S-One looked over the summary, then glanced at the display, where Arakal and the partisans were on one side of the river, the defending force was on the other side, and, moving up well to the rear was a powerful body of troops, symbolized by a red rectangle. The weather conditions were clearly enough indicated: Snow and wind. The temperature had already dropped sharply, and it was sure to drop again. The only disappointment was that Arakal had yet to call for the troops in the Normandy Citadel. That, however, was something that would, eventually, prove possible to clear up one way or another.
There was a rap on the door, and S-One called, "Come in."
S-Two, looking dazed, stepped in carrying a thin sheaf of papers.
"Arakal has found the S-Plan."
S-One involuntarily jumped to his feet.
"What?"
"Neither Arakal nor his senior officers wanted to advance any further. Koljuberowski gave instructions to remove Arakal, preliminary to changing the command of Arakal's forces."
"What happened?"
"Arakal and his men killed Koljuberowski, his S officer, and two guards. They found the plan summary on Koljuberowski's body."
"What carelessness! How the devil did all that happen?"
"They may also have killed Burke-Johnson."
"How did it happen?"
"We don't know. There was only one fixed and two personnel sensors in the room where this happened, and none in the room outside. It was just a detached fort, and we never gave it full treatment. Apparently, Arakal or one of his men spotted the sensors. We heard Burke-Johnson cry out. Next, the sensors were destroyed."
"Where are we now?"
"Arakal is planning, as far as we can judge, to fall back again."
S-One looked at the display.
"It would not be impossible for him to reach those ships, and escape."
"Yes. I'm afraid the Plan is wrecked."
S-One brought his fist down on the desk. "The trouble is, they weren't softened up in advance. Always, S work should precede the military blow! The stick breaks easier after the rot eats its fibers. But, for lack of anything better—" He paused as S-Two stared at the display. Frowning, S-One looked around.
On the display, little blue symbols were already starting toward the west.
S-Two said, "Shall I call the Marshal?"
S-One measured distances on the display.
"No. It is too late for that. Call the Head of Government. We can't do what I had hoped. But we may still be able to achieve something of importance. Then, later, we will make up for this. It will be a more roundabout procedure, but the result should be the same."
S-Two hurried out.
Admiral Bullinger, short, clean-shaven, with two tufts of hair that stuck straight up at the back of his head, stood beside Arakal and Slagiron, leaning over the charts of the Baltic. He rapped his finger beside a little peninsula.
"Depth eight fathoms on this older chart, when you get it translated out of their heathen reckoning, while this new updated chart also shows eight fathoms. Plenty of water. But just to be on the safe side, we put a boat over for soundings before we went in through the fog. These charts were more detailed than the ones we'd found on the ship, but we wanted to be careful. Well, the place is a deathtrap. If the wind blew hard enough, the rocks would stick out on the surface. Next, observe this lighthouse inked in here by hand, and also the blot of ink over there. The blot of ink is to cover up the false location of the lighthouse, as it was shown on this chart.
"Both of these detailed charts, the 'partisans' turned over to us. You see, they're both nicely printed. And they reinforce each other. And the details that we could easily check were accurate. It was the things we would have taken for granted that would have sunk us."
"How about their suggestion of going in through Finland?"
The admiral's eyes glinted. "Since we didn't do it, we can't know just where the teeth were in the idea. But, to begin with, it would have been wrong. What need do we have to invade Russland? It would draw us aside from our purpose, which is to free the land of the O'Cracys. Next there's the possibility that, on the way, these charts would show some additional little defect we hadn't discovered yet. Then, since we were to transport these armed 'partisans', and there were a great number of them, and they would have had to be distributed all over the ships to carry them all—What do you suppose might have happened before we got them unloaded?"
Slagiron smiled and nodded.
Bullinger shook his head.
"You have to admire their preparations. If we didn't put our foot through in one place, there was another loose board somewhere else. And I don't know as we're out of it yet."
Arakal straightened. "There are enough pieces missing in this puzzle."
Slagiron cleared his throat. "On top of everything else, there's the fact that, with no fight, we were able to get away from our own set of 'partisans'. Why?"
Bullinger looked puzzled.
"If you got out quietly—"
"There was no way we could get out without their knowing it. They let us go."
Bullinger stared fixedly at the chart, then nodded.
"I've seen a spider catch a good many flies—and then cut a bumblebee loose from the web."
Slagiron shook his head.
"Don't forget, the Russ themselves were just across the river. We could have had one sweet time to get out of there alive."
"At what price for them?"
Slagiron smiled. "Oh, they would have paid a good price. But it might have ended us."
