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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32837-h.zip b/32837-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e4ed74 --- /dev/null +++ b/32837-h.zip diff --git a/32837-h/32837-h.htm b/32837-h/32837-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d74228 --- /dev/null +++ b/32837-h/32837-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1824 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Check And Checkmate, by Walter Miller, Jr. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Check and Checkmate, by Walter Miller + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Check and Checkmate + +Author: Walter Miller + +Illustrator: TOM BEECHAM + +Release Date: June 16, 2010 [EBook #32837] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHECK AND CHECKMATE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h1>CHECK and CHECKMATE</h1> + +<h2>By WALTER MILLER, Jr.</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by TOM BEECHAM</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Victory hinges not always on the mightiest sword, but often +on lowly subterfuge. Here is a classic example, with the Western World +as stooge!</i></div> + +<p>John Smith XVI, new President of the Western Federation of Autonomous +States, had made a number of campaign promises that nobody really +expected him to fulfill, for after all, the campaign and the election +were only ceremonies, and the President—who had no real name of his +own—had been trained for the executive post since birth. He had been +elected by a popular vote of 603,217,954 to 130, the dissenters casting +their negative by announcing that, for the sake of national unity, they +refused to participate in any civilized activities during the +President's term, whereupon they were admitted (voluntarily) to the camp +for conscientious objectors.</p> + +<p>But now, two weeks after his inauguration, he seemed ready to make good +the first and perhaps most difficult promise of the lot: to confer by +televiewphone with Ivan Ivanovitch the Ninth, the Peoplesfriend and +Vicar of the Asian Proletarian League. The President apparently meant to +keep to himself the secret of his success in the difficult task of +arranging the interview in spite of the lack of any diplomatic contact +between the nations, in spite of the Hell Wall, and the interference +stations which made even radio communication impossible between the two +halves of the globe. Someone had suggested that John Smith XVI had +floated a note to Ivan IX in a bottle, and the suggestion, though +ludicrous, seemed not at all unlikely.</p> + +<p>John XVI seemed quite pleased with himself as he sat with his staff of +Primary Stand-ins in the study of his presidential palace. His face, of +course, was invisible behind the golden mask of the official helmet, the +mask of tragedy with its expression of pathos symbolizing the +self-immolation of public service—as well as protecting the President's +own personal visage from public view, and hence from assassination in +unmasked private life, for not only was he publicly nameless, but also +publicly faceless and publicly unknown as an individual. But despite the +invisibility of his expression, his contentment became apparent by a +certain briskness of gesticulation and a certain smugness in his voice +as he spoke to the nine Stand-ins who were also bodyguards, +council-members, and advisors to the chief executive.</p> + +<p>"Think of it, men," he sighed happily in his smooth tenor, slightly +muffled by the mask. "Communication with the East—after forty years of +the Big Silence. A great moment in history, perhaps the greatest since +the last peace-effort."</p> + +<p>The nine men nodded dutifully. The President looked around at them and +chuckled.</p> + +<p>"'Peace-effort'," he echoed, spitting the words out distinctly as if +they were a pair of phonetic specimens. "Do you remember what it used to +be called—in the middle of the last century?"</p> + +<p>A brief silence, then a Stand-in frowned thoughtfully. "Called it 'war', +didn't they, John?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely." The golden helmet nodded crisply. "'War'—and now +'peace-effort'. Our semantics has progressed. Our present +'security-probe' was once called 'lynch'. 'Social-security' once meant a +limited insurance plan, not connoting euthanasia and sterilization for +the ellie-moes. And that word 'ellie-moe'—once eleemosynary—was once +applied to institutions that took <i>care</i> of the handicapped."</p> + +<p>He waited for the burst of laughter to subside. A Stand-in, still +chuckling, spoke up.</p> + +<p>"It's our institutions that have evolved, John."</p> + +<p>"True enough," the President agreed. "But as they changed, most of them +kept their own names. Like 'the Presidency'. It used to be +rabble-chosen, as our ceremonies imply. Then the Qualifications +Amendment that limited it to the psychologically fit. And then the +Education Amendment prescribed other qualifying rules. And the Genetic +Amendment, and the Selection Amendment, and finally the seclusion and +depersonalization. Until it gradually got out of the rabble's hands, +except symbolically." He paused. "Still, it's good to keep the old +names. As long as the names don't change, the rabble is happy, and say, +'We have preserved the Pan-American way of life'."</p> + +<p>"While the rabble is really impotent," added a Stand-in.</p> + +<p>"Don't say that!" John Smith XVI snapped irritably, sitting quickly +erect on the self-conforming couch. "And if you believe it, you're a +fool." His voice went sardonic. "Why don't you try abolishing me and +find out?"</p> + +<p>"Sorry, John. I didn't mean—"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The President stood up and paced slowly toward the window where he stood +gazing between the breeze-stirred drapes at the sun-swept city of +Acapulco and at the breakers rolling toward the distant beach.</p> + +<p>"No, my power is of the rabble," he confessed, "and I am their friend." +He turned to look at them and laugh. "Should I build my power on men +like you? Or the Secondary Stand-ins? Baa! For all your securities, you +are still stooges. Of the rabble. Do you obey me because I control +military force? Or because I control rabble? The latter I think. For +despite precautions, military forces can be corrupted. Rabble cannot. +They rule you through me, and I rule you through them. And I am their +servant because I have to be. No tyrant can survive by oppression."</p> + +<p>A gloomy hush followed his words. It was still fourteen minutes before +time for the televiewphone contact with Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The +President turned back to the "window". He stared "outside" until he grew +tired of the view. He pressed a button on the wall. The window went +black. He pressed another button, which brought another view: Pike's +Peak at sunset. As the sky gathered gray twilight, he twisted a dial and +ran the sun back up again.</p> + +<p>The palace was built two hundred feet underground, and the study was a +safe with walls of eight-inch steel. It lent a certain air of security.</p> + +<p>The historic moment was approaching. The Stand-ins seemed nervous. What +changes had occurred behind the Hell Wall, what new developments in +science, what political mutations? Only rumors came from beyond the +Wall, since the last big peace-effort which had ended in stalemate and +total isolation. The intelligence service did the best that it could, +but the picture was fuzzy and incomplete. There was still "communism", +but the word's meaning had apparently changed. It was said that the +third Ivan had been a crafty opportunist but also a wise man who, +although he did nothing to abolish absolutism, effected a bloody +reformation in which the hair-splitting Marxist dogmatics had been +purged. He appointed the most pragmatic men he could find to succeed +them, and set the whole continental regime on the road to a harsh but +practical utilitarian civilization.</p> + +<p>A slogan had leaked across the Wall recently: "There is no God but a +Practical Man; there is no Law but a Best Solution," and it seemed to +affirm that the third Ivan's influence had continued after his +passing—although the slogan itself was a dogma. And it might mean +something quite non-literal to the people who spoke it. The rabble of +the West were still stirred to deep emotion by a thing that began, "When +in the course of human events—" and they saw nothing incongruous about +Tertiary Stand-ins who quoted it in the name of the Federation's rule.</p> + +<p>But the unknown factor that disturbed the President most was not the +present Asian political or economic situation, but rather, the state of +scientific development, particularly as it applied to military matters. +The forty years of non-communication had not been spent in military +stasis, at least not for the West. Sixty percent of the federal budget +was still being spent for defense. Powerful new weapons were still being +developed, and old ones pronounced obsolete. The seventh John Smith had +even conspired to have a conspiracy against himself in Argentina, with +resulting civil war, so that the weapons could be tested under actual +battle conditions—for the region had been overpopulated anyway. The +results had been comforting—but John the Sixteenth wanted to know more +about what the enemy was doing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Hell Wall—which was really only a globe-encircling belt of +booby-trapped land and ocean, guarded from both sides—had its political +advantages, of course. The mysterious doings of the enemy, real and +imagined, were a constant and suspenseful threat that made it easy for +the Smiths to keep the rabble in hand. But for all the present Smith +knew, the threat might very well be real. He had to find out. It would +also be a popular triumph he could toss to the rabble, bolstering his +position with them, and thereby securing his hold on the Primary, +Secondary, and Tertiary Stand-ins, who were becoming a little too +presumptuous of late.</p> + +<p>He had a plan in mind, vague, tentative, and subject to constant +revision to suit events as they might begin to occur. He kept the plan's +goal to himself, knowing that the Stand-ins would call it insane, +dangerous, impossible.</p> + +<p>"John! We're picking up their station!" a Stand-in called. "It's a +minute before time!"</p> + +<p>He left the window and walked calmly to the couch before the +televiewphone, whose screen had come alive with the kaleidoscope +patterns of the interference-station which sprang to life as soon as an +enemy station tried to broadcast.</p> + +<p>"Have the fools cut that scatter-station!" he barked angrily.</p> + +<p>A Stand-in grabbed at a microphone, but before he made the call the +interference stopped—a few seconds before the appointed time. The +screen revealed an empty desk and a wall behind, with a flag of the +Asian League. No one was in the picture, which was slightly blurred by +several relay stations, which had been set up on short notice for this +one broadcast.</p> + +<p>A wall-clock peeped the hour in a childish voice: "Sixteen o'clock, +Thirdday, Smithweek, also Accident-Prevention Week and Probe-Subversives +Week; Happy 2073! Peep!"</p> + +<p>A man walked into the picture and sat down, facing John Smith XVI. A +heavy-set man, clad in coveralls, and wearing a red rubber or plastic +helmet-mask. The mask was the face of the first Soviet dictator, dead +over a century ago. John's scalp bristled slightly beneath his own +golden headdress. He tried to relax. The room was hushed. The opposing +leaders stared at each other without speaking. Historic moment!</p> + +<p>Ivan Ivanovitch slowly lifted his hand and waved it in greeting. John +Smith returned the gesture, then summoned courage to speak first.</p> + +<p>"You have translators at hand?"</p> + +<p>"I need none," the red mask growled in the Western tongue. "You are +unable to speak my tongue. We shall speak yours."</p> + +<p>The President started. How could the Red know that he did not speak the +Russo-Asian dialect?</p> + +<p>"Very well." The President reached for a prepared text and began to +read. "I requested this conference in the hope of establishing some form +of contact between our peoples, through their duly constituted executive +authorities. I hope that we can agree on a series of conferences, aimed +eventually at a lessening of the tension between us. I do not propose +that we alter our respective positions, nor to change our physical +isolation from one another, except in the field of high-level diplomacy +and...."</p> + +<p>"Why?" grunted the Asian chieftain.</p> + +<p>John Smith XVI hesitated. The gutteral monosyllable had been toneless +and disinterested. The Red was going to draw him out, apparently. Very +well, he would be frank—for a time.</p> + +<p>"The answer should be evident, Peoplesfriend. I presume that your +government spends a respectable sum for armaments. My government does +likewise. The eventual aim should be economy...."</p> + +<p>"Is this a disarmament proposal?"</p> + +<p>The fellow was blunt. Smith cleared his throat. "Not at the present +time, Peoplesfriend. I hoped that eventually we might be able to +establish a mutual trust so that to some extent we could lessen the +burden...."</p> + +<p>"Stop talking Achesonian, President. What do you want?"</p> + +<p>The President went rigid. "Very well," he said sarcastically, "I propose +that we reduce military expenses by blowing the planet in half. The +halves can circle each other as satellite twins, and we'll have achieved +perfect isolation. It would seem more economical than the present +course."</p> + +<p>He apparently had sized-up the Peoplesfriend correctly. The man threw +back his masked head and laughed uproariously.</p> + +<p>"The Solomon solution!... ha ha!... Slice the baby in half!" the +Stalin-mask chuckled. Then he paused to grow sober. "Too bad we can't do +it, isn't it?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>John Smith sat stiffly waiting. Diplomacy was dead, and he had made a +mistake in trying to be polite. Diplomats were dead, and the art +forgotten. Poker-game protocol had to apply here, and it was really the +only sensible way: for two opponents to try to cheat each other honestly +and jovially. He was glad the Soviet Worker's Vicar had not responded to +his first politeness.</p> + +<p>"Anything else, Smith?"</p> + +<p>"We can discuss agenda later. What about the continued conferences?"