Alan remembered only vaguely what happened then. Side-arms were whipped
out by the guards. One dignified member of the Council lunged across
the table, dignity forgotten, and tried to slap Alan. The reporters,
sensing something important when Alan had broken away from the guards
downstairs and plunged inside the White House, had entered the room.
Now the television cameras were grinding. There was not a friendly face
in the room.
"Listen to me!" Alan shouted. He could not make himself heard over the
babble of excitement in the room. He pounded on the table and cried,
"You've got to listen! Do you think I came here to die with all of you
and all Earth tomorrow night? Do you?"
The guards held him again, one of them wrenching his right arm up and
back painfully. The members of the Security Council were grim-lipped
and silent. One of them restrained the Minister from France, who was
still trying to get at Alan. "You ... you are the worst traitor since
Judas Iscariot," the Minister from France told Alan.
"I never sent that ultimatum," Alan shouted. "I wouldn't be here if I
did. Are you going to listen to me?"
There was an angry murmuring from the horseshoe-shaped table. A
reporter broke away from his companions and swung his fist awkwardly
at Alan's face. "You have that coming," he said, "from five billion
Earthmen."
Even the members of the Council seemed to approve. Some of them stood
up and came around the table toward Alan menacingly. Laura's words
screamed inside Alan's skull--_they'll kill you_.
"Stop!" President Holland's firm voice boomed across the room. "Are we
all animals here? Tremaine has the right to speak. With the Earth about
to die, are we not even going to clutch at straws? Tremaine knows we
can keep him here until tomorrow night, yet he came. I want to hear
him. I will hear him if I have to do it alone."
The Ministers assumed their places at the table sheepishly. The
television cameras panned closer to Alan. He could sense it: five
billion people were watching him.
He talked rapidly. He didn't know how long they would listen. He told
them how he had gone to Mars to take his father's place, told them how
Richard Tremaine, then Eugene Talbrick had been murdered in cold blood
by Bennett Keifer because he favored violence and complete dissolution
of the union and they did not. He told them how Keifer still intended
to use the name of Tremaine because Alan's father had been loved by the
Outworlders and respected by the government of Earth. He told them
how General Olmstead had been taken and eventually killed. They were
listening now. Still doubtful, but listening. He could sense that some
of the hostility had gone from them. They were weary now, and without
hope in their eyes.
He went on, "I still think more than half the Outworlders would rally
behind me. Maybe I don't deserve their faith, but they remember my
father who spent his whole life and finally died in their cause. Let
them know I'm here. Beam it to the Outworlds. Tell them I renounce
Keifer as a traitor to his own people and to the Earth that spawned
them. I'll talk if you want. I'll go on the air."
"Fool!" cried the Minister from France bitterly. "Even if it would
work, what does it matter? Tomorrow we all die."
"There's a chance you won't," Alan said. "I'm coming to that. To bring
you up to date, I landed on Earth a few hours ago and left General
Olmstead's daughter with a friend at the PBT Fraternity House of New
Washington University. You can check everything I said with her."
"You said there was a chance...."
"Yes. When did Keifer give his ultimatum?"
"Forty eight hours ago."
"That's what I figured. Unless the cobalt bomb was on its way to Earth
for at least eight or ten days, it couldn't reach here from Mars or
Venus by tomorrow night!"
"Then you mean it's all a bluff?" the Secretary General demanded, hope
springing into his eyes.
* * * * *
"No," Alan admitted. "It's no bluff. Two weeks ago, Keifer shut the
flow of water through the space-warp from Venus to Mars. Now I realize
why. He did it partly to get the people of Mars behind him when he
issued his own ultimatum. He didn't want a revolution on his hands. But
he did it for another reason, too.
"Gentlemen, if you know your astronomy, you'd know that a fairly rare
astronomical event has happened. Venus, Earth and Mars are all in
conjunction on the same side of the sun. To put it another way, Venus,
with the shortest, fastest orbit, has overtaken the Earth's orbital
position with respect to the sun. That's known as the synodic year.
Earth has likewise overtaken slower Mars, so the three planets are
lined up...."
"Imbecile!" screamed the Minister from France. "Here you stand, giving
us astronomical puzzles, while Earth hovers on the brink of disaster."
"It's important," Alan said patiently. "Venus, Earth and Mars are in a
line right now, Venus and Earth separated by some twenty-eight million
miles, Earth and Mars by less than forty million. What I'm saying is
this: Keifer didn't block Venusian water from the space-warp merely to
rally the Outworlders behind him when he claimed you were responsible.
