Harry Harrison - The Daleth Effect

“You have been watching me, haven’t you?”

He brushed the question aside with his hand as not worth answering. “And you know Arnie Klein as well. He’s been to your home a few times. Get to know him better too. He’s a key man in this business.”

“Do you want me to sleep with him too?” she asked, in a sudden surge of anger at herself, this man, the things that were happening. He did not get angry at her, though his face drew up in stern, disapproving lines.

“People have done a lot worse for their country. People have died for our country. I’ve devoted my life to this rk and I have seen them die. So,please keep your dirty ^e Mata Hari jokes to yourself. Or do you want to make ›kes about the boys who got tortured and killed fighting le Japs, Koreans, Charley, all of them? Died making the rorld safe so you could be a free American and live where )u like and do what you like. Free. You do believe in ^merica, don’t you?” He brought the challenge out like an oath, laid down on le table between them, waiting to be picked up and sworn.

“Of course,” she finally said, “but…”

“There are no huts in loyalty. Like honor it is indivisible. You know that your country needs you and you make i free choice. There is no need to take your passport away ›r coerce you in the many possible ways—”

No? she thought, nastily. Then why mention it at all?

“…since you are an intelligent woman. You will do nothing dishonorable, I can guarantee that. You will help to right a wrong.”

His voice was drowned out as a flight of jet planes tore by low overhead, and he turned his head quickly to look at them. He pointed after them, with a brief, twisted smile.

“Ours,” he said. “Do you know what a jet plane costs? We gave them to Denmark. And guns and tanks and ships and all the rest. Do you know that our country paid fifty percent of all the costs to re-arm the Danes after the war? Oh yes we did, though it is kind of forgotten now. Not that we expected gratitude. Though a little loyalty wouldn’t have hurt. Instead, I am afraid that we have a good deal of selfishness. What can tiny Denmark do in this modern world?” He drawled the word with more than a little contempt. “They can just be~greedy and forget their responsibilities and forget that nothing stays secret very long in these times. Remember the Red spies and the atom bomb? Their spies are at work here, right now. They’ll get the Daleth drive. And when they do—that’s the end of the world as we know it. We’re going to be dead, or in chains, and that’s all there will be to it.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“No—because you are going to help. America has been the single bastion of the defense of the free world before and we are not ashamed to take that role again. We can guarantee peace.”

Like Vietnam, Laos, Guatemala, she thought, but was too ashamed to say it aloud.

The jets swept by again, circling far out in the Soun Baxter sipped some of his coffee, then looked at u watch.

“I suppose you will want to go home now and get ready. I imagine that you are invited to the big affair this afternoon for the Galathea ship. Your husband must be connected with this project. What does he do?”

There it was, a question she could answer: he must know that from the stricken expression on her face. The silence lengthened.

“Come on, Martha,” he said, lightly. “You’re not siding with these people.”

It was said more in humor than in insult, as though the thought were unthinkable: siding with the Devil instead of God.

“He is captain of the ship,” she said, almost without thinking, choosing the right side. Only afterward did she tell herself that it would be common knowledge soon, everyone would know it. But not now. Now she had taken a stand.

Baxter did not gloat; he just nodded his head as though what she said was right and natural. He looked out of the window and she saw him start, the first sign of real emotion he had ever expressed. She turned to follow his gaze and found herself suddenly cold, colder than she had been standing outside.

“That’s the Galathea” he said, pointing to the squat shape that had appeared in the Sound outside. She nodded, staring at it. “Good, there’s no point in your lying now. We know some things too. We have high altitude pix of this baby. It was in Elsinore last night, came down here for something, probably the Daleth drive, now going to tie up near the castle. You’ll get a closer look at her later, probably go aboard.” He turned his head to stare unwinkingly at her, conveying a message, You know what to do if hat does happen. It was she who turned away. She was compromised, she knew; she had drawn sides.

She was not exactly sure how it happened.

The jets screamed low again and there were torpedo x›ats now visible, boxing in the Galathea while she sallowed through the low waves. Ungainly.

“Stopping,” Baxter said. “I wonder why, trouble…” Tien his eyes widened and he half rose from his chair. No! They’re not going to!”

They were. The torpedo boats drew back and the jets thundered away into the distance.

And light as a balloon the Galathea rose from the water. For only a moment she hung there, free of the sea, invisibly borne, then moved upward, faster and faster, accelerating, a vanishing blur that disappeared almost instantly in the clouds.

Martha took her handkerchief out, not knowing whether she wanted to laugh or cry, crumpling it in her hands.

“You see.” His voice was contemptuous and seemed to come from a great distance. “They even he to you. The whole affair with the King was a lie. They are running away, trying tricks.”

She stood and left, not wanting to hear any more.

“I really cannot do it,” Arnie said. “There are a number of other people who can do the job just as well, far better in fact. Professor Rasmussen here, for one. He knows everything about the work.”

Ove Rasmussen shook his head. “I would if I could, Arnie. But you are the only one who can say what must i said. In fact I’m the one who suggested that you speak.”

Arnie was surprised at this, and his eyes almost accuse Ove of betrayal. But he said nothing about it. He turner instead to the efficient young man from the Ministry c State who had come to the Moon to arrange all the detail?

“I have never spoken on television before,” Arnie told him. “Nor am I equipped to lie in public.”

“No one would ever ask you to lie, Professor Klein/ the efficient young man said, snapping open his attach case and slipping out a folder. “We are asking you to tell only the truth. Someone else will discuss the situation here, tell all the details, and not he at all. The most that will be said—or not said—will be an error of omission. The work here at Manebasen is not completely finished. and it is no grave crime to suggest that it is. This ship L part of the base now, there are depots outside for the equipment, and construction continues right around the clock.”

“He’s right,” Ove said quietly. “The situation is getting worse all the time in Denmark. There was an attack on the atomic institute last night. A car full of men dressed like police. They broke in, shot it out with the troops when they were discovered. Fourteen dead in all.”

“Like Israel—the terror raids,” Arnie said, mostly to himself, his eyes mirroring a long-remembered pain.

“Not the same at all,” Ove insisted quickly. “You can’t hold yourself to blame at all for anything that has happened. But you can help stop any further trouble, you realize that?”