“Meaning?”
“Meaning, dear Archer, that we must circumvent the actions of the cosmos.”
“And how do we do that? By launching a nuclear attack on Jupiter?”
“No,” Brian said, his eyes traveling to Eastern Europe and on to Asia. “No, Hunter; not on Jupiter.
6: THE FIXATIVE
On the morning of the fifth day, Hunter strolled the White House grounds in biting 22-degree weather with the President, in company with a General Centura and an Admiral Poynsee. He had not met the two newcomers until moments earlier.
A small band of Secret Service men marked the perimeter of the Presidential party as it moved erratically about the grounds. Centura was an Air Force officer; Poynsee, it developed, had come up through the submarine service ranks. The talk centered around nuclear deployment capability, with repeated allusions to Minuteman, Titan, and strategic bombers from the viewpoint of Centura, along with pointed interjections from Poynsee concerning Polaris, Poseidon, and the advantages of underwater deployment of weaponry. The walk and the talk were brief, both being discouraged by the uncomfortable weather. The small party returned to the White House and broke up on the East Portico. As the parting handshakes were being executed, the President, as if in casual afterthought, announced, “Oh, by the way: Secretary Hunter is the Sagittarian.”
Centura and Poynsee thereupon pumped Hunter’s hand with enthusiasm and obvious warmth. “I neglected to mention, also, Hunter,” Brian added, “that General Centura is our new Air Force Chief of Staff, and Admiral Poynsee is taking over our naval forces.”
Hunter mumbled mechanical congratulations, and excused himself from the gathering. He walked through the historic mansion, out the front door and out to the street, not once looking back. Two hours later, he walked into the editorial offices of Weekly in New York, entering the Saul Martens’ office unannounced.
Martens looked up from an incredibly messy desk, a deep frown slowly re-settling into a lopsided grin. He rose and held out a hand in greeting. Hunter shook the hand with a noticeable lack of vigor, and dropped into a leather-upholstered chair.
Martens waited through an appreciable silence for his unexpected visitor to open the conversation, then said, “I’ve missed you. How’s the Washington scene treating you?”
“I think I’m in shock,” Hunter said, his voice barely audible.
Again Martens waited, then inquired delicately, “You here on a special mission or something? Something, uh...wrong?”
Hunter forced a smile. “I was hoping to get some of your usual directness,” he told him.
“That’s what I said,” Martens replied loudly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I had to talk to somebody in the sane world.”
“You came to the wrong place. You came to the least sane place in the world. But maybe our insanities are compatible. Bounce something off me.”
“Shit. They’re taking over, Saul. I thought it was just Brian. I thought one man couldn’t make that much difference. But, shit, they’re crawling out of the woodwork everywhere. They’re really taking over.”
“Are we discussing termites or Titans?”
Hunter’s color changed at the mention of Titans. “Them, too. But no; It’s the damn Olympians. They’re all over the place. They’ve been at it for twenty years, I guess, and they’re everywhere. God only knows where! Now they’ve got the military. They might even have the Supreme Court, and maybe half of Congress. Who knows?”
“Yeah, who knows?” Martens said, his eyes narrowing. “Are you okay, Dick?”
“Hell, no. I’m rotten. They call me Archer, see, and they’ve got some screwy notion about my destiny. And I’m not even old enough! Old enough for the ginch society, sure; and she even wants me to move into a bungalow. But shit, I don’t have the understanding yet, see?”
Martens depressed an intercom button. “Send about a gallon of coffee in here,” he snapped. Then, to Hunter: “Do the people in Washington know where you are?”
“God, I hope not. They’ll probably have their damn B-fifty-eights and their nuclear subs out searching for me. But what the hell do I care? Couldn’t be any worse, could it? Saul... Am I making any sense to you?”
“Not exactly, but don’t worry about it. We’ll get some coffee into you, and—”
“Yeah; I’m cold. Shit, I’m cold right down to my bones. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But its supposed to be mystery, see. That’s the whole idea. You see, like the respiration rate. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. Like the number 25,920, see? That means nothing to you, huh?”
Martens pursued his lips. “Ummm, yeah, it does. That’s the number of years in a sidereal year, isn’t it? Why?”
