Rome did not know how to evaluate the plan. Admittedly, it sounded fine at first. "But, I must say that if it works, it would be a good deal more practical than flying the Ship on a dangerous voyage to another world, no matter how grand," observed Rome, hoping his opinion would not be too far from Tenn's.
Tenn smiled in his spectral manner. "Yes, but don't you see that it wouldn't work? This plan would probably succeed wonderfully in a normal world, in a First World. But this isn't the First World, it is the World, the bastardized parody World, where logical rules seldom hold. Of course we are inspired by the Ship and are now engaged in new works of undreamed of magnitude. But it is only a matter of time until the World swallows them like it has every other effort that we have made in the last three thousand years.
"Another thing. Who or what is to guarantee that our respected Technos will adhere to their own magnanimous scheme? What is to keep them from channeling all this effort into their own houses, as indeed many are already doing, instead of into the country as a whole? They now control all our knowledge, and eventually, whether we get to Home or not, they will control all physical power and wealth.
"Thirdly, there is the fact that the Ship is awakening many of the old, sleeping terrors of the World. The Imperial Vale is a perfect case. We were living adequately and were reasonably happy, but then the Ship necessitated our stumbling into that cursed valley and awakening all the menaces that had lain there harmlessly for several centuries. I admit that this had to be done to reach the Yards and start the Ship. If we complete the Ship without disturbing the countryside any more than we have to, especially the western lands, and leave, then we run a minimal risk. But if we allow our power to be rooted to the substance and being of the World, the Technos will inevitably try to expand. And just as inevitably, their wielding of our power will eventually disturb a force which will wipe them, and in all probability, the rest of the World, out.
"The futility of it all is manifest. If you need any more proof, you need only refer to the Builders of the Yards themselves. Their technological abilities and industrial capacities were so great that now, even though we are actually using their relics, we still feel that we are moving in a myth-world. But even those creatures, with their unlimited power to conquer and pacify, bent all their will, not to tame the hostile land, but just to escape it!" Tenn drank some more wine and sighed heavily. "And the Technos presume to conquer what the Builders knew to be invincible."
Rome sat quietly, alternately staring at the General and the fire. Shocked and puzzled as he was, his primary concern was still that his words should not cause the General to lose some of the obvious respect he held for him. "Haven't the Technos thought of the dangers that you have just told me of?"
"I should think so; most of them are certainly not fools. But I think that they have been carried away by the magnitude of their undertaking—or by the magnitude of the profits they hope to reap from it. They are taking a calculated risk, but they have underestimated the odds; you and I and our future are the stakes they are gambling with."
"I'm overwhelmed by this, sir. I don't know what to say, if anything at all. However, I must admit that what you have told me does seem to—uh—coincide with some suspicions that I myself have long had." Rome immediately set about modifying any thoughts he might have had on the Ship or the Technos, and making them cast doubt on the intentions of the latter; it suddenly seemed to him that great minds do run on parallel tracks. "Yes, now that you mention it, and back it up with an amazingly obvious but previously ignored . . . "
"Or censored," added the General.
Rome smiled knowingly—the machinations of power were becoming very clear to him. "Or censored, it does look as if the Caroline might be cheated out of her liberty and her escape to Home. How does all this involve me?"
"You are involved as a leader of those whose lives and heritages are in danger. You have the ear of the People and, more importantly, you are one of them. They believe in the Government now, but certain unforeseen events may shake their confidence; then the inescapable fact of rigid class lines will come to the fore. When you speak and act at that time, it will be with their own voice and with their own hands."
"And what is it that I must say?" asked Rome, heady with the power that so great a man as Tenn had accredited him with.
"You will tell them nothing, now. You will wait and carry this secret inside of you, as I have done. For all I know, the whole affair might come off even better than planned. But watch! Watch for the Technos to become more authoritarian, to attempt to slow the construction of the Ship, to channel the fruits of our labor into their own treasuries. And when you start to see this, Rome, tell the People that the Ship has been betrayed. If this time does not come in our lifetimes, as it well might not, then we must also be prepared.
"Find men you can trust and share this knowledge with them; if anything it will ease the burden of carrying the suspicions alone. Organize, prepare and wait.
"I know of some men that would be of use to you. Here." Tenn handed the engineer a small piece of paper. "If I can get word to them in time, they will contact you as soon as they are able." Tenn relaxed a little; Rome noticed that the white burn-scar had become a brilliant red in the firelight. "And then, my good man, I have every confidence that the People, once they are in possession of all the facts and led by you or your successors, will act in the proper manner."
"What do you mean, 'in time?"' asked Rome unsurely.
"One of the reasons I've told you all this is because I fear that the Government is aware of my beliefs. As an officer I am powerless to do anything overt, but they must know that I can tell others; if they ever find out about this meeting, my military record and value to the nation will count for little. Of course, if they are as honest as they would have us believe and are working for the betterment of us all, then I have nothing to worry about; but if I have correctly guessed their evil intentions, then they will stop at nothing to silence me."
Rome was about to question Tenn further when the General abruptly stood up and thanked him for his presence. Rome was soon walking beside the General as a servant lighted the way to the main gate.
Rome spent the trip home trying to decide whether to be delighted that happenings of such vast import should pivot on his shoulders, or to be terrified at the consequences that would follow any failure. He assumed the sad look of Great Men who are both aware of their own limitless abilities and of the responsibilities that they incur; he thought it made him look much more dignified.
