"Ja," came the deep voice of the Hunyas president.
Jeffrey flicked the oxygen valve for a second, snapped it off, and
Hoshawk saw him glance down at it. Then Jeffrey sat poised, all the
alertness of his incredible mind bearing intently on the map before him.
A bell sounded. The war was on!
Jeffrey did not move. He waited, and watched. Ten trillion electronic
tubes would flash their information on the Map. He waited--one minute,
two minutes, five minutes. The Map was dark.
So Forgacs wanted him to move first.
Jeffrey flicked the oxygen and his chair shot to the left. His fingers
blurred into movement. He shot back to the center of the keyboard and
focused his entire intellect on the Map.
A dozen tiny red lights rose off the coast of Newfoundland and raced
eastward. Each light represented a thousand rockets loaded with thirty
tons of DTN. One of those rockets would wipe Berlin from the earth--if
it struck.
But Hoshawk knew the President did not expect them to reach Europe.
They did not. Near the coast of Holland they began to wink out. One got
as far as Cologne.
If the Chamber had been above ground instead of three hundred feet deep
in solid rock, they would have felt the concussion, for DTN's powerful
waves traveled at the speed of light.
Still there was no answer.
Jeffrey's fingers played for an instant on the keys. Red lights rose
from Labrador, from near Boston, from Florida, and streaked east--not
for Berlin this time, but for Marseilles.
Jeffrey was testing Forgacs' explosive screen. It was wholly effective;
one after the other, the trains of red lights winked out.
But now there was an answer. From the Bay of Biscay red lights with
black dots on them began to wink on as the mammoth tabulating machine
in the room below recorded the information from thousands of hidden
electronic tubes, totaled it, and presented it on the Map.
The President hardly watched them. His screen with its principal
power-plant in Philadelphia would stop the rockets, up to a total of
some seventy-five octillion macro-ergs.
On the off chance that Forgacs would forget to close his screen after
his rockets had passed it, Jeffrey fired a salvo from the Bahamas.
Forgacs answered with three salvos from Brest, and Jeffrey gave him
back ten from Long Island, then Hoshawk frowned as he saw the President
rub his stomach. Hoshawk had always opposed that abominable atavistic
confection called ice cream.
It was a game of incredibly swift calculation and rapier thrusts from
strong point to strong point in the effort to break through the screen.
Once the screen should be broken, anything might happen.
* * * * *
Jeffrey could see when his own screen was up, but their science had
devised no way to detect the enemy's screen except by firing into it.
Jeffrey pressed a pedal with his left foot, and a thin golden line
flashed on in a flattened arc from Greenland down through the Atlantic
and curved around the Falkland Islands.
Jeffrey's screen was up. The Biscay salvos began to wink out against
it. Jeffrey's hands began to flash. Red lights winking up along the
coast of Europe and from North Africa showed that Forgacs was opening
up.
Jeffrey cut in the oxygen for a second and flicked it off, then his
left foot slashed at the pedal as he cut his screen to let his own
rockets through and then threw it on again to stop the enemy.
Forgacs was beginning a drive on Philadelphia, the site of the power
plant. Jeffrey was watching for an opening to Marseilles, vulnerable
for the same reason.
Jeffrey kept firing rockets, but his mutant mind would be racing ahead,
calculating with infinite precision the times of discharge and times of
arrival.
It was apparent by now that Forgacs' most powerful defenses were
centered around Marseilles, because Forgacs was not using them. This
meant he was not taking a chance on opening the Marseilles sector of
the screen.
Jeffrey calculated the probable interchange of batteries for some sixty
moves ahead, Hoshawk knew, then he began to fire the Philadelphia
batteries at intervals.
The firing rose in intensity, and Jeffrey's faster-than-light fingers
played the great keyboard like a master organ. A bell sounded and his
right foot threw on the western screen with its automatic cut-out.
And all the time Jeffrey fired his big Philadelphia batteries at
intervals with a definite rhythm--five, three, and six seconds.
He shot to the right and manipulated a bank of keys and was back in the
center almost instantaneously.
He did not pause in his rocket salvos, but in three minutes and
eight seconds his first salvo of one-ton atom bombs would reach the
Marseilles screen. If he had calculated correctly, the Marseilles
screen would be open for an instant just as the atom bombs reached
it. He didn't think Forgacs could resist the temptation to blast
Philadelphia with his Marseilles batteries.