“No, it’s the rotation of the planet’s axis. Isn’t it?”
Martens thought about it for a moment. “Well...about the same thing, I guess. What’d you say about the respiration rate?”
“Well, it’s the same. The respiration rate. 25,920. That’s the mystery, see.”
Martens’ secretary bustled in carrying coffee service. She placed it on Martens’ desk, threw a warm smile at Hunter, and started to pour the coffee. Martens waved her away, but then jumped up and followed her to the door. “Call the White House,” he murmured. “See if you can reach somebody close to the President and tell ’em Hunter’s here. I think he’s sick or something. I have an idea he just wandered off.”
The girl cast a stricken look toward Hunter, nodded, and pulled the door closed softly.
Hunter had poured himself a cup of coffee and was sipping the hot brew delicately. “Boy, I needed this!” he said, glancing up at Martens’ return. “Walking around out there with the Doomsday men in sub-freezing weather, with no breakfast even.”
“Yeah? Where you living, Dick?”
“Oh, all us Olympians are ginched-up at the White House. Running around bare-assed all over the place, screwing the guards in the Blue Room at midnight...that sort of stuff. It’s depressing as hell. A super race, see? He’s building a race that can screw themselves right through the thousand-year cataclysm. That’s what the crazy bastard’s doing, all right.”
‘Yeah,” Martens said. His eyes were definitely worried now. “You been getting much sleep?”
Hunter laughed derisively. “Sleep? With all them snatch-patchers cavorting around the place? Sleep? Ha! Not to mention the damn conjunction. That’s what he’s trying to beat, see? The twenty-year conjunction cycle; the one that got Roosevelt and Lincoln. He even thinks it got Kennedy! Now the other guy...What’s his name? The cycling reincarnationist. Now he probably thinks Kennedy was a cycle of Lincoln, Johnson was a cycle of Johnson, and they even had the same family name...Booth cycled up into Oswald see...I wonder where the hell I cycled from?” He shivered. “The damn flood, I guess. Shit, shit, shit! I don’t want to remember that kind of shit. I hope I never do. Am I making sense to you, Saul?”
Martens nodded reassuringly. “Of course,” he lied. “Just go ahead; talk it out. If I don’t understand something, I’ll stop you.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to wait, and we’d probably lose. We can’t afford to lose, see, because Olympia might get blown to hell, and then where would we be for the cataclysm. See? That’s the logic of this crazy bastard. Now where I fit into all this just beats the screaming hell out of me. I guess he’ll make me put my finger on the red button, see? The nuclear button. To absolve his own soul from a Karmic reaction, maybe. I guess that’s where I fit in. Load the Archer’s soul down, see? Let him be the instrument of destiny. Do you really believe Roosevelt was the Aquarian instrument of destiny?”
“I really hadn’t thought about it,” Martens admitted.
“Me either. But there it is, all laid out like a fuckin’ astrological chart, the whole damn miserable thing! Jefferson and Franklin knew all about it, see? They planned the whole thing. I guess they even knew that Younghart and Thompkins would get blown up. They probably knew all about Lincoln and all the other p
oor bastards. And they cinched it up tight, see? Even put that damn pyramid all over everything; even on the money. It’s fixed! That’s it, see? Yeah. That’s it! The whole damn thing is fixed! It’s rigged! That’s what he meant. He said I’d fall into the valley of knowledge, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. I see it all, now! It’s clear!”
He gulped the remainder of the coffee, set the cup on the tray and struggled to his feet. “It’s been great, Saul; just what I needed. Somebody to talk to.”
“I, uh...sit down and visit a while longer,” Martens urged.
Hunter had grabbed his friend’s hand and was wringing it warmly. “No. Sorry; I have to get back down to Washington. But I can’t thank you enough. You really cleared things up for me.”
“I did?”
Hunter threw back his head and roared with laughter. He cut it off abruptly and said, “You didn’t understand a damn thing I was telling you, did you?”
Martens was watching him closely. What he saw reassured him. “To tell you the truth...no.”
