Lester del Rey - The Wind Between the Worlds

“I’d a lot rather see one of your high and mighty Galactic experts take over!”

The Envoy shook his head gently. “We’ve found that the race causing the trouble usually is the race best fitted to solve it. The same ingenuity that maneuvered the sabotage—it was sabotage, by the way—will help you solve it, perhaps. The Council may not care much for your grab first rule in economics and politics, but it never doubted that you represent one of the most ingenious races we have met. You see, there really are no inferior races.”

“Sabotage?” Pat looked sick. “Who’d be that stupid and vicious?”

The Envoy smiled faintly. “Who’d give the Knights of Terra money for a recruiting drive? I can’t play much part in things here—I’ve got limited abilities, a touch of telepathy, a little more knowledge than you, and a certain in-built skill at handling political situations. Your own government is busy examining the ramifications of the plot now. It had to be an inside job, as you call it.”

“Earth for Earth, and down with the transmitters,” Vic summed it up.

The Envoy nodded. “They forget that the transmitters can’t be removed without Council workers. And when the Council revokes approval, it destroys all equipment and most books, while seeing that three generations are brought up without knowledge. You’d revert to semi-savagery and have to make a fresh start up. Well, I’m lucky—your President Wilkes is sympathetic, and your F. B. I. has been cooperative so far. If you solve things, the sabotage shouldn’t prove too much of a problem. Good luck.”

Flavin had been eying him, and his dislike flared up as the Envoy left. “A hell of a lot of nerve for guys who claim they don’t interfere!”

“It happened to us twice,” Ptheela observed. “We were better for it eventually. The Council’s rules are from half a billion years of experience, with tremendous knowledge. We must submit.”

“Not without a fight!”

“Without a fight,” Vic said bluntly. “We’re babes in arms to them. Anyhow, who cares? Congressional babble won’t save us if we lose our atmosphere. But they can’t see it.”

The old idea—something would turn up. Maybe they couldn’t cut off the transmitter from outside, and had no way of getting past the wind to the inside. But something would turn up.

He’d heard rumors of the Army taking over, and almost wished they would. As it stood, he had full responsibility and nothing more. Flavin and the Council had turned things over to him, but the local cop on the beat had more power. It would be a relief to have someone around to shout even stupid orders, and get some of the weight off Vic’s shoulders.

Sabotage! It couldn’t even be an accident; the cockeyed race to which he belonged had to try to commit suicide and then expect him to save it.

He shook his head, vaguely conscious of someone banging on the door, and reached for the knob. “Amos!”

The sour face never changed expression as the corpselike figure of the man slouched in. Amos was dead—he’d been in the transmitter. They all realized it at once. But Amos shook off their remarks. “Nothing surprising, just common sense. When I saw the capsule start cracking, I jumped into a capsule headed for Plathgol, set the delay, and tripped the switch. Saw some glass shooting at me, but I was in Plathgol before it hit. Went out and got me a mess of tsiuna —they cook fair to middling, seeing they never tried it before they met us. Then I showed ’em my pass, came through Chicago, here, and home. I figured the old woman would be worried. Nobody told me about the mess till I saw the papers. Common sense to report to you, so here I am.”

“How much did you see of the explosion?” Pat asked.

“Not much. Just saw it was cracking—trick glass, no temperature tolerance. Looked like Earth capsule color.”

It didn’t matter. It added to Vic’s disgust to believe it was sabotage, but didn’t change the picture otherwise. The Council wouldn’t reverse its decision. They treated a race as a unit, making no exception for the behavior of a few individuals, whether good or bad.

Another knock on the door cut off his vicious circle of hopelessness. “Old home week here, evidently. Come in! ”

The man who entered was the rare example of a fat man in the pink of physical condition, with no sign of softness. He shoved his bulk through the doorway as if he expected the two stars on his shoulders to light the way and awe all beholders. “Who is Victor Peters?”

Vic wiggled a finger at himself, and the general came over. He drew out an envelope and dropped it on the desk, showing clearly that acting as a messenger was far beneath his dignity. “An official communication from the President of the United States,” he said mechanically, and turned to make his exit back to the intercity transmitters.

It was a plain envelope, without benefit of wax seals or ribbons. Vic ripped it open, looked at the signature and the simple letterhead, and checked the signature again. He read it aloud to the others.

“To Mr.—damn it, officially I’ve got a doctor’s degree—to Mr. Victor Peters, nominally—Hah!—in charge of the Bennington Branch of Teleport Interstellar—I guess they didn’t tell him it’s nominally in charge of all Earth branches. Umm. You are hereby instructed to remove all personnel from a radius of five miles minimum of your Teleport Branch not later than noon, August 21, unless matters shall be satisfactorily culminated prior to that time. Signed, Homer Wilkes, President of the United States of America.”

“Bombs!” Pat shuddered, while Vic let the message fall to the floor, kicking it toward the waste-basket. “The fools! The damned fools! Couldn’t they tell him what would happen? Couldn’t they make him see that it’ll only make turning off the transmitter impossible forever?”

Flavin shrugged, dropping unaware onto the couch beside Ptheela. “Maybe he had no choice. Either he does it or some other power does it.”

Then he came to his feet, staring at Vic. “My God, that’s tomorrow noon!”

Vic looked at the clock later, and was surprised to see that it was already well into the afternoon. The others had left him, Ptheela last when she found there was no more knowledge she could contribute. He had one of the electronic calculators plugged in beside him, and a table of the so-called Dirac functions propped up on it; when the press had discovered that Dirac had predicted some of the characteristics that made teleportation possible, they’d named practically everything for him.

The wastebasket was filled, the result of pure futility. He shoved the last sheet into it, and sat there, pondering. There had to be a solution!

Man’s whole philosophy was built on that idea.

But it was a philosophy that included sabotage and suicide. What did it matter any—

Vic jerked his head up, shaking it savagely, forcing the fatigue back by sheer will. There was a solution. All he had to do was find it—before the stupidity of war politics in a world connected to a Galaxy-wide union could prevent it.

He pulled the calculator back, just as Flavin came into the room. The man was losing weight, or else fatigue was creating that illusion. He dropped into a chair as Vic looked up.

“The men evacuated from around the station?” Vic asked.

Flavin nodded. “Some of the bright boys finally convinced them that they were just wasting time, anyhow. Besides, the thing is still spreading, and getting too close to them. Vic, the news gets worse all the time. Can you take it?”

“Now what? Don’t tell me they’ve changed it to tomorrow morning.”