The Unteleported Man Page 9

  The UN Secretary General said "Out of the forty million colonists Ferry has conscripted an army and provided it with modern, sophisticated weapons. There is no 'non-humanoid race,' no non-Terran culture to encounter. Had there been our unmanned monitors would have detected them; by now we've touched every star system in our galaxy." He stared at Dosker. "It's us," he said. "The UN. That's what Theodoric Ferry is proposing to engage. When enough colonists have gone across. Then the up-to-then 'one-way' aspect of the teleportation equipment will suddenly reveal that the so-called Theorem One was false."

  "Here?" Dosker said, then. "They'll re-enter through their own Telpor outlets?"

  "And take us on," Bertold said. "But not now. At this point they're not quite large enough." To himself he said, "At least so we estimate; we studied samples of groups who had emigrated; he can't have more than one million men actually under arms. But weapons — they may have u.s.h.: ultra sophisticated hardware; after all, they've got von Einem working for them."

  Dosker said, "Where is von Einem? At Whale's Mouth?"

  "We put a tail on him instantly." Bertold's fingers convulsed, crushed the document. "And proved already — ganz genug! — that we were correct. Von Einem has been all these years passing back and forth between Terra and Whale's Mouth; he has always used — they have always — operated the Telpor instruments for two-way travel — so it's verified, Dosker. Verified!" He stared at Dosker.

  9

  When Rachmael ben Applebaum made out the dim, shadowy shapes of the UN pursuit ships as they ap­proached to escort the Omphalos he knew that, whatever else was a cover, at least this much was true: the UN had traced him, had him and no doubt Dosker as well. So — he clicked on the microwave transmitter and raised, after an interval, the UN pursuit ships' local commanding officer.

  "I'll believe you," Rachmael said, "when I hear Al Dosker say it." And when I look him over, he said to himself, for signs of a cephalic 'wash. But — why would they say it if it wasn't true? They had him; he and the Omphalos, detected, were now booty captured by the armed inter-system vessels of the great UN structure that spanned from planet to planet. Why make up a cover when there was no force to influence, no force able to provide any resistance?

  God above, he thought. If it's true, then we can rely on Horst Bertold. We let our prejudices blind us... von Einem is German and Horst Bertold is German. But that does not any more prove they are working together, are secret collaborators, than, say, any two Ubangis or any two Jews. Adolf Hitler was not even a German... so our own thinking, he realized, has betrayed us.

  But — maybe now we can believe this. We can see. New Whole Germany has produced Dr. Sepp von Einem and Trails of Hoffman Limited... but it may also have produced something else when it created Horst Bertold.

  We will see, Rachmael said to himself.

  — Will wait until we are in New New York at UN Headquarters; face Horst Bertold and see the evidence of the assertion given by relayed macroradio signal.

  The assertion that as of six a.m. New New York time this morning, UN troops had entered all retail outlets of Trails of Hoffman Limited, had seized the Telpor instruments — had, throughout Terra, arbitrarily and without warning of any kind, halted emigration to Whale's Mouth.

  Twelve hours later Rachmael was led by a worried, overworked female secretary into the UN Secretary General's office.

  "The fanatic," Horst Bertold said, surveying him. "The idealist who sparked the hankering in Matson Glazer-Holliday that caused him to attempt his coup d'etat at Whale's Mouth." He turned to an aide. "Bring in the Telpor Apparat."

  Seconds later the familiar bipolar mechanism was noisily carted into the UN leader's office, along with a thoroughly unnerved-looking technician; minus his goggles he looked frightened and — small.

  To the Telpor technician, Horst Bertold said, "Does this operate to permit teleportation two ways? Or only one? Zwei oder ein ? Antworte."

  "Just outward, Mein Herr Sekretar General," the technician quavered. "As Theorem One demonstrates, the recession of matter toward — "

  Horst Bertold said to his aide, "Bring in our 'wash psychiatrists. Have them start with their EEG mach­ines."

  At that, the Telpor technician said, in a voice that broke with dismayed intimidation, "Dasz brauchen Sie nicht."