“It’s the name of the game,” Hunter told him, grinning. He punched his ex-boss on the shoulder and strode toward the door, pausing there to look back with warm affection. “We may not be seeing each other for a while. I just want you to know...I hope everything comes out all right.”
Martens hadn’t the faintest idea of that meaning, either, but he nodded and waved farewell, then got up and walked to the door after Hunter had stepped through it. The girl looked up from her desk with surprise as Hunter strode past. Her gaze swung to Martens, and the telephone in her hand drooped forward. “I didn’t get anyone yet,” she said faintly.
“It’s okay now,” Martens told her. “Cancel it.” Then he returned to his desk, sat down and chewed on his knuckles. He hoped it was okay now.
7: THE IMPRESS
The War Room was bustling with activity on that evening of the seventh day when The Olympian and The Sagittarian made their entrance. There was a slight flurry of recognition at their arrival, and they were escorted to seats at a small table on a dais near the center of the room. Libwitz awaited them there, flanked by Centura and Poynsee.
“Nobody but the five of us will be allowed to leave this complex for the next hundred and thirty hours,” Libwitz announced by way of openers. He depressed a button on a small remote panel near his right hand, and a display board on one wall lighted. It was a large map of North America, transparently super-imposed on a Mercator Projection chart of the world. Small red lights glowed across the northwestern portion of the United States; other clusters of red appeared in the central regions—Kansas and Arkansas—and in the Southwest in Arizona.
Hunter inspected the display with interest; Brian seem entranced. Centura picked up the speaking role. “These are our SAC ICBM Bases,” he stated in a flat voice. “You will please note the three-dimensional overlay effect, used to indicate primary and secondary target programs for each missile squadron.” He cleared his throat, coughed, and went on. “Each squadron has been in ORI status since the, uh...tragedy of last month. SAC is accustomed to the ORI routine, and it is a routine, but a highly effective one.” His eyes fell on Hunter. “ORI stands for Operational Readiness Inspection—a device we use to keep the boys on their toes. It’s equivalent to a full-alert, practically. What it means to a civilian is that our ICBM’s are poised and ready to fly. They are presently in a seconds-from-zero ‘hold’ in the countdown sequence. Please note the target cities are marked with a red flare. The flare-cities will be recipients of multiple-warhead birds. Note also that certain vital targets are duplicated as primary targets by more than one squadron. Now...” He flicked a finger at Libwitz, who activated another display board. This was another double-Mercator of the world, with Omaha, Nebraska, at the very center.
“This board is programmed directly from Omaha,” Centura said, “and automatically so, by computers. You’ll see the SAC bases there, in this country and abroad—the bright rectangles, gentlemen. The winking red lights represent our strategic bombers actually in flight, showing their present actual positions.” Hunter blinked. The chart was alive with winking red lights. “These fellows are on war orders right now. Each flight is nuclear-armed, poised, ready to strike on receipt of final orders.”
Brian turned to Centura and said, “Stated simply, what is the offensive capability of the Air Force?”
“Stated simply, Brian,” Centura replied, “we can change the natural geography of the world in less than an hour.”
“Very impressive,” Brian commented. “How about, uh...enemy counter-measures. How much of the striking force can actually be relied upon to reach the targets?”
Centura shrugged. “There’s a lot of contention on that point. Personally, I doubt that any effective defenses have been devised against the missile attack. The bombers may have a bit of trouble, but as you can see...” He flung a hand toward the display board. “If only one in ten gets through, why, uh...that’s all she wrote, buddy. You can see that.”
“Yes; I can see that,” Brian agreed. Now his gaze fell on the Admiral. “Let’s see your forces Poynsee.”
Libwitz again did the button-pressing honors, and a new display, similar to the others, sprang into brilliance. Stationary lights in the shape of tiny submarines showed up starkly red in the various seas of the world.
