“But the deceased?” asked Stacey. “Upon whose side was he aligned?”
“Not on Hoagland’s.”
“Certainly not on Huston’s.”
“Nora—tell me—why did you make that false recording?”
Nora looked at Paul, and then pulled him to her and hugged his head against her cheek for a moment. “Paul, as a scientist you couldn’t understand the man on the street. We wanted something to show Neoterra. You don’t understand this. But Paul, what would have happened if you had gotten away with it?”
“But I did not.”
“Just pretend. Set up a hypothesis for a minute. Suppose that you had been able to convince the Terran Physical Society that you had received Z-waves from Terra while you were on Proxima I.”
“I’d have been the man of the hour. I’d have been handed a large appropriation and a project of my own to pursue this—But Nora, it will work. Why did you feel that you had to falsify?”
“Paul, you are the only man in the known universe that does not think Haedaecker’s Theory is valid. Please go on—please?”
“So I’d have been able to pursue my work unhampered. And—* “Now suppose that you were unable to make the Z-wave contact again?” suggested Nora. “Remember, the recording was the only contact but the Z-wave—regardless of your belief-does not really work.”
Paul shrugged: “Lacking a repeat, I’d have begun to study the connection a bit more,” he said.
“So the upshot would have been—Hope—for those who wanted communications between Terra and Neoterra.”
Stacey looked wistful. “Quoting some great poet that I don’t remember other than that it was not Edgar Guest or John Paul Jones:
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: It might have been!”
“So what do we do now?”
Paul looked at Stacey. “This is G.S.C. 113; IX. Hoagland’s gang have Z-wave equipment here, probably trying to see whether or not I am right. So the thing to do is to get free long enough to use the Z-wave equipment for a call for help.”
Nora shook her head. Paul looked at Stacey. Stacey looked at Nora and said, “I don’t know anything about it.” Paul looked at Nora.
“Don’t you believe either?”
Nora clung to him, hugged him to her, cradled his head against her soft breasts and caressed his cheek. “Paul—Paul—Paul; I do so desperately want to believe—I want you to be—everything—I want you—”
Paul relaxed in her arms for a moment then moved away from her; holding her by the shoulders and looking her straight in the face, he said, “But—?”
Nora buried her face in his shoulder. A sob wrenched her and she clutched at him frantically.
Then she looked up with tears welling on the brim of her eyes, tried to speak but choked and buried her head in his shoulder once more.
Paul put his hand under her chin, lifted it from his shoulder and with his other hand dashed the tears from Nora’s eyes.
“Tell me,” he said gently.
“Paul—Paul—Oh Paul, I love you and this hurts—but for all of your faith, you have not one shred of evidence.”
CHAPTER 14
Like most human beings, Paul could comprehend the actions of someone of his own type. But he could not understand the mental machinations of people who had other motives and other interests in life. Nor could he seem to make other people understand that his continued interest in the Z-wave was only just and sensible. After all, he had never had an opportunity to try it.
To Paul it was just that simple. Just let him try it. He had so much faith in it that he could not foresee his next reaction if failure came. Paul did not consider failure as a possibility, but if he did fail, he would automatically begin insisting upon a chance to continue, insisting that something had gone awry, or that there were factors that must be studied.
This sort of attitude was acceptable to Paul, yet he could not comprehend the contemplated action of the political factions he was involved with.
For instance, one faction was going to falsify evidence in order to swing an election. This seemed dishonest to Paul. He wondered just how they could justify their act. The other faction was keeping him prisoner so that he could not furnish any evidence at all.
But eventually one side or the other was going to find that its evidence was in error. Then what? Supposing because he had been kidnaped by this particular gang and thus gave some concrete evidence of negative result, Hoagland and Westlake and the rest were elected—after which the Z-wave contact proved good? Or, if Huston and his crowd got elected on the strength of the Z-wave contact, and then because Paul was captive and unable to make it work, there was no Z-wave communication with Terra.
How could they justify their claims in the face of the emptiness of their prophecies?
Paul could not understand the political mind and the thinking of the man on the street. He could not even apply such thinking to his own case. The fact that for eons, politicians have been making promises that were unfulfilled after election did not register with Grayson.
The thing to do, of course, was to escape. Then he could work and bring out the truth—which to Paul was single-valued and positive—and thus do away with all of the half-truths, lies, and fingers-crossed statements.
But how? He had to admit that he was not ill-treated. He believed that both sides were willing to have Z-wave contact with Terra, for commercial reasons, but he knew that only one side wanted communications now. Ergo the opposing side which were his captors would treat him well in the hope of having him work for them once the election was over.
Paul shrugged. Whatever the cause, he would not cut off his nose to spite his face. His was no interest in political fray. He wanted to work with the Z-wave.
In fact Westlake and Hoagland had one facet that looked reasonably good. Their party was for autonomy, and if Paul worked for them, he would be forever free of any legal attachment to Terra. And doubtless Haedaecker and the whole Bureau of Astrogation were out gunning for Paul Grayson if for no other reason than the stolen BurAst P.G.l. Were Huston and his coalition government to get in, Haedaecker could swing a large club over the various integrated wings of government and make Paul’s life precarious.