Arakal said exasperatedly, "How do we know how to fight them, when we don't understand them? Their plans have levels, one hidden by the other, the way an onion has layers."
Bullinger said thoughtfully, "After we had the partisan leaders locked up, we got some farmers in here one at a time, showed them these lying charts, explained how we'd been deceived by Otto and Yudrik, and said we wanted to learn the truth. You understand, our interpreters were none too good. But, little by little, it got across.
"This 'S' is an all-embracing control system. You can call it whatever you want, but that's what it is. It aims to control everything. Go to worship, and the priest is either an agent of S, or else an agent of S is watching him and possibly also telling him what to do. Serve in the army, and the general's orderly is an agent of S, watching him, and from time to time either he or some other agent is giving the general orders. S aims to run everything, and to run everything, S has to know everything. Spies are everywhere. Have a date tonight with the girl down the road, and the local agent of S knows it by tomorrow morning, and has a good estimate, by the day after, of how things went. It may help S manipulate you—and her.
"Apparently, the only way not to tangle with S is to stick to the basics of your trade, and care nothing whatever about rising. Stay flat to the ground. If you try to rise, S controls your success, and it finally dawns on you that, without S, you go nowhere. The natural thing then is to try to rise with S. But, to do that, you have to spy, betray, prove your loyalty to S, care only for what S cares for—and then you've lost all freedom of thought, and scarcely exist as a person. Not to succeed means you're shoved down and miserable. But, in this mess, to succeed means you have to sell your soul."
Arakal, frowning, looked out the round window at the gray waters of the bay.
Slagiron said, his voice a growl, "Well, we're sworn to free Old Brunswick and Old Kebeck. But this thing has no handle on it!"
Arakal, still looking out, said exasperatedly, "Have we freed Old Brunswick and Old Kebeck?"
"They acted like it when we got there. And the same in Allemain."
"But what have we done that would stop S?"
Slagiron and Bullinger glanced at each other. Arakal tore his gaze from the quiet waters and looked at them.
Slagiron said, "It seems to me that we have done exactly nothing."
Bullinger nodded. "So far, it's a draw. They have us running in circles. We have some military victories. But they must still be far more powerful everywhere but in Normandy."
Slagiron shook his head. "As for S, we've killed or captured a few underlings, who must be easy enough to replace. That's all."
Into the thick silence as they looked at each other, came the quick rap of heels approaching on the deck. There was a knock at the door.
Bullinger glanced at Arakal, who nodded, and Bullinger called, "Come in!"
The cabin door opened, and Smith, the acting chief of Arakal's technicians, stepped inside.
"Sir, we've had word from Colputt!"
Slagiron straightened.
Arakal said, "Where is he?"
"The guide-ships are bringing him in through the channel. He should be here early tonight. He says he has one platform with him, assembled and ready to use, and the other partly disassembled."
Arakal smiled. "Good!" He glanced at Bullinger. "Everything may depend on Colputt."
Bullinger nodded, but with no great show of conviction. "I don't see how we're going to fight an enemy who vanishes into thin air. No matter what we do, he'll just reappear after we leave."
Arakal nodded. "It's all different from what we expected. But I'm glad Colputt's here."
The Head of Government was seated at a small metal table in a room where the light came in through high barred windows, below which were walls lined with file cases. A gooseneck lamp cast the only artificial light in the room directly on the file G-One was reading.
"Is this," he asked, his voice low, with a faint tremor, "supposed to be accepted as the truth?"
"It is the truth," said S-One, "as far as I know it. And it fits in reasonably with what I do know, of my own personal knowledge. So far as I can judge, there is nothing of misinformation about it."
"Does the present generation of Americans know this?"
"Not as far as I know. But, it is not impossible that they may suspect something of the kind. It would be possible, even, to provisionally deduce something of this character, from the pattern of the nuclear attack against the Americans. And, you have to remember, they were very careless with nearly every form of internal compartmentation. The information is doubtless there to be found, somewhere." S-One paused, then said, frowning, "Just as other things are there to be found, if only they look. And they are looking."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Our information from within Arakal's army is negligible. From within his government, little better. I had thought to have someone inserted into his personal entourage, but that was crudely handled, and came to nothing. But when he took over our colonies, he gave us the first opportunity to penetrate his organization. We are at least started. Now, as regards Colputt, we have received very curious information, which to me can mean only one thing. Colputt has discovered some possibly formidable device, of characteristics I personally cannot imagine."
"What type of device?"
"Are you through reading that?"
"For now."
"Then," said S-One, his voice perfectly matter-of-fact, "you see the deeper reason for the S organization?"
