“Not quickly enough. If we try to grab the John Paul Jones base there are one or two nutty admirals who are just liable to transmit the go-code as their last act. We have two weeks to act before the John Paul Jones boys go operational with their scheme. How long do we have with the Chinese?”
“They think they have the code and are waiting for clearance to test. Can’t we get at the undersea bases?”
“No way. Those things are far, far under, and we have no idea of precisely where. Even if we did, I don’t know if we have anything that can reach them short of an atomic warhead—and they have all the atomic warheads. It’s amazing what dedicated men can do in the name of whatever idiocy they happen to believe in.”
“What do we do?”
“You rest,” Friendly said, leaning over and kissing her. “I think.”
“Go to it,” Leah said. “Did I tell you how glad I am that you found me?”
“Yes,” Friendly said. “It wasn’t me, it was—of course!”
“Of course it was,” Leah agreed, smiling up at him.
“Ohara! If he found you, he can find them. I’m going to get him up here to hold your hand.”
“How romantic,” Leah said.
“You know,” Friendly said, “being a telepath doesn’t seem to be a particularly good thing for the telepaths. I think we’re going to have to do something about that.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The panel was incredibly complex. Hing stared at it with an expression of comprehension carefully set on his face so that none of his assistants would know how much they had him at their mercy when it came to working with the electronic gadgets of the trade. He listened carefully to the explanation of programming and random-dispersal sorts and least-square vectors and the other impedimenta that people who work with dials have to clutter their minds with and made an occasional intelligent comment.
The import of this machine-biased explanation was that the proper codeword—actually a machine-generated code signal—would be broadcast over the exact frequency in six hours, with a probability curve stretching to three hours plus or minus. Somewhere between three and nine hours after he pushed the large, round inner-lit red button on the central panel a good portion of his homeland would be destroyed by foreign missiles—that he had launched. It was more than a responsibility, it was a burden.
“Actually,” the beaming radio man told him, “the probability curve is weighted forward, since we’re trying the most probable combinations first. If the information your receptor units supplied is accurate, we may be seeing results in a surprisingly short time.”
That is what I am afraid of. “Fine,” Hing said. “Very fine.”
An excited babble sounded from downstairs. Hing ran down the wide, marble staircase to the lobby, and found that the sound came from the orchestra, where his receptors were watching their movie. He pushed through the double doors and found the five units thrashing wildly about in their cots, with the support personnel trying to restrain them, or at least shut them up, without hurting them.
“What is this? What’s happening?” Hing demanded, striding forward into the room as if to quell the activity with the strength of his presence alone. The perturbation increased.
There was a high, whining noise from somewhere outside, then the front of what looked like a cross-country bus crashed through the brick wall of the theater and split open like a shark’s mouth. A double-column of armed men raced through the gap and spread throughout the theater.
Being a well-trained agent, Hing mentally surrendered. Five minutes later, Hing physically surrendered. “In a way I’m glad,” he said to Friendly, who was pawing through papers in his desk drawer. “No matter how carefully they evacuated, a few people were bound to be killed. I would have that on my conscience. They, after all, are my countrymen.”
“Not like killing foreigners,” Friendly said, “or turning people into machines because they have a talent you can use.”
Hing shrugged. “The mass of people live like machines anyway.”
“Tick tock. It may interest you to know that the figures your government supplied you with are off by several orders of magnitude.”
“What figures?”
“If you had succeeded in launching those missiles, you would have destroyed over eighty-five percent of mainland China. If it’s any satisfaction to you, a fair percentage of Russian Siberia would have been taken out by the fallout pattern.”
Hing sat down and stared at the desk, littered with the day-to-day detritus of espionage: rent receipts, bills for electronic apparatus, water-soluble paper decoding forms. “So that’s what I’ve been doing,” he said. “All this time. . . .” He held out a hand to Friendly. “Put me somewhere,” he said. “I would like to not speak with anyone for a time. Perhaps a long time.”
“You may go where you like,” Friendly said. “I’m taking your, ah, receptor units away with me; and just for luck I’m going to destroy this equipment. But you are free to go.”
“You don’t represent the United States Government?” Hing asked.
“No,” Friendly said. “I represent an organization called Astral Emprise. My interest, beyond stopping you from starting an atomic war, is in these people you’ve been treating like machines.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
Friendly shrugged. “Take them off drugs. Feed them. Teach them to think. After that they’re on their own. It will be interesting to see what they can do with themselves.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was two o’clock in the morning. A layer of stratocumulus clouds stretched across the sky, obscuring the stars and a thin sliver of crescent moon. Two longboats, their oars muffled with oil-soaked rags, rowed their way slowly across the inky surface of the small bay to the far side of the Alfred.
As they reached the vessel’s side, a large figure stood up in the rear of the lead boat. “England expects every man to do his duty,” he said in a firm undertone. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes! Remember the Maine! Now, let’s get to it!” and he sprung up and grabbed hold of the side of the ship, and began crawling up the ribbing to the deck. Behind him, the twenty-seven men from the two boats followed closely and silently.
They reached the deck without incident. The big man moved swiftly and with silent grace around the deck to the dock side of the Alfred, where the sailor on watch dozed at the head of the gangplank.
Before the sailor had time to even think about reacting, he was grabbed, muffled, gagged, and tied, and left in a lump inside the nearest cabin. Half of the men from the longboats took up positions around the Alfred, ready to subdue any sleepy sailors who might appear and keep the boat secure. The other half went below.