He did it because the space-warp now passes within a couple of hundred
thousand miles from Earth. He did it because he intends to transport
the cobalt bomb here through the space-warp. I say that's the only way
he can get it here in time!"
President Holland stood up, his face white, excitement in his eyes.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's possible. We'll check the data with the
New Washington Naval Observatory at once. If what you say is true,
Tremaine...."
"It almost has to be true, sir. Keifer will need a launching site for
his cobalt bomb after he takes it from the space-warp, but I have
a hunch you'll find when you call the observatory that the moon's
orbital position at this time passes within a few hundred miles of the
space-warp. I say Keifer will launch his cobalt bomb at the Earth from
the moon."
Now the reporters suddenly friendly, were asking Alan so many
questions that President Holland had to drag Alan away from them. A
special jet took Alan, the President and a few advisors to the Naval
Observatory, where Alan's theory was confirmed. One of the astronomers
told President Holland jubilantly, "All you have to do is send a fleet
out to where the space-warp intersects the orbit of the moon and...."
"How can we?" President Holland groaned. "We've dispatched almost all
our ships to Mars, Venus and the Jovian moons to help put down the
Outworld insurrections. We're left with a few obsolete, ancient ships."
"It doesn't matter," Alan said. "Keifer's in the same boat. His own
ships have to defend the Outworlds. He'll only have a small fleet
there, if any. He's depending on surprise, don't you see? Even if your
ships couldn't get through, I'd have a chance. I'm Alan Tremaine.
Tremaine. The Outworlders still think I'm in charge. They'll have to
let me through."
"You'll leave at once," President Holland told him. "In the three
hours since you've been here, Alan Tremaine, you've given us new
hope." He placed his hand on Alan's shoulder, looking at him long and
searchingly. "All Earth must put its hope in you now. We don't have
time to check your story thoroughly. We can't. Tremaine, never did so
many people put their fate so completely in one man's hands as all
Earth is putting its fate in yours. If you're lying, if you're telling
the truth but wrong in your theory, life on Earth perishes. All life,
Tremaine."
"I've got to be right, sir," Alan told the President. "I've got to."
President Holland smiled. "I'm tired, Tremaine. We're all tired, but
we've got to go on. What ships we have will be ready to leave in an
hour."
An hour, Alan thought. Now was the time to say goodbye to Laura. Now,
with Earth solidly behind him. Now he could tell her of his hopes for
the future, which did not seem so bleak. He must see her before he
blasted off for the final reckoning with Keifer.
* * * * *
No sounds came from the fraternity house in New Washington University.
He called Bill Graham's name, but heard nothing. "Laura?" he said.
"Laura, where are you?" The place seemed completely deserted.
"Alan Tremaine, is that you?" He whirled--and grinned. Mrs. Moriarity,
the fraternity house mother, stood below him on the stairs.
"I thought I recognized your voice, young man. My hearing isn't so good
anymore."
"Where's Bill Graham?"
"Upstairs, I suppose. He had some visitors before, Alan. Two men. I ...
I didn't like them. I didn't think Bill would have such friends. And
Alan, they came downstairs with a lady. A woman! She must have been in
Bill's room. There was an awful rumpus up there, then they came down.
I'm going to give Bill Graham a talking to, you can bet."
Alan rushed upstairs without answering. Mrs. Moriarity was still
talking, her voice carrying up from below. "How did you like your trip
to Mars, Alan? I meant to ask you." Her own small world went on. The
bigger world hadn't mattered for years, still didn't matter, even now.
Bill Graham's room was a shambles. Furniture turned over, the desk on
its side, the bed....
Bill Graham was on the floor. He lay with his hands in front of his
face. His final gesture had been an instinctive one of protection. Half
his face had been sheared away horribly by an atomic blast.
Laura was gone.
Final reckoning with Keifer, Alan thought. Bill Graham. Happy-go-lucky.
A big kid who hadn't quite grown up yet. Give you the shirt off his
back. Now he was dead.
How? Alan thought of it briefly and vaguely. It hardly mattered. It
seemed impossible, too--but other things were more important. Except
for Bill Graham and Alan, only the reporters, guards and Ministers at
the Security Council meeting had known where Laura was. Alan had told
them.
There was a traitor among them.
The traitor had come here and taken Laura, killing Graham when he tried
to prevent it.
Laura was bound for the moon, Keifer's final trump card.
Alan shook his fist impotently, then slammed it down on the overturned
desk. _I'm coming, Laura_, he thought.
_I'm coming, Bennett Keifer._