</p> + +<p>"Suits me. I have nothing to lose. I am in a position to destroy you +anyway, a position I have occupied for several years. I have not cared +to do so, since you made no overt moves against us."</p> + +<p>A brief silence. Bluff? Smith wondered. Certainly bluff. On the other +hand, it would be interesting to see how far Ivan would brag.</p> + +<p>"I gather your atomic research has made rapid strides, for you to make +such a boast," Smith ventured.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. In fact, my predecessor had it curtailed and limited to +industrial applications. Our weapons program has become uni-directional, +and extremely inexpensive. I'll tell you about it sometime."</p> + +<p>Smith's flesh crawled. Something was wrong here. The Asian leader was +too much at his ease. His words meant nothing, of course. It had to be +lying noise; it could be nothing else. A meeting such as this was not +meant to communicate truth, but to discern an opponent's attitude and to +try to hide one's own.</p> + +<p>"Let it suffice to say," the Red leader went on, "that we know more +about you than you know about us. Our system has changed. A century ago, +our continent suffered a blight of dogmatism and senseless butchery such +as the world had never seen. Obviously, such conditions cannot endure. +They did not. There was strong reaction and revolution within the +framework of the old system. We have achieved a workable technological +aristocratism, based on an empirical approach to problems. We realize +that the final power is in the hands of the people—and I use that +archaic word in preference to your 'rabble'—"</p> + +<p>"Are you trying to convert me to something?" John Smith growled acidly.</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I'm telling you our position." He paused for a moment, then +inserted his fingertips under the edge of the mask. "Here is probably +the best way to tell you."</p> + +<p>The Red leader ripped off the mask, revealing an impassive Oriental face +with deepset black eyes and a glowering frown. The President sucked in +his breath. It was unthinkable, that a man should expose himself to ... +but then, that was what he was trying to prove wasn't it?</p> + +<p>He kicked a foot-switch to kill the microphone circuit, and spoke +quickly to the Stand-ins, knowing that the Asian could not see his lips +move behind the golden mask.</p> + +<p>"Is Security Section guarding against spy circuits?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, John."</p> + +<p>"Then quick, get out of the room, all of you! Join the Secondaries."</p> + +<p>"But John, it'll leave you fingered! If nine of us leave, they'll know +that the remaining one is—"</p> + +<p>"Get on your masks and get out! I'm going to take mine off."</p> + +<p>"But John—!"</p> + +<p>"Move, Subversive!"</p> + +<p>"You don't need to curse," the Stand-in muttered. The nine men, out of +the camera's field, donned golden helmets identical to Smith's, whistled +six notes to the audio-combination, then slipped out the thick steel +door as it clicked and came open.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Red was jeering at him quietly. "Afraid to take off your mask, +President? The rabble? Or your self-appointed Stand-ins? Which frightens +you, President—"</p> + +<p>John Smith plucked at a latch under his chin, and the golden headdress +came apart down the sides. He lifted it off and laid it casually aside, +revealing a hard, blocky face, slightly in need of a shave, with cool +blue eyes and blond brows. His hair was graying slightly at the temples, +with a fortyish hairline.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Red nodded. "Greetings, human. I doubted that you would."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" growled Smith.</p> + +<p>"Because you fear your Stand-ins, as appointees, not subject to your +'rabble'. Our ruling clique selects its own members, but they are +subject to popular approval or recall by referendum. I fear nothing from +them."</p> + +<p>"Let's not compare our domestic forms, Peoplesfriend."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to point out," the Asian continued calmly, "that your system +slipped into what it is without realizing it. A bad was allowed to grow +worse. We, however were reacting against unreasonableness and stupidity +within our own system. In the year 2001—"</p> + +<p>"I am aware of your history before the Big Silence. May we discuss +pertinent matters—?"</p> + +<p>The Asian stared at him sharply. The frown grew deeper. The black eyes +looked haughty. "If you <i>really</i> want to discuss something, John Smith, +suppose we arrange a personal meeting in a non-walled, neutral region? +Say, Antarctica?"</p> + +<p>John Smith XVI, unaccustomed to dealing without a mask, let surprise +fill his face before he caught himself. The Asian chuckled but said +nothing. The President studied the border of the teleview screen for a +moment.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to consider your proposal," he said dully.</p> + +<p>The Peoplesfriend nodded curtly, then suggested a time for the next +interview. Smith revised it ahead to gain more time, and agreement was +reached. The screen went blank; the interview was at an end. The +Sixteenth Smith took a slow, worried breath, then slowly donned the mask +of office again. He summoned the nine Primaries immediately.</p> + +<p>"That was dangerous, John," one of them warned him as they entered. "You +may regret it. They knew you were in here alone. We're not all identical +from the neck-down you know. When we come out, they might compare—"</p> + +<p>He cut the man off with a curt gesture. "No time. We're in a bad +situation. Maybe worse than I guess." He began pacing the floor and +staring down at the metallifiber rug as he spoke. "He knows more about +us than he should. It took me awhile to realize that he's speaking our +latest language variations. A language changes idiom in forty years, and +slang. He's got the latest phrases. 'Greetings, human' is one, like a +rabbleman says when somebody softens up."</p> + +<p>"Spies?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe a whole network. I don't see how they could get them through the +Wall, but—maybe it's not so hard. Antarctic's open, as he pointed out."</p> + +<p>"What can we do about it, John?"</p> + +<p>Smith stopped pacing, popped his knuckles hard, stared at them. +"Assemble Congress. Security-probe. It's the only answer. Let the +'Rabble's Parliament' run their own inquisition. They were always good +at purging themselves. Start a big spy-scare, and keep it in the +channels. I'll lead with a message to the rabble." He paused, the +tragedy mask gaping at them. "You won't like this, but I'm having the +Stand-ins probed too. The Presidency is not immune."</p> + +<p>A muttering of indignation. Some of them went white. No one protested +however.</p> + +<p>"No witch-hunt in this group, however," he assured them. "I'll veto +anything that looks unfair for the Primaries, but—" He paused and rang +the word again. "—<i>but</i>—there will be no leniency tolerated from here +on down. If Congress thinks it's found a spy, it can execute him on the +spot—and I won't lift a finger. This has got to be rooted out and +burned."</p> + +<p>He began to pace again. He began barking crisp orders for specific +details of the probe, or rather, for the campaign that would start the +probe. The rabble were better at witch-hunts than a government was. +Congress had not been assembled for fifteen years, since there had been +nothing suspicious to investigate, but once it was called to duty, heads +would roll—some of them literally. If some innocent people were hurt, +the rabble could only blame themselves, for their own enthusiasm in +ruthlessly searching out the underground enemy. Smith couldn't worry +about that. If an Asian spy-system were operating in the continent, it +had to be crushed quickly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When he had outlined the propaganda and string-pulling plans for them, +he turned to the other matter—the Red leader's boast of ability to +conquer the West.</p> + +<p>"It's probably foolish talk, but we don't know their present psychology. +Double production on our most impressive weapons. Give the +artificial-satellite program all the money it wants, and get them moving +on it. I want a missile-launching site in space before the end of the +year. Pay particular attention to depopulation weapons for use against +industrial areas. We may have to strike in a hurry. We've been +fools—coasting this way, feeling secure behind the Wall."</p> + +<p>"You're <i>not</i> contemplating another peace-effort, John?" gasped an +elderly Stand-in.</p> + +<p>"I'm contemplating survival!" the leader snapped. "I don't know that +we're in serious danger, but if it takes a peace-effort to make sure, +then we'll start one. So fast it'll knock out their industry before they +know we've hit them." He stood frozen for a moment, the mask lifted +proudly erect. "By Ike, I love the West! And it's not going to suffer +any creeping eruption while I'm at its head!"</p> + +<p>When the President had finished and was ready to leave, the others +started donning their masks again.</p> + +<p>"Just a minute," he grunted. "Number Six."</p> + +<p>One of the men, about the President's size and build, looked up quickly. +"Yes, John?"</p> + +<p>"Your cloak is stained at the left shoulder. Grease?"</p> + +<p>Six inspected it curiously, then nodded. "I was inspecting a machine +shop, and—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. Trade cloaks with me."</p> + +<p>"Why, if—" Six stopped. His face lost color. "But the others—might +have—"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>Six unclasped it slowly and handed it to the Sixteenth Smith, accepting +the President's in return. His face was set in rigid lines, but he made +no further protest.</p> + +<p>Masked and prepared, a Stand-in whistled a tune to the door, which had +changed its combination since the last time. The tumblers clicked, and +they walked out into a large auditorium containing two hundred Secondary +Stand-ins, all wearing the official mask.</p> + +<p>If a Secondary ever wanted to assassinate the President, one shot would +give him a single chance in ten as they filed through the door.</p> + +<p>"Mill about!" bellowed a Sergeant-at-Arms, and the two hundred began +wandering among themselves in the big room, a queer porridge, stirred +clumsily but violently. The Primaries and the President lost themselves +in the throng. For ten minutes the room milled and circulated.</p> + +<p>"Unmask!" bellowed the crier.</p> + +<p>The two hundred and ten promptly removed their helmets and placed them +on the floor. The President was unmasked and unknown—unmarked except by +a certain physical peculiarity that could be checked only by a +physician, in case the authenticity of the presidential person was +challenged, as it frequently was.</p> + +<p>Then the Secondaries went out to lose themselves in a larger throng of +Tertiaries, and the group split randomly to take the various underground +highways to their homes.</p> + +<p>The President entered his house in the suburbs of Dia City, hugged the +children, and kissed his wife.</p> + +<p>John Smith was profoundly disturbed. During the years of the Big +Silence, a feeling of uneasy security had evolved. The Federation had +been in isolation too long, and the East had become a mysterious +unknown. The Presidency had oscillated between suspicious unease and +smug confidence, depending perhaps upon the personality of the +particular president more than anything else. The mysteriousness of the +foe had been used politically to good advantage by every president +selected to office, and the Sixteenth Smith had intended to so use it. +But now he vaguely regretted it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The tenure of office was still four years, and he could not help feeling +that if he had maintained the intercontinental silence, he would not +have had to worry about the spy-matter. If the hemisphere had been +infiltrated, the subversive work had not begun yesterday. It had +probably been going on for years, during several administrations, and +the plans of the East, if any, would perhaps not come to a climax for +several more years. He felt himself in the position of a man who +suffered no pain as yet, but learned that he had an incurable disease. +Why did he have to find out?</p> + +<p>But now that the danger was apparent, he had to go ahead and fight it +instead of allowing it to pass on to the next John Smith.</p> + +<p>He made a stirring speech to Congress when it convened. The cowled +figures of the people's representatives sat like gloomy gray shadows in +the tiers of seats around the great amphitheatre under the night sky; +the symbolic torches threw fluttering black shadows among their ranks. +The sight always made him shiver. Their cowls and robes had been +affected during the last great peace-effort, at which time they had been +impregnated with lead to protect against bomb-radiation, but the garb of +office had endured for ceremonial reasons.</p> + +<p>There was still a Senate and a House, the former acting chiefly as an +investigating body, the latter serving a legislative function in +accordance with the rabble-code, which no longer applied to the +Executive, being chiefly concerned with matters of rabble morals and +police-functions. Its duties could mostly be handled by mail and +televiewphone voting, so that it seldom convened in the physical sense.</p> + +<p>President John quoted freely from the Declaration of Independence, the +Gettysburg Address, the MacArthur Speech to Congress, and the immortal +words of the first John Smith in his <i>Shall We Submit?</i> which began: "If +thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughters, or thy +wife, or thy friend whom thou lovest, would persuade thee secretly, +saying, 'Let us go and serve strange gods', neither let thy eyes spare +him nor conceal him, but thou shalt presently put him to death!"</p> + +<p>The speech was televised to the rabble, and for that matter, one of the +Stand-ins delivered the actual address to protect the President who was +present on the platform among the ranks of Primaries and Secondaries, +although not even these officials were aware of it. The address was +honestly an emotional one, not bothering with any attempt at logical +analysis. None was needed. Congress was always eager to investigate +subversion. It was good political publicity, and about the only +congressional activity that could command public attention and interest. +The cheers were rousing and prolonged. When it was over, the Speaker and +the President of the Senate both made brief addresses to set the +machinery in motion.