Part 1

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE 3rd PARTY

BY LEE B. HOLUM

_A series of "incidents" had provoked a state of emergency between two great powers. The reason was obvious. But why a single chemist as bait--and who was the third party?... The 4th award winner in IF's College Science Fiction Contest._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Snow beat against the tall windows of the terminal building. The howling of the wind around the corners of the building and across the broad expanse of the rocket field went unheard by the thousands who streamed across the crowded floor. Each was intent on his or her affairs, hurrying to board one of the tall spires out on the snow covered field, seeing someone off, or waiting for incoming friends.

Roger Lorin and his wife waited near the entrances to the boarding tunnels for the announcement that would send them out under the field to their rocket. The shouts of porters and the voices of excited passengers mingled with the noises of the terminal. Groups of people moved across the floor like the currents of the ocean.

Suddenly, the announcer's voice boomed out over the p. a. "All passengers for the Arctic City rocket report to tunnel seven."

"Come on Linda," Roger said. "That's our ship." He hurried his wife toward the tunnel entrance. A few minutes later they stepped off the conveyer walk at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The gray uniformed attendant checked their tickets, before the glass cage lifted them to the lock entrance high on the side of the rocket. The wind sang its mournful song around the corners of the cage and fired volleys of snow against the glass. At the air lock entrance, a stewardess checked their tickets a second time.

"Couches 34 and 35? Follow me, please." She led them up one deck and over to a pair of couches, one of which was next to a small eyeport.

"Take the one next to the port, honey," said Roger. "The view's worth seeing."

A moment later, a buzzer sounded, and a red light flashed on near the hatch to the deck above. The voice of the pilot came over the intercom system.

"We are blasting off in five minutes. All passengers who have not strapped in will please do so immediately." Three minutes went by, and the final warning buzzer sounded. After another two minutes, the rumble of the motors came from the tail of the ship. The rocket, a towering silver needle with orange flame spouting from its lower end, paused on the field as its motors warmed up. Then it rose majestically on a column of fire and disappeared in the swirling snow.

Linda was surprised to find that the sound of the blast off was not as loud as she had expected. Neither did she find the acceleration of two and a half gravities excessively uncomfortable. The brightly lighted compartment made the scene outside the eyeport seem dark; although it was only four-thirty in the afternoon. Tiny pellets of snow streamed by the port during the few seconds it took the rocket to scream through the lower atmosphere. Then the ship burst through the clouds. Linda gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure at the sheer beauty of the sight. The clouds rose like tumbled snowy mountain ranges under an ice blue winter sky. The setting sun painted their tops in brilliant hues of pink, orange, and violet. Their eastern sides lay in blue shadow honeycombed with caves and grottos.

"It's beautiful!" exclaimed Linda. "I never dreamed it would be like this."

"You have to see it to really appreciate it," Roger said. "Descriptions never do it justice."

As the rocket continued to rise, the clouds flattened until they resembled pack ice on an arctic sea. More of Earth became visible, and spots of green and brown appeared on the southwestern horizon. Finally the blue of the Pacific crept into view, brilliantly contrasted against the now black sky.

"You may be able to see a few stars if you don't look toward Earth or the sun," Roger said to Linda. Linda followed Roger's instructions; and, sure enough, a few stars appeared, unwinking points of light against black velvet. Now over three hundred miles above Earth, the rocket had crossed the frontier into outer space.

The rocket passed the top of its arc and the scenery was forgotten; the natural fear of falling to which all humans are heir asserted itself. Linda suddenly realized that there was no sensation of weight and that the rocket was falling steadily through space.

"Is ... is everything all right?" she asked in a weak voice.

"Don't worry dear," Roger replied soothingly. "We'll be landing in another half hour. You won't have to go through much more of it."

"Thank goodness!" Linda breathed a sigh of relief and laid her dark head on Roger's shoulder. Roger put his arm around her and held her until the rocket came in with a squeal of runners against hard packed snow. Lights flashed by the eyeport as they slid along the runway. In the distance the lighted, slablike towers of Arctic City loomed against the dark sky. The night was clear and bitterly cold.

The rocket slid to a stop, and an electric tractor came to tow the ship to the top of an elevator shaft. A few minutes later the passengers streamed along a conveyer walk into the Arctic City terminal. The sounds of hurried activity echoed through the tunnel. The rumble of heavy freight conveyers, the shouts of stevedores, the whine of heavily loaded electric motors, and the hum of conversation mingled in a medley of sounds that spoke of commerce and industry, of people busy at an almost endless array of tasks.

"Are you Roger Lorin?" The question came from a short, stocky, gray-haired individual.

