the insignia from my shoulder so soon after I'd pinned it on would
have gone against the grain. And it wasn't just my uniform or the
silver bird which would have made me a sitting duck to a Wendel agent
stationed anywhere along the way with my description dear and sharp in
his mind. It was a safe bet we'd pass at least a dozen of the Combine's
goons, strutting about in their private police uniforms, so I took care
to remain in a seated position in the back of the tractor, with my head
well below sight-seeing level.
This time I didn't look, wonder or black out at intervals. I kept a
tight grip on my nerves and refused to even let myself think what an
impasse I'd be facing if my talk with Arms Custodian Sherwood didn't
bring the kind of results I was counting on.
It's hard to maintain just one rigid mental stance when you're keeping
a great many hard-to-control emotions bottled up in your mind with a
clamped-down safety valve. But I didn't have to maintain the stance
for long, because twenty minutes after we left the skyport the tractor
rumbled to a halt before a massive, fortress-like building which stood
a considerable distance from the buildings on both sides of it and
was protected in its isolation by steel walls, pacing guards and a
well-guarded stockpile of thermonuclear weapons.
No Wendel agent would have risked blasting away at me within three
miles of that stronghold--unless he was tired of living and didn't want
to see another Martian sunrise. It made me feel secure enough to stand
up and descend from the tractor without making a production out of it,
as if I was two-thirds convinced I'd be blown apart before I could
advance twenty feet.
I neither hurried nor wasted time, just stood calmly by the tractor
until I was satisfied no one who had seen us drive up--I was quite sure
we were under long-range binocular scrutiny--would come striding out
of the forest to question us at gunpoint. Then I nodded to Lynton, and
walked straight toward the big gray building. I'd told him not to move
from his seat until I came out, so there was no need to caution him
further.
I can't remember at exactly what point in my approach to the
high-walled gate the silver bird became a thunder-bird, or exactly how
each of the three guards looked when they first caught sight of it.
I was too startled just by the way the oldest of the three, who must
have been a tow-headed twelve-year-old when the first wearer of the
insignia walked the streets of the Colony, stared at me, snapped to
attention and grounded the heavy weapon he'd been holding slantwise
across his chest with a thud. The other two guards quickly followed
suit. Quite possibly they had merely taken their cue from him and
didn't want to risk an official reprimand. But they certainly put on a
convincing performance, as if what they feared most was a full-dress
court martial. If I'd dropped down out of the sky in a golden chariot
and was Apollo, maybe, or the Aztec Sun God, I couldn't have been
accorded more deference.
A moment later the high steel gate opened and shut with a clang and I
was on the inside, with more guards on both sides of me. I'd paused
a moment, of course, to explain to the elderly guard who had first
saluted me, just why I was there and whom I wanted to see.
I had an escort of six guards as I walked to the end of the
first-floor corridor, and ascended a short flight of stairs and they
continued to escort all the way to the door of Sherwood's office.
Some men can be jolted almost speechless by an unexpected visit and
recover their composure so rapidly they seem to have retained it from
the beginning. It was that way with Sherwood. He was a big man in his
early forties, with close-cropped reddish hair and handsome features.
He was sparing of words, but everything he told me was in direct answer
to my questions and a man who can confine himself to just giving you
the information you need without wasting words is likely to be the kind
of man you can depend on in an emergency.
His final answer was the clincher. It came at the end of a
fifteen-minute conversation.
"We can do it if we've no other choice," he said.
"All right," I said. "I want you to tell Wendel exactly what you've
just told me, on a two-way televisual hookup. I'll be at the Wendel
plant in fifteen minutes, and I'm sure I can persuade him to talk to
you on the screen, right after I've laid it on the line for him.
"If," I added "--and it's a very big _if_--I can get in to see him
without ending up dead. His goons have orders to blast me down on
sight."
He looked at me steadily for a moment, with a concerned tightening of
his lips. Then he leaned back and some of the strain left his face.
"Have any of his goons ever seen you with that insignia on your
shoulder?" he asked.
It was a good question and it confirmed the opinion I'd formed of him.
