Part 10

Fitchburn turned back to Joy and me. "Each of us has his own secret soul," he said, and punctuated that profound remark with a sip of Pernod. "I took this job, which entailed an end to my well-known destructive criticism of the administration, because my third wife has gone into court with a demand for more alimony. For me it's as simple as that. I can fight the demand with lawyers, or I can pay. Either way I need more money. You, Miss Linx, took your job because you saw a possibility of meeting more important people and thus advancing your career--or alternatively, meeting more interesting people and perhaps finding an intelligent and well-to-do mate. Am I not right, my dear?"

"Look, Joy," I said, "we don't have to sit here and listen to this----"

"Simmer down, Sam," she said. "Mr. Fitchburn's honesty is refreshing, if not altogether flattering. Mr. Fitchburn--may I call you Clyde?"

"Please do."

"Clyde," she said, "I admire you. Frankly, I always dialed you out when I accidently heard you on the air. It's a pity more people can't hear you over a drink, without benefit of microphone. A frank question, Clyde: What do you now consider your role to be?"

"An easy question from a friend," Fitchburn said. "I am, as of 48 hours ago, approximately, an apologist for the well-paying Monolithians. And you, Miss Linx?"

"Joy," she said. "A fearful Joy, perhaps, to steal the words of Mr. Cary, but an honest one, I hope. My role? You've already said it, Clyde. Meeting interesting, friendly people, with a loving but calculating female eye to the future. There--now I've said it, too."

"But what do you fear?" Fitchburn asked.

"That the Monolithians are not all they profess to be. That their humanity--their seeming friendliness to us Earthpeople--is motivated by something we don't know anything about. That in the end we're all going to be more miserable for it--if we exist to be miserable at all."

I ate a pretzel, feeling like a supernumerary carrying a rubber-tipped spear. I ate several pretzels, moodily, recalling my experience in the spaceship in the woods, my imprisonment and brain-picking and the covey of doubles for famous personages. And who were those aboard this spaceship? The real articles or the Monolithian duplicates?

"You'll get fat, eating all those pretzels," Joy said.

Clyde had said something to her and she to him and now she was worried about me. I was worried about me, too, and it had nothing to do with pretzels. It had to do with the whole human race.

"How well do you know President Allison?" I asked Clyde.

"As well as any reporter does," he said. "Maybe better--I had a private interview with him about a year ago."

"And the British Prime Minister? And the Frenchman and the German?"

"Slightly. I've met them at receptions a few times. Why?"

"Have you talked to them since they came aboard?"

"Yes. Not long. Just to say hello. What are you getting at, Kent?"

"I'm not sure. Did they look all right to you?"

"They all seemed weary and irritable, but otherwise okay. Two of them even remembered my name, which is a damn good average."

"What's this all about, Sam?" Joy asked. "You sound as if you have some inside information."

"I do," I said. "But I wonder what good it does me. It's something like a movie you've seen before. You know how it's going to end and there's no way to change it."

"My, you're morbid," Joy said. "I hope your movie had a happy ending."

Clyde Fitchburn had been gazing into his Pernod. "I've been thinking," he said to Joy. "The things our young friend here has been saying--or hinting--are beginning to tie in. I did notice something about our VIP's. Yes, definitely, now that I think of it. They looked tired, as I said. But that other thing I noticed--as I think back, it seems to me it wasn't just irritation. No; they were frightened. Yes, that's the word. Frightened. Scared to death."

"You mean they were afraid of this trip?" Joy asked. "I can't blame them for that. I'm still a little queasy after that takeoff. Little old internal organs may never be the same."

"Not that," Clyde said. "There was nothing cowardly about their fear. I know I'm expressing this badly, but it seemed to me that their trepidation was not for themselves--they're bigger men than that. No, it was as if there were something they were being forced to do--something that each had decided for himself had to be done. Each had made this great decision he could not avoid. It had to be made and each knew it was as right as any decision he had _ever_ made. But having made it, he wasn't sure the next step, which was out of his hands, would be the right one. Each of them--yes, I'm convinced of it now--was frightened for all humanity."