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>John Smith watched the proceedings with deep satisfaction. But as time +wore on, he began to wonder how many spies were truly being apprehended. +Among the many thousands who were brought to justice, only sixty-nine +actually confessed to espionage, and over half of them, upon being +subjected to psychiatric examination, proved to be neurotic +publicity-seekers who would have confessed to anything sufficiently +dramatic. Twenty-seven of them were psychiatrically cleared, but even +so, their stories broke down when questioned under hypnosis or hypnotic +drugs, except for seven who, although constantly maintaining their +guilt, could not substantiate one another's claims, nor furnish any +evidence which might lead to the discovery of a well-organized espionage +network. John Smith was baffled.</p> + +<p>He was particularly baffled by the disappearance of seventeen men in key +positions, who, upon being mentioned as possible candidates for the +probe, immediately vanished into thin air, leaving no trace. It seemed +to Smith, upon reading the individual reports, that many of them would +have been absolved before their cases got beyond the deputy level, so +flimsy were the accusations made against them. But they had not waited +to find out. Two were obviously guilty of <i>something</i>. One had murdered +a deputy who came to question him, then fled in a private plane, last +seen heading out to sea. He had apparently run out of fuel over the +ocean and crashed. The second man, an ordnance officer at the proving +ground, had spectacularly committed suicide by exploding an atomic +artillery shell, vaporizing himself and certain key comrades including +his superior officer.</p> + +<p>Here, the President felt, was something really ominous. The +disappearances and the suicides spelled careful discipline and planning. +Their records had been impeccable. The accusations seemed absurd. If +they were agents, they had done nothing but sit in their positions and +wait for an appointed time. The possibilities were frightening, but +evidence was inconclusive and led nowhere. Nevertheless, the +house-cleaning continued.</p> + +<p>On Fourthday of Traffic Safety Week, which was also Eat More +Corn-Popsies Week, John Smith XVI conferred with Ivan Ivanovitch IX +again at the appointed time. Contrary to all traditions, he again +ordered the Stand-ins—temporarily eight in number, since Number Six had +died mysteriously in the bathtub—to leave the study so that he might +unmask. Promptly at sixteen o'clock the Asian's face—or rather his +ceremonial mask—came on the screen. But seeing the Westerner's +square-cut visage smiling at him sourly, he promptly removed the +covering to reveal his Oriental face. The exchange of greetings was +curt.</p> + +<p>"I see by recent events," said Ivan, "that you are nervous on your +throne. For the sake of your own people, let me warn you that we have no +designs on your autonomy unless you become aggressive toward us. The +real difficulty, as revealed by your purge, is that you feel insecure, +and insecurity makes you unpredictable. I do not, of course, expect you +to be trustworthy. But insecurity sometimes breeds impulsiveness. If you +are to strike out blindly, perhaps the talks had best be broken off."</p> + +<p>Smith XVI reddened angrily but held his temper. The man's presumption +was intolerable. Further, he knew about the probe, knowledge which could +only come from espionage.</p> + +<p>"I have become aware," the President said firmly, "that you have managed +to establish a spy-system on this continent. If you wish better +relations, you will have the activity stop at once."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're talking about," said the Peoplesfriend with a +bland smile. "I might point out however that at least forty of your +spies are either killed while trying to cross the Wall, or are +apprehended after they manage to enter my regime."</p> + +<p>"The accusation is too ridiculous to deny," Smith lied. "We have no +desire to pry into your activities. We wish only to maintain the status +quo."</p> + +<p>The exchange continued, charges and countercharges and denials. Neither +side expected truth or honesty, and the game was as old as civilization. +Neither expected to be believed, although the press of both nations +would heatedly condemn the other's lack of good faith. The ethical side +of the affair was for the rabble to consider, for only the rabble cared +about such things. The real task was to ferret out the enemy's attitudes +and intentions without revealing one's own.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Smith felt that he had won a little, and lost a little too. He had found +many hints of subversive activity, but had betrayed his own lack of +certainty by reacting so swiftly to it. Ivan IX, on the other hand, +seemed too much at ease, too secure, and even impertinent.</p> + +<p>"At our last meeting," said the Asian, "I suggested a meeting between +ourselves. Have you given thought to the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I have given it thought," said the President, "and will agree to the +proposal provided you come to this country. The meeting will be held at +my capitol."</p> + +<p>"Which you change at random intervals, I notice," purred Ivan with a +bland smile. "For security reasons?"</p> + +<p>"You could only know that by espionage!" Smith snapped.</p> + +<p>"Your proposal of course is outrageous. The only sensible place for the +meeting is in Singapore."</p> + +<p>"That is out of the question. I must insist on the capitol of my +government as the only acceptable meeting-place. My government in +contacting yours put itself in the position of extending an invitation, +a position from which we could not depart without loss of dignity."</p> + +<p>"I suggest we delay the matter then," grunted the Peoplesfriend. "And +talk about the agenda for such a meeting. What did you have in mind?"</p> + +<p>"I have already stated our general aims as being a reduction of armament +expenses, beneficial to both sides. I think you agree?"</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily, since our budget is already rather low. However, make +your specific proposals, and I shall consider them. Further economy, +where not injurious to security, is always desirable."</p> + +<p>"I propose, then, that we discuss a method whereby agreement might be +reached on a plan to divulge the nature of our respective armaments, +including number, nature, and purpose of each weapon-class, as a +foundation for discussions relating to reductions."</p> + +<p>Smith waited for a flat "no" to the suggestion. The Asian leader +apparently knew a great deal more about the West's armaments than Smith +knew about the East. The Peoplesfriend had nothing to gain by revealing +the military strength of his own hemisphere. But he paused, watching +Smith with an expressionless stare.</p> + +<p>"I accept that for further consideration, at least," Ivan said at last.</p> + +<p>John XVI hovered between elation and suspicion. Suspicion won. "Of +course there must be some method to assure that accurate figures are +divulged."</p> + +<p>"That could probably be settled."</p> + +<p>Again the President was shocked. It was all too easy. Something was +rotten about the whole thing. The Peoplesfriend agreed too readily to +things that seemed to be to his disadvantage. The discussion continued +for several hours, during which both men presented viewpoints and +postponed agreement until a later meeting.</p> + +<p>"Stockpiles of fissionable material," said the President, "which could +quickly be converted to weapons use should also be discussed."</p> + +<p>Ivan frowned. "I mentioned before that we have no need of atomic +armaments, nor any plans for building them. Our defense is secured by +something entirely different, a weapon which serves an industrial +function in time of peace, and a weapon which I might add was largely +responsible for our abandoning Marxism. A single discovery, Andrei +Sorkin's, made communist doctrine not only a wrong solution, but a wrong +solution to a problem that had ceased to exist."</p> + +<p>"What problem are you referring to?"</p> + +<p>"The use of human beings as automatic devices in a corporate +machine—the social-structure of industry, in which the worker was +caught and bolted down and expected to perform a single, highly +specialized task. That of course, is almost a definition of the word +'proletarian'. We no longer have a true proletariat. For that reason, we +are no longer Marxist—although the name 'communist' has survived with +its meaning changed."</p> + +<p>The conference ended after setting the time for another meeting. John +Smith XVI felt that he had been groping in the dark, because of the +information-vacuum that kept him from even making a reasonable guess as +to Ivan's real aims. He kept feeling vaguely that Ivan was just playing +along, reacting according to the opportunity of the moment, not +particularly caring what Smith did next. But leaders of states just did +not proceed so carelessly—not unless they were fools, or unless they +were supremely confident in the ultimate outcome.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The intelligence service analysis of his latest conversation with Ivan +gave him something to think about later however. Andrei Sorkin had been +a physicist who had done considerable work in crystal-structure before +the Big Silence had cut off knowledge of his activities from the West. +Further, the Peoplesfriend's references to industrial usage, coupled +with his remarks about specialized labor, seemed to suggest that the +East had made great strides in servo-mechanisms and auto-control +devices. But control devices were not weapons in themselves. Electronic +rocket-pilots were not weapons unless there were rockets for them to +fly. Automatic target-trackers were not weapons unless they guided a +weapon to shoot at the target. It made little sense; he concluded that +Ivan had not meant it to make much sense. Smith could only interpret it +as meaning: "Our weapons are marvelously controlled; therefore we need +fewer of them."</p> + +<p>On the probe front, events were about as usual. The lists of suspects +and convictions grew bulky enough to keep a large office staff busy with +details. More sinister, in the President's judgment, was the small list +of suspects who vanished or committed suicide at the slightest hint of +suspicion. The list grew at a slow but steady pace. John assumed that +these were certainly guilty. And thorough, searching inquiries into +their past activities were made. These post mortem probes revealed +nothing. Their records were clean. Their families, friends, relatives, +and even their ancestors were above suspicion. If they had sold out to +the enemy, they had given him nothing in return for his wages except +perhaps a promise to be fulfilled on a Deadline Day.</p> + +<p>He called the Secretary of Defense and demanded a screening procedure be +adopted for future personnel, a procedure which would be aimed at +selecting men with fanatic loyalty, rather than merely guarding against +treason.</p> + +<p>"We seem to already have something," murmured the Secretary, a slender, +graying gentleman with aristocratic features. "The incidents at the +satellite-project seem to indicate that there's something they don't +like about our ordinary testing methods."</p> + +<p>"Eh? How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Three men—volunteers for the project—vanished as soon as they found +out that they had to submit to all the physicals, mental tests, and so +forth. I don't know what they were afraid of. They were already on the +reservation. Found out they'd have to be tested again, and vanished. One +a known suicide, but the body's still in the river."</p> + +<p>"'Tested <i>again</i>'?" the President echoed.</p> + +<p>"That's right, John. They'd gone through it before. This was just a +recheck for this particular project. Of course, I don't <i>know</i> that they +were agents."</p> + +<p>"Mmm! So they can't stand a recheck. All right, recheck everybody."</p> + +<p>"John! A third of the population works for the government!"</p> + +<p>"I mean everybody connected with new projects, the most important +installations. This might be a weapon for us."</p> + +<p>When he received the Secretary's report a week later, John grinned +happily. The rechecks had begun, and the disappearances were mounting. +But the grin faded when he read the rest of it. Two of the men had been +caught attempting to escape. They had been lodged in a local jail to +await transfer to the capitol. During the night, the jailer became aware +of a blinding light from the cell-blocks and the stench of burnt organic +matter. By the time he reached their cells, the men were gone, and there +were only sickening fumes, charred ashes, and a pair of red-hot patches +on the floor. Somehow they had gotten incendiary materials into their +cells, and the cremation was complete—too complete to be credible.</p> + +<p>Then the disappearances began to taper off—until finally, after a few +weeks, they ceased completely. He wondered: were the culprits all +ferreted out, or had some of them managed to get around the rechecks?</p> + +<p>He had spoken to the Asian leader several times, and Ivan was growing +curt, even bitingly nasty at times. The President hopefully interpreted +it as a sign that his probe was successful enough to worry the Red. He +tried to strengthen his position with respect to the proposed +conferences, and made only minor concessions such as agreeing to a +coastal city in Mexico as the site, rather than the shifting capitol. +Ivan sneeringly made equally minute adjustments eastward from Singapore. +There was apparently going to be a deadlock, and John was somehow not +sorry.</p> + +<p>Then the cold-eyed face on the screen did an abrupt about-face, and +announced, "I propose that the delegates, including the leaders of both +states, meet at a site of your selection in either of the neutral polar +regions, not later than Seventhday of Veto Week—which, I think is your +Fried Pie Week?—and come prepared to discuss and exchange information +relating to size of armament-inventories and future plans. This is my +last proposal."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They stared at each other coldly. John started to utter a refusal, then +paused. Seventhday of ... it was one day before the satellite program +began moving into space. If he could keep the Eastern Leader tied up for +a few weeks afterwards—</p> + +<p>"I'll consider your proposal and give you a reply tomorrow," he said +bluntly.