"No, they haven't," I said. "But it doesn't alter the possibility
I'll be blasted down before I can get in to see Wendel. Remember--the
Wendel Combine has taken the big gamble and is waging an undeclared,
but all out war. This insignia makes me Target Number One. If I took
it off before entering the plant his goons would probably recognize
me anyway--too quickly for me to save myself by shouting at them and
trying to make them see that Wendel would want them to withhold their
fire. I may not have a chance to do any explaining, because they may
recognize me just from the description that's been furnished them."
Sherwood nodded. "Yes ... it would be foolish to deny you won't be
exposing yourself to danger. And you'll have to be wearing the insignia
when you confront Wendel. But I've a feeling that Wendel's goons
will take you straight to him. I could be mistaken, of course. But
somehow I can't picture them firing pointblank at Target Number One
without prior authorization. They'd be sticking out their necks with a
vengeance, because their instructions to blast you on sight were issued
before you pinned that bird on your shoulder."
"I hope you're right," I said. "But goons are funny people."
"I'll be right here at my desk when the screen lights up," he said.
"Don't worry too much. I'll handle my end of it with very careful
timing...."
* * * * *
Fifteen minutes later my tractor rumbled to a halt for the second time,
directly in front of the Wendel plant.
Like the Endicott plant, it faced a big square and there were no
pedestrians in sight on the side we parked on.
"This time I'm going with you," Lynton said, very firmly.
So he was going with me! All right, it was an obligation I owed him,
and I couldn't pull rank on him, because he was a civilian and it
wouldn't have done the least bit of good. Moreover, he'd gotten over
being dazzled by the silver bird, if it had ever really dazzled him,
which I doubted. He was a too tough-fibered, independent, non-authority
conscious kind of guy. You find them in every rugged, pioneering
society--guys who will stand up in a public meeting and tell a
governmental big shot that the speech he's just delivered has a phony
ring to it and he'd be well advised to try again.
I descended from the tractor a little more cautiously this time,
keeping my eye on the ground-floor windows of the plant and wondering
how long it would take me to cross from the car to the building's wide
main entrance and if the steel-mesh blinds on the windows might not be
a cover-up for nuclear weapons pointed straight in our direction.
But actually, despite the uneasiness which we both felt, we crossed
from the tractor to the plant without hurrying and with our shoulders
held straight.
There were two guards in Wendel private police uniforms with nuclear
hand-guns clamped to their hips standing just inside the entrance and
the instant we came into view their hands darted to the holstered
weapons and their eyes took on a steely glint.
Then--both guards did a swift double take. They didn't stiffen to
attention the way the guards at the gate of the nuclear fortress had
done, but something happened to their faces which made them seem to be
wearing frozen masks. Only their eyes remained alive, alert, the steely
glint replaced by a look of stunned incredulity.
I spoke sharply, without giving them time to reach a decision on their
own initiative which might have had tragic consequences, for you can
never tell what desperate, completely unjustified measures a badly
jolted man will take it into his head to resort to.
"I'm here to see Wendel," I said. "Nobody else will do. I guess I don't
have to tell you that this is an order. You'd be very foolish not to
unbar that gate, for I have the authority to take you into custody if
you prevent me from entering the plant. You may be just guards, but
that will not prevent the Colonization Board from imprisoning you on a
treason charge."
Their eyes never left the insignia while they were swinging open the
big, iron-barred entrance gate for me. It was set well back from the
street, with enough walled-in space in front of it to accommodate a
dozen bloody corpses. I had an idea they would have tried to make use
of it in that way, if I'd attempted to force my way past them with an
armed escort and hadn't been wearing the silver bird.
The strain and uncertainty eased a little once we were fairly sure we
wouldn't be blasted down without warning. It didn't take long for that
near-assurance to harden into a conviction, for what happened after the
big gate clanged shut behind us was almost a repeat of what had taken
place in the nuclear fortress.
More armed Wendel police guards fell into step on both sides of us,
with much the same look on their faces the two at the entrance had worn
ten seconds after their eyes had rested on the silver bird.