"Yes, I am," Roger replied.

"I'm Jacob Darcy. I'm supposed to show you to your apartment and help you get oriented."

"Good," Roger said. "You lead. We'll follow." Darcy turned and led them to a small electric monorail car which sped them through a maze of underground streets past the windows of many shops and stores.

After a ten minute ride in the monorail and a fast ascent in an elevator, the three of them entered a small apartment high in one of the slablike buildings. The apartment was comfortable and compact, though not luxuriously furnished. One transparent wall of the living room looked out over the city and the arctic landscape.

"I thought things would be more primitive," said Linda as she looked around her future home. "This doesn't seem like a frontier at all."

"No," Darcy replied with a smile. "Arctic City is pretty well built up. Conditions are a lot better here than they are in some of the mining centers farther north." He turned to Roger. "I'll be around tomorrow morning to show you the labs. Sometime around eight or eight thirty."

"I'll be ready," replied Roger. "It should be interesting to see the facilities here."

"I suppose the high temperature work will be most interesting to you," said Darcy. "I read your paper on molecular linkages. We'll sure be able to use you. We're having the devil's own time with the linings for the reaction chambers in the neutron pile."

"I hope I can help," said Roger. "The cooling problem should be quite a challenge without the extreme temperatures and high vacuum that we had at the moon labs."

"That's right. You did work on the first neutron pile, didn't you?" Darcy said as he prepared to leave. "That makes it much better. There are too few men with practical experience in neutron pile work."

It had long been known by physicists that tremendous amounts of energy could be released if matter could be collapsed to form neutrons. This step had been achieved in 2047 A. D., at the Lunar atomic laboratories. The Arctic City pile was the first attempt to apply it to industrial uses.

Up to this time (2054), man had been barred from the planets by the lack of a fuel cheap enough to make trips across interplanetary space economically feasible. Long, economical orbits could be used; but these brought on psychological problems resulting from living in cramped quarters for long periods of time, and problems of carrying enough supplies for such long trips. In shorter orbits, the profits would be burned up in excessive fuel consumption. The most efficient fuel was monatomic hydrogen, which is highly unstable unless dissolved in a catalyst to keep it from exploding at ordinary temperatures. The catalyst and the process for making the fuel were both expensive. Moon colonies were maintained only because the moon was the best known source of germanium; and its vacuum was a valuable location for astronomical observatories and atomic research laboratories.

The neutron pile applied to space travel would make an interplanetary civilization possible. The pile, releasing neutrons and ions at velocities approaching that of light, would make use of small amounts of inexpensive materials as fuels.

It also had frightening potentialities for mass destruction.

The ambassador of the South American Republic thought of the destructive possibilities as he rode the small monorail car toward the Government Center in Chicago, which was now the capital of the North American Union. The shore of Lake Michigan was studded with tall skyscrapers connected by streets with transparent coverings. At ground level, a system of conveyer walks ranging from the hundred mile per hour strips in the center to five mile per hour strips on the edges, whisked brightly clad people about their business. On the second level, monorail tracks carried the high speed freight and passenger traffic of the city. The ambassador's car pulled in at a second level siding near the loading platform for the Government Tower. As he stepped from his car, he was met by two secret service agents who escorted him to the office of the Secretary of State.

The Secretary sat behind a large desk in a comfortably furnished office on the eightieth floor. Through the large window wall behind the Secretary, the scattered towers of the city were somewhat obscured by flying snow and the gloom of a December morning.

The distinguished looking man behind the desk had served his country well during the past thirty years. He knew the problems faced by such nations as the South American Republic, the League of Islam, the Asian Commonwealth, the decadent subject nations of western Europe, and the tiny, constantly warring states that comprise what was left of the once mighty U.S.S.R. That morning he had sent a note refusing help to the Baltic Federation, which had accused the Arctic League of aggression. The North American Union had no desire to enter foreign wars that did not concern it.

The Secretary rose and extended his hand.

"Good morning," he greeted the ambassador as he shook hands with him. "Have a seat." The Secretary waved toward a comfortable chair near the desk. The ambassador seated himself with his overcoat across his knees.

"I cannot get used to your cold weather," he said good naturedly. "I have spent too much time in the tropics."

"We seem to be getting an unusually cold winter," the Secretary replied. "I'll have to admit that Chicago doesn't compare with Rio as far as weather is concerned."

"I wish that I were there now," the ambassador said in a more serious tone. "I would not have to discuss with you this trouble that has come up."

"What trouble?" the Secretary asked. "Your note wasn't clear about what you wished to discuss with me."