"What do you mean?"
"We are not just a mechanism for the government's political purposes."
The Head of Government looked at him blankly, then suddenly stared off down a narrow aisle between the rows of file cases. He gave a low exclamation.
S-One said, "You are now in possession of a piece of information that must go no further. Now, let me show you this factor whose details I cannot grasp." He held out a thin folder labeled, "Activities of Chief of American Technological Service Colputt." Apologetically, S-One said, "The title is ours. He is only called, amongst the Americans, 'Chief Mechanic Colputt'. We need some better handle than that to hold him by."
"You receive these reports regularly?"
"That thin folder is a summary of all the hard information in the whole file. I call your attention particularly to the last entries."
The Head of Government skimmed the folder quickly, then read the last part slowly and carefully.
"So, Colputt sent for Arakal. The communications were personally deciphered by Arakal. Arakal's men were consumed with curiosity. Arakal went away, evidently to see what Colputt had found. He returned and apparently said nothing. Now, what does all this mean?"
"I cannot measure it. It fits in with other information I have, but it is still incomplete. But, in light of this, I think it would be wise to do nothing that might hurt Arakal personally. I have sent out a directive to that effect. We have had repeated indications that Arakal does not wish us ill, and might be inclined to cooperate with us. If anything should happen to him, how do we know who might come to power? He is, of course, extremely dangerous politically."
"Better that," said the Head of Government, "than the unknown risks suggested by this development?"
"Yes. But I cannot explain all the reasons, and there are bound to be those in the organization who are overzealous. Ordinarily, when instructions are given that someone is to be removed as a factor in the situation, it is a matter of pride to carry out these instructions. Some bullheaded individual may still try it. There is little I can do about that. Except one thing."
"What is that?"
S-One's smile showed bright even teeth. "If anyone as much as expresses doubt about the new directive, I will make an example of him that will not very soon be forgotten."
"I will do the same."
"You see the situation?"
"I see the part you have shown me."
S-One said earnestly, "I do not misinform you. When I give you no information, it is for a reason. If I misdirect you, it is for a reason. Bear in mind, I am part of a survival apparatus. One must take human nature into account, if one wishes his measures to succeed. And these measures must succeed."
"Your measures have not succeeded with Arakal."
"I have not been able to penetrate his organization. I do not understand him, and so have been unable to dominate him. But that may yet come. Who can say? But let me complete the point I am making that I am not misinforming you when I say to you that I am not misinforming you."
S-One spoke very earnestly, and G-One smiled. "If you say you are not lying, then, at that moment, you are not lying."
S-One looked at his face intently, and then laughed.
"Exactly."
The Head of Government smiled somewhat sadly. "It must be pleasant to have simple comradeship, as in Arakal's army, for instance."
"Yes, but then, look where it leads. And there are legends which suggest that all this may have happened more than once."
"Each time somewhat differently?"
"I would suppose so."
"It is difficult to think or plan on such a long-range basis. The specifics could change considerably beyond what was expected."
"Very true. And, in this case, do you see how the specifics might fit together?"
"Hm. . . . Dare we hope?"
"Who knows? I have had the pursuit delayed, to be sure errors did not enter in at the last moment. Of course, we cannot break it off entirely. But the final engagement could be short."
"Yes. Now, let's see. . . . The next move is, I think, fairly obvious." G-One frowned. "Unless the specifics are different from what we expect."
"We will have to wait and see. It should not be long."
"The preparations had better be made now. We want nothing to go wrong at the last minute."
Colputt, chief of Arakal's technicians, was still somewhat greenish from the ocean crossing as he sat at the table, stroked his white beard, and listened to Arakal's brief summary of their experiences.
At the end, Colputt nodded. "We had our mysteries, too. And if things had turned out just a little bit differently, we wouldn't have got here."
Bullinger nodded. "I knew you must be having trouble, or we'd have heard from you."
Colputt shook his head.
"From your account, and the old books, we knew the Atlantic wasn't nice to cross. What we didn't know was that it had changed since the books were written."
Bullinger looked doubtful. "We didn't notice anything like that. Perhaps, due to lack of experience—"
"Our lack of experience wouldn't move icebergs, or change the temperature of air and water."
"What happened?"
"We ran into freezing rain, then dense fog, and we were creeping through the fog when a wall of ice loomed up in front of us. We changed direction just in time—and lost the radio mast over the side. Like everything else, it was heavy with ice. The ice had accumulated fast."
"You must have gotten too far north."