  "He's saying," Bertold said to Rachmael, "that he will cooperate; we don't need to employ our psychiatrists with him. So ask him." He jerked his head fiercely toward the cowering THL employee, this man in his white smock who had assisted in the emigration of literally millions of innocent human beings. "Ask him whether the Telpors work both ways."

  The technician said, virtually inaudibly, "Beide. Both ways."

  "There never was any 'Theorem One,' " Bertold snapped.

  "Sie haben Recht," the technician agreed, nodding.

  "Bring in Dosker," Bertold said to his overworked female secretary.

  When Dosker appeared he said to Rachmael at once, "Freya is still alive over there." He indicated the Telpor instrument. "We've been in contact through this. But — "He hesitated.

  Horst Bertold said, "Matson Glazer-Holliday is dead. They murdered him immediately. But nearly half of Lies Incorporated's field personnel remain alive at various installations at Newcolonizedland, and we're beginning to supply them on a strategic basis. With wea­pons of types which they instantly need. And presently we will, at tactical spots, try commando teams; we can do a lot, I think, with our commando teams."

  "What can I do?" Rachmael said. He felt over­whelming impotence; it was going on — had been going on — without him. While he journeyed — pointlessly — through 'tween, utterly empty, space.

  This, the UN Secretary General seemed to read on his face. "You awakened Matson," he pointed out. "Which caused Matson to attempt his aborted coup. And the relayed message from Freya Holm to Dosker and then to the Omphalos informed us of the reality hidden under Theodoric Ferry's cover; a cover which we carry the moral stigma for accepting all these fifteen years. Everything based on the one fundamental hoax that teleportation could be achieved in only one direc­tion..." He grimaced. "However, Trails of Hoffman Limited made an error as great as their cover when they did not impede your two thousand Lies Incorporated veterans from crossing over." To Dosker he said, "But even so, that would not have been enough. However, with our tactical support — "

  "It wasn't enough even at the start," Dosker said, "since they took out Matson right away." Half to him­self, half to Rachmael, he said, "We never had a chance. Probably Matson never knew; he probably didn't even live that long. Anyhow, maybe you can retrieve Freya. Do you want to?"

  Instantly Rachmael said, "Yes." To Horst Bertold he said, "Can I get equipment out of you? Defensive screens, if not offensive hardware? And I'll go alone." They would not, in the confusion, notice him, perhaps. Whale's Mouth had become a battlefield, and too many participants were involved; one lone man was a cypher, a mote; he would enter inconspicuously and if he found her at all it would be that way, as an entity too trifling to be considered by the vast warring entities. Within the context of the power struggle which had already trun­cated Lies Incorporated; one contender had been abol­ished at the start, and now only the two monoliths existed in the field to slug it out, THL on one hand, the UN as its wise old antagonist, its roots of victory deep in the last century. The UN, he reflected, had a headstart, that of fifty years.

  But Trails of Hoffman Limited had the inventive genius of half-senile but still crafty old Dr. Sepp von Einem. And — the inventor of the Telpor instrument might not have ceased with that construct.

  He wondered if Horst Bertold had considered this.

  It didn't matter, because if von Einem had produced something else of equal — or of merely significant — value, it would show up now.

  In the streets of Newcolonizedland, whatever Dr. Sepp von Einem and THL had over the years developed would be at this moment in full use. Because this was, for all participants, the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath;
now they were, like beasts in the field, being tried. And God help, Rachmael thought, the contender who was found wanting. Because out of this only one participant would live; there would be extended to the loser no par­tial, no half, life. Not in this arena.

  He himself — he had only one task, as he saw it. That of getting Freya Holm out of Whale's Mouth and back safely to Terra.

  The eighteen-year journey, the odyssey aboard the Omphalos, learning Attic Greek so that he could read the Bachae in the original — that childlike fantasy had withered at the press of the iron glove of the reality-situation, the struggle going on — not eighteen years from now — but at this instant, at the Whale's Mouth terminals of six thousand Telpor stations.

  " 'Sein Herz voll Hasz geladen,' " Horst Bertold said to Rachmael. "You speak Yiddish? You understand?"

  "I speak a little Yiddish," Rachmael said, "but that's German. 'His heart heavy with hate.' What's that from?"