</p> + +<p>The Peoplesfriend gave him a curt nod and clicked off the screen. John +chuckled. The enemy's espionage program was evidently getting badly +hurt. About one percent of the West's population had been executed, +imprisoned, or shifted to other jobs as a result of the congressional +probe. The one percent probably included quite a few guilty citizens.</p> + +<p>"Rodner, I want a Strike-Day set, a full-scale blitz-operation readied +as soon as possible," he told the defense-chief. "I know that a lot of +your target information is forty years old, but work out the best plan +you can. A depopulation strike, perhaps; there are only two opinions in +the world, so 'world-opinion' is not one of the things we need to +consider."</p> + +<p>The Defense Secretary caught his breath and sat stiffly erect. "War?" he +gasped.</p> + +<p>"Don't use that word."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, peace-effort."</p> + +<p>"No. At least I hope not. I want a gun aimed at them as a bargaining +point. But I want it to be a damned <i>big</i> gun, and one that's capable of +shattering every major city in the East on a few hours' notice. How +effective could you make it—if you had to?"</p> + +<p>The Secretary frowned doubtfully and tugged at his ear. "Well, John, our +strategic command has kept a running plan in effect, revising it to +allow for every tidbit of information we can get. Planning continental +blitzes is a favorite past-time around high-level strategic commands; it +keeps the boys in trim. A plan could probably be agreed upon in a very +short time, but its nature would depend on your earliest deadline date."</p> + +<p>"Two dates," grunted the tragedy-mask. "The first is Seventhday, Fried +Pie Week. I want a maximum possible effort readied by then, with a plan +that allows for a possible stand-by at that date, and a continued +build-up to a greater maximum—to be reached when the satellite station +is in space and ready for battle. Include the station in the extended +plan."</p> + +<p>"This is a very dangerous business, John."</p> + +<p>The mask whirled. "Do you presume to—?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir. The strike-effort will be prepared as soon as possible." He +bowed slightly, then left the presidential study-vault.</p> + +<p>Smith turned to gaze at his Stand-ins. "You will go," he said, "all of +you, to the examining authorities for the standard loyalty tests and +psych-phys rechecks."</p> + +<p>The nine masked figures glanced at one another in surprise, then nodded. +There were no protests. The following day he had only seven Stand-ins; +Four and Eight had been trapped in a burning building on the outskirts +of the rabble city, and their remains had not been found.</p> + +<p>Smith kept a tight cork on his rage, but it seethed inside him and +threatened to burn through as the time approached to speak again with +Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The enemy's infiltration into the very ranks of the +Presidency robbed him even of dignity. Furthermore, now that the two +scoundrels were uncovered, and dead, he remembered a very unpleasant but +significant fact: he had, even before his "election" by the rabble, +discussed the televiewphone conferences with the Primaries. The idea of +contacting Ivan had started, as most ideas start, from some small seed +or other that could scarcely be remembered, some off-hand reference to +the costly aspects of the Big Silence perhaps, and it had grown into the +plan for contact. <i>But how</i> had the idea first come to him? Had one of +the guilty Stand-ins perhaps planted the seed in his mind? <i>After</i> he +proposed it, they had seemed demurring at first, but not too long.</p> + +<p>Grimly, he realized that the idea might have originated on the far side +of the Pacific.</p> + +<p>"Who, pray, is the potter, and who the pot?" he grunted, glowering at +the nearest Stand-in.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?" answered the man, who could not see the glower for +the mask.</p> + +<p>"Khayyam, you fool!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Sixteen o'clock!</i>" cheeped the timepiece on the wall. "<i>Fifthday, +Anti-Rabies Week, Practice-Eugenics Week; Happy 2073; Peep!</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ivan came on the screen, but John did not bother to remove his mask. He +sat down quickly and began speaking before any greeting could be +exchanged.</p> + +<p>"I have decided to accept your last proposal. I specify the meeting +place as the deserted weather station at the old settlement of Tharviana +in the Byrd-Ellsworth Sector of Antarctica. Date to be Seventhday of +Fried Pie Week. Advance cadres of personnel from both sides should meet +at the site two weeks earlier to make repairs and preparations. Do you +agree?"</p> + +<p>Ivan nodded impatiently, his dark eyes watching the President closely. +Smith went on to suggest limits for the size of both cadres, their +equipment, and the kind of transportation. Ivan made only one +suggestion: that the details, such as permissible arms and standards of +conduct, be left to the cadre commanders to settle between themselves +before the leaders' parties arrived.</p> + +<p>"Your continual espionage activities," Smith said coldly, "do not +recommend your government as one to be trusted in the matter of +agreements without guarantees. My cadre commander will be instructed as +to details."</p> + +<p>The Asian grunted. "You speak of trust, yet violate it in advance by +preparing an assault against us."</p> + +<p>They glared at each other. After a few more words, the conversation +ended abruptly, and the matter was tentatively settled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was Antarctic Summer. The sun lay low in the north, but clouds +threatened to obscure it, and a forbidding coastline hulked under the +ugly sky. A small group of ships sulked to the east, and watched another +group that sulked to the west. Two rows of buoys marked an ice-free +strip across the choppy face of the sea.</p> + +<p>A speck appeared in the north, grew larger, became a giant sea-plane. It +circled once, then swooped majestically down between the rows of buoys, +its atomic-fired jets breathing heat over the water. It slid between +streamers of spray until slowly it came to a coasting halt and rode on +the rise and the fall of the sea. A section of its back rolled open. It +pushed a helicopter up into view. The helicopter unfolded its rotors, +spun them, then climbed lazily aloft like a beetle that had ridden the +eagle. It soared, and travelled inland. The sea-plane taxied west to +join one group of ships.</p> + +<p>The helicopter landed near a long, windowless concrete building which +lay in the shadow of an old control-tower's skeleton. The tower was +twisted awry, and the concrete was pock-marked by shrapnel or bullets +dating back to one of the peace-efforts. The President, two Stand-ins, +and the pilot climbed from the helicopter. A small detachment of troops +presented arms. The cadre commander, a major general, approached the +delegation formally, gave it a salute, and took the President's hand.</p> + +<p>"The Peoplesfriend is already in the conference hall, Sir, with several +of his aides. Do you wish to enter now, or—"</p> + +<p>"Where are their troops?"</p> + +<p>"Over there, Sir. As you know, we could not agree to completely disarm +the site. Only inside the building itself."</p> + +<p>"Any unpleasantness?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. Their men are well-disciplined."</p> + +<p>"Then let's go and get started. I assume that you're in constant contact +with the capitol?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir. Televiewphone relay chain all the way up."</p> + +<p>John looked around. The Peoplesfriend's helicopter was parked not far +away, and beyond it stood a platoon of the Peoplesfriend's troops, +lightly armed as his own.</p> + +<p>An Asian and a Western guard flanked the entrance to the building, but +their only weapons were police-clubs. The party entered slowly and stood +for a moment just inside the heavy door that swung closed behind them. +John Smith removed his mask.</p> + +<p>"Greetings, human."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The dull voice called it from the far end of the gloomy hall where Ivan +Ivanovitch IX sat facing him, flanked by a pair of aides, at a long, +plain table. John Smith XVI advanced with dignity toward him. Curt bows +were exchanged, but no handshakes. The Western delegation took their +seats.</p> + +<p>John nudged the Stand-in on his right, who immediately opened a +portfolio to extract a sheaf of papers.</p> + +<p>"Would you care to exchange prepared statements to begin with?" Smith +asked coolly.</p> + +<p>"We have no—" The Peoplesfriend stopped, smirked coldly at his deputies +but continued to frown. He peered thoughtfully at his huge knuckles for +a moment, then nodded slowly. "A statement—<i>yes</i>."</p> + +<p>John slid a section of the sheaf of papers to the Peoplesfriend. The Red +leader ignored them, spoke to a deputy curtly.</p> + +<p>"Give me a sheet of paper."</p> + +<p>The deputy fumbled in a thin briefcase, shook his head and muttered. +Finally he found a dog-eared sheet with only a few lines typed across +the top. He glanced questioningly at his leader. Ivan snatched it with a +low grunt, tore off the good half, produced a stubby, gnawed pencil, and +wrote slowly as if his hands were cramped with arthritis. John could see +the big block-letters but not the words.</p> + +<p>"My prepared statement," said the Peoplesfriend.</p> + +<p>With that he pushed the scrap of paper across the table. John stared, +and felt the blood leaving his face. The prepared statement said:</p> + +<p><i>I VETO YOU.</i></p> + +<p>"Is this a joke?" he growled, keeping his voice calm. "You cannot mean +that you reject proposals before they are made? I fail to see the humor +in—"</p> + +<p>"There is no humor."</p> + +<p>John pushed back his chair, glanced at his men. "Gentlemen, it would +appear that we have come to the bottom of the world for nothing. I think +we had better retire to discuss—"</p> + +<p>"Sit down," the Asian growled.</p> + +<p>"Why—" The President stopped. One of the Red deputies had produced a +gun. He sat, and stared coldly at the eastern leader. "Have your man +dispose of that weapon. This is a conference table."</p> + +<p>The Peoplesfriend grunted an order to the other deputy instead. "Search +them."</p> + +<p>"Stay back," Smith droned. "I can kill you all quite easily."</p> + +<p>The deputy hesitated. The leader started laughing, then checked it. "May +I ask how?"</p> + +<p>John smiled. "Stay back, or you will find out too quickly." He unzipped +his heavy Arctic clothing, removed a heavy container, shaped to conform +to his chest, and laid it on the table. A cord ran from the container +into his sleeve.</p> + +<p>The Peoplesfriend laughed. "High explosives? You would not set them off. +However—Jacob, let them keep their weapons. This will be over shortly."</p> + +<p>They glared at each other for a moment.</p> + +<p>"There is no conference?"</p> + +<p>"There is no conference."</p> + +<p>"Then why this farce?"</p> + +<p>The eastern leader wore a tight smile. He glanced at his watch, began +counting backwards: "Seven, six, five, four—"</p> + +<p>When he reached zero, there was a long pause; then a sharp whistle from +outside.</p> + +<p>"Your men are now disarmed," said the Asian. "Your cadre commander is +ours."</p> + +<p>"Impossible! The recheck—"</p> + +<p>"He joined us since the recheck. Further, three of your televiewphone +stations in the relay chain are ours, and are relaying recorded +broadcasts prepared especially for the purpose."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Asian shrugged. "In addition, your entire defense system will be in +our hands within six days—while your nation imagines that we are here +conferring on disarmament."</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous!" the President sputtered. "No system of infiltration or +subversion could—"</p> + +<p>"Your people were not subverted, Smith. They were merely replaced by +ours. Your two Stand-ins, for instance, the ones that died in the fire. +They were not the original men."</p> + +<p>"You could not possibly find exact doubles—" Something about the +Asian's smile made his voice taper off.</p> + +<p>He picked up the container of explosives and prepared to rise. "I am +going to walk out. And you are going with me. We will return in a +helicopter to my plane. Let me explain this mechanism. I have no control +over the detonator, for it is not a suicide device. The detonator can be +triggered only by either of two events."</p> + +<p>"Which are?" The Peoplesfriend was smiling.</p> + +<p>"The relay would be closed by a sudden drop in my arterial pressure. Or +by an attempt to remove it without knowing how. I am going out, and you +are going with me."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I am about to reach in my pocket and produce a gun. Your deputy +cannot shoot without blasting a fifty-foot crater where this building +now rests." Gingerly, while he watched the wavering deputy, he made good +the promise. He kept the snub-nosed automatic aimed at the easterner's +belly.</p> + +<p>But the Peoplesfriend continued to smile. "May I say something before we +<i>go</i>?"</p> + +<p>There was a sour mockery about it that made Smith pause. He nodded +slowly.</p> + +<p>"I hoped to keep you here alive, so that we would not have to destroy +the whole mission, including the ships. Of course, when the building is +blown up, your little fleet will see and hear and try to respond, and we +shall have to destroy it before word can be gotten to your capital. Our +plans included that possibility, but it is unfortunate."</p> + +<p>"Our aircraft will—"</p> + +<p>"You do not seem to realize the nature of our weapons yet. And there is +no harm in telling you now, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"We have a microscopic crystalline relay, so small that millions of them +can be packed into a few cubic inches. The crystals are minute +tetrahedrons, with each pointed corner an electrical contact. And there +is a method for arranging them in circuits without individual attention +to each connection. It involves certain techniques in electro-plating +and the growing of crystals."