[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science
Fiction April 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _No one knows the heart of a rebel until his own search for
the reason of right or wrong is made. Lieutenant Laskell found the
answer to his own personal rebellion deep beneath a turbulent Atlantic,
and somehow, when the time came, his decision wasn't too difficult...._]
Lieutenant Laskell surfaced his one-man submarine fifty miles off the
Florida coast where he had been patrolling in search of enemy subs.
Darkness had fallen. He tuned his short wave set to the Miami station
just in time to hear the eight o'clock news. The grim announcement that
he had expected was quick to come:
"In accordance with the provisions of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment,
Congress today approved the Manlin Bill, declaring a state of total
emergency for the nation. President Williston signed it immediately and
tendered his resignation to the Congress and the people. The executive,
legislative, and judiciary are now in the hands of the Department of
Defense. Secretary Garson has issued two decrees, one reminding all
citizens that they are no longer free to shirk their duties to the
nation, the other calling upon the leaders of the Eurasian Soviet to
cease air attacks on the American continent or suffer the consequences.
"In Secretary Garson's ultimatum to the enemy, he stated: 'Heretofore we
have refrained from employing certain weapons of warfare in the vain
hope that you would recognize the futility of further aggression and
desist from it. You have not done so. You have persisted in your
blood-thirsty folly, despite this nation's efforts to reach an agreement
for armistice. Therefore I am forced to command you, in the Name of
Almighty God, to surrender immediately or be destroyed. I shall allow
you one day in which to give evidence of submission. If such evidence is
not forthcoming, I shall implement this directive by a total
attack....'"
Mitch Laskell switched off the short wave set and muttered an oath. He
squeezed his way up through the narrow conning tower and sat on the
small deck, leaning back against the rocket-launcher and dangling his
feet in the calm ocean. The night was windless and warm, with the summer
stars eyeing the earth benignly. But despite the warmth, he felt clammy;
his hands were shaking a little as he lit a cigarette.
The newscast--it came as no surprise. The world had known for weeks that
the Manlin Bill would be passed, and that Garson would be given absolute
powers to lead the nation through the war. And his ultimatum to the
enemy was no surprise. Garson had long favored an all-out radiological
attack, employing every nuclear weapon the country could muster.
Heretofore both sides had limited themselves to non-rigged atomic
explosives, and had refrained from using bacterial weapons. Garson
wanted to take off the boxing-gloves in favor of steel gauntlets. And
now it would happen--the all-out attack, the masterpiece of homicidal
engineering, the final word in destruction.
* * * * *
Mitch, reclining in loneliness against the rocket-launcher, blew a
thoughtful cloud of cigarette smoke toward the bright yellow eye of
Arcturus, almost directly overhead, and wondered why the Constellation
Booetes suddenly looked like a big club ready to fall on the earth, when
it had always reminded him of a fly-swatter about to slap the Corona
Borealis. He searched himself for horror, but found only a gloomy
uneasiness. It was funny, he thought; five years ago men would have been
outraged at the notion of an American absolutism, with one man ruling by
decree. But now that it had happened, it was not to hard to accept. He
wondered at it.
And he soon decided that almost any fact could be accepted calmly after
it had already happened. Men would be just as calm after their cities
had been reduced to rubble. The human capacity for calmness was almost
unlimited, _ex post facto_, because the routine of daily living had to
go on, despite the big business of governments whose leaders invoked the
Deity in the cause of slaughter.
A voice, echoing up out of the conning tower, made him jump. The command
set was barking his call letters.
"Unit Sugar William Niner Zero, Mother wants you. I say again: Mother
wants you. Acknowledge please. Over."
The message meant: _return to base immediately_. And it implied an
urgency in the use of the code-word Mother. He frowned and started up,
then fell back with a low grunt.
All of his resentment against the world's political jackasses suddenly
boiled up inside him as a _personal_ resentment. There was something
about the metallic rasp of the radio's voice that sparked him to sudden
rebelliousness.
"Unit Sugar William Niner Zero, Mother wants you, Mother wants you.
Acknowledge immediately. Over."
He had a good idea what it was all about. All subs were probably being
called in for rearmament with cobalt-rigged atomic warheads for their
guided missiles. The submarine force would probably be used to implement
Garson's ultimatum. They would deliver radiological death to Eurasian
coastal cities, and cause the Soviets to retaliate.