Colputt said, "The ice was too far south. When we came out of this, suddenly it was warm—almost hot—too warm by far for where we were. This wasn't like a change in the weather. It was as if we were in a tub, and someone dumped in some ice, then equalized the temperature by pouring in some hot water. I don't know of anything like that in the old records. Yes—after an unusually cold stretch of weather, the icebergs might be further south than usual. This was different."
Bullinger, frowning, glanced around at young Markel, his fleet navigator, standing against the cabin wall behind him.
"What was it you were trying to tell me the other day?"
"Sir—Oh, about the weather?"
"Yes."
"Something the people here said. That after the war with the O'Cracys, it seemed that the weather changed. Sometimes the weather seems too cold, sometimes too hot. And the sun isn't right."
Bullinger shook his head. "Weather never seems right. The normal situation is abnormal."
Colputt nodded. "But what we ran into wasn't weather."
"What was it, then?"
"I don't know."
Arakal glanced at Slagiron.
"You remember what the farmers told us about the weather in Russland?"
Slagiron said dryly, "Who could forget it? It was one reason not to go deeper in Russland."
Arakal glanced at Colputt.
"They told us it was said that there was solid ice and snowbanks from one coast to the other, and sometimes the sun would shine through hotter than the hottest summer, turn the ice to water, burn through the vegetation under the snow, turn the ground black—and then it would start to snow again."
Slagiron said, "All we actually experienced, where we were, was snow and cold. In the winter, it must be worse than Kebeck Fortress in January."
Colputt frowned. "But, further in the interior, sometimes for a while, it was hotter than the hottest summer?"
Slagiron nodded. "That's the way they put it."
Arakal said, "The impression we got was that, for a little while, the place turned into an oven, and that in that place it was a lot hotter than the hottest summer."
"I don't see," said Colputt, "how hot weather could be restricted to certain places in the middle of winter."
There was a silence as they thought it over. Then Slagiron cleared his throat, and glanced at Arakal.
"How many puzzles does this make?"
Arakal said, "First, there was the question why they didn't wipe us out soon after we got here. Our whole picture was wrong. We didn't realize what we were up against."
"But," said Colputt, "could they have wiped you out?"
Slagiron nodded soberly. "They could have done it with a thousand men at the right places. You never saw a bigger mess."
"Instead," said Arakal, "we were welcomed. They wined us, dined us, rushed us over the iron roads straight for Russland. All these 'partisans' we've told you about joined us on the way. If they weren't shaking our hands or kissing us, they were giving us bouquets of flowers and bottles of wine."
"But," objected Colputt, "it wasn't the Russ who were doing this?"
"No, but the Russ didn't stop it."
Colputt frowned.
Arakal said, "In fact, they had us surrounded with their own people, and they were rushing us straight into a trap. They got us out of Old Kebeck fast, and without actually putting forth their full strength. They were pulling us straight forward, to freeze us into submission."
"Well," said Colputt, "I would say that's no puzzle. It was extremely shrewd tactics on their part."
"Oh," said Slagiron, "it's no puzzle now. Now we've got other puzzles. But it was a puzzle then. There was one puzzle after another. The final puzzle was—why did they let us get away?"
Admiral Bullinger said thoughtfully, "I think they just wanted to avoid casualties. At no expense to themselves, they've got us all back on the coast."
"But this is a peculiar way to wage war. This is not how they do it on the other side of the ocean."
Colputt frowned. "There does seem to be something else behind all this. Something out of sight."
Slagiron nodded. "We're still groping in the dark."
Arakal said, "Now we have the question of 'S'. Why do they rule through S? Do the Russ rule S? Or does it rule them? What do they plan to do next, now that we seem to know what they were doing before? And, this last puzzle—what's wrong with the weather here?"
Slagiron spoke hesitantly.
"We've all seen what we've seen—and there's no reason I can think of why the Russ farmers would lie to us. But, could their weather be so much changed here? What is there that could change it? The sun shines from the sky. The wind blows as it will. What could change the weather?"
Colputt shook his head. "In the old days, maybe they could have told you. But I don't know. We have books from that time, but we're short on understanding."
There was a silence, and Arakal decided to change the subject.
"What of the platforms?"
Colputt's look of gloom vanished.
"There, at least, is something we have the Russ don't. And it's positive proof that, whatever the Russ may say now, our ancestors were as able as theirs."
Around the table, everyone leaned closer.
Arakal said, "Are the platforms ready?"
"One is ready now. The other will be before the day is out."
Bullinger, listening closely, glanced from Arakal to Colputt. His curiosity showed on his face, but he said nothing.
Arakal was looking at Colputt. "Inside the tunnels—the bodies on the floor, above the platforms?"
