Shandor stumbled to a chair, sat down woodenly. "I don't get it," he
said dully. "I just don't get it. The war--that--that I can see. I can
see how you worked it, how you engineered it, but this--" he gestured
feebly at the window, at the black, impossible landscape outside.
"This I can't see. They're bombing us to pieces, they're bombing out
Washington, probably your own home, your own family--last night--"
he stopped, frowning in confusion--"no, it couldn't have been last
night--two days ago?--well, whatever day it was, they were bombing us to
pieces, and you're up here--_why_? What's it going to get you? This
war, this whole rotten intrigue mess, and then _this_?"
The old man walked across the room and stared for a moment at the silent
ship outside. "I hope I can make you understand. We had to come here. We
had no choice. We couldn't do what we wanted any other way than to come
here--_first_. Before anybody else."
"But why _here_? They're building a rocket there in Arizona. They'll be
up here in a few days, maybe a few weeks--"
"Approximately forty-eight hours," corrected Ingersoll quietly. "Within
forty-eight hours the Arizona rocket will be here. If the Russian rocket
doesn't get here first."
"It doesn't make sense. It won't do you any good to be here if the Earth
is blasted to bits. Why come here? And why bring _me_ here, of all
people? What do you want with me?"
Ingersoll smiled and sat down opposite Shandor. "Take it easy," he said
gently. "You're here, you're safe, and you're going to get the whole
story. I realize that this is a bit of a jolt--but you had to be jolted.
With you I think the jolt will be very beneficial, since we want you
with us. That's why we brought you here. We need your help, and we need
it very badly. It's as simple as that."
Shandor was on his feet, his eyes blazing. "No dice. This is your game,
not mine. I don't want anything to do with it--"
"But you don't know the game--"
"I know plenty of the game. I followed the trail, right from the start.
I know the whole rotten mess. The trail led me all the way around Robin
Hood's barn, but it told me things--oh, it told me plenty! It told me
about you, and this war. And now you want me to help you! What do you
want me to do? Go down and tell the people it isn't really so bad being
pounded to shreds? Should I tell them they aren't really being bombed,
it's all in their minds? Shall I tell them this is a war to defend their
freedoms, that it's a great crusade against the evil forces of the
world? What kind of a sap do you think I am?" He walked to the window,
his whole body trembling with anger. "I followed this trail down to the
end, I scraped my way down into the dirtiest, slimiest depths of the
barrel, and I've found you down there, and your rotten corporations, and
your crowd of heelers. And on the other side are three hundred million
people taking the lash end of the whip on Earth, helping to feed you.
And you ask me to help you!"
"Once upon a time," Ingersoll interrupted quietly, "there was a fox."
Shandor stopped and stared at him.
"--and the fox got caught in a trap. A big bear trap, with steel jaws,
that clamped down on him and held him fast by the leg. He wrenched and
he pulled, but he couldn't break that trap open, no matter what he did.
And the fox knew that the farmer would come along almost any time to
open that bear trap, and the fox knew the farmer would kill him. He knew
that if he didn't get out of that trap, he'd be finished, sure as sin.
But he was a clever fox, and he found a way to get out of the bear
trap." Ingersoll's voice was low, tense in the still room. "Do you know
what he did?"
Shandor shook his head silently.
"It was a very simple solution," said Ingersoll. "Drastic, but simple.
_He gnawed off his leg._"
Another man had entered the room, a small, weasel-faced man with sallow
cheeks and slick black hair. Ingersoll looked up with a smile, but
Mariel waved him on, and took a seat nearby.
"So he chewed off his leg," Shandor repeated dully. "I don't get it."
"The world is in a trap," said Ingersoll, watching Shandor with quiet
eyes. "A great big bear trap. It's been in that trap for decades--ever
since the first World War. The world has come to a wall it can't climb,
a trap it can't get out of, a vicious, painful, torturous trap, and the
world has been struggling for seven decades to get out. It hasn't
succeeded. And the time is drawing rapidly nigh for the farmer to come.
Something had to be done, and done fast, before it was too late. The fox
had to chew off its leg. And I had to bring the world to the brink of a
major war."