So Paul was on the fence so far as his work was concerned. In fact, at the present moment Paul did not think highly of either political ambition, since their high ambition was tarred with a wide, full brush of downright thuggery.
Escape, of course, was an easy word to say. It was true that Paul’s incarceration was nothing like being cooped up in a jail cell. His door was closed but not locked; he had plenty of time and opportunity to see and talk to both Nora and John Stacey, and to make friends with other political prisoners. Across the broad plain was a spaceport and some spacecraft that came and went, but going there and taking off presented the problem of getting away with it. He was somewhat reminded of the signs reputed to be placed around the penal grounds on Antarctica. There were maps of the South Polar Region of Terra, with latitude, longitude, and the distance in miles from the penitentiary to the nearest shred of civilization too carefully and accurately marked. Listed below the maps was a roster of average temperatures for the district at any time of the year, and the whole thing was a great deterrent to walking out of the place and trying to cross a few thousand miles of very cold nothing in order to get to one of Civilization’s Southern outposts—where the escapee’s name would be posted long before he could arrive.
The only way a man could escape was to have some means of communication so that friends could come to his aid. Paul’s only method of contact was the Z-wave.
They did let Paul tinker, and they even let him work, but they would not let him near Z-wave equipment that was connected with the radio beacon. Toby Morrow helped Paul with calculations and theory, being the only one among the prisoners who had done any work with Grayson.
Morrow, of course, had been picked up by Westlake’s crew on the planet at the
other end of this leg of the Galactic Survey Link, along about the same time that Paul had been grabbed near G.S.C. 311; IX. It was apparent without saying anything about it that Westlake’s gang had been working with the Z-wave in the hope of establishing the validity of Paul’s statements.
But so far, they had not been able to make contact apparently, and Paul had not been able to, either.
So as the days passed into weeks, Paul once more reconstructed his map of the Galactic Survey and connected this star with that, and the other with the fourth. It was beginning to fill in, now.
Paul viewed it with interest, occasionally wondering who was checking the beacons in his place.
But it was filling in, and it reminded him somewhat of that game played with dots, in which each player takes a turn connecting two dots with a line, the idea being to complete squares yourself while preventing your opponent from completing any. Usually the first several moves are drawn here and there with no particular pattern. Then as the game progresses, more and more lines connect more and more dots until it is impossible to draw a line between two dots that does not also connect two other, previously drawn lines.
The galactic map is far from a square, otherwise all of the lines would have terminated at the same time.
Even so, there were whole lengths of solid line, zig-zag across space between the nearer stars that would make a solid connection between stations thirty to fifty light years apart. And every week saw another connection made, and each connection completed the connection between isolated groups. It took on a maze-like appearance; Paul thought that if it were stretched out and the collateral paths were added, the filing would have reached between Terra and Neoterra and halfway back.
So Paul added to his map as the weeks went on until there were only a few open stretches between Sol and Neosol. He thought ruefully that it was a damned shame that the whole Galactic Network would be completely closed before he got a chance to try the Z-wave. Instead of starting with one contact and working his way across, the first interstellar contact via Z-wave might well be a complete attempt between the two planets, one hundred and forty light years apart.
It was a curious proposition; Civilization had been geared to a constantly accelerating life up to the time that Mother Earth and her daughter colony obtained—and found that they were irrevocably separated in time and space by about ten months and one hundred forty light years. Fast, pre-guided spacecraft could hiss through the distance as message couriers in about eight months, but the power needed for such ships reduced the payload. But letters were the best means of communication, for a business man would be out of touch for at least twenty months if he went himself.
So Mankind struggled along as best it could, hoping that someday someone would be able to lick the problem.
Even Paul’s group was able to witness the regular arrival and departure of couriers and men who came on official business. When one of the faster ships brought Hoagland himself, none of the prisoners gave any special attention to his arrival.
Hoagland told to Westlake, “That was a sharp job, Westlake.”
“I thought so.”
“But your report forgot to mention one item. You did state that Grayson was trying to tap the radio beacon from a couple of million miles out, and .that you caught him and his partner on the other end of the beam. But you forgot to mention whether your own experiments were successful.”
Westlake laughed. “Only in catching Grayson and Morrow. That was coincidence of the upper brackets.”
Hoagland smiled. “That it was,” he said. “But have you gotten any evidence?”
“None. We’d been trying Grayson’s idea for months without success. When the Z-wave broke into life we thought it was working until we located the source and went out to pick him up. The boys at the other end heard the same thing, did likewise, and then came scurrying back home to let me know about it. So we collected Grayson and Morrow in two fell swoops.”
Hoagland nodded again, and then said: “Westlake, how good a gambler are you?”
“I like to play safe,” said Westlake.
“How safe?”
“Plenty.”
“Then you won’t like this. But I’m going to take one gamble, and one bet on a certain thing.”
“Yes—and which is which?”
“Without a doubt Grayson got the equipment he was using from Huston and Huston’s crowd of coalitionists. They set him up on some planet with a laboratory under their direction, and are probably running the Neoterran Press ragged with glowing reports of Grayson’s howling success—carefully guarding their statements with cautious warnings that The Public must not expect Z-wave communications with Terra overnight, but someday—soon—et-cetera, and so forth.”