The bartender came over and said, "You are all very amusing, but while you have been libeling the Monolithians, one of your Earth nations has begun a war against the rest of your unhappy planet."

"What?" I said. "Which one?"

"What do you mean?" Joy asked. "How?"

Clyde Fitchburn merely twirled his glass in his hand and smiled sadly.

"You would not suspect. A tiny Caribbean country. The one ruled by that man with the big mouth. I believe it's called El Spaniola."

19 (AUG. 9, SAT.)

The fack can't be no longer disguised that a Krysis is onto us.

--Artemus Ward

The story was coming in on the teletypes.

LA PLAZA, EL SPANIOLA, Aug. 9 (AP)--El Spaniola's military overlord, General Rafael Domingo Sanchez, today warned mankind that an O-bomb is poised, ready to drop, over each of the world's major cities. Unless there is unconditional surrender by noon (EST) today, he declared, they will be blasted into oblivion.

The ultimatum from this tiny Caribbean island nation, until last night dependent on its coffee and banana crops for its livelihood, specifically mentioned New York, London, Moscow, Peking, Paris, Bonn, Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne, Tokyo and Bombay. It cautioned, however, that the omission of any city from the list did not necessarily mean that it was not also threatened.

El Spaniola, which has over the past 18 months been secretly buying long range jetliners and converting them to bombers, claimed also to have given asylum to Dr. Franz Kuperman, the convicted atomic spy who disappeared after serving a ten-year term in a U.S. federal prison....

* * * * *

HAVANA, Aug. 9 (UPI)--The secret of the O-bomb, which today threatens the extinction of the planet, is a simple one which spymaster Franz Kuperman took into Spaniolan exile with him, diplomatic sources here said today. The scientists of the Western and Soviet worlds were frantically working toward that secret when Kuperman made his knowledge and its resulting power available to the four-million population banana-and-coffee "republic" of El Spaniola. Looming large....

* * * * *

PARIS, Aug. 9 (AFP)--The absence today of the world's leading statesmen, now on the Monolithian satellite of Ultra, made it doubtful that there would be a quick reply from the Quai D'Orsay to the threat of El Spaniola.

"We must await word from our President," a spokesman said at 6 A.M. (EST). "He is undoubtedly in consultation with our allies and, at this very moment, charting a course of action."

* * * * *

LONDON, Aug. 9 (Reuters)--The Foreign Office had no immediate comment early today on the bomb threat alleged to be poised over London and other world capitals.

The acting prime minister urged the nation to be calm. He said he did not entirely discount the possibility that the threat was a hoax or a bluff, although radar did confirm that an unidentified aircraft was circling high overhead.

As a precaution the Air Ministry ordered all planes, civil and military, grounded.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (WW)--The question of why El Spaniola's O-bombers can't be shot out of the air was answered today by Pentagon sources. Each of the terrible bombs is encased in a virtually indestructible shell and cannot be detonated by another explosion. Thus, even though the bomber were to be pulverized, the O-bomb itself would survive and fall toward its target, exploding at a prearranged altitude chosen to achieve maximum destruction....

* * * * *

BULLETIN

SOMEWHERE IN CISLUNAR SPACE, Aug. 9 (AP)--A giant spaceship carrying the leaders of Earth to a historic conference made contact today with the Monolithian satellite Ultra, but the talks were overshadowed by El Spaniola's threatened destruction of major world centers....

* * * * *

BULLETIN

ABOARD THE SATELLITE ULTRA, Aug. 9 (UPI)--Monolithia assured the world today that no harm would come to any of its cities despite the O-bomb ultimatum of El Spaniola.

The assurance came in a joint communiqué issued by Earth's major nations and the United Nations Secretary-General, Nils Nilsen.

They said they were supremely confident, on the basis of what the Monolithians had told them, that no O-bomb would be dropped and that El Spaniola would be justly dealt with for its threat to the peace of the world.

While it was not explicitly stated in the communiqué, it was understood that the superior science of the Monolithians was more than sufficient to disarm or render harmless the Spaniolan O-bombers.

The text of the communiqué was....