_Why must I participate in the wrecking of mechanical civilization?_ he
thought grimly.
But a counter-thought came to trouble him: _I have a duty to obey; The
country gave me birth and brought me up, and now it's got a war to
fight._
He arose and let himself down through the conning tower. He reached for
the microphone, but the receiver croaked again.
"Sugar William Niner Zero, you are ordered to answer immediately.
Mother's fixing shortening bread. Mother wants you. Over."
Shortening bread--big plans, something special, a radiological
death-dish for the world. He hated the voice quietly. His hand touched
the microphone but did not lift it.
He stood poised there in the light of a single glow-lamp, feeling his
small sub rocking gently in the calm sea, listening to the quiet purr of
the atomics beneath him. He had come to love the little sub, despite the
loneliness of long weeks at sea. His only companion was the sub's small
computer which was used for navigation and for calculations pertaining
to the firing of the rocket-missiles. It also handled the probability
mathematics of random search, and automatically radioed periodic
position reports to the home-base computer.
He glanced suddenly at his watch, it was nearly time for a report.
Abruptly he reached out and jerked open the knife-switch in the
computer's antenna circuit. Immediately the machine began clicking and
clattering and chomping. A bit of paper tape suddenly licked out of its
answer-slot. He tore it off and read the neatly printed words:
MALFUNCTION, OPEN CIRCUIT, COMMUNICATIONS OUTPUT; INSERT DATA.
Mitch "inserted data" by punching a button labelled NO REPAIR and
another labelled RADIO OUT. One bank of tubes immediately lost its
filament-glow, and the computer shot out another bit of tape inscribed
DATA ROGERED. He patted it affectionately and grinned. The computer was
just a machine, but he found it easy to personalize the thing....
The command-set was crackling again. "Sugar William Niner Zero, this is
Commsubron Killer. Two messages. Mother wants you. Daddy has a razor
strap. Get on the ball out there, boy! Acknowledge. Over."
Mitch whitened and picked up the microphone. He keyed the transmitter's
carrier and spoke in a quiet hiss. "Commsubron Killer from Sugar William
Niner Zero. Message for Daddy. Sonnyboy just resigned from the Navy. Go
to hell, all of you! Over and out!"
He shut off the receiver just as it started to stutter a shocked reply.
He dropped the mike and let it dangle. He stood touching his fingertips
to his temples and breathing in shallow gasps. Had he gone completely
insane?
He sat down on the floor of the tiny compartment and tried to think. But
he could only feel a bitter resentment welling up out of nowhere. Why?
He had always gotten along in the Navy. He was the undersea equivalent
of a fighter pilot, and he had always liked his job. They had even said
that "he had the killer instinct"--or whatever it was that made him grin
maliciously when he spotted an enemy sub and streaked in for the kill.
* * * * *
Now suddenly he didn't want to go back. He wanted to quit the whole damn
war and run away. Because of Garson maybe? But no, hadn't he anticipated
that before it happened? Why should he kick now, when he hadn't kicked
before? And who was _he_ to decide whether Garson was right or wrong?
_Go back_, he thought. _There's the microphone. Pick it up and tell
Commsubron that you went stir-crazy for a little while. Tell him wilco
on his message. They won't do anything to you except send you to a nut
doctor. Maybe you need one. Go on back like a sane man._
But he drew his hand back from the microphone. He wiped his face
nervously. Mitch had never spent much time worrying about ethics and
creeds and political philosophies. He'd had a job to do, and he did it,
and he sometimes sneered at people who could wax starry-eyed about
patriotism and such. It didn't make sense. The old school spirit was
okay for football games, and even for small-time wars, but he had never
felt much of it. He hadn't needed it in order to be a good fighter. He
fought because it was considered the "thing to do," because he liked the
people he had to live with, and because those people wouldn't have a
good opinion of him if he didn't fight. People never needed much of a
philosophic motive to make them do the socially approved things.
He moistened his lips nervously and stared at the microphone. He was
scared. Scared to run away. He had never been afraid of a _fight_,
frightened maybe, but not afraid. Why now? _It takes a lot of courage to
be a coward_, he thought, but the word _coward_ made him wince. He
groped blindly for a reasonable explanation of his desire to desert. He
wanted to talk to somebody about it, because he was the kind of man who
could think best in an argument. But there was no one to talk to except
the radio.
The computer's keyboard was almost at his elbow. He stared at it for a
moment, then slowly typed: