Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer (5 page)

"I want six hundred sedation
units," he said.

"What for, Sergeant?"

"1
am
going to
put half the personnel under sedation for twelve hours," the sergeant
said, "before we have a riot."

"Half the personnel!"
Alexander said. "That's impossible.
We're on Condition B."

"I
know that. I can't be responsible for blunders in Washington," the
sergeant said to him. "If we're hit, it won't matter whether we're
sleeping in bed or
souped
up on Benny, but if those
men out there stay awake any longer they won't have to be
H'd
.
They'll tear each other apart."

Alexander
had known that the tension was growing there, but he was in command of the
station, and a Condition B could not be ignored. "Suppose you let me make
the decisions about the welfare of the men, Sergeant," he said sharply.
"That is not your responsibility."

The
sergeant stared at him across the desk, clenching his fists. "You stupid
bastard," he said distinctly.
"You pigheaded,
uncomprehending son of a bitch.
If I didn't
make
it my responsibility to run this lousy unit for you, you'd have been
cashiered out of the Army in a week for
snafuing
!"
Alexander realized, suddenly, that the huge man was trembling with rage.
"Do I get those sedation units, Captain?"

"No!"
Alexander managed to choke out. "Get out of here. Get back to your
station."

For
an instant he thought the man was going to reach out and take him by the
throat. Then Sergeant Julian Bahr turned on his heel. The heavy plastic door
slammed, and he was gone.

Four
hours later, in the mess hall, one of the men began beating on the table with a
heavy plastic cup, the long underground chamber echoing the blows. In an
instant the walls were reverberating with the thundering clatter that could be
heard all through the station. Someone began to scream. In a moment twelve hundred
men were screaming, cursing, yelling at each other, the
benzedrine
-stimulated
fear and frustrated helplessness erupting in volcanic pandemonium.

At the decibel peak of this first crescendo
Alexander walked into the mess hall, unarmed and alone, aware that he might not
live three minutes longer, but realizing that the riot had to be stopped. What
he said to that mob of angry, frightened, cursing men was drowned in noise;
quite suddenly he was facing a closing circle of hate-filled faces. With coffee
mugs and table knives in their hands they crowded toward him . . .

Something
seized him from behind. Someone jerked him out the door, half-carried and
half-dragged him down the corridor, up a flight of stairs and down another
corridor to the weapons room. Groggily he saw Bahr kick the door open with a
wrench of cracking plastic. Then with a heave Bahr threw him through the inner
door that led to the weapons rack.

"The key, give me the key," Bahr
demanded. Heavy-duty stunners lined the racks, carefully secured by a steel bar
and padlock.

"You don't touch those
weapons," Alexander warned.

Bahr
jerked him around viciously, turned his pockets inside out, dumping the
contents on the floor.
"Where
do you have that key?"

"You're
not going to touch those weapons," Alexander told him bluntly. "I'm
still in charge of this station." Bahr didn't even answer. He slammed the
inner door shut and bolted it as the sounds of the pursuing mob grew loud in
the corridor. As the first pounding of cups, feet, fists and shoulders began on
the plastic
door,
Bahr crouched in front of the
weapons rack, his hands gripping the six-foot-long steel lock bar. He began
wrenching at the bar, his huge back and legs straining.

Alexander
pulled a thin metal cylinder out of his pocket, ostensibly a pencil, but
actually a low-power stunner which all foreign-service officers carried.
"Get away from that rack," he said. "Those men will take my
orders or face mutiny charges. I'm not going to have anybody doing any killing
and paralyzing with stunners."

Bahr only grunted as the
steel rod began to bend a little.

"I
warn you
...
I'll fire,"
Alexander said. Bahr turned
Iiis
head, saw the shiny
cylinder and recognized what it was. Behind him the plastic door shuddered
under the crash of a heavy bench slamming into it.

"Drop dead," Bahr said, and began
pulling on the
rod
again.

Alexander
fired. Bahr screamed and hit the floor like a block of wood, smashing his face
on the floor until the blood ran from his nose. The stunner should have knocked
him unconscious and paralyzed his whole body in a rigid knot, but it didn't.
Somehow, unbelievably, he pushed himself off the floor, grabbed the back of a
chair and hoisted himself erect, his right arm, neck and side frozen in the
position he was hit, his right leg jerking in agonizing, uncontrollable spasms.
Alexander started to aim the cylinder again, and Bahr swung the chair, hitting
him across the face and knocking him back against the wall. The cylinder flew
out of his hand across the room.

Dazed,
Alexander saw the big man drag himself across the room, using the chair as a
crutch, his right leg and arm flapping, his face half-twisted out of recognition
with pain. Alexander watched incredulously as Bahr seized the padlock in his
left hand and slowly twisted the lock apart, the hard steel snapping with a
sudden crack. Bahr tore the lock-bar off and pulled a sleek heavy-duty stunner
from the rack as the plastic door
oracked
under the
savage pounding, spilling a dozen men into the room.

