"Wait!" This was Chenkov. "There's no need making a martyr of yourself,
Georgi. You tell me, what good would the information do them? They'll
never get a chance to use it."
"Y-yes. Don't move, Vladimir. You're choking me. I see what you mean.
Very well, this is the information. We have three atomic storehouses,
one in the Urals at--"
The information memorized, Tedor forced a gag of drapery material into
Chenkov's mouth and one into Malenkov's. With Dorlup he left the study.
"But why did they give us the information so readily?" the solidio
writer demanded.
"That's simple. Evidently, they've already removed their atomic weapons
from the storage areas, possibly to airfields. They aren't familiar
enough with time-travel, though. We'll simply go back a dozen hours and
blast those three locations. If Russia doesn't have atomic power for
a sneak attack, she won't be able to attack at all. First stop is the
Lubianka prison, however."
They found Lubianka Street after getting a vehicle from the Kremlin
motor pool, the motor officer's eyes bulged when Malenkov and his
personal body guard came down for the car themselves. They rushed
inside the prison, where the warden demanded, stuttering:
"Is--is this an inspection, C-comrades? We are r-ready at any t-time,
of course, and honored, even, but sometimes, once in a while, you see--"
"Forget it," Tedor cut him short. "You have a woman prisoner, Anna
Myinkov? Bring her to us, quickly."
"At once."
The warden was gone less than ten minutes, returning with a muscular,
sexless female jailor who prodded Laniq ahead of her. Laniq stared at
them dully, without hope.
"Thank you," said Tedor to the warden. "We'll take her."
Dorlup-Malenkov smiled and the warden bowed out. In the street, Laniq's
spirit had returned. "Don't tell me Malenkov himself is going to be
around for the execution?"
They didn't say anything. Tedor wanted to be in the car before they
revealed themselves to her.
"You'll have to catch me first!" cried Laniq. Tedor had been holding
her loosely by the arm and she suddenly tried to pull away. When his
grip tightened, she turned on him furiously, raking his face with her
nails, kicking, biting butting with her head.
Tedor pinned her arms to her sides while she cried in rage. "Cut it
out, Laniq. I'm Tedor. Tedor!"
"Te-dor? Tedor? Oh, Tedor...." Laniq fainted in his arms.
They drove south with her to the time-conveyor.
* * * * *
They were twelve hours into the past, materializing abruptly on the
field of the first atomic area.
Soldiers rushed the conveyor, but when the door opened and Malenkov
stood revealed in the entrance, they saluted smartly. "Bring your
commanding officer," said Dorlup, and when the man came--a full
Marshal--Dorlup ordered three of the most powerful atomic bombs for the
conveyor.
They were brought on flatcars, jerry-rigged to the conveyor's bottom at
Tedor's direction, with a crude releasing device.
"This is--is somewhat irregular," said the Marshal.
Dorlup said nothing, looked at him scornfully.
"I am sorry, Comrade Premier."
"You should be."
They closed themselves within the conveyor, set the first of their
atomic bombs for ten seconds, retreated thirty seconds into the past
and took off.
In forty seconds they had climbed to thirty thousand feet. Intense
light engulfed the conveyor as it sped away, followed almost at once
by a shock wave which buffetted them helplessly about the cabin of
the conveyor. Below them and now far to their left, a great atomic
mushroom billowed into the sky, then slowed, rising serenely on a brown
and violet pillar.
"Let's hit the next one," said Tedor and they did so.
The third storage area was far out beyond the Ural Mountains and to
the North, in the remote Siberian wilderness of the great Eurasian
land-mass. They retreated back into time far enough to account for
the two hours it took them to rocket from the Urals to Siberia, then
circled over the storage areas while searchlights probed the sky for
them like groping fingers.
"That way," Tedor explained, "all the plants will blow up
simultaneously, with no chance for one to warn another."