“I’ve had these stingers moving onto station for the past seventy-two hours,” he said proudly. “That’s Seahawk and Rexus there in the Black Sea.” He was pointing with his finger. “Uh...see there, just North of Turkey. That’s the Black Sea. Each of these boats is fully armed with the newest Poseidon birds, and they can reach to any point in Eastern Europe. You’ll note also that Seadog is on station in the Adriatic. She’s Polaris-equipped; a bit shorter range than Poseidon, but really quite effective from the Adriatic. The three boats there in the North Sea are underway for the Baltic. Now if you’ll look down, way down into the Arabian Sea... These two are headed for the Persian Gulf area. Our second European line, if you’ll follow the dotted lines there, through the Mediterranean and up along the West Coast of Europe...You can see we have them from every conceivable angle. Now, over to the other side of the world.”
Hunter and Brian exchanged glances.
“One boat in the Bering Sea,” Poynsee was saying, “right there below St. Lawrence. One in the Sea of Okhotsk, just off Siberia. Three in the Sea of Japan, two in the Yellow Sea, two in the East China Sea, and three in the South China Sea. I pulled Trident out of the Bay of Bengal, and she’s now under full speed for the South Pole.” He looked around the semi-circle of taut faces. “Headed for the South Polar ice cap,” he added. “A trump card. There’s another one headed for the North Pole, as well.”
“What for?” Hunter wanted to know.
“Like I said: Trump cards,” Poynsee replied. “Sort of a last-shot capability, eh?” Hunter observed.
“Exactly,” the admiral assured him.
“I’m impressed,” Brian said, releasing pent-up breath. “What about you, Archer?”
“I’m impressed clear out of my mind,” Hunter told him glumly.
8: Cataclysmic Notes
Presented below are edited and partially reconstructed notes penned by Richard Hunter at some time during his final days in the White House at Washington.
The fix is fixed. The White House is all but empty again. Only Brian and I remain. He has sent the other Olympians back to Olympia. I asked him why, if the U.S. was so invulnerable to enemy counterattack, he was removing the Olympians to a place of relative safety. He just smiled and reminded me that the ultimate goal was to outwit the stars.
Saul Martens was killed yesterday. The story goes that he fell from his office window. I managed to contact Betty by telephone, and she assured me that he’d been alone in the office at the time of the accident. She also hinted that he’d been drinking a lot lately. I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like Saul. I suppose it’s an indication of my “new understanding” that I can’t even feel too sad
about it. He was a good man and a good friend, but I suppose he was just another part of the fix. If I sound cynical, it’s because I feel that way. Winfried assures me it is a natural but temporary attitude in the transition to deeper knowledge.
I am trying to be objective with regard to this controlled cataclysm we’re pulling off. Instead, I manage only cynicism. Like, well, so we’ve had this population explosion problem, haven’t we? Like, well, those bastards have been taunting us for twenty years, haven’t they? Like, well, so they’d do the same thing to us if they thought they could get away with it, wouldn’t they?
That last thought brings up another point. A lot of military and practical thinking in recent years has held that once we become convinced of the inevitability of nuclear war, we should get there firstest with the mostest. Surprise attack, I mean. I’ve been bumping into this sort of thinking for quite a few years now, and it’s surprising the number of highly placed people who feel this way. Perhaps the rest of us have been suffering from Libwitz’s “veil of horror” syndrome: We just can’t bring ourselves to face the terror.
Too many things have conspired against me during these few months; too much that is irrational and illogical. I’ve had all the rationality logic squeezed out of me. All I can do any more, it seems, is “go along.” I feel like a cork caught in a tidal wave; there just isn’t any way to climb down off of it.
I’m in love with Mannclift. I realize that now. I guess I have been from the beginning. I can hardly bear this place, with her gone. I talked to her by telephone today, and I know she was halfway expecting me to say something about a bungalow, but somehow I couldn’t do it. Maybe I will. Some day. If all this nuttiness straightens out somehow.
I expect to be stood against a wall and shot, so I don’t know why I’m talking about bungalows. Brian, too, and the rest of these Washington Olympians. This entire thing is, of course, illegal. Brian can’t decide to begin a nuclear war just because he’s the President. He is merely seizing the power to do so. I suppose that’s the advantage a President has, if he’s not worried about his place in history, if he’s impervious to public opinion, and if he feels the tug of the cosmos. That’s another flaw in our “democracy,” isn’t it? A planned one?
Don Pendleton's Science Fiction Collection, 3 Books Box Set, (The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; The Olympians) Page 44