Just one small incident took place which made it a little unlike the
reception which had been accorded me when I'd asked to see Sherwood. We
were held up at the end of a branching corridor while one of the guards
went into a small, blank-walled room and buzzed Wendel on an interplant
communicator, announcing our arrival.
We didn't know that until later, because he was careful to shut the
door of the room before he spoke into the communicator. When he came
out there was a hardness around his eyes, a look of grim satisfaction
that should have warned me that we were in danger. But you don't always
attach as much weight as you should to a quick change of expression on
the face of a man whose job requires him to resort to brutal violence
two or three times a week. The face of such a man can harden just from
habit.
Because it was the kind of mistake it was easy to make and the other
guards were keeping their hostility under wraps we didn't know or even
suspect that we were walking straight into a trap until we were almost
at the door of Wendel's office on the second floor of the plant.
If you're the head of a big power combine, and shrewd, as Wendel
unquestionably was, and there's a threat to your survival coming
straight toward you along an echoing corridor and you want to be sure
in advance he'll be a broken man when you talk with him in strict
privacy, with the chips scattered widely and the game almost at an
end--you'll either take care of it yourself, or assign just one man you
can trust to do the job for you.
Not a dozen men--or half a dozen--but just one. It's more efficient
that way, more certain, the right way to go about it.
I had no way of knowing that, of course, no way of looking through a
wall at Wendel standing motionless or possibly seated in a chair, his
eyes gleaming triumphantly, as we approached the door of his office,
with just one guard walking a few paces behind us.
Except that--deep in my mind the alarm bells were ringing again. They
were ringing, all right, but very, very faintly and I don't know to
this day what made me turn my head and look behind me just as he was
whipping out the heavy metal thong.
I caught only the barest glimpse of the thong gleaming in the corridor
light. But even if he'd kept it concealed for a few seconds longer his
face would have given him away. His eyes were blazing with a savage
enmity, and he started for me the instant he realized that I had been
forewarned.
I gripped Lynton by the arm and fell back against the wall, tugging
him around so that he was far enough behind me to give me a chance to
grapple with Hard Eyes head-on, with complete freedom of movement.
He made the mistake of coming at me too fast. It might not have been a
mistake if he hadn't been so reckless with the thong, trying to lash me
across the chest with it before he was sure of his balance. The sheer
weight of the weapon carried him forward, straight past me, and it went
swishing through the air without hitting anything.
I made a grab for his wrist and before he could recover his balance I
was twisting it relentlessly and slamming my fist against the side of
his head. He sank to his knees and I kept right on hammering away at
him, hitting him first on the right temple and then on the left and not
even stopping to take the thong away from him.
There was no need for me to relieve him of the thong, for he flattened
out on the floor still holding on to it and passed out cold. It seemed
only reasonable and just to let him keep it as a souvenir.
I was out of breath and feeling a little dizzy, because when you hit
anyone as hard as I'd hit Hard Eyes, not caring much whether I killed
him or not, it takes a minute or two to recover. I still hadn't quite
gotten my breath back when the door of Wendel's office slammed open and
Wendel himself stood there, staring down at the guard with a look of
consternation on his face.
I became a little alarmed when I saw that Lynton had moved out from
the wall and was making straight for him with his arm drawn back.
Hell--that's an understatement. I became very much alarmed, because the
one thing I didn't want was to have Wendel belted unconscious and laid
out on the floor at the guard's side before I could have a talk with
him.
I got between them just in time, and I grabbed Wendel by the shoulders
and hurled him back into his office and when he staggered a little and
almost fell I grabbed hold of him for the second time, and slammed him
down in the chair in front of his big, metal-topped desk.
He looked up at me for a moment with a killing rage in his eyes, but
I didn't give him a chance to get his breath back. For the barest
instant, though, if he had been quick enough, he might have succeeded
in getting to his feet and lashing out at me, for I saw something on
the opposite side of the room that seemed almost too good to be true,
and I took three full seconds out to stare at it.
It was a big tele-communicator screen--just the kind of screen I had
been sure I'd find somewhere in the plant, but hardly in Wendel's
private office. The fact that Sherwood had one in his office was not
quite so surprising, for Sherwood's custodianship of thermonuclear
weapons had made him more communication-conscious.