</p> + +<p>Smith glanced questioningly at one of his Stand-ins, a weapons expert. +The man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I can see," he muttered, "how it might replace a lot of bulky circuit +elements in some electronics work—particularly computers and +servo-mechanisms—but—"</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Ivan, "We have built many so-called 'thinking-machines' +no larger than a human brain."</p> + +<p>"For self-piloting weapons, I suppose?" asked the Stand-in.</p> + +<p>"For self-piloting weapons."</p> + +<p>"I fail to see how this could do what you seem to think."</p> + +<p>The Peoplesfriend snorted. "Jacob—?" He nodded to the deputy, who +immediately fumbled in his pocket, found a penknife, opened it, and +handed it to Ivan.</p> + +<p>He laid his finger on the table. He cut it off at the second joint with +the penknife. There was no blood. Flesh of soft plastic. Tendons of +nylon. Bones of bakelite.</p> + +<p>"Our leader," the robot said, "is still in Singapore."</p> + +<p>The President looked at the robot and a great, weariness swept over him. +Suddenly it all seemed futile—a senseless game, played by madmen, +dancing over countless graves—playing tag among the tombstones.</p> + +<p>Check and checkmate. But always there was a way out. Never a final move. +Life eternal and with life, the eternal plotting and scheming. And never +a final victor.</p> + +<p>Almost regretfully, the President turned his mind back to the affair at +hand.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Check and Checkmate, by Walter Miller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHECK AND CHECKMATE *** + +***** This file should be named 32837-h.htm or 32837-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/3/32837/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Check and Checkmate + +Author: Walter Miller + +Illustrator: TOM BEECHAM + +Release Date: June 16, 2010 [EBook #32837] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHECK AND CHECKMATE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + CHECK and CHECKMATE + + By WALTER MILLER, Jr. + + Illustrated by TOM BEECHAM + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _Victory hinges not always on the mightiest sword, but often +on lowly subterfuge. Here is a classic example, with the Western World +as stooge!_] + + +John Smith XVI, new President of the Western Federation of Autonomous +States, had made a number of campaign promises that nobody really +expected him to fulfill, for after all, the campaign and the election +were only ceremonies, and the President--who had no real name of his +own--had been trained for the executive post since birth. He had been +elected by a popular vote of 603,217,954 to 130, the dissenters casting +their negative by announcing that, for the sake of national unity, they +refused to participate in any civilized activities during the +President's term, whereupon they were admitted (voluntarily) to the camp +for conscientious objectors. + +But now, two weeks after his inauguration, he seemed ready to make good +the first and perhaps most difficult promise of the lot: to confer by +televiewphone with Ivan Ivanovitch the Ninth, the Peoplesfriend and +Vicar of the Asian Proletarian League. The President apparently meant to +keep to himself the secret of his success in the difficult task of +arranging the interview in spite of the lack of any diplomatic contact +between the nations, in spite of the Hell Wall, and the interference +stations which made even radio communication impossible between the two +halves of the globe. Someone had suggested that John Smith XVI had +floated a note to Ivan IX in a bottle, and the suggestion, though +ludicrous, seemed not at all unlikely. + +John XVI seemed quite pleased with himself as he sat with his staff of +Primary Stand-ins in the study of his presidential palace. His face, of +course, was invisible behind the golden mask of the official helmet, the +mask of tragedy with its expression of pathos symbolizing the +self-immolation of public service--as well as protecting the President's +own personal visage from public view, and hence from assassination in +unmasked private life, for not only was he publicly nameless, but also +publicly faceless and publicly unknown as an individual. But despite the +invisibility of his expression, his contentment became apparent by a +certain briskness of gesticulation and a certain smugness in his voice +as he spoke to the nine Stand-ins who were also bodyguards, +council-members, and advisors to the chief executive. + +"Think of it, men," he sighed happily in his smooth tenor, slightly +muffled by the mask. "Communication with the East--after forty years of +the Big Silence. A great moment in history, perhaps the greatest since +the last peace-effort." + +The nine men nodded dutifully. The President looked around at them and +chuckled. + +"'Peace-effort'," he echoed, spitting the words out distinctly as if +they were a pair of phonetic specimens. "Do you remember what it used to +be called--in the middle of the last century?" + +A brief silence, then a Stand-in frowned thoughtfully. "Called it 'war', +didn't they, John?" + +"Precisely." The golden helmet nodded crisply. "'War'--and now +'peace-effort'. Our semantics has progressed. Our present +'security-probe' was once called 'lynch'. 'Social-security' once meant a +limited insurance plan, not connoting euthanasia and sterilization for +the ellie-moes. And that word 'ellie-moe'--once eleemosynary--was once +applied to institutions that took _care_ of the handicapped." + +He waited for the burst of laughter to subside. A Stand-in, still +chuckling, spoke up. + +"It's our institutions that have evolved, John." + +"True enough," the President agreed. "But as they changed, most of them +kept their own names. Like 'the Presidency'. It used to be +rabble-chosen, as our ceremonies imply. Then the Qualifications +Amendment that limited it to the psychologically fit. And then the +Education Amendment prescribed other qualifying rules. And the Genetic +Amendment, and the Selection Amendment, and finally the seclusion and +depersonalization. Until it gradually got out of the rabble's hands, +except symbolically." He paused. "Still, it's good to keep the old +names. As long as the names don't change, the rabble is happy, and say, +'We have preserved the Pan-American way of life'." + +"While the rabble is really impotent," added a Stand-in. + +"Don't say that!" John Smith XVI snapped irritably, sitting quickly +erect on the self-conforming couch. "And if you believe it, you're a +fool." His voice went sardonic. "Why don't you try abolishing me and +find out?" + +"Sorry, John. I didn't mean--" + + * * * * * + +The President stood up and paced slowly toward the window where he stood +gazing between the breeze-stirred drapes at the sun-swept city of +Acapulco and at the breakers rolling toward the distant beach. + +"No, my power is of the rabble," he confessed, "and I am their friend." +He turned to look at them and laugh. "Should I build my power on men +like you? Or the Secondary Stand-ins? Baa! For all your securities, you +are still stooges. Of the rabble. Do you obey me because I control +military force? Or because I control rabble? The latter I think. For +despite precautions, military forces can be corrupted. Rabble cannot. +They rule you through me, and I rule you through them. And I am their +servant because I have to be. No tyrant can survive by oppression." + +A gloomy hush followed his words. It was still fourteen minutes before +time for the televiewphone contact with Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The +President turned back to the "window". He stared "outside" until he grew +tired of the view. He pressed a button on the wall. The window went +black. He pressed another button, which brought another view: Pike's +Peak at sunset. As the sky gathered gray twilight, he twisted a dial and +ran the sun back up again. + +The palace was built two hundred feet underground, and the study was a +safe with walls of eight-inch steel. It lent a certain air of security. + +The historic moment was approaching. The Stand-ins seemed nervous. What +changes had occurred behind the Hell Wall, what new developments in +science, what political mutations? Only rumors came from beyond the +Wall, since the last big peace-effort which had ended in stalemate and +total isolation. The intelligence service did the best that it could, +but the picture was fuzzy and incomplete. There was still "communism", +but the word's meaning had apparently changed. It was said that the +third Ivan had been a crafty opportunist but also a wise man who, +although he did nothing to abolish absolutism, effected a bloody +reformation in which the hair-splitting Marxist dogmatics had been +purged. He appointed the most pragmatic men he could find to succeed +them, and set the whole continental regime on the road to a harsh but +practical utilitarian civilization. + +A slogan had leaked across the Wall recently: "There is no God but a +Practical Man; there is no Law but a Best Solution," and it seemed to +affirm that the third Ivan's influence had continued after his +passing--although the slogan itself was a dogma. And it might mean +something quite non-literal to the people who spoke it. The rabble of +the West were still stirred to deep emotion by a thing that began, "When +in the course of human events--" and they saw nothing incongruous about +Tertiary Stand-ins who quoted it in the name of the Federation's rule. + +But the unknown factor that disturbed the President most was not the +present Asian political or economic situation, but rather, the state of +scientific development, particularly as it applied to military matters. +The forty years of non-communication had not been spent in military +stasis, at least not for the West. Sixty percent of the federal budget +was still being spent for defense. Powerful new weapons were still being +developed, and old ones pronounced obsolete. The seventh John Smith had +even conspired to have a conspiracy against himself in Argentina, with +resulting civil war, so that the weapons could be tested under actual +battle conditions--for the region had been overpopulated anyway. The +results had been comforting--but John the Sixteenth wanted to know more +about what the enemy was doing. + + * * * * * + +The Hell Wall--which was really only a globe-encircling belt of +booby-trapped land and ocean, guarded from both sides--had its political +advantages, of course. The mysterious doings of the enemy, real and +imagined, were a constant and suspenseful threat that made it easy for +the Smiths to keep the rabble in hand. But for all the present Smith +knew, the threat might very well be real. He had to find out. It would +also be a popular triumph he could toss to the rabble, bolstering his +position with them, and thereby securing his hold on the Primary, +Secondary, and Tertiary Stand-ins, who were becoming a little too +presumptuous of late. + +He had a plan in mind, vague, tentative, and subject to constant +revision to suit events as they might begin to occur. He kept the plan's +goal to himself, knowing that the Stand-ins would call it insane, +dangerous, impossible. + +"John! We're picking up their station!" a Stand-in called. "It's a +minute before time!" + +He left the window and walked calmly to the couch before the +televiewphone, whose screen had come alive with the kaleidoscope +patterns of the interference-station which sprang to life as soon as an +enemy station tried to broadcast. + +"Have the fools cut that scatter-station!" he barked angrily. + +A Stand-in grabbed at a microphone, but before he made the call the +interference stopped--a few seconds before the appointed time. The +screen revealed an empty desk and a wall behind, with a flag of the +Asian League. No one was in the picture, which was slightly blurred by +several relay stations, which had been set up on short notice for this +one broadcast. + +A wall-clock peeped the hour in a childish voice: "Sixteen o'clock, +Thirdday, Smithweek, also Accident-Prevention Week and Probe-Subversives +Week; Happy 2073! Peep!" + +A man walked into the picture and sat down, facing John Smith XVI. A +heavy-set man, clad in coveralls, and wearing a red rubber or plastic +helmet-mask. The mask was the face of the first Soviet dictator, dead +over a century ago. John's scalp bristled slightly beneath his own +golden headdress. He tried to relax. The room was hushed. The opposing +leaders stared at each other without speaking. Historic moment! + +Ivan Ivanovitch slowly lifted his hand and waved it in greeting. John +Smith returned the gesture, then summoned courage to speak first. + +"You have translators at hand?" + +"I need none," the red mask growled in the Western tongue. "You are +unable to speak my tongue. We shall speak yours." + +The President started. How could the Red know that he did not speak the +Russo-Asian dialect? + +"Very well." The President reached for a prepared text and began to +read. "I requested this conference in the hope of establishing some form +of contact between our peoples, through their duly constituted executive +authorities. I hope that we can agree on a series of conferences, aimed +eventually at a lessening of the tension between us. I do not propose +that we alter our respective positions, nor to change our physical +isolation from one another, except in the field of high-level diplomacy +and...." + +"Why?" grunted the Asian chieftain. + +John Smith XVI hesitated. The gutteral monosyllable had been toneless +and disinterested. The Red was going to draw him out, apparently. Very +well, he would be frank--for a time. + +"The answer should be evident, Peoplesfriend. I presume that your +government spends a respectable sum for armaments. My government does +likewise. The eventual aim should be economy...." + +"Is this a disarmament proposal?" + +The fellow was blunt. Smith cleared his throat. "Not at the present +time, Peoplesfriend. I hoped that eventually we might be able to +establish a mutual trust so that to some extent we could lessen the +burden...." + +"Stop talking Achesonian, President. What do you want?" + +The President went rigid. "Very well," he said sarcastically, "I propose +that we reduce military expenses by blowing the planet in half. The +halves can circle each other as satellite twins, and we'll have achieved +perfect isolation. It would seem more economical than the present +course." + +He apparently had sized-up the Peoplesfriend correctly. The man threw +back his masked head and laughed uproariously. + +"The Solomon solution!... ha ha!... Slice the baby in half!" the +Stalin-mask