* * * * *

ULTRA, Aug. 9 (AP)--The abortive attempt of El Spaniola to seize world domination during the absence from Earth of the world's leaders was seen here as a warning to any would-be dictator that he would get nowhere fast....

* * * * *

BULLETIN

LA PLAZA, EL SPANIOLA, Aug. 9 (UPI)--Rafael Domingo Sanchez, El Spaniola's strong man, bowed to a Monolithian edict today and ordered his dozen or more O-bombers to return home from around the world, their death-dealing weapons undropped. He sent word out from his fortress palace that there would be no explanation from him of what threat or persuasion the Monolithians had used to thwart his plan for world conquest....

* * * * *

HAVANA, Aug. 9 (AFP)--Rumors circulated here today that a "conscience gas" was the secret Monolithian weapon that had forced the Spaniolan dictator, Domingo Sanchez, to call off his threat to wipe out a big percentage of the world's population.

* * * * *

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 (Tass)--Reports that "conscience gas" had been used by the extraterrestrials to abort the Spaniolan threat to humanity were greeted with dismay in Wall Street circles today.

Financial and big business tycoons were said to be shuddering in their expensive shoes for fear that the gas might also be used against them.

The capitalist chiefs were reported to have hurriedly arranged a conference with their captive Congressmen to have them introduce legislation to prohibit the use of any such gas. They feared, of course, that if they were exposed to its effects--perhaps at the bargaining table with representatives of organized labor--their ability to exploit the workers for fantastic profits would be at an end. The whole capitalistic hierarchy....

20 (AUG. 10, SUN.)

Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square, From the first point of his appointed sourse, And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse.

--Edmund Spenser

"Don't bother me," I said, pulling the sheet back up. "This is a day of rest."

"Not for the unrighteous," Stew Macon said, yanking the sheet down again. "Come on, Sam--there are forty-'leven reporters out there with umpty-two thousand questions to ask. They hear you got a fill-in last night and they're mad because you didn't tell them right away."

"I had my reasons," I said, sitting up. "The chief one being that I was dead tired. Earth's in one piece, isn't it? What more do they want?"

"They want a Monday paper story, what else? They said maybe you ought to have a whiff of that conscience gas yourself."

"All right." I got up and started to dress.

"Don't waste time shaving," Stew said. "They can stand you the way you are."

I shaved anyway, using the time to sort out what I was going to tell them.

They were there with their notebooks and sheafs of copy paper and lapel tape recorders and cameras, gathered impatiently in one of Ultra's big conference rooms. There was a magnificent close-up view of the moon through a transparent section of the hull, but no one was paying any attention to it.

My confrères, the British, French, Russian and other information officers or press secretaries, were seated behind a long table on a dais. An empty chair near the center of the table was flanked by Joy Linx and that Monolithian, Frij, who masqueraded as Addison Madison.

I took my seat and the UPI man jumped up and said, "Can we start now? Sam, tell us more about this conscience gas. How did it get to Domingo Sanchez? Was it dropped over his capital or piped into his office through the air conditioning, or what?"

That was an easy one. Frij had briefed me fully on that the night before.

"Simple," I said. "They rigged his microphone. You know the one he goes to every day to harangue the multitude and blast the big powers."

"Of course we know," the UPI said, "but _how_?"

"An American technician did it. Despite his anti-U.S. diatribes, Domingo Sanchez still needs American help locally. The technician sprayed the microphone with the gas, using a sort of pocket atomizer. Domingo breathed in the fumes his own moist breath activated."

"What does the gas do," a network correspondent asked; "affect the nerve centers of the brain?"

"Something like that. It makes the subject acutely aware of any suffering he is capable of causing. It has the psychological effect of making him actually feel the hurt he intends before he inflicts it. The more drastic the act he contemplates, the greater his pain. He can relieve the pain only by a clear-cut decision not to inflict the hurt."

"How long does this effect last?" a science writer asked. "Can't Domingo send the planes back up again when it wears off?"

I looked at Frij, but Joy had already shoved a piece of paper across to me. I read it quickly.

"No," I said. "The effect is permanent."

There was a stir in the room, and someone asked, "You mean Domingo Sanchez, erstwhile scourge of the Caribbean, is now and forever more on the side of the angels?"