I'd counted on being able to persuade Wendel to accompany me to
wherever the plant's screen happened to be located, after I'd had a
serious talk with him. But since he hadn't wanted me to have a talk
with him until he'd done his best to get me killed or crippled for
life, and I would now have to keep him boxed up in his office by force
while we conducted the talk, having the screen so accessible was one
hell of a lucky break.
"Shut the door," I told Lynton. "And lock it."
I waited until Lynton had complied, my hands on Wendel's shoulders
with so fierce a clamp-hold that he gave up trying to rise.
"You'll never get out of here alive!" he choked. "If you think--"
"Don't press your luck, Wendel," I said, warningly. "I might be tempted
to break your neck."
"That insignia you're wearing doesn't mean a thing now, Graham. Don't
you understand? You couldn't command a fly to crawl over a bread crumb.
The Wendel Combine is taking over the Colony."
"Not a fly, Wendel," I said. "The Wendel Combine. A big boa
constrictor has nothing in common with a fly and I'm not interested
in bread crumbs. And this will surprise you. _You're_ going to do
the commanding. You're going to command the boa constrictor to start
disgorging--every kill it's ever swallowed. It's going to flatten
itself out until it's just a mass of cold mottled skin, which the Board
will know how to deal with."
"Who's going to make me?"
"I am," I said. "You have just ten minutes to make up your mind. You
either turn over all of the Combine's nuclear weapons to the Board,
break the back of the Wendel police force by arresting all of its
officers and placing yourself under house arrest and order every Wendel
employee to cooperate with the Board or--Joseph Sherwood will vaporize
the plant with a thermonuclear bomb. The rocket will be guided by
remote control and will hover directly above the plant until the bomb
has been dropped. Only the plant will be destroyed. There will be no
zone of spreading radio-active contamination."
All of the color drained from Wendel's face, leaving it ashen. "You
must be mad!" he gasped. "You'd die too."
"I'm aware of that," I said. "We'll all be vaporized together. But it
isn't too bad a way to die, Wendel. You feel no pain, never know--"
"Do you expect me to take that threat seriously?" he breathed.
"I'm afraid I do," I said. I gestured toward the tele-communicator.
"Sherwood will tell you how serious it is. He's waiting to talk to you.
Suppose we turn that screen on and listen to what he has to say. I'm
sure you know how to get the right wave-length. The Wendel spy network
would hardly fail to keep you informed when Sherwood changes the code
frequencies."
"You said ten minutes," Wendel was breathing harshly now and the veins
on his forehead were thick blue cords. "You'd have to let Sherwood
know when to drop the bomb. You haven't been in communication with
him since you arrived here. Suppose I refuse to dial? That's a very
intricate, highly specialized communicator. You couldn't operate it."
That made me change my mind about letting him do the dialing. I
was pretty sure I'd experience no difficulty in getting in contact
with Sherwood and I didn't want to give Wendel a chance to make the
communicator even more specialized by ripping put some of the wiring.
I turned to Lynton and indicated by tapping Wendel forcibly on the
shoulder that I was about to relinquish my hold on the Combine's
difficult president, and would he kindly take my place behind the chair.
"Don't let him move," I cautioned, when we'd changed places. "Keep a
tight grip on his shoulders."
"Don't worry," Lynton said. "If he moves an inch I'll do what you said
might not be a bad idea--break his neck."
It didn't take me long to discover that Wendel had lied about the
communicator, which meant, of course, that he had been hoping I'd give
him a chance to do a quick job of sabotage on the wiring.
It was just a run-of-the-mill, two-way televisual communicator, with
nothing specialized about it.
There was a humming sound for a few seconds right after I'd finished
dialing and it gave me a chance to scrutinize Wendel's face to see how
he was taking it.
He was terrified, all right. But his lips were still set in defiant
lines and I was sure that if he could have gotten a grip on my throat
right at that moment getting his fingers unlocked wouldn't have been
easy.
I thought that when Sherwood's image appeared on the screen there would
be just one minute of hard-to-live-through uncertainty--that he'd back
up what I'd told Wendel with his hand on the rocket release button and
look straight at me, as if awaiting a signal I had no intention of
giving.