A week later, Rome finally left for the Yards, looking even more dignified than he would have liked. Every night since he had met Tenn, he had taken a ride out to the foot of Mount Royal to see if the lights of Caltroon were still burning. On the third night of his observations he got the distinct feeling that he was being followed. He quickly turned and headed for the city; but before he was within sight of the North Gate a pack of horsemen, dressed in the dull green uniforms of the Household Cavalry, galloped past him and took the River Road to Caltroon. Rome rode along behind them cautiously; he was relieved to see that the lights in the Great Keep were still lighted. But the relief turned to fear as some of the lights suddenly went out and the night wind carried indistinct fragments of screams and what might have been the rattle of automatic weapons. As the last light went out, Rome was already running through North Gate.
Inquiries at the War Office netted Rome an outright denial that any General Tenn had ever been carried on their lists. The Admiralty had never heard, or said that they had never heard, of anyone named Tenn, but perhaps the Office of Procurement might know. Rome knew nothing of any such Office, but since they had an office in the basement of the Admiralty, he tried anyway. There an emaciated-looking matron with steel dentures said that the only Tenn she knew of was working with the Admiralty and that he had just been sent on a diplomatic mission to Mourne. This Tenn should be back in ten years. Would Sir Philip care to wait?
Vennerian was a fat little man about whom the reek of sweat hung like the fog on top of Mount Atli. He was eternally irritable and perpetually hostile to his situation in life, or to life itself for that matter. But he was a Techno, and immensely proud of the fact.
He was slouched in his office, a wooden shack near the southwestern corner of the Yards, when another even more minor Techno came in. Mad at being taken away from the report that he was already mad at having to read in the first place, Vennerian asked the man, one Kort by name, what he wanted. Kort replied in his slowest drawl that he had finally gotten around to checking out the antennae and detection gear that old Limpkin had ordered put on top of the Westwatch. They had been mounted by Trebbly a month after Limpkin had given him permission, but he still did not have any notion of just what the equipment did; Trebbly had just followed the wiring diagrams and attached the leads to more mysterious machinery underneath the Yards.
And those machines had sat in their little compartments emitting sound and displaying lights that no one had the ability or the desire to interpret. Finally, in an especially ambitious moment, Trebbly had ordered a study of the whole apparatus. Since the antennae at least resembled First World assemblies, it was deemed that an "intensive analysis" would reveal some useful facts. But once the initial command was given, the process ran something like this: "Benman, I want you to find out exactly what those damn things are supposed to be watching."
"Right, Chief!"
"Fuller, find out what those antennae mean."
"Right."
"Beam, check out those things up there, will you?"
"Yeah."
"Vennerian, look after it."
"(grunt)."
"Kort, looka those flyswatters up there." That was seven months ago.
"Bloody well about time, Kort." Vennerian grumbled. "Find out anything particularly earth shattering?"
Kort drew heavily on his cigar, filling the room with choking fog. "Well, my honored superior"—he crushed the cigar slowly on the bare desk, gazed out into the depths of Eternity, and then continued with much agonized twisting of the face muscles—"yes—yes, I have discovered something."
"Oh?" Vennerian was taken off balance.
"They're all antennae, all right."
"Look, Kort, if this is your bloody . . . "
"Uh-huh, all antennae. Wadda they call it—radar? sonor? Real First World junk. Pity none of us can understand what most of them are trying to tell us."
Vennerian lifted an eyebrow. "But not all of them?"
"Ah, no. That report you gave me said that Trebbly set up seven antennae; and seven are, you know, receivers: infra red, that sort. But it looked to me like there were eight pieces of metal on top of the 'Watch and one of that eight is a transmitting antenna." Kort leaned forward and hissed, "Terrifying, ain't it?"
"Is this crud on the level?"
"Superior, would I lie to you?"
Vennerian decided to get really mad; he colored to a deep red, uttered some oaths worthy of the Dark Powers themselves, and tossed an empty liquor bottle after the retreating Kort.
* * *
A week after this interview, the maintenance staff was debating whether or not it was worthwhile trying to remove the large splash of blood and gore that a minor Techno named Vennerian had left when he fell from the top of the Westwatch. The clumsy fool. There were always people like him leaving a mess behind for someone else to clean up.
On the same day that a brigade marched out to the delta with buckets and a shovel, a crane operator noticed a curious smell coming from underneath a big transporter rig. Much to his surprise, he discovered the remains of one Gordon Kort intertwined about the forward loading lift machinery. More steel wool for the maintenance staff. Trebbly issued an order requesting that Technos be a bit more careful of where they step in the future.
Trensing had done a magnificent job of administering the project. But of all the many papers that crossed his desk, he could hardly be criticized for reading only a fraction, such were the pressures of resurrecting a world. As time went on, his personal signature was replaced by a rubber stamp, and then by a staff, all wielding rubber stamps. One particularly interesting request which Trensing never saw was from Moresly in the Armories.
Because of the secret nature of the Office of Procurement's work, it was left pretty much alone by the few people who did know what it was about. Hence, commendations of Trensing were really irrelevant because, even if he had seen the request, he would have felt himself duty bound to approve. The paper merely asked approval to refurbish some of the lower levels of the Armories for the production of modern weapons. The reason given was that the mission of the O.P., as far as most of the nation was concerned, was of a treasonable nature. Obviously, the Office had to offer its men some measure of safety in their work. The Army could not openly support the O.P.'s operations, so they would have to protect themselves from the Caroline citizenry and from the hostile nations or uncivilized tribes that lived in the areas that they were active in.
A committee debated this request and others—material, men, money, etc.—for the Armories. They were completely unaware of the nature of the Office, but since Trensing's latest development report had praised its work—without saying what it was—and its value to the nation—in an unmentioned capacity—they approved it with a top priority.
There is one more minor incident which might be interesting to the reader. It occurred a full twenty-five years after Trensing resigned in favor of Sir Miller Curragh. Clement had long since died and Edward VI was then on the throne; the head of the Admiralty was Justin Blyn. The Techno director of the Yards was Ord Syers, perhaps one of the worst men ever to have held that post.