What
happened after that Alexander learned later in bits and snatches while he was
recovering in Buenos Aires Military Hospital from a fractured skull and a broken
nose.
He had passed out. Bahr, armed only with an
unloaded stunner, drove the rioters back into the mess hall and, though obviously
half-paralyzed, marched six hundred of them through twelve-hour sedation shots,
ordering the four frightened lieutenants around like puppy dogs. With half the
station sedated, he sat at the head of the mess hall, stunner across his knee,
making the men recite dirty stories for eight hours until his leg stopped
jerking and his right side would function again.

Condition B was called off long before
Alexander came out of his coma. No H-missile attack had occurred, the unidentified
objects never reappeared in the sky, and gradually the radar incident was
forgotten. Alexander received a letter of recommendation and a boost to major
from the Communications Command for his excellent handling of the
riot-non-violence, judicious use of sedatives, and so forth. The station
personnel were docked two months' pay, and Julian Bahr was court-martialed out
of the Army for striking an officer.

The court-martial was already over when
Alexander regained consciousness. He pieced the story together later, when he
got his promotion and new assignment to BURINF in New York. Bahr had refused
counsel during the proceedings. He made no attempt to deny or refute the
charges made by one of the lieutenants (who was soon promoted to captain for
his excellent assistance to the investigating body), but sat silent throughout
the trial, glaring at the Board of Officers with such open hatred and contempt
that only consideration of the extreme circumstances saved him from
Leavenworth.

Once
out of the hospital Alexander had tried to reopen the case, but there was
little official interest. Nothing Alexander could do, they had informed him,
could influence the observed facts recorded on Bahr's permanent Stability
Record: that the man was contemptuous of authority and prone to violence, a
dangerously unstable personality, and hence a serious Stability risk. Under the
basic principles of the Van^
ner-Elling
governmental
system, this meant that Bahr would never be allowed to climb above a greencard
position in any career he might choose, and that was that. Alexander never knew
if Bahr had been informed of this, or whether he even cared.

And now, across the room from him, behind the
glaring lights, was the same Julian Bahr, unquestionably a top lieutenant in
DIA, the most powerful and mysterious of all governmental agencies, and
Alexander wondered, wearily, who had slipped up, and where . . .

"Now," Bahr said, stepping around in front of him. "This
nonsense has gone on long enough. We've given you every chance to help
us."

"I've
told you everything I know," Alexander protested. His heart began pounding
suddenly as he saw one of Bahr's men move a small sterile tray within his range
of vision. The tray held two syringes and an alcohol sponge.

"You're
lying," Bahr said. "We know that. We've considered the possibility
that you may not be lying deliberately."

"I'm not lying," said Alexander.

"You're afraid, aren't you?"

"I'm not afraid."

"But
what are you afraid of? What are you hiding?" Bahr paused. "All
right, start the recorder."

Alexander
had been straining forward against the restraining jacket; now he slumped back
suddenly as the recorder began to hum.

"Your first name is Harvey?"

"Yes."

"You hold the rank of major in . .
."

"Army.
Security Command."

"Duty station Wildwood Power
Project?"

"Yes."

"How long have you held that post?"
"Six months."

The routine questions, the endlessly routine questions, step by step, wearing
him down.
Alexander felt the fatigue and boredom slowing his pulse, blunting his
responses.

"What
security system was in force when you took command at Wildwood?"

"Standard Army, Class six."

"Was that system still in effect last
night?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Alexander
felt a sudden respiratory spasm. His pulse started to pound. "Because I
ordered it changed."

Bahr
circled in front of him, confident of the shock he had registered. "What
plan did you substitute?"

"A modified
Bronstock
plan."

"You
devised it?" "Yes."

"Without authorization?"

"I
had the authority to do it," Alexander said. "Why did you change the
security system?" "I felt the old system was not good enough,"
said Alexander. "Class six is next to no security at all." "And
your plan was better, I suppose?" "Yes."

Bahr
leaned down to him savagely. "But it didn't work," he said.

Alexander
did not answer.

"Why
did you change the security system?"

"I
told you—"

"Was
it blackmail?" Bahr snapped. "Or were you bribed? Did you try to
stall us at the plant to hide your own tracks, or was the stall a part of the
plan?"

"You're
out of your mind," Alexander said.

"Didn't
you tell me last night that no U-metal was missing?"

"Yes."

"Was
the U-metal missing?"

"Didn't you try to prevent the
investigating team from examining the plant?" "Yes."

"Did
you tamper with the exit monitors?" "No."

"And the monitors would record any
radioactive material passing out the gates?" "Yes."

"Do
you know how the U-metal left the plant?" "No."

"Do
you know the loopholes in your new security system?" "There aren't
any loopholes." "You mean it's absolutely flawless?"
"To the best of my knowledge."
"But the
U-metal was stolen."

"Yes."

"Doesn't
that prove that your security system had loopholes?"

Alexander
groped for a way out of the trap. His eyes were burning from the glare of the
lamps; his mind wasn't functioning properly. The gap between questions and
answers widened as he fought to shore up his sluggish control.

"Well?" Bahr said.