Westlake laughed. “The police anticipate an early apprehension of the criminals, sort of thing.”
“Exactly.”
“Furthermore I will be a bad prophet if I am incorrect in assuming that when Huston started Grayson on his job, Huston gave orders that Grayson was not to do anything that would gain him any notice whatsoever. On the idea that the first mention of failure would puncture Huston’s political propaganda-”
“All reasoning based upon the ‘what would I do?’ theory. Good and sound I calls it.”
“Right. Now, here is the certainty. If Grayson is the kind of idealist that I think he is, Grayson will at the first opportunity make some check of the Z-wave—in fact he has tried to set it up already. He will try again if he is permitted.”
“That’s your certainty.”
“Now for the gamble. I’ve read all of Haedaecker’s Theory and find it solid. I’ve read Grayson’s line of reasoning and find it logical.”
“Then which is right?”
“Haedaecker based his reasoning on fact. Grayson set out to poke holes in it and—like so many idealists—he proceeded to leap upon any facet that supported his theory against Haedaecker, while discounting anything that mitigated against him.
“So,” smiled Hoagland affably, “the thing to do is to permit Mister Grayson’s escape in a ship loaded with Z-wave gear. Let him take his friends, Phillips, Stacey, and Morrow.”
Westlake nodded slowly. “I get it. Grayson will not make his next attempt in secret. He’ll try it and we’ll have observers to watch —and report his failure.”
“Right.”
Not much later, Hoagland’s ship took off for Neoterra. Another ship took off for Terra with messages. Out across the broad plain, Paul could see from his window that the only ship remaining on the rough spaceport was his own spacecraft; the one furnished by Huston. Morrow’s little job had been taken off somewhere. Paul shook his head unhappily. Someone was willing to pour a lot of money into this business. Spacecraft were expensive, yet they were being bandied about and traded like horses in a rustler’s camp.
While all Paul needed was entry to that one spacecraft over there, plus about ten minutes of free time…
Grayson paced his room until dark muttering and grunting unhappily. Time and again he returned to the window to look longingly at his spacecraft, and time and again he wondered whether it would be possible to steal out across that mile or so of sheer flat plain and get into the ship without being seen. In broad daylight it would be impossible. But the encampment was somewhat south of the Polar region where the big beacon station was situated, and the planet was progressing along in its year so that very soon the beacon station would be entering the half-year of night. The encampment had been in perpetual daylight, a ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’ latitude. But now there was a short night beginning, which would lengthen as the year progressed.
It was dark… dark …
Paul looked out of his room. The corridor was dark. Deliberately, Paul stood there with the door open, waiting. He had gone out before, but had not gone far before someone came sauntering by to engage him in conversation. Pleasant conversation that carefully avoided mention of the fact that this talk was between jailer and prisoner and that one was kee
ping an eye on the other.
Paul sauntered down toward Toby Morrow’s room. The door was open and Toby was Addling with something at the top inner corner of the jamb.
“What gives?” asked Grayson.
Toby jumped like a startled doe, settled down as he saw Paul, and then took a deep breath. “Don’t scare a man that way,” he complained. He took another deep breath. “I’ve just discovered the burglar alarm,” he chuckled. “And fixed it!”
“From here?”
Morrow waved at the open door. “Been open for an hour. Nobody came. Thought you were it, Paul.”
Grayson smiled. “I doubt that you did much, Toby. Something’s blown out somewhere. I got out without fixing my door and no one came for me, either.”
Morrow nodded thoughtfully. “Most alarms are designed so that any tinkering with them will result in sending the alarm,” he muttered. “Closed-circuit propositions. I’d just located the contactor on my door and was jamming it shut. That would take care of my door but not yours. Now let’s see what could be wrong—”
Paul grunted. “Let’s not waste time in figuring out what’s wrong with the enemy’s burglar alarm,” he said. “This is no time to be overly helpful. You go collect John Stacey and I’ll find Nora Phillips and we’ll meet down in the front hallway.”
“What gives?”
“Sitting here like a fool doesn’t make me happy. I want action. Why don’t we try to get away, Toby. What can we lose?”
“Nothing but some breath. Okay, it’s a deal.”
Paul went down the stairs cautiously, along the corridor below until he came to Nora’s room, and then without rapping he opened the door and stole in, closing the door behind him.
“Pauli” she cried. “What—?”
“Collect yourself,” grinned Paul. “We’re leaving.” He did not think until much later that he had not bothered to knock, nor had he apologized for bursting in this way. It had come as a natural way, a normal thing. Modesty, propriety, and convention were only words, and totally useless commodities when escape from imprisonment looked possible. And it was also much later before Paul realized that Nora must have agreed with him, for she wasted no time. In the darkened room there was a wild flurry of arms, legs, and clothing, a nightgown dropped carelessly on the floor and trampled as Nora slid a dress over her head and at the same time tried to fumble her feet into her shoes.
Operation Interstellar (1950) Page 13
