Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
_Dr. Alan E. Nourse, who when last heard of was vacationing in
Alaska--and probably gathering material for SF or Mystery stories
set against this background--is the author of many mystery and
science fiction stories including MARTYR, the lead novel in our
January 1957 issue._
bear
trap
_by ALAN E. NOURSE_
The man's meteoric rise as a peacemaker in a nation tired
by the long years of war made the truth even more shocking.
The huge troop transport plane eased down through the rainy drizzle
enshrouding New York International Airport at about five o'clock in the
evening. Tom Shandor glanced sourly through the port at the wet landing
strip, saw the dim landing lights reflected in the steaming puddles. On
an adjacent field he could see the rows and rows of jet fighters, wings
up in the foggy rain, poised like ridiculous birds in the darkness. With
a sigh he ripped the sheet of paper from the small, battered portable
typewriter on his lap, and zipped the machine up in its slicker case.
Across the troop hold the soldiers were beginning to stir, yawning,
shifting their packs, collecting their gear. Occasionally they stared at
Shandor as if he were totally alien to their midst, and he shivered a
little as he collected the sheets of paper scattered on the deck around
him, checked the date, 27 September, 1982, and rolled them up to fit in
the slim round mailing container. Ten minutes later he was shouldering
his way through the crowd of khaki-clad men, scowling up at the sky,
his nondescript fedora jammed down over his eyes to keep out the rain,
slicker collar pulled up about his ears. At the gangway he stopped
before a tired-looking lieutenant and flashed the small fluorescent card
in his palm. "Public Information Board."
The officer nodded wearily and gave his coat and typewriter a cursory
check, then motioned him on. He strode across the wet field, scowling at
the fog, toward the dimmed-out waiting rooms.
He found a mailing chute, and popped the mailing tube down the slot as
if he were glad to be rid of it. Into the speaker he said: "Special
Delivery. PIB business. It goes to press tonight."
The female voice from the speaker said something, and the red "clear"
signal blinked. Shandor slipped off his hat and shook it, then stopped
at a coffee machine and extracted a cup of steaming stuff from the
bottom after trying the coin three times. Finally he walked across the
room to an empty video booth, and sank down into the chair with an
exhausted sigh. Flipping a switch, he waited several minutes for an
operator to appear. He gave her a number, and then said, "Let's scramble
it, please."
"Official?"
He showed her the card, and settled back, his whole body tired. He was a
tall man, rather slender, with flat, bland features punctuated only by
blond caret-shaped eyebrows. His grey eyes were heavy-lidded now, his
mouth an expressionless line as he waited, sunk back into his coat with
a long-cultivated air of lifeless boredom. He watched the screen without
interest as it bleeped a time or two, then shifted into the familiar
scrambled-image pattern. After a moment he muttered the Public
Information Board audio-code words, and saw the screen even out into the
clear image of a large, heavyset man at a desk.
"Hart," said Shandor. "Story's on its way. I just dropped it from the
Airport a minute ago, with a rush tag on it. You should have it for the
morning editions."
The big man in the screen blinked, and his heavy face lit up. "The story
on the Rocket Project?"
Shandor nodded. "The whole scoop. I'm going home now." He started his
hand for the cutoff switch.
"Wait a minute--" Hart picked up a pencil and fiddled with it for a
moment. He glanced over his shoulder, and his voice dropped a little.
"Is the line scrambled?"
Shandor nodded.
"What's the scoop, boy? How's the Rocket Project coming?"
Shandor grinned wryly. "Read the report, daddy. Everything's just ducky,
of course--it's all ready for press. You've got the story, why should I
repeat it?"
Hart scowled impatiently. "No, no-- I mean the _scoop_. The real stuff.
How's the Project going?"
"Not so hot." Shandor's face was weary. "Material cutoff is holding them
up something awful. Among other things. The sabotage has really fouled
up the west coast trains, and shipments haven't been coming through on
schedule. You know--they ask for one thing, and get the wrong weight, or
their supplier is out of material, or something goes wrong. And there's
personnel trouble, too--too much direction and too little work. It's
beginning to look as if they'll never get going. And now it looks like
there's going to be another administration shakeup, and you know what
that means--"
Hart nodded thoughtfully. "They'd better get hopping," he muttered. "The
conference in Berlin is on the skids--it could be hours now." He looked
up. "But you got the story rigged all right?"
Shandor's face flattened in distaste. "Sure, sure. You know me, Hart.
Anything to keep the people happy. Everything's running as smooth as
satin, work going fine, expect a test run in a month, and we should be
on the moon in half a year, more or less, maybe, we hope--the usual
swill. I'll be in to work out the war stories in the morning. Right now
I'm for bed."
He snapped off the video before Hart could interrupt, and started for
the door. The rain hit him, as he stepped out, with a wave of cold wet
depression, but a cab slid up to the curb before him and he stepped in.
Sinking back he tried to relax, to get his stomach to stop complaining,
but he couldn't fight the feeling of almost physical illness sweeping
over him. He closed his eyes and sank back, trying to drive the
ever-plaguing thoughts from his mind, trying to focus on something
pleasant, almost hoping that his long-starved conscience might give a
final gasp or two and die altogether. But deep in his mind he knew that
his screaming conscience was almost the only thing that held him
together.
Lies, he thought to himself bitterly. White lies, black lies,
whoppers--you could take your choice. There should be a flaming neon
sign flashing across the sky, telling all people: "Public Information
Board, Fabrication Corporation, fabricating of all lies neatly and
expeditiously done." He squirmed, feeling the rebellion grow in his
mind. Propaganda, they called it. A nice word, such a very handy word,
covering a multitude of seething pots. PIB was the grand clearing house,
the last censor of censors, and he, Tom Shandor, was the Chief
Fabricator and Purveyor of Lies.
He shook his head, trying to get a breath of clean air in the damp cab.
Sometimes he wondered where it was leading, where it would finally end
up, what would happen if the people ever really learned, or ever
listened to the clever ones who tried to sneak the truth into print
somewhere. But people couldn't be told the truth, they had to be
coddled, urged, pushed along. They had to be kept somehow happy, somehow
hopeful, they had to be kept whipped up to fever pitch, because the
long, long years of war and near war had exhausted them, wearied them
beyond natural resiliency. No, they had to be spiked, urged and
goaded--what would happen if they learned?
He sighed. No one, it seemed, could do it as well as he. No one could
take a story of bitter diplomatic fighting in Berlin and simmer it down
to a public-palatable "peaceful and progressive meeting;" no one could
quite so skillfully reduce the bloody fighting in India to a mild "enemy
losses topping American losses twenty to one, and our boys are fighting
staunchly, bravely,"-- No one could write out the lies quite so neatly,
so smoothly as Tom Shandor--
The cab swung in to his house, and he stepped out, tipped the driver,
and walked up the walk, eager for the warm dry room. Coffee helped
sometimes when he felt this way, but other things helped even more. He
didn't even take his coat off before mixing and downing a stiff
rye-and-ginger, and he was almost forgetting his unhappy conscience by
the time the video began blinking.
He flipped the receiver switch and sat down groggily, blinked at John
Hart's heavy face as it materialized on the screen. Hart's eyes were
wide, his voice tight and nervous as he leaned forward. "You'd better
get into the office pronto," he said, his eyes bright. "You've _really_
got a story to work on now--"
Shandor blinked. "The War--"