Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

“The reign of the so-called Adorable Leader is over. He will be tried for the crimes of betraying, mistreating, and starving a whole generation of our people.

“The North Korean army is now disbanded. It serves no useful purpose. No one is going to attack you. And all soldiers are now free to return to their homes and resume their peacetime occupations.

“Ample supplies of food and other necessities are on their way to you right now. Every one of you, from this day forward, is guaranteed, for life, a diet adequate for health and growth.

“Finally, you now will have the right to choose by secret ballot who will govern you.”

And to that, many of the broadcasters added, often with tears running down their cheeks, “And I am coming home !”

Gamini didn’t keep his colleagues waiting for clarification. Not more than thirty-six hours, anyway, and for that particular length of time they—like the rest of the world—had plenty to keep them occupied. It wasn’t work that obsessed them. It was the media, with their unending scenes of outside forces pouring in, unopposed and nearly unarmed, too, unless you counted their noisemakers and shock-givers, moving in on the previously impregnable fortress that had been the Adorable Leader’s North Korea. Add to that the still more endless chatter of guess and supposition and bafflement that every commentator had to offer.

Then at last something appeared on the screen that at least promised to give some answers.

It was after dinner, and also after Myra had taken her turn at putting the baby to bed, that Ranjit again snapped on the TV. A moment later he gave a yelp of surprise that brought her back into the room. “Look,” he said. “Maybe we’re going to get some real information.”

What the TV was displaying was an Asian-looking man who stood before a lectern. No one introduced him. He simply began to speak. “Hello,” he said, voice educated and quite unflustered at being before the cameras. “My name is Aritsune Meyuda, and at one time I was Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations. Now I am what I think you would call the personnel director for what we have been calling Pax per Fidem. That’s short for Pax in Orbe Terrarum per Fidem, or World Peace Through Transparency. We are the ones who are responsible for the events on the Korean peninsula.

“Because that operation had to be conducted in secrecy, there has been much speculation about it, and about what has gone on there since. We can now supply some answers for you. To explain how those events came about, and what they mean, the person who made them all possible will speak.”

Meyuda’s face disappeared from the screen, replaced by the image of a tall, bronzed, and aged but strongly built figure, the sight of whom produced a gasp from Myra. “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s—That’s—”

But before she got it out, Meyuda was already introducing him. “I give you,” he said, “the secretary-general of the United Nations, Mr. Ro’onui Tearii.”

Ro’onui Tearii troubled no more with prefacing remarks than had Meyuda. “Let me begin,” he said, “by giving every one of you my assurance that nothing improper has occurred in Korea. This was not a war of conquest. It was a necessary police action, approved by a secret, but unanimous, vote of the United Nations Security Council.

“To explain how this came about I would like to clear up a matter that dates from a few years ago. Many of you will remember that at that time there was much discussion about the way in which the three most powerful nations in the world—that is, Russia, China, and the United States—were attempting to arrange a superpower conference, with the laudable stated aim of finding a solution to the many little wars that were breaking out all around the world. Many commentators thought that what then happened was ludicrous, even shameful, because of a story that was given out. The rumor was that their plan fell apart because the three nations could not agree on the city in which to hold the conference.

“In truth, however, I must now tell you that that whole episode was a deception. That was done at my request. It was needed to conceal the fact that the three presidents were actually conducting highly secret meetings on a subject of transcendental importance.

“Their subject was simply how—and when, and indeed whether—to employ a new nonlethal, but powerfully destructive, weapon, the one which we all now know by the name Silent Thunder.

“What caused them to take this exceptional action was that each of them had learned, through their quite effective intelligence services, that both of the other states had developed a Silent Thunder–like weapon and were rushing to make it operational. And all three of the presidents had advisers who were urging them to be the first to complete the development of the weapon, and then to use it to destroy the economies of their two adversaries and thus become the world’s only superpower again.

“To their everlasting credit, they all rejected that plan. In their secret meetings they agreed to turn Silent Thunder over to the United Nations.” He was somberly silent for a moment—a big and imposing man, said once to have been the strongest man on Maruputi, the tiny French Polynesian island where he had been born. Then he smiled. “And they did,” he announced, “and so the world was spared a terrible conflict, with unguessable results.”

By then Myra and Ranjit were giving each other startled looks almost as much as they were watching the screen. That was not the end of it. There was a great deal more, and, sleep deferred, indeed forgotten, they kept on listening. For nearly an hour, actually—for all the time Secretary-General Tearii was speaking, and then for the much longer time when all the world’s political commentators went over every word of it in their own debates. And by the time Ranjit and Myra were preparing for bed, they were still trying to make sense of it.

“So what Tearii did,” Ranjit called while brushing his teeth, “was to organize this Pax per Fidem thing, with its people from twenty different countries—”

“And all of them neutral ones,” Myra pointed out from where she was fluffing up the pillows on their bed. “And not only that but they were all island nations that weren’t big enough to be a threat to anybody else anyway.”

Ranjit thoughtfully rinsed his mouth. “Actually,” he said, drying his face, “when you look at the results, all of that doesn’t sound all that bad, does it?”

“Not really,” Myra conceded. “It’s true that North Korea has always seemed to be a threat to world peace.”

Ranjit stared at his reflection in the mirror. “Ah, well,” he said at last. “If Gamini’s coming, I wish he’d get here.”

When Gamini did get there, he bore flowers for Myra, a giant Chinese rattle for the baby, a bottle of Korean whiskey for Ranjit, and a full load of apologies. “Sorry I took so long,” he said, kissing Myra chastely on the cheek and sparing a hug for Ranjit. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging, but I was in Pyongyang with my father, just checking to see that it was all going all right, and then we had to make a quick trip to Washington. The president’s mad at us.”

Ranjit looked immediately concerned. “Mad how? Are you saying he didn’t want you people to attack?”

“Oh, of course not. Nothing like that. The thing was that right along the border, at one stretch that was kind of kinky because of the terrain, there happened to be a couple of hectares of U.S. and South Korean defense matériel that got just as wiped out as the North’s stuff.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t help it, you know. Old Adorable had a lot of his meanest armaments right on his side of the line, and it’s a pretty narrow line. We had to make sure we got it all. The president knows that, of course, but somebody made the mistake of guaranteeing him that nothing American would be touched. Meanwhile there’s about fourteen billion dollars’ worth of America’s deadliest high-tech that doesn’t work anymore. And, Ranj, are you ever going to open that bottle?”