Shandor shook his head, his mind buzzing. "I don't see what you mean. We
never had a chance for peace, we never had a chance to get our feet on
the ground from one round to the next. No time to do anything worthwhile
in the past seventy years--I don't see what you mean about a trap."
Ingersoll settled back in his chair, the light catching his face in
sharp profile. "It's been a century of almost continuous war," he said.
"You've pointed out the whole trouble. We haven't had time to catch our
breath, to make a real peace. The first World War was a sorry affair, by
our standards--almost a relic of earlier European wars. Trench fighting,
poor rifles, soap-box aircraft--nothing to distinguish it from earlier
wars but its scope. But twenty uneasy years went by, and another war
began, a very different sort of war. This one had fast aircraft, fast
mechanized forces, heavy bombing, and finally, to cap the climax,
atomics. That second World War could hold up its head as a real,
strapping, fighting war in any society of wars. It was a stiff war, and
a terrible one. Quite a bit of progress, for twenty years. But
essentially, it was a war of ideologies, just as the previous one had
been. A war of intolerance, of unmixable ideas--"
The old man paused, and drew a sip of water from the canister in the
corner. "Somewhere, somehow, the world had missed the boat. Those wars
didn't solve anything, they didn't even make a very strong pretense.
They just made things worse. Somewhere, human society had gotten into a
trap, a vicious circle. It had reached the end of its progressive
tether, it had no place to go, no place to expand, to great common goal.
So ideologies arose to try to solve the dilemma of a basically static
society, and they fought wars. And they reached a point, finally, where
they could destroy themselves unless they broke the vicious circle,
somehow."
Shandor looked up, a deep frown on his face. "You're trying to say that
they needed a new frontier."
"Exactly! They desperately needed it. There was only one more frontier
they could reach for. A frontier which, once attained, has no real end."
He gestured toward the black landscape outside. "There's the frontier.
Space. The one thing that could bring human wars to an end. A vast,
limitless frontier which could drive men's spirits upward and outward
for the rest of time. And that frontier seemed unattainable. It was
blocked off by a wall, by the jaws of a trap. Oh, they tried. After the
first war the work began. The second war contributed unimaginably to the
technical knowledge. But after the second war, they could go no further.
Because it cost money, it required a tremendous effort on the part of
the people of a great nation to do it, and they couldn't see why they
should spend the money to get to space. After all, they had to work up
the atomics and new weapons for the next war--it was a trap, as strong
and treacherous as any the people of the world had ever encountered.
"The answer, of course, was obvious. Each war brought a great surge of
technological development, to build better weapons, to fight bigger
wars. Some developments led to extremely beneficial ends, too--if it
hadn't been for the second war, a certain British biologist might still
be piddling around his understaffed, underpaid laboratory, wishing he
had more money, and wondering why it was that that dirty patch of mold
on his petri dish seemed to keep bacteria from growing--but the second
war created a sudden, frantic, urgent demand for something, anything,
that would _stop infection--fast_. And in no time, penicillin was in
mass production, saving untold thousands of lives. There was no question
of money. Look at the Manhattan project. How many millions went into
that? It gave us atomic power, for war, and for peace. For peaceful
purposes, the money would never have been spent. But if it was for the
sake of war--"
Ingersoll smiled tiredly. "Sounds insane, doesn't it? But look at the
record. I looked at the record, way back at the end of the war with
China. Other men looked at the record, too. We got together, and talked.
We knew that the military advantage of a rocket base on the moon could
be a deciding factor in another major war. Military experts had
recognized that fact back in the 1950's. Another war could give men the
technological kick they needed to get them to space--possibly _in time_.
If men got to space before they destroyed themselves, the trap would be
broken, the frontier would be opened, and men could turn their energies
away from destruction toward something infinitely greater and more
important. With space on his hands men could get along without wars. But
if we waited for peacetime to go to space, we might never make it. It
might be too late.