But I suddenly realized I didn't know just how it was going to be.
Would Wendel stay defiant right up to the end, would he defeat me
through sheer stubbornness, even though he was mortally terrified?
But there was one thing I did know. For the first time, as I waited
for Sherwood's image to appear on the screen, I knew with absolute
certainty, beyond any possibility of doubt, that I could never go
through with it.
The rocket had to be prepared and ready--the nuclear deterrent had to
be a reality--or I could never have carried the bluff through with the
kind of confidence that just the knowledge that you're holding the
highest cards in the deck can give you.
I had to feel that I _just might give the signal_.
But vaporizing the plant would have cost the lives of thirty thousand
people and not more than a fourth of them were vicious criminals. I
just couldn't see myself ordering a nuclear bomb to be dropped on more
than twenty thousand completely innocent Wendel plant engineers and
laboratory technicians.
Perhaps I shouldn't have felt that way, because if the Wendel Combine
took over the Colony three or four times that number of innocent people
would perish, or sink into degradation and become completely enslaved.
But I did feel that way and--well, I wouldn't have to live with what
I'd done, because I'd be killed by the blast. But I didn't want that on
my conscience even as a dead man.
I couldn't go through with it, but had I ever really intended to? It
didn't mean I couldn't win, didn't change what I'd come to do. If
I could carry my bluff through without flinching, right up to the
zero-count instant, there was a very good chance that Wendel would
crack. A very good chance still.
I had the highest cards in the deck and was only handicapped in one
way. If the zero-count instant came and Wendel didn't crack I couldn't
play them.
I've never really believed in miracles. But if you're holding what
you think are the highest cards, and something happens to your hand
you never dreamed could happen--if you look and see you've got a card
that's even higher, just slipped in between the others as a gift ...
well, that's pretty close to a miracle, isn't it?
I thought when Sherwood's image appeared on the screen he'd be sitting
alone behind his desk, with his thumb on the rocket-release button.
But he wasn't alone and when I saw who was with him I almost stopped
breathing....
Joan was with him and she was looking straight at me out of the screen.
"Don't do it, Ralph!" she pleaded. "Oh, God, no--"
Then I saw that she was staring past me and without turning I knew that
she was appealing to Wendel with the same look of pleading desperation
in her eyes. "If he gives the signal his command will be obeyed. And
he'll do it unless you stop him! When you've lived with a man in the
intimacy of marriage--yes, that's important and I have to say it--you
know him better than anyone else. You know what he's capable of. He'll
give the signal unless you do as he says, because the insignia he's
wearing gives him no choice. If you don't stop him now ... _you'll die
with him_!"
I turned then and stared straight at Wendel. I'd never seen a man sag
before in quite the way he did. All of the life seemed to go out of his
eyes. His defiance gave way to a look of utter hopelessness, of abject
surrender, and he sank so low in his chair that he seemed on the verge
of slumping to the floor, despite Lynton's grip on his shoulders.
His voice, when he spoke, scarcely rose above a whisper. "All right,
Graham," he said. "You win."
As I turned back to the screen and saw the look of overwhelming relief
and gratefulness in Joan's eyes I couldn't help wondering how close she
had been to being right. Had the insignia really given me any choice?
If Wendel had stayed defiant and refused to crack--would I have gone
through with it? How much does any man know about _himself_?
I'd probably never know the answer.
In the days that followed every one of the Wendel agents were rounded
up and returned to Earth to stand trial. I never did find out the
identity of the agent who had shot the dart at me from high up on
the spiral or the one who had sent a little mechanical killer in my
direction by the shores of Lake Michigan in New Chicago.
It didn't worry me at all, because I was sure that both of those
delightful characters were among the agents who had been rounded up in
the mopping up operations.
Oh, yes--they rescued her with her hair in disarray and no longer
standing high up on her head. Three days later, drifting through empty
space about three hundred thousand miles from Mars. She's in prison now
and will have to answer charges. But I intend to go all out in the plea
I'll make in her defense when she comes up for trial.