long, but orders are orders. They’ll be reassured we’re all right. And we’ll collect fat pay for the extra duty, remember that.”—
Faraday
would not stay out there forever.
“Troxell and his agents may be a larger hazard still,” Quick proceeded. “No matter how carefully we chose them, they’ve been exposed for weeks on end to some damnably persuasive prostellar arguments. If one or two of them should be converted… they could ruin us the same day they set foot back on Earth.
“Those are the obvious people to worry about. We have plenty of less obvious. They run the whole gamut from my assistant Chauveau or Zoe Palamas, for example, whom I’ve fed forebodings about incipient rebellion on Demeter, down to technicians in space stations who were asked to locate
Chinook
and transmit the command to her that she return home.
“Sir, the situation is precarious and worsening. I’m less and less able to stay on top of it by myself. I must have strong help. Of our whole group, you can best supply that.”
Makarov stubbed his cigarette viciously before he sent it down the ashtaker and reached for another. “What would you have me do, this exact hour?” he growled.
Quick sighed. “If I knew that, sir, I probably wouldn’t have had to call on you. The truth is though, what will happen soon is unpredictable. If matters go wrong, I may well be unable to maintain secrecy alone. Nor was I ever used to doing so to this extent. Your advice, your connections, your action—Do you follow me?
“Suppose everything does proceed as we hope.
[Chinook
comes to the T machine, obediently maintaining outercom silence. The regular watchship is
Copernicus,
the hastily dispatched special one is
Alhazen
. Crews of both have been warned that the travelers are wanted on Demeter on criminal charges and must be presumed dangerous. Additionally, Broussard of the European Confederacy has seen to it that the captain and gunner on
Alhazen,
though not privy to the facts,
are men who can be depended on to obey his command to shoot when in any doubt; his national government will protect them afterward before the board of inquiry…. However, suppose
Chinook
passes through to Phoebus without incident. There
Lomonosov
waits to conduct her off. When remote from
Bohr, Lomonosov
sends a boarding party which secures the Demetrians, interrogates them, communicates with Governor Hancock, and waits for further instructions.]
“We still won’t know for a while exactly what the Brodersen gang has done or can still do. We may get a nasty surprise. For instance, they may have propagandized the Wheel. We had better be prepared to respond fast and decisively.
“For now, though, what if trouble comes in the next few hours, in any of a hundred unforeseeable ways? What then? I repeat, sir, events are moving too rapidly for us. We’ve had to improvise, we’re overextended, our cover stories are full of gaping holes, too many people—from Hades to the Wheel and back—will shortly be asking too many questions. What shall we
do?”
Makarov blew smoke. It stank. “That will depend on what the reality is,” he said. “You are right, I had best keep vigil with you.”
After a moment he added, “The absolute reality is always death.”
Quick sat straight.
I half feared this. Did I also half wish for it?
“I don’t quite understand,” he faltered.
“Do they not have a proverb in English, ‘Dead men tell no tales’?”
Yes; and how many graves have your executioners filled, Makarov?
Quick’s mouth was turning cottony. He felt cold, though the office was well heated. “We have… our group has… discussed extreme measures, true. But strictly in case of dire need.”
“You have been telling me the need has become dire—whether you know you have or not.”
Quick clutched the arms of his chair.
Attack!
“Perhaps you should be more specific, sir.”
Makarov waved his cigarette. “Very well.” His tone stayed matter-of-fact. “I have given thought to this, you realize, and have sounded out others in our team. If you were not included, no insult. Your actions, yes, your leadership demonstrate you are fundamentally a realist.
“We can have
Chinook
and her crew destroyed. We can send
a trustworthy detachment to dispatch the personnel in the Wheel, including Troxell’s.
“Faraday
—I am not yet sure. We can have
Lomonosov
destroy her at Hades. Later we can explain these losses as a sad set of accidents, coincidentally happening in close succession. Well, there is no haste about
Faraday
. If possible, I prefer we spare her, since her crew is primed with hints of monsters from the stars.
“Ideally, we arrange the scene at the Wheel so it appears the monsters, who had enslaved the
Emissary
crew, took over the quarantine station as well. Yes, and when Brodersen arrived on his private investigation, they lured him to them, captured him and his men, departed in his ship for their planet. Fortunately, they betrayed themselves to the alert
Lomonosov,
which blew them to pieces.”
Despite having entertained similar notions—
as fantasies, as fantasies
—Quick felt it incumbent on him to whisper, “Do you seriously imagine we could get the whole human race to swallow such a piece of sensationalism?”
“Enough of it, probably,” Makarov said. “Nothing a government claims is too preposterous for most of its citizens.
“Bear in mind, I do not say this strategy is feasible. That we must find out. For example, will Stedman cooperate fully? His nerve may fail him when he imagines facing his God. If he or somebody else becomes unreliable, what can we best do about them? In any event, how do we explain and justify the fact that so many in the Council, in higher echelons everywhere, were not notified and consulted at once? What evidence can we manufacture, what particulars can clever men invent for us?
“The advantage of creating invaders from the stars is that we can then easily attain our objective, a guard at both T machines to wipe out any alien ships the instant they appear. Public opinion will support this, yes, require this, and an end to exploration. But we do risk failure and exposure.
“Maybe the safest course is to destroy
Faraday
with the rest and make everything look accidental. Or, hm, we could throw some of the blame onto terrorists. In that case, we must find a different political route, more slow, toward our goal.
“The whole point, Sr. Quick, is that whatever we do, it must not be done timidly. We must have the balls to accept great hazards. Believe me, the danger in shilly-shallying is grossly greater.