"It was a dreadful undertaking. I saw the wealth in the company I
directed and controlled at the end of the Chinese war, and the idea grew
strong. I saw that a huge industrial amalgamation could be undertaken,
and succeed. We had a weapon in our favor, the most dangerous weapon
ever devised, a thousand times more potent than atomics. Hitler used it,
with terrible success. Stalin used it. Haro-Tsing used it. Why couldn't
Ingersoll use it? Propaganda--a terrible weapon. It could make people
think the right way--it could make them think almost _any_ way. It made
them think war. From the end of the last war we started, with
propaganda, with politics, with money. The group grew stronger as our
power became more clearly understood. Mariel handled propaganda through
the newspapers, and PIB, and magazines--a clever man--and Harry
Dartmouth handled production. I handled the politics and diplomacy. We
had but one aim in mind--to bring about a threat of major war that would
drive men to space. To the moon, to a man-made satellite, _somewhere or
anywhere_ to break through the Earth's gravity and get to space. And we
aimed at a controlled war. We had the power to do it, we had the money
and the plants. We just had to be certain it wasn't the _ultimate_ war.
It wasn't easy to make sure that atomic weapons wouldn't be used this
time--but they will not. Both nations are too much afraid, thanks to our
propaganda program. They both leaped at a chance to make a face-saving
agreement. And we hoped that the war could be held off until we got to
the moon, and until the Arizona rocket project could get a ship launched
for the moon. The wheels we had started just moved too fast. I saw at
the beginning of the Berlin Conference that it would explode into war,
so I decided the time for my 'death' had arrived. I had to come here, to
make sure the war doesn't go on any longer than necessary."
Shandor looked up at the old man, his eyes tired. "I still don't see
where I'm supposed to fit in. I don't see why you came here at all. Was
that a wild-goose chase I ran down there, learning about this?"
"Not a wild goose chase. The important work can't start, you see, until
the rocket gets here. It wouldn't do much good if the Arizona rocket got
here, to fight the war. It may come for war, but it must go back for
peace. We built this rocket to get us here first--built it from
government specifications, though they didn't know it. We had the plant
to build it in, and we were able to hire technologists _not_ to find the
right answers in Arizona until we were finished. Because the whole value
of the war-threat depended solely and completely upon our getting here
_first_. When the Arizona rocket gets to the moon, the war must be
stopped. Only then can we start the real 'operation Bear Trap.' That
ship, whether American or Russian, will meet with a great surprise when
it reaches the Moon. We haven't been spotted here. We left in darkness
and solitude, and if we were seen, it was chalked off as a guided
missile. We're well camouflaged, and although we don't have any sort of
elaborate base--just a couple of sealed rooms--we have a ship and we
have weapons. When the first ship comes up here, the control of the
situation will be in our hands. Because when it comes, it will be sent
back with an ultimatum to _all_ nations--to cease warfare, or suffer the
most terrible, nonpartisan bombardment the world has ever seen. A
pinpoint bombardment, from our ship, here on the Moon. There won't be
too much bickering I think. The war will stop. All eyes will turn to us.
And then the big work begins."
He smiled, his thin face showing tired lines in the bright light. "I
may die before the work is done. I don't know, nor care. I have no
successor, nor have we any plans to perpetuate our power once the work
is done. As soon as the people themselves will take over the work, the
job is theirs, because no group can hope to ultimately control space.
But first people must be sold on space, from the bottom up. They must be
forced to realize the implications of a ship on the moon. They must
realize that the first ship was the hardest, that the trap is sprung.
The amputation is a painful one, there wasn't any known anaesthetic, but
it will heal, and from here there is no further need for war. But the
people must see that, understand its importance. They've got to have the
whole story, in terms that they can't mistake. And that means a
propagandist--"
"You have Mariel," said Shandor. "He's had the work, the experience--"
"He's getting tired. He'll tell you himself his ideas are slow, he isn't
on his toes any longer. He needs a new man, a helper, to take his place.