Presently a thousand red lights winked up from the screen at
Marseilles. But Forgacs overlooked the atom bombs. They were slower
than the rockets, and there was no way to tell, from the Map, which was
which.
Jeffrey shot a look at the chronometer, and Hoshawk saw the atom bombs
go through. A few seconds later the glow in Marseilles began to redden,
and Hoshawk exulted. The atom bombs had done their work. The Marseilles
screen was weakening.
Jeffrey played the keys with fantastic speed. The war would soon be
over. Thousands of little red lights began streaking toward Marseilles.
At first they exploded in air as they hit the screen, but as the
explosive force of the DTN began to drain the screen, those behind
began to pour through.
But there was a flash from Philadelphia, and a shock went through
Hoshawk. Something was wrong there. Jeffrey hadn't intended that.
Forgacs had used atom bombs and had broken through when the screen was
down.
Jeffrey's fingers snatched at the oxygen valve. He tore it off and
threw it on the floor. He still held one important advantage. He was
ahead of Forgacs by forty seconds.
Philadelphia went out and the golden defensive screen began to fade,
but Jeffrey, tensely erect, stayed on the attack. Hundreds of green
lights began to rise around Marseilles--great submarines, controlled by
electronics and carrying tanks and guns and explosives.
The green lights converged on Marseilles. They got through the screen.
Now was the big gamble. Jeffrey guessed that Forgacs would operate from
an underground chamber near Marseilles itself.
It wasn't a logical thing to do, and so Forgacs would do it, believing
that Jeffrey would pass Marseilles and go inland to find the Chamber.
Jeffrey let him believe that. He sent eight thousand giant
electron-controlled bombers through the Marseilles gap and straight for
Berlin.
The green lights started winking on the coast of France, showing the
submarines were unloading amphibious tanks. Jeffrey started them out
across France at high speed. Near Paris they met heavy resistance from
Forgacs' tank-killers.
But now Jeffrey had more trouble. Forgacs had slipped a salvo of atom
bombs into the Labrador power station, and the entire north quadrant
of Jeffrey's screen was down. And just at that instant, the automatic
breaker failed and a tube burned out in the Montevideo power station,
and the southern half of South America was exposed. Green lights began
to wink up at the open spaces.
* * * * *
Jeffrey was grim. It was near the end. Dog eat dog. His flying fingers
chose to ignore Forgacs' attack, beyond firing millions of salvos of
small rockets which were little better than a delaying action.
There were only two targets in this war--the Chambers.
Jeffrey released his trump--thirty-five hundred flying robot tanks.
They rocketed through the Marseilles screen and came on the city from
the land side, firing eight-inch rockets and shooting flames out half a
mile ahead.
But this was a feint, too. From the sea now rose a great armada of
robot submarine carriers that spewed out tanks that were little more
than armored tank-cars filled with jellied XPR, which exploded always
down, toward the center of gravitation. They poured out the jelly on
the surface around Marseilles for a distance of twenty miles until
according to Jeffrey's figures the ground was covered a foot thick. The
flame-throwers roared into it and Jeffrey stopped them there.
Then he fired his last salvo of atom-bombs from the Bahamas.
In the meantime, Forgacs' tanks had overrun Boston, searching for the
American Chamber.
The lights began to wink out, and Hoshawk knew that Boston was being
destroyed.
Orange lights, indicating bombers, were heading for Chicago, and
Hoshawk knew that if Jeffrey's guess on Marseilles was bad, he had not
much longer to live.
He looked at the Map. The atom-bombs were at Marseilles. A glow showed
around the twenty-mile circle that he had covered with jelly, and
Hoshawk knew the atom-bombs had landed.
He knew that on the other continent, the most tremendous explosion in
man's history was taking place. And when it was over there would be a
mile-deep crater where Marseilles had been, and anything, no matter how
deep it was buried, would be destroyed by concussion.
Jeffrey still played the keys, but his eyes were on the orange lights
approaching Chicago.
They reached Chicago, perhaps directly over their heads, but Hoshawk
felt no bombs. A moment later the planes were still going westward.
Jeffrey called the Starter. "Does Forgacs concede?" he asked.