Bear Trap

by Alan Edward Nourse

David P.Ingersoll.

  * * * * *

  Shandor stared for a long moment, shaking his head like a man seeing aphantom. When he found words, his voice was choked, the words wrenchedout as if by force. "You're--you're alive."

  "Yes. I'm alive."

  "Then--" Shandor shook his head violently, turning to the window, andback to the small, white-haired man. "Then your death was just a fake."

  The old man nodded tiredly. "That's right. Just a fake."

  Shandor stumbled to a chair, sat down woodenly. "I don't get it," hesaid dully. "I just don't get it. The war--that--that I can see. I cansee how you worked it, how you engineered it, but this--" he gesturedfeebly at the window, at the black, impossible landscape outside."This I can't see. They're bombing us to pieces, they're bombing outWashington, probably your own home, your own family--last night--"he stopped, frowning in confusion--"no, it couldn't have been lastnight--two days ago?--well, whatever day it was, they were bombing us topieces, and you're up here--_why_? What's it going to get you? Thiswar, this whole rotten intrigue mess, and then _this_?"

  The old man walked across the room and stared for a moment at the silentship outside. "I hope I can make you understand. We had to come here. Wehad no choice. We couldn't do what we wanted any other way than to comehere--_first_. Before anybody else."

  "But why _here_? They're building a rocket there in Arizona. They'll beup here in a few days, maybe a few weeks--"

  "Approximately forty-eight hours," corrected Ingersoll quietly. "Withinforty-eight hours the Arizona rocket will be here. If the Russian rocketdoesn't get here first."

  "It doesn't make sense. It won't do you any good to be here if the Earthis blasted to bits. Why come here? And why bring _me_ here, of allpeople? What do you want with me?"

  Ingersoll smiled and sat down opposite Shandor. "Take it easy," he saidgently. "You're here, you're safe, and you're going to get the wholestory. 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 youwith us. That's why we brought you here. We need your help, and we needit 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 RobinHood's barn, but it told me things--oh, it told me plenty! It told meabout you, and this war. And now you want me to help you! What do youwant me to do? Go down and tell the people it isn't really so bad beingpounded 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 theirfreedoms, that it's a great crusade against the evil forces of theworld? 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 theend, I scraped my way down into the dirtiest, slimiest depths of thebarrel, and I've found you down there, and your rotten corporations, andyour crowd of heelers. And on the other side are three hundred millionpeople 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 andhe 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 toopen that bear trap, and the fox knew the farmer would kill him. He knewthat 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 beartrap." Ingersoll's voice was low, tense in the still room. "Do you knowwhat 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 sallowcheeks and slick black hair. Ingersoll looked up with a smile, butMariel 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 quieteyes. "A great big bear trap. It's been in that trap for decades--eversince 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 theworld has been struggling for seven decades to get out. It hasn'tsucceeded. 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 foxhad to chew off its leg. And I had to bring the world to the brink of amajor war."

  Shandor shook his head, his mind buzzing. "I don't see what you mean. Wenever had a chance for peace, we never had a chance to get our feet onthe ground from one round to the next. No time to do anything worthwhilein 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 insharp 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 ourbreath, to make a real peace. The first World War was a sorry affair, byour standards--almost a relic of earlier European wars. Trench fighting,poor rifles, soap-box aircraft--nothing to distinguish it from earlierwars but its scope. But twenty uneasy years went by, and another warbegan, a very different sort of war. This one had fast aircraft, fastmechanized 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, anda terrible one. Quite a bit of progress, for twenty years. Butessentially, it was a war of ideologies, just as the previous one hadbeen. A war of intolerance, of unmixable ideas--"

  The old man paused, and drew a sip of water from the canister in thecorner. "Somewhere, somehow, the world had missed the boat. Those warsdidn't solve anything, they didn't even make a very strong pretense.They just made things worse. Somewhere, human society had gotten into atrap, a vicious circle. It had reached the end of its progressivetether, 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 staticsociety, and they fought wars. And they reached a point, finally, wherethey could destroy themselves unless they broke the vicious circle,somehow."

  Shandor looked up, a deep frown on his face. "You're trying to say thatthey needed a new frontier."

  "Exactly! They desperately needed it. There was only one more frontierthey 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 outwardfor the rest of time. And that frontier seemed unattainable. It wasblocked off by a wall, by the jaws of a trap. Oh, they tried. After thefirst war the work began. The second war contributed unimaginably to thetechnical knowledge. But after the second war, they could go no further.Because it cost money, it required a tremendous effort on the part ofthe people of a great nation to do it, and they couldn't see why theyshould spend the money to get to space. After all, they had to work upthe atomics and new weapons for the next war--it was a trap, as strongand treacherous as any the people of the world had ever encountered.

  "The answer, of course, was obvious. Each war brought a great surge oftechnological development, to build better weapons, to fight biggerwars. Some developments led to extremely beneficial ends, too--if ithadn't been for the second war, a certain British biologist might stillbe piddling around his understaffed, underpaid laboratory, wishing hehad more money, and wondering why it was that that dirty patch of moldon his petri dish seemed to keep bacteria from growing--but the secondwar created a sudden, frantic, urgent
demand for something, anything,that would _stop infection--fast_. And in no time, penicillin was inmass production, saving untold thousands of lives. There was no questionof money. Look at the Manhattan project. How many millions went intothat? It gave us atomic power, for war, and for peace. For peacefulpurposes, the money would never have been spent. But if it was for thesake of war--"

  Ingersoll smiled tiredly. "Sounds insane, doesn't it? But look at therecord. I looked at the record, way back at the