  "From the Civil War in Spain," Bertold said. "From a song of the International Brigade. Germans, mostly, who had left the Third Reich to fight in Spain against Franco, in the 1930s. They were, I suppose, Com­munists. But — they were fighting Fascism, and very early; and they were Germans. So they were always 'good' Germans... what that man, Hans Beimler, hated was Nazism and Fascism, in all its stages and states and manifestations." After a pause he said, "We fought the Nazis, too, we 'good' Germans; verges' uns nie." Forget us never, Bertold had said, quietly, calmly. Because we did not merely join the fight late, in the 1950s or '60s, but from the start. The first human beings to fight to the death, to kill and be killed by the Nazis, were —

  Germans.

  "And Terra," Bertold said to Rachmael, "ought not to forget that. As I hope they will not forget who at this moment is taking out Dr. Sepp von Einem and creatures allied with him. Theodoric Ferry, his boss... who, by the way, is an American." He smiled at Rachmael. "But there are 'good' Americans. Despite the A-bomb dropped on those Japanese women and children and elderly."

  Rachmael was silent; he could not answer this.

  "All right," Bertold said, then. "We will put you together with a wep-x, a weapon expert. To see what gear you should have. And then good luck. I hope you bring back Miss Holm." He smiled — fleetingly. And turned at once to other matters.

  A minor UN official plucked at Rachmael's sleeve. "I'm to take charge of your problem," he explained. "I will be handling it from now on. Tell me, Mr. ben Applebaum; precisely what contemporary — and I do not mean last month's or last year's — weapons of war you are accustomed to operating, if any? And how recently you have been exposed to the neurological and bacterial — "

  "I've had absolutely no military training," Rachmael said. "Or antineuro or -bac modulation."

  "We can still assist you," the minor UN official said. "There is certain equipment requiring no prior ex­perience. However — " He made a mark on the sheet at­tached to his clipboard. "This does make a difference; eighty percent of the hardware available would be useless to you." He smiled encouragingly. "We must not let it get us down, Mr. ben Applebaum."

  "I won't," Rachmael said grimly. "So I'll be teleported to Whale's Mouth after all."

  "Yes, within a matter of an hour."

  "The unteleported man," Rachmael murmured. "Will be teleported." Instead of enduring the eighteen years aboard the Omphalos. Ironic.

  "Are you capable morally," the UN official inquired, "of employing a nerve gas, or would you prefer to — "

  "Anything," Rachmael said, "that'll bring back Freya. Anything except the phosphorus weapons, the jellied petroleum products; I won't use any of those, and also the bone-marrow destroyers — leave those out. But lead slugs, the old-fashioned muzzle-expelled shells; I'll accept them, as well as the laser-beam artifacts." He wondered what variety of weapon had gotten Matson Glazer-Holliday, the most professional of men in this area.

  "We have something new," the UN official said, con­sulting his clipboard, "and according to the Defense Department people very promising. It's a time-warping construct that sets up a field which coagulates the — "

  "Just equip me," Rachmael said. "And get me over there. To her."

  "Right away," the UN official promised, and led him rapidly down a side hall to a hi-speed descent ramp. To the UN Advance-weapons Archives.

  At the retail outlet of Trails of Hoffman Limited, Jack and Ruth McElhatten and their two children emerged from a flapple taxi; a robot-like organism carted their luggage, all seven overstuffed seedy — borrowed for the most part — suitcases, as they entered the modern, small building which for them was to be the last stopping-point on Terra.

  Going up to the counter, Jack McElhatten searched about for a clerk to wait on them. Jeez, he thought; just when you decide to make the Big Move they decide to step out for a coffee break.

  A smartly uniformed armed UN soldier, with an arm­band identifying him as a member of the crack UAR division, approached him. "What did you wish?"

  Jack McElhatten said, "Hell, we came here to emi­grate. I've got the poscreds." He reached for his wallet. "Where are the forms to fill out, and then I know we got to take shots and — "

  The UN soldier politely said, "Sir, have you watched your info media during the last forty-eight hours?"

  "We've been packing." Ruth McElhatten spoke up. "Why, what is it? Has something happened?"

