Harry Harrison - The Daleth Effect

“I don’t understand you.” She wanted to cry now but she could not; she was beyond tears.

“The story always repeats itself. As soon as the Japanese even heard about American radar during World War II they went to work on it. They developed the magnetron and other vital parts almost as soon as the Americans did. Only internal squabbling and the lack of production facilities kept them from making it operational. It was radar time. And now… now it is Daleth time.”

Then there was a long silence. A cloud passed over the sun outside and the room darkened. Finally Martha spoke: she had to ask the question.

“Was it all a waste? Their deaths. A complete waste?”

“No.” Ove hesitated and tried to smile, but he could not do it. “At least I hope that it is not a complete waste. Men from a lot of countries died in that explosion. The shock of this could drive some sense into people’s heads, and maybe even into politicians’ heads. They might use this discovery for the mutual good of all mankind. Do the right thing just this once. Without bickering. Without turning it into one more fantastically destructive weapon. Used correctly the Daleth effect could make the world a paradise. The Japanese even went us one better—they’ve eliminated the separate power source. They looked into the energy conservation and found out that they could use the Daleth effect to power itself. So we now all live in the suburbs of the same world city. That fact will take some getting used to. But the world, all of us, must get together and face that fact. Any person or country who tries to use this power for harm or for war will have to be stopped—instantly—for the greater good of all.

“Look at it that way and the deaths are not a waste. If we can learn something from their sacrifice it might all have been worthwhile.”

“Can we?” Martha asked. “Can we really? Make the kind of world we all say that we want but never seem able to attain?”

“We are going to have to,” he said, leaning forward and taking her hands. “Or we will certainly die trying.”

She laughed. Without humor.

“One world or none. I seem to have heard that before.”

The cloud passed and the sun came out again, but inside the house, in the room where the two people sat, there was a darkness that would not lift.