“Yes, I must certainly stand by you in these next hours,” Makarov closed.
“You’re saying terrible things,” Quick protested. “Why, some of those you’d kill have been freely helping us.”
“I have heard another English proverb,” Makarov retorted. “‘You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ Is an excellent saying.
“In the past I have found it necessary to sign death sentences of followers who had been valuable. I judged they were beginning to follow me too independently; or they had questionable associates; or—Well, I had a state to rebuild from chaos. How could I investigate every single case?
“For our separate reasons, Sr. Quick, we deem it vital that the human race stay home, carry out its natural tasks, and shun outsiders… at least until it is properly organized to cope with them. Vital. Now in days before cell therapy, what woman hesitated to have a cancerous breast cut off? That harmed her beauty, but she had no choice if she would live, did she?
“Furthermore, Sr. Quick.” Makarov leaned forward. “Furthermore.
You are committed
. Our whole little organization is. We had an ideal, we stumbled toward it, we made missteps as people always do, and today we are close to ruin. Is our ideal not correct regardless? How well can we continue to serve mankind from a prison?
“Prison it will be, if any strong hint of the facts ever comes out. Publicity will lead to investigation. Subordinates of ours will seek to save their own hides by tattling on us.
Chinook
is forcing us beyond the limits of any legal technicalities. We are quite clearly conspiring to violate the Covenant rights of her crew. We have already violated them, by deliberately causing a groundless warrant to be issued for their arrest. From this will spring countless further charges of malfeasance in office. We will be locked away for a long, long time—unless we strike the right blow at once, and strike it hard!”
A part of Quick recalled an essay he had read years before, on how intellectuals are chronically fascinated by violence as an instrumentality—drawn, repelled, drawn back, as they might be to the idea of sexual relations with a barely pubescent girl or with a sentient nonhuman; it is a kind of xenophilia, and when a conflict of which they approve (and they approve of most) does erupt, they take the lead in cheering on the warheads and calling for more soldiers to feed the furnace. At the time he had thought
what reactionary nonsense this was. Later, cultivating his fair-mindedness, he had had to admit there might be a limited amount of truth to the thesis.
Yonder son of a bitch is right in the present context. You
can’t
make an omelette without breaking eggs. Why, you can’t maintain an orderly everyday society without breaking an occasional head
.
And, Christ almighty, he must indeed go forward. Otherwise—arrest, indictment, trial? An actual jail sentence? A rehabilitative psychiatrist (squat, plump, blue-jowled, fleshy-nosed) probing the psyche of Ira Quick, which his grubby breed would never understand in a geological epoch? Release after he was aged, aged, to whatever drabness he could find in the wreckage of career and social life? His boys, wife, friends, mistresses, the whole world naming him kidnapper and murderer, he who had striven for nothing but human betterment?
I
am well known as being fast on my feet
.
Quick ran tongue over lips. “Sir, I don’t necessarily agree with either of your proposals.” Ah, good, how calmly he spoke despite the thick hammering inside him. “Nevertheless, when a statesman like you speaks. I listen. Would you care to explain in detail?” He felt his brave smile. “We do have to pass the time while we wait.”
The voices around the cathedral image were marching to their triumphant conclusion.
Chinook
WAS OVER
a million kilometers from her goal, decelerating, when the first communication struck her. Brodersen took it in his office.
The screen showed him an angular visage speaking British English: “Vincent Lawes, commanding watchship
Alhazen
on special duty. You are
Chinook
of Demeter, are you not?” It was scarcely a question. “Give me your captain.”
“You have him,” Brodersen answered. “What can I do for you?”
The seconds ticked away while light beams flew forth and back again. Caitlín, seated beside Brodersen, gripped his forearm, which was bare. He was acutely conscious of that warmth and pressure, of her hasty breath and faint sweet woman-odors.
“Now hear this well, Captain Brodersen,” Lawes said. His tone was harsh and a tic jumped near his right eye. “You are wanted on serious charges. Your ship is armed. My orders are to see that you pass through to the Phoebean System to be taken in charge there. I am to consider you dangerous and take no chances with you. None. Do you understand?”
“What procedure shall we follow?”
Time. “You will maneuver as usual, except under direction from us, not
Copernicus
. In fact, you are to have no contact whatsoever with
Copernicus
. You will beam every message at us, and in English.
Copernicus
has been directed off her usual orbit. She’ll keep on the far side of the T machine from you as you make transit. To contact her, you’d have to broadcast—and in Spanish, since nobody aboard her knows English. We will detect that. Any untoward action of yours can provoke our fire. I repeat, do you understand? Make sure you do, Captain Brodersen.”
“My, my.” The Demetrian clicked his tongue. “You are tight in the sphincter, aren’t you? How come? What harm in a little chat?”
Time. Caitlín chanted, a whisper—a Gaelic curse, Brodersen thought.
“I have my orders,”“ Lawes replied, scissoring off each word. “Among other things, you stand accused of trying to disseminate technological information which would endanger public safety. Without questioning the dutifulness of the
Copernicus
personnel, I am to see that you send no word to them or anyone else. Needless to say, they are not to tune you in. If we become engaged with you, they will join us.”
“I see. M-m, how about yourself, Captain Lawes? Our side of the story is pretty interesting. We’ve quite a bit we can show you, too.”
Time. The sole surprise, if it was that, was the appalled vehemence of Lawes’ “No! Absolutely not! At the first sign of any such attempt, I’ll switch off. If you persist when I call back later, I have discretion to attack.”
“Okay, okay. What else?”