When the first ship comes, his job is done." The old man smiled. "I've
watched you, of course, for years. Mariel saw that you were given his
job when he left PIB to edit '_Fighting World_.' He didn't think you
were the man, he didn't trust you--thought you had been raised too
strongly on the sort of gibberish you were writing. I thought you were
the only man we could use. So we let you follow the trail, and watched
to see how you'd handle it. And when you came to the Nevada plant, we
_knew_ you were the man we had to have--"
Shandor scowled, looking first at Ingersoll, then at Mariel's impassive
face. "What about Ann?" he asked, and his voice was unsteady. "She knew
about it all the time?"
"No. She didn't know anything about it. We were afraid she had upset
things when she didn't turn my files over to Dartmouth as he'd told her.
We were afraid you'd go ahead and write the story as you saw it then,
which would have wrecked our plan completely. As it was, she helped us
sidestep the danger in the long run, but she didn't know what she was
really doing." He grinned. "The error was ours, of course. We simply
underestimated our man. We didn't know you were that tenacious."
Shandor's face was haggard. "Look. I--I don't know what to think. This
ship in Arizona--how long? When will it come? How do you know it'll ever
come?"
"We waited until our agents there gave us a final report. The ship may
be leaving at any time. But there's no doubt that it'll come. If it
doesn't, one from Russia will. It won't be long." He looked at Shandor
closely. "You'll have to decide by then, Tom."
"And if I don't go along with you?"
"We could lose. It's as simple as that. Without a spokesman, the plan
could fall through completely. There's only one thing you need to make
your decision, Tom--faith in men, and a sure conviction that man was
made for the stars, and not for an endless circle of useless wars. Think
of it, Tom. That's what your decision means."
Shandor walked to the window, stared out at the bleak landscape, watched
the great bluish globe of earth, hanging like a huge balloon in the
black sky. He saw the myriad pinpoints of light in the blackness on all
sides of it, and shook his head, trying to think. So many things to
think of, so very many things--
"I don't know," he muttered. "I just don't know--"
* * * * *
It was a long night. Ideas are cruel, they become a part of a man's
brain, an inner part of his chemistry, they carve grooves deep in his
mind which aren't easily wiped away. He knew he'd been living a lie, a
bitter, hopeless, endless lie, all his life, but a liar grows to believe
his own lies. Even to the point of destruction, he believes them. It was
so hard to see the picture, now that he had the last piece in place.
A fox, and a bear trap. Such a simple analogy. War was a hellish
proposition, it was cruel, it was evil. It could be lost, so very
easily. And it seemed so completely, utterly senseless to cut off one's
own leg--
And then he thought, somewhere, sometime, he'd see her again. Perhaps
they'd be old by then, but perhaps not--perhaps they'd still be young,
and perhaps she wouldn't know the true story yet. Perhaps he could be
the first to tell her, to let her know that he had been wrong-- Maybe
there could be a chance to be happy, on Earth, sometime. They might
marry, even, there might be children. To be raised for what? Wars and
wars and more wars? Or was there another alternative? Perhaps the stars
were winking brighter--
* * * * *
A hoarse shout rang through the quiet rooms. Ingersoll sat bolt upright,
turned his bright eyes to Mariel, and looked down the passageway. And
then they were crowding to the window as one of the men snapped off the
lights in the room, and they were staring up at the pale bluish globe
that hung in the sky, squinting, breathless--
And they saw the tiny, tiny burst of brightness on one side of that
globe, saw a tiny whisp of yellow, cutting an arc from the edge, moving
farther and farther into the black circle of space around the Earth,
slicing like a thin scimitar, moving higher and higher, and then,
magically, winking out, leaving a tiny, evaporating trail behind it.
"You saw it?" whispered Mariel in the darkness. "You saw it, David?"
"Yes. I saw it." Ingersoll breathed deeply, staring into the blackness,
searching for a glimmer, a glint, some faint reassurance that it had not
been a mirage they had seen. And then Ingersoll felt a hand in his, Tom
Shandor's hand, gripping his tightly, wringing it, and when the lights
snapped on again, he was staring at Shandor, tears of happiness
streaming from his pale, tired eyes. "You saw it?" he whispered.
Shandor nodded, his heart suddenly too large for his chest, a peace
settling down on him greater than any he had ever known in his life.
"They're coming," he said.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ December 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.