There was a Marine guard at the elevator door in the bowels of the Alfred. He was alert and standing at brace next to a large, red alarm button which would alert those in the secret base below to any problem. But the man who appeared from around the bend in the corridor, dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe and slippers, and carrying a small, green toilet kit, did not look like the sort of danger the Marine was guarding against.
The bathrobed man, none too steady on his feet, lurched sideways as he passed the Marine, who put out an arm to steady him. In a second the Marine was on the deck, well away from the alarm button, his mouth covered with one great palm and his right hand twisted around and up against the small of his back. Two more men appeared from the next corridor and raced over to tie him up.
“There,” Addison Friendly said, getting off the deck and dusting himself off. “Now, if someone would bring my trousers, we shall continue. It is not proper to greet an admiral in your bathrobe.”
Robert came around the corner with Friendly’s trousers and the rest of the group assembled by the elevator while Friendly donned the garment and adjusted them.
“A couple of you stay here,” Friendly said, pushing the elevator call button. “The rest come down behind us. Four or five at a time—it
’s a small elevator.”
The elevator door opened and Friendly got in with Robert and two others. They descended and then waited in the deserted corridor below for what seemed an intolerably long time for the elevator to make three more trips.
“Badges out?” Friendly asked, inspecting the group. “Okay. Just look like you belong if anyone spots us. You know what to do if there’s trouble. Let’s go.” He led the way toward the main control room.
Two Marines guarded the double-doors of the main control room. They snapped to attention as this group of Naval officers with the small red-white-and-blue stickers on their badges passed through.
The room was quietly active, with technicians manning the various consoles and two officers holding a conversation in front of one of the great screens. They all looked up in mild surprise as Friendly and his group entered.
Half the group stayed in that room, while Friendly and Robert and four others passed through into the small Instant Response Center across the room. There Friendly stopped and pulled an envelope out of his dress jacket.
Atten-shun!” Robert yelled. The personnel in both rooms jumped to their feet.
Friendly opened the envelope and read from the paper within. “By order of Rear Admiral John Melchior, Chief of Staff, United States Navy, acting under the direct command of the President of the United States, Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Captain Addison Friendly, United States Navy, is placed in complete command of the D. Mendel Rivers Experimental Station.
“This order is effective immediately, and cannot be countermanded except on the direct written authority of the Chief of Staff.
“This order supersedes all previous orders and instructions.
“Any personnel of said base disobeying this order or causing this order to be disobeyed will be subject to such disciplinary action as a duly-appointed board shall deem appropriate.
“As of this date membership in the so-called John Paul Jones Society shall be considered inappropriate and unlawful for any personnel on active duty in the United States Navy or any of the Armed Forces of the United States. This ruling shall not be retroactive, provided that compliance by all affected personnel is immediate.
“Captain Addison Friendly shall immediately upon assuming command of the L. Mendel Rivers Experimental Base, deactivate and render harmless certain equipment and communications apparatus known to be on that base.
“Admiral John Luche is hereby relieved of all duties and placed under close arrest until such time as disposition can be made of the charges pending against him.”
Friendly looked up at the shocked faces of the men of the L. Mendel Rivers Experimental Station. “The order is signed John Melchior, Chief of Staff, Navy,” he said. “I am Captain Addison Friendly. The whole above-ground, dry-land part of the base is already under my control. The game is over, gentlemen.”
“We have not yet begun to fight!” a harsh voice declared from the far door. Robert looked up and saw Admiral Luche, a military-cut bathrobe around his thin body, standing there and glaring at Friendly. “Disarm these men and lock them up!” he ordered.
“It won’t work, Admiral,” Friendly said softly. His men had produced handguns, but were holding them pointed at the floor. The men from the base looked at each other, at the Admiral, and at Friendly, trying to decide what to do.
“The Air Force men scheduled to rotate to the U.N. satellites have all been placed under arrest,” Friendly said.
“We could still launch—” Luche said.
Friendly shook his head. “We found your weak point, Admiral.”
“Weak point?”
“That’s right.” Friendly nodded. “Half an hour ago the cable leading to your ALF antenna was cut by my men. You can no longer send commands to your undersea bases.” He gestured toward the command console. “Feel free to try,” he said.
Luche held his hand out toward the console, and then dropped it. “Then it’s over,” he said.
“It’s over,” Friendly agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The undersea bases will be turned over to the United Nations for use as research stations,” Admiral Dennison said. “Luche and his cohorts will, probably, be allowed to retire. . . .”
“They should be court-martialed,” Robert said.
“Perhaps. A lot of things that should be never are.”
“You sound like Addison Friendly,” Robert complained.
Friendly stirred from the couch by the office wall. “You’ve been insulted, Bill,” he said.
“I’ll bear up. You, Lieutenant, are being put on detached duty.”
“Yes, sir. Detached to where?”
“You’re to serve as liaison officer to the psi investigations group; a civilian organization to be headed by Addison Friendly. We have to let him head it; he has taken charge of all the telepaths.”
“I have merely removed them from military control to assure that nobody takes charge of them,” Friendly said. “They’ve already been taken in charge quite enough.”
“Just what I meant to say,” Admiral Dennison said. “Incidentally, Burrows, your orders promoting you to full lieutenant should be along any time now.”
“A bribe,” Robert said.
“Exactly,” Friendly said, getting up. “I help Bill and he helps me. I’m going to see that telepaths aren’t used as tools any more—by anyone. We’ll help our government, or anyone else, but on our terms. And for the next few years at least we’ll continue to let the rest of the world think of telepathy as no more than a myth.”
“A useful skill,” Robert said. “I wish I had it.”
“Do you, Robert?” Friendly asked. “Do you indeed?”
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Psi Hunt Page 21