chuckled. Then he paused to grow sober. "Too bad we can't do +it, isn't it?" + + * * * * * + +John Smith sat stiffly waiting. Diplomacy was dead, and he had made a +mistake in trying to be polite. Diplomats were dead, and the art +forgotten. Poker-game protocol had to apply here, and it was really the +only sensible way: for two opponents to try to cheat each other honestly +and jovially. He was glad the Soviet Worker's Vicar had not responded to +his first politeness. + +"Anything else, Smith?" + +"We can discuss agenda later. What about the continued conferences?" + +"Suits me. I have nothing to lose. I am in a position to destroy you +anyway, a position I have occupied for several years. I have not cared +to do so, since you made no overt moves against us." + +A brief silence. Bluff? Smith wondered. Certainly bluff. On the other +hand, it would be interesting to see how far Ivan would brag. + +"I gather your atomic research has made rapid strides, for you to make +such a boast," Smith ventured. + +"Not at all. In fact, my predecessor had it curtailed and limited to +industrial applications. Our weapons program has become uni-directional, +and extremely inexpensive. I'll tell you about it sometime." + +Smith's flesh crawled. Something was wrong here. The Asian leader was +too much at his ease. His words meant nothing, of course. It had to be +lying noise; it could be nothing else. A meeting such as this was not +meant to communicate truth, but to discern an opponent's attitude and to +try to hide one's own. + +"Let it suffice to say," the Red leader went on, "that we know more +about you than you know about us. Our system has changed. A century ago, +our continent suffered a blight of dogmatism and senseless butchery such +as the world had never seen. Obviously, such conditions cannot endure. +They did not. There was strong reaction and revolution within the +framework of the old system. We have achieved a workable technological +aristocratism, based on an empirical approach to problems. We realize +that the final power is in the hands of the people--and I use that +archaic word in preference to your 'rabble'--" + +"Are you trying to convert me to something?" John Smith growled acidly. + +"Not at all. I'm telling you our position." He paused for a moment, then +inserted his fingertips under the edge of the mask. "Here is probably +the best way to tell you." + +The Red leader ripped off the mask, revealing an impassive Oriental face +with deepset black eyes and a glowering frown. The President sucked in +his breath. It was unthinkable, that a man should expose himself to ... +but then, that was what he was trying to prove wasn't it? + +He kicked a foot-switch to kill the microphone circuit, and spoke +quickly to the Stand-ins, knowing that the Asian could not see his lips +move behind the golden mask. + +"Is Security Section guarding against spy circuits?" + +"Yes, John." + +"Then quick, get out of the room, all of you! Join the Secondaries." + +"But John, it'll leave you fingered! If nine of us leave, they'll know +that the remaining one is--" + +"Get on your masks and get out! I'm going to take mine off." + +"But John--!" + +"Move, Subversive!" + +"You don't need to curse," the Stand-in muttered. The nine men, out of +the camera's field, donned golden helmets identical to Smith's, whistled +six notes to the audio-combination, then slipped out the thick steel +door as it clicked and came open. + + * * * * * + +The Red was jeering at him quietly. "Afraid to take off your mask, +President? The rabble? Or your self-appointed Stand-ins? Which frightens +you, President--" + +John Smith plucked at a latch under his chin, and the golden headdress +came apart down the sides. He lifted it off and laid it casually aside, +revealing a hard, blocky face, slightly in need of a shave, with cool +blue eyes and blond brows. His hair was graying slightly at the temples, +with a fortyish hairline. + + * * * * * + +The Red nodded. "Greetings, human. I doubted that you would." + +"Why not?" growled Smith. + +"Because you fear your Stand-ins, as appointees, not subject to your +'rabble'. Our ruling clique selects its own members, but they are +subject to popular approval or recall by referendum. I fear nothing from +them." + +"Let's not compare our domestic forms, Peoplesfriend." + +"I wanted to point out," the Asian continued calmly, "that your system +slipped into what it is without realizing it. A bad was allowed to grow +worse. We, however were reacting against unreasonableness and stupidity +within our own system. In the year 2001--" + +"I am aware of your history before the Big Silence. May we discuss +pertinent matters--?" + +The Asian stared at him sharply. The frown grew deeper. The black eyes +looked haughty. "If you _really_ want to discuss something, John Smith, +suppose we arrange a personal meeting in a non-walled, neutral region? +Say, Antarctica?" + +John Smith XVI, unaccustomed to dealing without a mask, let surprise +fill his face before he caught himself. The Asian chuckled but said +nothing. The President studied the border of the teleview screen for a +moment. + +"I shall have to consider your proposal," he said dully. + +The Peoplesfriend nodded curtly, then suggested a time for the next +interview. Smith revised it ahead to gain more time, and agreement was +reached. The screen went blank; the interview was at an end. The +Sixteenth Smith took a slow, worried breath, then slowly donned the mask +of office again. He summoned the nine Primaries immediately. + +"That was dangerous, John," one of them warned him as they entered. "You +may regret it. They knew you were in here alone. We're not all identical +from the neck-down you know. When we come out, they might compare--" + +He cut the man off with a curt gesture. "No time. We're in a bad +situation. Maybe worse than I guess." He began pacing the floor and +staring down at the metallifiber rug as he spoke. "He knows more about +us than he should. It took me awhile to realize that he's speaking our +latest language variations. A language changes idiom in forty years, and +slang. He's got the latest phrases. 'Greetings, human' is one, like a +rabbleman says when somebody softens up." + +"Spies?" + +"Maybe a whole network. I don't see how they could get them through the +Wall, but--maybe it's not so hard. Antarctic's open, as he pointed out." + +"What can we do about it, John?" + +Smith stopped pacing, popped his knuckles hard, stared at them. +"Assemble Congress. Security-probe. It's the only answer. Let the +'Rabble's Parliament' run their own inquisition. They were always good +at purging themselves. Start a big spy-scare, and keep it in the +channels. I'll lead with a message to the rabble." He paused, the +tragedy mask gaping at them. "You won't like this, but I'm having the +Stand-ins probed too. The Presidency is not immune." + +A muttering of indignation. Some of them went white. No one protested +however. + +"No witch-hunt in this group, however," he assured them. "I'll veto +anything that looks unfair for the Primaries, but--" He paused and rang +the word again. "--_but_--there will be no leniency tolerated from here +on down. If Congress thinks it's found a spy, it can execute him on the +spot--and I won't lift a finger. This has got to be rooted out and +burned." + +He began to pace again. He began barking crisp orders for specific +details of the probe, or rather, for the campaign that would start the +probe. The rabble were better at witch-hunts than a government was. +Congress had not been assembled for fifteen years, since there had been +nothing suspicious to investigate, but once it was called to duty, heads +would roll--some of them literally. If some innocent people were hurt, +the rabble could only blame themselves, for their own enthusiasm in +ruthlessly searching out the underground enemy. Smith couldn't worry +about that. If an Asian spy-system were operating in the continent, it +had to be crushed quickly. + + * * * * * + +When he had outlined the propaganda and string-pulling plans for them, +he turned to the other matter--the Red leader's boast of ability to +conquer the West. + +"It's probably foolish talk, but we don't know their present psychology. +Double production on our most impressive weapons. Give the +artificial-satellite program all the money it wants, and get them moving +on it. I want a missile-launching site in space before the end of the +year. Pay particular attention to depopulation weapons for use against +industrial areas. We may have to strike in a hurry. We've been +fools--coasting this way, feeling secure behind the Wall." + +"You're _not_ contemplating another peace-effort, John?" gasped an +elderly Stand-in. + +"I'm contemplating survival!" the leader snapped. "I don't know that +we're in serious danger, but if it takes a peace-effort to make sure, +then we'll start one. So fast it'll knock out their industry before they +know we've hit them." He stood frozen for a moment, the mask lifted +proudly erect. "By Ike, I love the West! And it's not going to suffer +any creeping eruption while I'm at its head!" + +When the President had finished and was ready to leave, the others +started donning their masks again. + +"Just a minute," he grunted. "Number Six." + +One of the men, about the President's size and build, looked up quickly. +"Yes, John?" + +"Your cloak is stained at the left shoulder. Grease?" + +Six inspected it curiously, then nodded. "I was inspecting a machine +shop, and--" + +"Never mind. Trade cloaks with me." + +"Why, if--" Six stopped. His face lost color. "But the others--might +have--" + +"Precisely." + +Six unclasped it slowly and handed it to the Sixteenth Smith, accepting +the President's in return. His face was set in rigid lines, but he made +no further protest. + +Masked and prepared, a Stand-in whistled a tune to the door, which had +changed its combination since the last time. The tumblers clicked, and +they walked out into a large auditorium containing two hundred Secondary +Stand-ins, all wearing the official mask. + +If a Secondary ever wanted to assassinate the President, one shot would +give him a single chance in ten as they filed through the door. + +"Mill about!" bellowed a Sergeant-at-Arms, and the two hundred began +wandering among themselves in the big room, a queer porridge, stirred +clumsily but violently. The Primaries and the President lost themselves +in the throng. For ten minutes the room milled and circulated. + +"Unmask!" bellowed the crier. + +The two hundred and ten promptly removed their helmets and placed them +on the floor. The President was unmasked and unknown--unmarked except by +a certain physical peculiarity that could be checked only by a +physician, in case the authenticity of the presidential person was +challenged, as it frequently was. + +Then the Secondaries went out to lose themselves in a larger throng of +Tertiaries, and the group split randomly to take the various underground +highways to their homes. + +The President entered his house in the suburbs of Dia City, hugged the +children, and kissed his wife. + +John Smith was profoundly disturbed. During the years of the Big +Silence, a feeling of uneasy security had evolved. The Federation had +been in isolation too long, and the East had become a mysterious +unknown. The Presidency had oscillated between suspicious unease and +smug confidence, depending perhaps upon the personality of the +particular president more than anything else. The mysteriousness of the +foe had been used politically to good advantage by every president +selected to office, and the Sixteenth Smith had intended to so use it. +But now he vaguely regretted it. + + * * * * * + +The tenure of office was still four years, and he could not help feeling +that if he had maintained the intercontinental silence, he would not +have had to worry about the spy-matter. If the hemisphere had been +infiltrated, the subversive work had not begun yesterday. It had +probably been going on for years, during several administrations, and +the plans of the East, if any, would perhaps not come to a climax for +several more years. He felt himself in the position of a man who +suffered no pain as yet, but learned that he had an incurable disease. +Why did he have to find out? + +But now that the danger was apparent, he had to go ahead and fight it +instead of allowing it to pass on to the next John Smith. + +He made a stirring speech to Congress when it convened. The cowled +figures of the people's representatives sat like gloomy gray shadows in +the tiers of seats around the great amphitheatre under the night sky; +the symbolic torches threw fluttering black shadows among their ranks. +The sight always made him shiver. Their cowls and robes had been +affected during the last great peace-effort, at which time they had been +impregnated with lead to protect against bomb-radiation, but the garb of +office had endured for ceremonial reasons. + +There was still a Senate and a House, the former acting chiefly as an +investigating body, the latter serving a legislative function in +accordance with the rabble-code, which no longer applied to the +Executive, being chiefly concerned with matters of rabble morals and +police-functions. Its duties could mostly be handled by mail and +televiewphone voting, so that it seldom convened in the physical sense. + +President John quoted freely from the Declaration of Independence, the +Gettysburg Address, the MacArthur Speech to Congress, and the immortal +words of the first John Smith in his _Shall We Submit?