I waited for the laughter to die down and said, "That's right. There shouldn't be any more trouble from El Spaniola--as long as the present regime lasts."

"Oh," the UPI man said, "then this gas was used only on Domingo Sanchez. It's not transferable? You know what I mean--contagious, like a cold?"

"It's not communicable in the way a disease is, but it doesn't necessarily have to be administered individually. One pellet no bigger than the end of my thumb, for example, would be enough to gas everybody in this room. I have a fact-sheet on the gas that I'll hand out to you after the press conference. I think it will answer most of the technical questions you may have. Its formula, of course, remains a Monolithian secret."

The Reuters man had a question for the British press officer: "Now that the Spaniola threat is ended, when does the super-summit meeting start and what's it all about? What's the agenda?"

"The conference is already in progress," the Briton said.

"How long will it last? What are they discussing?"

"They are discussing the future of mankind and it will go on as long as is necessary."

"Who represents Monolithia?" a French correspondent asked.

The French press officer shrugged and turned to Frij who, in his best Addison Madison manner, smiled and said, "That's a good question, old man. They haven't lifted the veil on that one."

"What are we going to call him in our stories? At least give us his title."

"I'll try to pry it out of them," Frij said. "Meanwhile, why not call him Mr. M.? That stands for Monolithia, I hasten to add. It isn't necessarily his initial."

That was about as far as anyone went. There were a few more questions, which drew vague or uninformative replies, and then the briefing ended with the promise that the press would be informed when the super-summit conference was over and that any communiqué would be expedited.

I hurried after the UPI man to ask about something that had been puzzling me. "Hey," I said, "where's the AP?"

"In his cabin, sick as a dog. His old intestinal trouble's acting up again. He never should have come on this junket."

"What about his story?" I asked. "Anybody going to file for him?"

"Don't worry. As soon as we get our own stories off, we're going to chip in and do one under his byline."

"That's damn nice of you."

"Nuts," the UPI said. "You've done the same thing in your time."

The way he put it made me realize how far out of things I was. I was beginning to feel like the tiresome old P.R. man who keeps telling people how he used to be a newspaper man himself.

The reporters had all gone off to file their stories and the only ones left in the conference room were Frij, Joy and the press officers. Frij and Joy were talking by themselves. I wandered over.

"I suppose you've got lots of this conscience gas," Joy was saying.

"Sufficient unto our needs," Frij said in his irritating way.

"Is there any here on Ultra?" I asked him. "I'd like to see what it looks like."

"Like many gases, it's invisible, as well as being odorless and tasteless. Joy, why don't you take our curious young man on a guided tour of Ultra? He's been so busy since he arrived that he hasn't had a chance to give it more than a once-over."

When we were out of earshot Joy said, "I guess you don't like Frij much, either."

"He's the first of them to rub me that way," I said. "Most of them are quite charming."

"It's my personal opinion they're all queer," Joy said.

"You mean homosexuals?"

"Either that or the Monolithian equivalent. Maybe I put it too strongly, but there's something wrong with them."

"Well, they're aliens, after all. You can't expect them to be just like us."

"No, but I've taken that into consideration. They don't have any women."

"Most explorers don't. Columbus didn't. The women come later, when the men have made things easier for them."

"Ha!" Joy said. "Go tell that to the Israeli women."

"You know what I mean."

We had made our way up the inner spiral ramp to the top-most part of the sphere.

"I guess I'm supposed to show you the view," Joy said. "Behold the moon. And, yonder, the stars. We don't seem to be able to see Earth from here. I hope it's still intact.... Who's that?"

It was a man kneeling close to the transparent outer edge of the corridor. We had startled him. He got to his feet, guiltily, then saw who we were.

"Oh, hello, Sam. Hello, Joy." It was Rod Harris of the AP. "Come here. Have a look at this."

"I thought you were sick," I said.

"I must be sick," Rod said. "I'm seeing double."

"Let me feel your head," Joy said. "I'll bet you have a fever."

"By all means feel my head. A pleasure. But that isn't what's the matter with me. Look out there. See those shiny things fastened to the hull at the ends of those long rods?"