  And then, through an open rear door, Jack McElhat­ten saw it. The Telpor. And his heart bent with mingled dread and anticipation. What an admirably large move this was, this true migration; seeing the twin wall-like polar surfaces of the Telpor was to see — the frontier it­self. In his mind he recalled the years of TV scenes of grasslands, of miles of green, lush —

  "Sir," the UN soldier said, "read this notice." He pointed to a square white with words so dark, so un-glamorous, that Jack McElhatten, even without reading them, felt the glow, the wonder of what for him was a long-held inner vision, depart.

  "Oh good lord," Ruth said, from beside him as she read the notice. "The UN — it's closed down all the Telpor agencies. Emigration has been suspended." She glanced in dismay at her husband. "Jack, it's now illegal for us to emigrate, it says."

  The UN soldier said, "Later on, madam. Emigration will resume. When the situation is resolved." He turned away, then, to halt a second couple, who, with four children, had entered the Trails of Hoffman office.

  Through the still-open rear door, McElhatten saw, to his dumb disbelief, four work-garbed laborers; they were busily, sweatily, efficiently torch-cutting into sec­tions the Telpor equipment.

  He then forced himself to read the notice.

  After he had read it the UN soldier tapped him — not unkindly — on the shoulder, pointed out a nearby TV set, which, turned on, was being watched by the second couple and their four children. "These are Newcolon­izedland," the UN soldier said. "You see?" His English was not too good, but he was attempting to explain; he wanted the McElhattens to understand why.

  Approaching the TV set, Jack McElhatten saw gray, barracks-like structures with tiny, slotted windows like raptor eyes. And — high fences. He stared, uncompre­hendingly... and yet, underneath, comprehending completely; he did not even have to listen to the aud track, to the UN announcer.

  Ruth whispered, "My god. It's a — concentration camp."

  A puff of smoke and the top floors of the gray cement building disappeared; dwarfed dark shapes scampered, and rapid-fire weapons clattered in the background of the announcer's British-type voice; the calm, reasonable commentary explained what did not need to be ex­plained.

  At least not after this sight.

  "Is that," Ruth said to her husband, "how we would have lived over there?"

  Presently he said, to her and their two children, "Come on. Let's go home." He signaled the robot-organism to pick their luggage up once more.

  "But," Ruth protested, "couldn't the UN have helped us? They have all those welfare agencies — "

  Jack McElhatten said, "The UN is prote
cting us now. And not with welfare agencies." He indicated the work-garbed laborers busy dismantling the Telpor unit. "But so late — "

  "Not," he said, "too late." He signaled the robot-thing to carry their seven bulging suitcases back outside onto the sidewalk; avoiding the many passing people, the dense, always dense, sidewalk traffic, he searched for a flapple taxi to take himself and his family home again to their miserably cramped, hated conapt.

  A man, distributing leaflets, approached him, held out a broadsheet; McElhatten reflexively accepted it. The Friends of a United People outfit, he saw. Glaring banner:

  UN VERIFIES COLONY TYRANNY

  He said, aloud, "They were right. The cranks. The lunatics, like that guy who wanted to make the eighteen-year trip by interstellar ship." He carefully folded the broadsheet, put it into his pocket to read later; right now he felt too numbed. "I hope," he said aloud, "that my boss will take me back."

  "They're fighting,"Ruth said. "You could see on the TV screen; they showed UN soldiers and then others in funny uniforms I never saw before in all my — "

  "You think," Jack McElhatten asked his wife, "you could sit in the taxi with the kids while I find a bar and get one good stiff drink?"

  She said, "Yes. I could." Now a flapple taxi was swooping down, attracted; it headed for the curb, and the four of them and their mound of fat luggage en­ticing its tropism.

  "Because," Jack McElhatten said, "I can use for in­stance a bourbon and water. A double." And then, he said to himself, I'm heading for UN recruiting head­quarters and volunteer.

  He did not know for what — not yet. But they would tell him.

  His help was needed; he felt it in his blood. A war had to be won, and then, years from now but not eighteen as it had been for that nut written up in the 'papes, they could do it, could emigrate. But before that — the fighting. The winning of Whale's Mouth all over again. Actually, for the first time.