_ which began: "If +thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughters, or thy +wife, or thy friend whom thou lovest, would persuade thee secretly, +saying, 'Let us go and serve strange gods', neither let thy eyes spare +him nor conceal him, but thou shalt presently put him to death!" + +The speech was televised to the rabble, and for that matter, one of the +Stand-ins delivered the actual address to protect the President who was +present on the platform among the ranks of Primaries and Secondaries, +although not even these officials were aware of it. The address was +honestly an emotional one, not bothering with any attempt at logical +analysis. None was needed. Congress was always eager to investigate +subversion. It was good political publicity, and about the only +congressional activity that could command public attention and interest. +The cheers were rousing and prolonged. When it was over, the Speaker and +the President of the Senate both made brief addresses to set the +machinery in motion. + + * * * * * + +John Smith watched the proceedings with deep satisfaction. But as time +wore on, he began to wonder how many spies were truly being apprehended. +Among the many thousands who were brought to justice, only sixty-nine +actually confessed to espionage, and over half of them, upon being +subjected to psychiatric examination, proved to be neurotic +publicity-seekers who would have confessed to anything sufficiently +dramatic. Twenty-seven of them were psychiatrically cleared, but even +so, their stories broke down when questioned under hypnosis or hypnotic +drugs, except for seven who, although constantly maintaining their +guilt, could not substantiate one another's claims, nor furnish any +evidence which might lead to the discovery of a well-organized espionage +network. John Smith was baffled. + +He was particularly baffled by the disappearance of seventeen men in key +positions, who, upon being mentioned as possible candidates for the +probe, immediately vanished into thin air, leaving no trace. It seemed +to Smith, upon reading the individual reports, that many of them would +have been absolved before their cases got beyond the deputy level, so +flimsy were the accusations made against them. But they had not waited +to find out. Two were obviously guilty of _something_. One had murdered +a deputy who came to question him, then fled in a private plane, last +seen heading out to sea. He had apparently run out of fuel over the +ocean and crashed. The second man, an ordnance officer at the proving +ground, had spectacularly committed suicide by exploding an atomic +artillery shell, vaporizing himself and certain key comrades including +his superior officer. + +Here, the President felt, was something really ominous. The +disappearances and the suicides spelled careful discipline and planning. +Their records had been impeccable. The accusations seemed absurd. If +they were agents, they had done nothing but sit in their positions and +wait for an appointed time. The possibilities were frightening, but +evidence was inconclusive and led nowhere. Nevertheless, the +house-cleaning continued. + +On Fourthday of Traffic Safety Week, which was also Eat More +Corn-Popsies Week, John Smith XVI conferred with Ivan Ivanovitch IX +again at the appointed time. Contrary to all traditions, he again +ordered the Stand-ins--temporarily eight in number, since Number Six had +died mysteriously in the bathtub--to leave the study so that he might +unmask. Promptly at sixteen o'clock the Asian's face--or rather his +ceremonial mask--came on the screen. But seeing the Westerner's +square-cut visage smiling at him sourly, he promptly removed the +covering to reveal his Oriental face. The exchange of greetings was +curt. + +"I see by recent events," said Ivan, "that you are nervous on your +throne. For the sake of your own people, let me warn you that we have no +designs on your autonomy unless you become aggressive toward us. The +real difficulty, as revealed by your purge, is that you feel insecure, +and insecurity makes you unpredictable. I do not, of course, expect you +to be trustworthy. But insecurity sometimes breeds impulsiveness. If you +are to strike out blindly, perhaps the talks had best be broken off." + +Smith XVI reddened angrily but held his temper. The man's presumption +was intolerable. Further, he knew about the probe, knowledge which could +only come from espionage. + +"I have become aware," the President said firmly, "that you have managed +to establish a spy-system on this continent. If you wish better +relations, you will have the activity stop at once." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," said the Peoplesfriend with a +bland smile. "I might point out however that at least forty of your +spies are either killed while trying to cross the Wall, or are +apprehended after they manage to enter my regime." + +"The accusation is too ridiculous to deny," Smith lied. "We have no +desire to pry into your activities. We wish only to maintain the status +quo." + +The exchange continued, charges and countercharges and denials. Neither +side expected truth or honesty, and the game was as old as civilization. +Neither expected to be believed, although the press of both nations +would heatedly condemn the other's lack of good faith. The ethical side +of the affair was for the rabble to consider, for only the rabble cared +about such things. The real task was to ferret out the enemy's attitudes +and intentions without revealing one's own. + + * * * * * + +Smith felt that he had won a little, and lost a little too. He had found +many hints of subversive activity, but had betrayed his own lack of +certainty by reacting so swiftly to it. Ivan IX, on the other hand, +seemed too much at ease, too secure, and even impertinent. + +"At our last meeting," said the Asian, "I suggested a meeting between +ourselves. Have you given thought to the matter?" + +"I have given it thought," said the President, "and will agree to the +proposal provided you come to this country. The meeting will be held at +my capitol." + +"Which you change at random intervals, I notice," purred Ivan with a +bland smile. "For security reasons?" + +"You could only know that by espionage!" Smith snapped. + +"Your proposal of course is outrageous. The only sensible place for the +meeting is in Singapore." + +"That is out of the question. I must insist on the capitol of my +government as the only acceptable meeting-place. My government in +contacting yours put itself in the position of extending an invitation, +a position from which we could not depart without loss of dignity." + +"I suggest we delay the matter then," grunted the Peoplesfriend. "And +talk about the agenda for such a meeting. What did you have in mind?" + +"I have already stated our general aims as being a reduction of armament +expenses, beneficial to both sides. I think you agree?" + +"Not necessarily, since our budget is already rather low. However, make +your specific proposals, and I shall consider them. Further economy, +where not injurious to security, is always desirable." + +"I propose, then, that we discuss a method whereby agreement might be +reached on a plan to divulge the nature of our respective armaments, +including number, nature, and purpose of each weapon-class, as a +foundation for discussions relating to reductions." + +Smith waited for a flat "no" to the suggestion. The Asian leader +apparently knew a great deal more about the West's armaments than Smith +knew about the East. The Peoplesfriend had nothing to gain by revealing +the military strength of his own hemisphere. But he paused, watching +Smith with an expressionless stare. + +"I accept that for further consideration, at least," Ivan said at last. + +John XVI hovered between elation and suspicion. Suspicion won. "Of +course there must be some method to assure that accurate figures are +divulged." + +"That could probably be settled." + +Again the President was shocked. It was all too easy. Something was +rotten about the whole thing. The Peoplesfriend agreed too readily to +things that seemed to be to his disadvantage. The discussion continued +for several hours, during which both men presented viewpoints and +postponed agreement until a later meeting. + +"Stockpiles of fissionable material," said the President, "which could +quickly be converted to weapons use should also be discussed." + +Ivan frowned. "I mentioned before that we have no need of atomic +armaments, nor any plans for building them. Our defense is secured by +something entirely different, a weapon which serves an industrial +function in time of peace, and a weapon which I might add was largely +responsible for our abandoning Marxism. A single discovery, Andrei +Sorkin's, made communist doctrine not only a wrong solution, but a wrong +solution to a problem that had ceased to exist." + +"What problem are you referring to?" + +"The use of human beings as automatic devices in a corporate +machine--the social-structure of industry, in which the worker was +caught and bolted down and expected to perform a single, highly +specialized task. That of course, is almost a definition of the word +'proletarian'. We no longer have a true proletariat. For that reason, we +are no longer Marxist--although the name 'communist' has survived with +its meaning changed." + +The conference ended after setting the time for another meeting. John +Smith XVI felt that he had been groping in the dark, because of the +information-vacuum that kept him from even making a reasonable guess as +to Ivan's real aims. He kept feeling vaguely that Ivan was just playing +along, reacting according to the opportunity of the moment, not +particularly caring what Smith did next. But leaders of states just did +not proceed so carelessly--not unless they were fools, or unless they +were supremely confident in the ultimate outcome. + + * * * * * + +The intelligence service analysis of his latest conversation with Ivan +gave him something to think about later however. Andrei Sorkin had been +a physicist who had done considerable work in crystal-structure before +the Big Silence had cut off knowledge of his activities from the West. +Further, the Peoplesfriend's references to industrial usage, coupled +with his remarks about specialized labor, seemed to suggest that the +East had made great strides in servo-mechanisms and auto-control +devices. But control devices were not weapons in themselves. Electronic +rocket-pilots were not weapons unless there were rockets for them to +fly. Automatic target-trackers were not weapons unless they guided a +weapon to shoot at the target. It made little sense; he concluded that +Ivan had not meant it to make much sense. Smith could only interpret it +as meaning: "Our weapons are marvelously controlled; therefore we need +fewer of them." + +On the probe front, events were about as usual. The lists of suspects +and convictions grew bulky enough to keep a large office staff busy with +details. More sinister, in the President's judgment, was the small list +of suspects who vanished or committed suicide at the slightest hint of +suspicion. The list grew at a slow but steady pace. John assumed that +these were certainly guilty. And thorough, searching inquiries into +their past activities were made. These post mortem probes revealed +nothing. Their records were clean. Their families, friends, relatives, +and even their ancestors were above suspicion. If they had sold out to +the enemy, they had given him nothing in return for his wages except +perhaps a promise to be fulfilled on a Deadline Day. + +He called the Secretary of Defense and demanded a screening procedure be +adopted for future personnel, a procedure which would be aimed at +selecting men with fanatic loyalty, rather than merely guarding against +treason. + +"We seem to already have something," murmured the Secretary, a slender, +graying gentleman with aristocratic features. "The incidents at the +satellite-project seem to indicate that there's something they don't +like about our ordinary testing methods." + +"Eh? How do you mean?" + +"Three men--volunteers for the project--vanished as soon as they found +out that they had to submit to all the physicals, mental tests, and so +forth. I don't know what they were afraid of. They were already on the +reservation. Found out they'd have to be tested again, and vanished. One +a known suicide, but the body's still in the river." + +"'Tested _again_'?" the President echoed. + +"That's right, John. They'd gone through it before. This was just a +recheck for this particular project. Of course, I don't _know_ that they +were agents." + +"Mmm! So they can't stand a recheck. All right, recheck everybody." + +"John! A third of the population works for the government!" + +"I mean everybody connected with new projects, the most important +installations. This might be a weapon for us." + +When he received the Secretary's report a week later, John grinned +happily. The rechecks had begun, and the disappearances were mounting. +But the grin faded when he read the rest of it. Two of the men had been +caught attempting to escape. They had been lodged in a local jail to +await transfer to the capitol. During the night, the jailer became aware +of a blinding light from the cell-blocks and the stench of burnt organic +matter. By the time he reached their cells, the men were gone, and there +were only sickening fumes, charred ashes, and a pair of red-hot patches +on the floor. Somehow they had gotten incendiary materials into their +cells, and the cremation was complete--too complete to be credible. + +Then the disappearances began to taper off--until finally, after a few +weeks, they ceased completely. He wondered: were the culprits all +ferreted out, or had some of them managed to get around the rechecks? + +He had spoken to the Asian leader several times, and Ivan was growing +curt, even bitingly nasty at times. The President hopefully interpreted +it as a sign that his probe was successful enough to worry the Red. He +tried to strengthen his position with respect to the proposed +conferences, and made only minor concessions such as agreeing to a +coastal city in Mexico as the site, rather than the shifting capitol. +Ivan sneeringly made equally minute adjustments eastward from Singapore. +There was apparently going to be a deadlock, and John was somehow not +sorry. + +Then the cold-eyed face on the screen did an abrupt about-face, and +announced, "I propose that the delegates, including the leaders of both +states, meet at a site of your selection in either of the neutral polar +regions, not later than Seventhday of Veto Week--which, I think is your +Fried Pie Week?