"I see them," Joy said. "They're like silver Christmas tree ornaments. What are they?"

"I don't know what they're for," Rod said. "Maybe they're solar batteries or radar. Anyway they act just like mirrors. Look in that one. See? It lets you see right into one of the rooms. It's hard to tell at first, but I think I've got it figured out that the room's on the level just below us--what they call B Deck."

"I see it now. There must be a dozen or more people in there. Hey, they must be the VIPs! There's Gov, and the Russian and the Indian----"

"That's who they are, Joy. Can you make out what they're doing?"

"As far as I can see they're not doing a thing except lounging back in big chairs. They don't seem to be talking. I can't even tell if they've got their eyes open."

"They haven't," Rod said. "They're all asleep--or unconscious. Okay? Now look at that reflector--over there, to the left. No, higher. There. Now what do you see?"

"That's Gov! The President again!"

"Good. Now look in the next room. The man with the mustache--who's that?"

"The British Prime Minister?"

"Right," Rod said excitedly. "Now look into the room on the other side of Gov's. Here, shift over this way a little. There."

"That must be my room," I said. "Hey, there's somebody in it. Going through my suitcase. He won't find much. He looks vaguely familiar but I can't make out who he is."

"No wonder he looks familiar, Sam," Joy said. "That's you!"

"She's right, Sam," Rod said. "That's either you or your double. Do you have any idea what the hell's going on?"

It was me, all right--or my double. If you've ever seen yourself in a home movie or on a TV monitor you know how it takes a second or so for you to recognize yourself on the screen--probably because you're so used to full-face reversed image you get in the bathroom mirror every morning. My double, apparently having found nothing in my things, took a last look around and let himself out into the corridor, where we lost sight of him.

"Well?" Rod said. "Want to chase him with me?"

"No," I said. "It wouldn't do any good. He's a Monolithian. So are all the other duplicates."

"Well," Rod said. "I see where you and I ought to have a good long talk. You know all this for a fact?"

I nodded. "Yes. All right, Rod. If I tell you what I know--and what I'm beginning to suspect--will you print it?" The fact that my duplicate was here in Ultra and not down in Bethesda where he would be capable of hurting Mae had something to do with my decision to spill to the AP.

"Every damn word, Sam," Rod Harris said.

Joy shrieked when the interior wall of the corridor slid back, revealing a Monolithian pointing a weapon of some sort at us.

The Monolithian smiled. "Miss Linx and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that censorship has just been imposed."

21 (AUG. 11, MON.)

No matter how thin you slice it, it's still boloney.

--Al Smith

"Resistance would have been futile, I suppose," Joy Linx said.

We were Monday-morning quarterbacking our capture, now nearly 24 hours old.

"Never argue with a man with a gun," Rod Harris said. "Old city-desk adage."

We were in a big room, much more luxurious than my previous Monolithian cell, and which we judged to be at Ultra's dead center. It had a wall-to-wall carpet, four couches, some straight chairs, a big bare desk and indirect lighting. There were two doors--the one we'd come in through and another to a well-equipped bathroom, which afforded our only privacy from each other. We'd slept in our clothes on the couches without blankets. It had been chilly.

We'd had no visitors except a Monolithian who brought us food but no enlightenment about our fate. He said not a word to us.

In the morning we took turns in the bathroom, Rod and I shaving and Joy fixing her face and untousling her hair.

"How about the next time the waiter comes in we jump him?" Joy asked.

"And how about him shooting us right in the head?" I said. "You notice he keeps his gun right under the tray."

"Better to be a live coward than a dead hero," Rod said. "Old copy-desk maxim."

"Never saw such level-headed, clear-thinking captives," Joy said. "I admire your restraint."

"He who lives to run away may file his story another day," Rod said. "Old----"

"Don't tell me. Old front-office memo. Well, what's your story going to say, if you ever get to file it?"

"It's going to say Monolithians are no damn good. It's going to say they should go back where they came from, since they don't like it here. On Earth, I mean."

"It seems to be _us_ they don't like," I said. "Let's write a story, Rod. It'll be something to do."

"Sure, why not? Even if it's published posthumously."