"Started to deteriorate after we'd been in there a while. We gave them a decent burial. Kotzebuth thinks what happened was that when the Russ attacked, some radiation like that of light, but finer, must have penetrated the whole mountain, and killed everything, including the organisms of decay."
The room was silent with the listening of Bullinger, Beane, Slagiron, and Markel, all of whose faces were now carefully blank and noncommittal, but who somehow gave the impression that their consciousness was concentrated in their ears.
Arakal said, "But the machines themselves—"
"Well, as you remember, they were sealed off on a lower level, in a room lined with lead, and set on big coil springs, with an arrangement of cylinders to damp the shock. The machines looked all right when we first found them, but when you left, we still couldn't be sure. When we finally got into them, we found no sign of damage. The machines perform—" Colputt hesitated, as if groping for words, then concluded "—beyond our expectations."
"And the fuel—?"
A muscle twitched at Colputt's jaw.
"The arrangement of fuel is as we hoped."
Arakal sat back.
"Our crews?"
Colputt nodded. "Our crews are trained."
Arakal let his breath out slowly.
"If this is so—Then we want to be careful that this doesn't give us delusions of greatness. Yet, I would like to give the Russ a taste of what the O'Cracys used to be. Are we sure the platforms weren't hurt in the crossing?"
"As sure as we can be. We kept constant watch on both of them. But if we'd hit that wall of ice, we'd have been sunk in a flash."
Arakal nodded soberly, and turned to the intently listening Slagiron and Bullinger.
"Tomorrow, perhaps, we may see what the Old O'Cracys could do."
Dawn—if it could be called that—was a lighter grayness, somewhere to the south of east, as the huge door at the bow of Colputt's ship began slowly to lower. Lower and lower it came, until at last it reached out like a bridge, and then the end sank in the shallow water. From the deep shadows within came a low whine that climbed higher and higher, accompanied by a sound like a rising wind.
Slowly, something moved out from the shadows onto the lowered drawbridge.
Slagiron, watching, caught his breath.
Wide, dark, smoothly curving, with a dome at the center, it glided slowly down the drawbridge, crossed the water in a whirl of mist, and now behind it there came another.
As Slagiron and Bullinger stood paralyzed, there was a sudden change of pitch, the first of the two devices tilted slightly forward, and suddenly climbed into the sky so fast that it dwindled as they watched. An instant later, the second followed.
Bullinger stared up at high twin reflections of the sun, which was itself still below the horizon, then the reflections winked out. He looked east to Russland, and grinned.
Beside him, Slagiron shut his jaws with a click.
Bullinger exhaled. "Now we know."
"The devil," said Slagiron. "Maybe you know. What was it?"
S-One read the report with wide eyes. He sat up, glanced at S-Two, who was standing by the desk. S-One cleared his throat.
S-Two said, "What will they do with this?"
"I will have to speak to the Head of Government. We must act at once."
Arakal, standing as if paralyzed in the eerier silence, stared out the wide curving window. Though he could see nothing now but blowing mist, he had the impression that he was up among the stars, looking down on the slowly turning ball of Earth.
Beside him, Colputt smiled.
Arakal exhaled carefully.
"What was it you said—the machines perform 'beyond our expectations'?"
Colputt nodded. "I didn't now how much you wanted me to mention. And there was no way to describe this. It surpasses our wildest imaginings. There is no mountain in the world we couldn't fly over, and no place on the surface of the Earth that we couldn't reach. And we can outrace the sun to get there!"
Arakal felt the universe seem to swim around him. With an effort, he kept silent until he could trust his voice.
"How does it work?"
Colputt shook his head.
"The levers and switches I can show you—and what happens when I work them. How it does what it does is beyond me."
"But—I thought you said, back when we found it, that this looked like a 'ground effect machine'."
"It seemed so, to start with. It seemed to match that description closer than anything else. But when we had enough skill to maneuver it, and had it out where there was plenty of room, I tried it one day at full power, and you see what happened."
Colputt leaned forward, to tap a button on the slanting control board. Around them, the solid upper wall of the cabin vanished. As if through thin clouds, the stars shone in. Colputt tapped the button again, and the wall was solid.
"How do I explain such things?"
"Could we go still higher?"
"I'm sure we could. Whether it might kill us to do it I don't know."
Arakal shook his head.
"I see now why the Russ make such mistakes when they get their machines in action. Such devices are like strong drink. Better that we go lower, and look around as we'd planned to. And be careful we don't smash into the other platform, and wreck both of them."
As they dropped down, the streaming snowflakes were beginning to glow like fireflies.
Ahead of them, there was a growing brilliance.