"Shut up!" Thayer snapped. He continued immediately, "You say this was
found in the diggings in the ruins?"
[Illustration]
"Yes, sir--just now! It's ..."
Lieutenant Vaughn checked himself under the colonel's stare, some
dawning comprehension of the enormous irregularities he'd committed
showing in his flushed face. He licked his lips uncertainly.
"You will excuse me for a moment, sir," Thayer said to Commissioner
Sanford. He picked the Geest gun up gingerly by its unmistakably curved
shaft, took it over to the office safe, laid it inside and relocked the
safe. He then left the office.
* * *
In an adjoining room, Thayer rapped out Major Wayne Jackson's code
number on a communicator. He heard a faint click as Jackson's wrist
speaker switched on, and said quickly, "Wayne, are you in a position to
speak?"
"I am at the moment," Jackson's voice replied cautiously.
Colonel Thayer said, "Norm Vaughn just crashed in here with something he
claims was found in the diggings. Sanford saw it, and obviously
recognized it. We might be able to keep him quiet. But now some
questions. Was that item actually dug up just now?"
"Apparently it was," Jackson said. "I didn't see it happen--I was
talking to Black at the moment. But there are over a dozen witnesses who
claim they did see it happen, including five or six of the news agency
men."
"And they knew what it was?"
"Enough of them did."
Thayer cursed softly. "No chance that one of them pitched the thing into
the diggings for an Earthside sensation?"
"I'm afraid not," Jackson said. "It was lying in the sifter after most
of the sand and dust had been blown away."
"Why didn't you call me at once?"
"I've been holding down something like a mutiny here, Silas. Vaughn got
away before I could stop him, but I grounded the other aircars till you
could decide what to do. Our visitors don't like that. Neither do they
like the fact that I've put a guard over the section where the find was
made, and haven't let them talk to Norm's work crew.
"Ronald Black and his staff have been fairly reasonable, but there's
been considerable mention of military highhandedness made by the others.
This is the first moment I've been free."
"You did the right thing," Thayer said, "but I doubt it will help much
now. Can you get hold of Ronald Black?"
"Yes, he's over there ..."
"Colonel Thayer?" another voice inquired pleasantly a few seconds later.
"Mr. Black," the colonel said carefully, "what occurred in the diggings
a short while ago may turn out to be a matter of great importance."
"That's quite obvious, sir."
"And that being the case," the colonel went on, "do you believe it would
be possible to obtain a gentleman's agreement from all witnesses to
make no mention of this apparent discovery until the information is
released through the proper channels? I'm asking for your opinion."
"Colonel Thayer," Ronald Black's voice said, still pleasantly, "my
opinion is that the only way you could keep the matter quiet is to
arrest every civilian present, including myself, and hold us
incommunicado. You have your duty, and we have ours. Ours does not
include withholding information from the public which may signal the
greatest shift in the conduct of the Geest War in the past two decades."
"I understand," Thayer said. He was silent for some seconds, and perhaps
he, too, was gazing during that time at a Fort Roye of the future--a
Class A military base under his command, with Earth's great war vessels
lined up along the length of the peninsula.
"Mr. Black," he said, "please be so good as to give your colleagues this
word from me. I shall make the most thorough possible investigation of
what has occurred and forward a prompt report, along with any material
evidence obtained, to my superiors on Earth. None of you will receive
any other statement from me or from anyone under my command. An attempt
to obtain such a statement will, in fact, result in the arrest of the
person or persons involved. Is that clear?"
"Quite clear, Colonel Thayer," Ronald Black said softly. "And entirely
satisfactory."
* * * * *
"We have known for the past eight weeks," the man named Cranehart said,
"that this was not what it appears to be ... that is, a section of a
Geest weapon."
He shoved the object in question across the desk towards Commissioner
Sanford and Ronald Black. Neither of the two attempted to pick it up;
they glanced at it, then returned their eyes attentively to Cranehart's
face.
"It is, of course, an excellent copy," Cranehart went on, "produced with
a professional forger's equipment. As I imagine you're aware, that
should have made it impossible to distinguish from the original weapon.
However ... there's no real harm in telling you this now ... Geest
technology has taken somewhat different turns than our own. In their
weapons they employ traces of certain elements which we are only
beginning to learn to maintain in stable form. That is a matter your
government has kept from public knowledge because we don't wish the
Geests to learn from human prisoners how much information we are gaining
from them.
"The instrument which made this copy naturally did not have such
elements at its disposal. So it employed their lower homologues and in
that manner successfully produced an almost identical model. In fact,
the only significant difference is that such a gun, if it had been a
complete model, could not possibly have been fired." He smiled briefly.
"But that, I think you will agree, _is_ a significant difference! We
knew as soon as the so-called Geest gun was examined that it could only
have been made by human beings."
"Then," Commissioner Sanford said soberly, "its apparent discovery on
Roye during our visit was a deliberate hoax--"