--and come prepared to discuss and exchange information +relating to size of armament-inventories and future plans. This is my +last proposal." + + * * * * * + +They stared at each other coldly. John started to utter a refusal, then +paused. Seventhday of ... it was one day before the satellite program +began moving into space. If he could keep the Eastern Leader tied up for +a few weeks afterwards-- + +"I'll consider your proposal and give you a reply tomorrow," he said +bluntly. + +The Peoplesfriend gave him a curt nod and clicked off the screen. John +chuckled. The enemy's espionage program was evidently getting badly +hurt. About one percent of the West's population had been executed, +imprisoned, or shifted to other jobs as a result of the congressional +probe. The one percent probably included quite a few guilty citizens. + +"Rodner, I want a Strike-Day set, a full-scale blitz-operation readied +as soon as possible," he told the defense-chief. "I know that a lot of +your target information is forty years old, but work out the best plan +you can. A depopulation strike, perhaps; there are only two opinions in +the world, so 'world-opinion' is not one of the things we need to +consider." + +The Defense Secretary caught his breath and sat stiffly erect. "War?" he +gasped. + +"Don't use that word." + +"Sorry, peace-effort." + +"No. At least I hope not. I want a gun aimed at them as a bargaining +point. But I want it to be a damned _big_ gun, and one that's capable of +shattering every major city in the East on a few hours' notice. How +effective could you make it--if you had to?" + +The Secretary frowned doubtfully and tugged at his ear. "Well, John, our +strategic command has kept a running plan in effect, revising it to +allow for every tidbit of information we can get. Planning continental +blitzes is a favorite past-time around high-level strategic commands; it +keeps the boys in trim. A plan could probably be agreed upon in a very +short time, but its nature would depend on your earliest deadline date." + +"Two dates," grunted the tragedy-mask. "The first is Seventhday, Fried +Pie Week. I want a maximum possible effort readied by then, with a plan +that allows for a possible stand-by at that date, and a continued +build-up to a greater maximum--to be reached when the satellite station +is in space and ready for battle. Include the station in the extended +plan." + +"This is a very dangerous business, John." + +The mask whirled. "Do you presume to--?" + +"No, Sir. The strike-effort will be prepared as soon as possible." He +bowed slightly, then left the presidential study-vault. + +Smith turned to gaze at his Stand-ins. "You will go," he said, "all of +you, to the examining authorities for the standard loyalty tests and +psych-phys rechecks." + +The nine masked figures glanced at one another in surprise, then nodded. +There were no protests. The following day he had only seven Stand-ins; +Four and Eight had been trapped in a burning building on the outskirts +of the rabble city, and their remains had not been found. + +Smith kept a tight cork on his rage, but it seethed inside him and +threatened to burn through as the time approached to speak again with +Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The enemy's infiltration into the very ranks of the +Presidency robbed him even of dignity. Furthermore, now that the two +scoundrels were uncovered, and dead, he remembered a very unpleasant but +significant fact: he had, even before his "election" by the rabble, +discussed the televiewphone conferences with the Primaries. The idea of +contacting Ivan had started, as most ideas start, from some small seed +or other that could scarcely be remembered, some off-hand reference to +the costly aspects of the Big Silence perhaps, and it had grown into the +plan for contact. _But how_ had the idea first come to him? Had one of +the guilty Stand-ins perhaps planted the seed in his mind? _After_ he +proposed it, they had seemed demurring at first, but not too long. + +Grimly, he realized that the idea might have originated on the far side +of the Pacific. + +"Who, pray, is the potter, and who the pot?" he grunted, glowering at +the nearest Stand-in. + +"I beg your pardon?" answered the man, who could not see the glower for +the mask. + +"Khayyam, you fool!" + +"Oh--" + +"_Sixteen o'clock!_" cheeped the timepiece on the wall. "_Fifthday, +Anti-Rabies Week, Practice-Eugenics Week; Happy 2073; Peep!_" + + * * * * * + +Ivan came on the screen, but John did not bother to remove his mask. He +sat down quickly and began speaking before any greeting could be +exchanged. + +"I have decided to accept your last proposal. I specify the meeting +place as the deserted weather station at the old settlement of Tharviana +in the Byrd-Ellsworth Sector of Antarctica. Date to be Seventhday of +Fried Pie Week. Advance cadres of personnel from both sides should meet +at the site two weeks earlier to make repairs and preparations. Do you +agree?" + +Ivan nodded impatiently, his dark eyes watching the President closely. +Smith went on to suggest limits for the size of both cadres, their +equipment, and the kind of transportation. Ivan made only one +suggestion: that the details, such as permissible arms and standards of +conduct, be left to the cadre commanders to settle between themselves +before the leaders' parties arrived. + +"Your continual espionage activities," Smith said coldly, "do not +recommend your government as one to be trusted in the matter of +agreements without guarantees. My cadre commander will be instructed as +to details." + +The Asian grunted. "You speak of trust, yet violate it in advance by +preparing an assault against us." + +They glared at each other. After a few more words, the conversation +ended abruptly, and the matter was tentatively settled. + + * * * * * + +It was Antarctic Summer. The sun lay low in the north, but clouds +threatened to obscure it, and a forbidding coastline hulked under the +ugly sky. A small group of ships sulked to the east, and watched another +group that sulked to the west. Two rows of buoys marked an ice-free +strip across the choppy face of the sea. + +A speck appeared in the north, grew larger, became a giant sea-plane. It +circled once, then swooped majestically down between the rows of buoys, +its atomic-fired jets breathing heat over the water. It slid between +streamers of spray until slowly it came to a coasting halt and rode on +the rise and the fall of the sea. A section of its back rolled open. It +pushed a helicopter up into view. The helicopter unfolded its rotors, +spun them, then climbed lazily aloft like a beetle that had ridden the +eagle. It soared, and travelled inland. The sea-plane taxied west to +join one group of ships. + +The helicopter landed near a long, windowless concrete building which +lay in the shadow of an old control-tower's skeleton. The tower was +twisted awry, and the concrete was pock-marked by shrapnel or bullets +dating back to one of the peace-efforts. The President, two Stand-ins, +and the pilot climbed from the helicopter. A small detachment of troops +presented arms. The cadre commander, a major general, approached the +delegation formally, gave it a salute, and took the President's hand. + +"The Peoplesfriend is already in the conference hall, Sir, with several +of his aides. Do you wish to enter now, or--" + +"Where are their troops?" + +"Over there, Sir. As you know, we could not agree to completely disarm +the site. Only inside the building itself." + +"Any unpleasantness?" + +"No, sir. Their men are well-disciplined." + +"Then let's go and get started. I assume that you're in constant contact +with the capitol?" + +"Yes, Sir. Televiewphone relay chain all the way up." + +John looked around. The Peoplesfriend's helicopter was parked not far +away, and beyond it stood a platoon of the Peoplesfriend's troops, +lightly armed as his own. + +An Asian and a Western guard flanked the entrance to the building, but +their only weapons were police-clubs. The party entered slowly and stood +for a moment just inside the heavy door that swung closed behind them. +John Smith removed his mask. + +"Greetings, human." + + * * * * * + +The dull voice called it from the far end of the gloomy hall where Ivan +Ivanovitch IX sat facing him, flanked by a pair of aides, at a long, +plain table. John Smith XVI advanced with dignity toward him. Curt bows +were exchanged, but no handshakes. The Western delegation took their +seats. + +John nudged the Stand-in on his right, who immediately opened a +portfolio to extract a sheaf of papers. + +"Would you care to exchange prepared statements to begin with?" Smith +asked coolly. + +"We have no--" The Peoplesfriend stopped, smirked coldly at his deputies +but continued to frown. He peered thoughtfully at his huge knuckles for +a moment, then nodded slowly. "A statement--_yes_." + +John slid a section of the sheaf of papers to the Peoplesfriend. The Red +leader ignored them, spoke to a deputy curtly. + +"Give me a sheet of paper." + +The deputy fumbled in a thin briefcase, shook his head and muttered. +Finally he found a dog-eared sheet with only a few lines typed across +the top. He glanced questioningly at his leader. Ivan snatched it with a +low grunt, tore off the good half, produced a stubby, gnawed pencil, and +wrote slowly as if his hands were cramped with arthritis. John could see +the big block-letters but not the words. + +"My prepared statement," said the Peoplesfriend. + +With that he pushed the scrap of paper across the table. John stared, +and felt the blood leaving his face. The prepared statement said: + +_I VETO YOU._ + +"Is this a joke?" he growled, keeping his voice calm. "You cannot mean +that you reject proposals before they are made? I fail to see the humor +in--" + +"There is no humor." + +John pushed back his chair, glanced at his men. "Gentlemen, it would +appear that we have come to the bottom of the world for nothing. I think +we had better retire to discuss--" + +"Sit down," the Asian growled. + +"Why--" The President stopped. One of the Red deputies had produced a +gun. He sat, and stared coldly at the eastern leader. "Have your man +dispose of that weapon. This is a conference table." + +The Peoplesfriend grunted an order to the other deputy instead. "Search +them." + +"Stay back," Smith droned. "I can kill you all quite easily." + +The deputy hesitated. The leader started laughing, then checked it. "May +I ask how?" + +John smiled. "Stay back, or you will find out too quickly." He unzipped +his heavy Arctic clothing, removed a heavy container, shaped to conform +to his chest, and laid it on the table. A cord ran from the container +into his sleeve. + +The Peoplesfriend laughed. "High explosives? You would not set them off. +However--Jacob, let them keep their weapons. This will be over shortly." + +They glared at each other for a moment. + +"There is no conference?" + +"There is no conference." + +"Then why this farce?" + +The eastern leader wore a tight smile. He glanced at his watch, began +counting backwards: "Seven, six, five, four--" + +When he reached zero, there was a long pause; then a sharp whistle from +outside. + +"Your men are now disarmed," said the Asian. "Your cadre commander is +ours." + +"Impossible! The recheck--" + +"He joined us since the recheck. Further, three of your televiewphone +stations in the relay chain are ours, and are relaying recorded +broadcasts prepared especially for the purpose." + +"I don't believe it!" + + * * * * * + +The Asian shrugged. "In addition, your entire defense system will be in +our hands within six days--while your nation imagines that we are here +conferring on disarmament." + +"Ridiculous!" the President sputtered. "No system of infiltration or +subversion could--" + +"Your people were not subverted, Smith. They were merely replaced by +ours. Your two Stand-ins, for instance, the ones that died in the fire. +They were not the original men." + +"You could not possibly find exact doubles--" Something about the +Asian's smile made his voice taper off. + +He picked up the container of explosives and prepared to rise. "I am +going to walk out. And you are going with me. We will return in a +helicopter to my plane. Let me explain this mechanism. I have no control +over the detonator, for it is not a suicide device. The detonator can be +triggered only by either of two events." + +"Which are?" The Peoplesfriend was smiling. + +"The relay would be closed by a sudden drop in my arterial pressure. Or +by an attempt to remove it without knowing how. I am going out, and you +are going with me." + +"Why?" + +"Because I am about to reach in my pocket and produce a gun. Your deputy +cannot shoot without blasting a fifty-foot crater where this building +now rests." Gingerly, while he watched the wavering deputy, he made good +the promise. He kept the snub-nosed automatic aimed at the easterner's +belly. + +But the Peoplesfriend continued to smile. "May I say something before we +_go_?" + +There was a sour mockery about it that made Smith pause. He nodded +slowly. + +"I hoped to keep you here alive, so that we would not have to destroy +the whole mission, including the ships. Of course, when the building is +blown up, your little fleet will see and hear and try to respond, and we +shall have to destroy it before word can be gotten to your capital. Our +plans included that possibility, but it is unfortunate." + +"Our aircraft will--" + +"You do not seem to realize the nature of our weapons yet. And there is +no harm in telling you now, I suppose." + +"Well?" + +"We have a microscopic crystalline relay, so small that millions of them +can be packed into a few cubic inches. The crystals are minute +tetrahedrons, with each pointed corner an electrical contact. And there +is a method for arranging them in circuits without individual attention +to each connection. It involves certain techniques in electro-plating +and the growing of crystals." + +Smith glanced questioningly at one of his Stand-ins, a weapons expert. +The man shook his head. + +"I can see," he muttered, "how it might replace a lot of bulky circuit +elements in some electronics work--particularly computers and +servo-mechanisms--but--" + +"Indeed," said Ivan, "We have built many so-called 'thinking-machines' +no larger than a human brain." + +"For self-piloting weapons, I suppose?" asked the Stand-in. + +"For self-piloting weapons." + +"I fail to see how this could do what you seem to think." + +The Peoplesfriend snorted. "Jacob--?" He nodded to the deputy, who +immediately fumbled in his pocket, found a penknife, opened it, and +handed it to Ivan. + +He laid his finger on the table. He cut it off at the second joint with +the penknife. There was no blood. Flesh of soft plastic. Tendons of +nylon. Bones of bakelite. + +"Our leader," the robot said, "is still in Singapore." + +The President looked at the robot and a great, weariness swept over him. +Suddenly it all seemed futile--a senseless game, played by madmen, +dancing over countless graves--playing tag among the tombstones. + +Check and checkmate. But always there was a way out. Never a final move. +Life eternal and with life, the eternal plotting and scheming. And never +a final victor. + +Almost regretfully, the President turned his mind back to the affair at +hand. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Check and Checkmate, by Walter Miller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHECK AND CHECKMATE *** + +***** This file should be named 32837.txt or 32837.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/3/32837/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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