"As you probably know, there are groups in my country that fear the technical developments that have been going on during the past ten years," the ambassador replied. "They do not know your country as well as I do, and fear that you will use the neutron energy discovery as a weapon."

"Why should they fear our energy developments?" the Secretary asked. "The Lunar atomic laboratories are open for inspection at all times, and the pile being built in the Arctic is no secret either. All the developments are private ventures. The idea of making neutron bombs hasn't even been raised in Congress."

"Unfortunately my people do not know this," replied the ambassador. "These groups have used much propaganda and have thoroughly misled the masses. That the laboratories are located on the moon does not help. You know how rigid the requirements are for those who would travel in space. Several men from my country have not been allowed to go for health reasons. This naturally feeds the suspicions of my people, who do not understand why such things must be done. To remedy this trouble my government has instructed me to arrange for a meeting between our presidents."

"I think such a meeting would be possible," the Secretary said. "I'm sure that the president will understand the situation. The memory of the twentieth century won't fade easily. I'll see if a trip to the Lunar laboratories can be arranged. It would be good if some members of the dissatisfied groups were allowed to make the trip."

"That would be very good," replied the ambassador. "It would help to counteract their propaganda. They are seeking power, and would gain it at the expense of good will between our nations. This will very effectively remove the source of their grievances."

"I'll bring it up at the cabinet meeting this afternoon," the Secretary said. "It would be wisest to get this business moving as fast as possible."

The ambassador rose from his seat. "You will let me know the outcome of the meeting as soon as you can?"

"Yes," replied the Secretary. "As soon as it's over."

* * * * *

The laboratories at Arctic City were fairly new but already had the cluttered appearance of all research labs. Electronic instruments, coils of wire, and various articles of chemical apparatus lay on the work benches. One room held the dial-studded face of a computer. Another contained several induction and carbon arc furnaces used in high temperature work. Men wearing white smocks or plastic aprons went quietly and efficiently about their tasks.

Roger and Darcy entered a lab in which a man sat staring at the face of an oscilloscope, where weird figures danced in yellowish-green tracery. The bench was covered with a bewildering array of equipment. A row of gas discharge tubes glowed with varicolored light. From them a spaghetti-like arrangement of many colored wires led to various instruments scattered along the bench.

"How's it coming, Phil?" Darcy asked.

The man looked up from his work. "Hi, Jake," he said. "I might get somewhere if this oscillator would stop wandering all over the place. This thing doesn't seem to be very accurate at high frequencies." He indicated a piece of equipment connected to the oscilloscope.

"I'll sure be glad when we get a good physical chemist to do this work. My business is ceramics, and I'm getting sick and tired of wrestling with his wiring."

"Well," said Darcy, "you won't have to worry about this any more. This is Roger Lorin, our new physical chemist. Roger, this is Philip Gordon, our ceramics expert."

Gordon grinned and extended his hand. "I'm glad to meet you," he said. "Sorry I blew off like that. I just get disgusted sometimes."

"It does get frustrating," Roger agreed as they shook hands. "Electronics is rather tricky."

"You're right there," replied Gordon. "Especially when you don't know too much about it. What I learned about electronics in college has long since departed. Take a look at this set up. It's about as poor a job of haywiring as you'll find anywhere."

"I see you're using high frequency excitation to get your high temperatures," Roger commented. "Just what compounds are you working with?"

"I've been working with some plastics, inert stuff, to see just what they'll react with, and how fast they'll react at high temperatures."

"It isn't too easy," Lorin said. "It never has been easy to find reaction rates. I'll get to work on these this afternoon. Maybe I can get some of these finished tomorrow or the next day."

"Thanks," Gordon said in a relieved voice. "It'll be good to get some results I can rely on."

Lorin and Darcy left the lab and walked through a winding succession of corridors until they came to a large room. One wall was lined with catwalks linked by metal ladders. Men in coveralls moved against the slate gray background like insects on the side of a building. Through a door to their right Lorin could see banks of instruments at which several men were working.

"This is the south face of the pile," Darcy said. "Most of the instruments are located here. The Klysten converters are mounted in that room over there." He indicated a door on their left.

"I'd like to see those," Roger said. "I hear that these are pretty large compared with what we had at the moon labs."

"They're big enough all right," Darcy said. "Each one is four stories high. We had a deuce of a time evacuating them."

As Darcy said this, they stepped into a long high room. To their right stood six immense transparent tubes. Each tube contained a grid of thick steel bars which was mounted so that it completely surrounded a coil of heavy copper bar in the center of the tube. The steel bars had been treated so that a magnetic field would build up rapidly when they were exposed to hard radiations. The radiation beams were passed into the grid in pulses, thus causing the magnetic field to build up and collapse rapidly producing current in the coils by induction. The tubes were generators with no moving parts except electrons and protons. The system used about seventy-five per cent of the energy produced by the pile. The residual radiation was released as greenish yellow light.

"Why are they transparent?" Roger asked. "I should think that metals would be stronger and easier to manage."

"The transparency helps us to maintain a more accurate control," Darcy replied. "When the light shifts toward the blue, we know that more energy is being released as radiation, and can shut down the tube before it gets a chance to heat up too much."

"Good idea," said Roger. "Control was our worst trouble at the moon labs."

"We'll use this until we find something better," said Darcy as they left the pile area.

* * * * *

Unknown to Roger Lorin, events which would shape the course of the next few weeks, and would ultimately change his whole life were taking place far to the south. A third party had entered the political stage of the Western Hemisphere. The League of Islam had finally decided to do something about an incident which it had never forgiven. Over thirty years earlier, the Union had sent marines into the Suez Canal area to stop alleged assaults against American citizens. In a sense, the North American Union had indicated that it thought of the League of Islam as nothing more than a backward group, which could be pacified whenever trouble arose within its borders. The insult had never been forgotten by the fanatically nationalistic Moslems. Only the greater military might of the North American power had prevented a war at that time. Now, the League had decided that the time was ripe to gain immunity from such insults forever by some shrewd political maneuvering.

Working through a small dissatisfied political party in South America, they used the North's development of neutron energy to create fear in the minds of the people of the southern republic. By stimulating this fear, the Arabs hoped to weaken both powers through war, and thereby to gain power and prestige among the nations. The League hoped to gain through political devices what it could never get in open war.

Up to January 5, 2055, the leaders of the western hemispheric powers did not realize what was actually taking place. But then reports began coming into the offices of the investigators of both nations which changed the picture.

On January 2, an American oil well in the Gulf of Mexico had been blown up. The saboteur was not caught, since the bomb had been cleverly hidden sometime before the explosion. Two days later, in the state of Venezuela, an official of the South American government was shot and killed. Although the assassin escaped after a grueling two day chase and was never really identified, there were plenty of rumor mongers to remind the people that the dead official had held opinions that were not favorable to the North American Union. Accompanied by such incidents friction between the two nations grew.

The events that set the pot to boiling, and nearly caused it to boil over occurred at Arctic City. Up to this time, Roger Lorin had considered the reports of such incidents as news that seemed rather unreal, because of its distance from his immediate affairs. Now, however, he found himself in the middle of the trouble between the two nations. Although he scarcely knew it, he had become a key man on the neutron pile project. His research into the physics of interatomic and intermolecular forces had aided materially the work on the pile.

It started, innocently enough, during the early afternoon of January 9, when a group of ten men ostensibly bound for a mining town farther north, took a guided tour of the pile area. About one sixth of the reaction cells into which the pile was divided for convenience, were in operation; and the six converter tubes were aglow with greenish yellow light. The entrance of the men into the central chamber was the signal. A previously planted bomb exploded with enough violence to shatter the tubes; filling the converter room with greenish yellow fire and hard radiations.

A smoke bomb provided extra screening and the group hurried down a side tunnel under cover of the gray mantle. Roger heard the sounds of confusion accompanied by the clangor of an alarm bell, announcing that hard radiations were loose somewhere in the plant. He stepped to the door of the lab, and a gas gun exploded in his face. He knew nothing more, until he awoke aboard a fast moving jet.

The convertiplane winged through the Arctic twilight for nearly two hours, and finally came down on a flat stretch of snow covered tundra, near the shore of the Arctic Ocean. A group of three dome huts stood at the base of a low cliff. Otherwise, the scene was one of silent, dark desolation.

One of the men handed Roger a pair of insulated, electrically heated coveralls. Roger put them on without argument. Next, the man motioned toward the hatch with a machine pistol. "Get movin'," he snapped. "Make it quick. And don't try to run for it. You wouldn't get far."

Roger dropped through the hatch and waited quietly. When his captors finally dropped through the hatch, they steered him none too gently toward the middle hut.

On his right as he entered, three men sat playing cards around a small table. To his left, a man lay on a cot reading a magazine by the light of a mining lantern. Roger was shoved across the main room, through a passageway and into a room on the right. The metal door clanged shut behind him, and the bolt shot home with the finality of a prison gate.

"Well, I see I have company," a voice came out of the gloom. As Roger's eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he saw an old man sitting on the edge of a narrow cot.

"Who are you?" Roger asked in a bewildered voice. "And just what's been going on? Why should I be kidnapped and brought to this God forsaken spot?"