Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (44 page)

They were already waiting, gathered round the rickety table, when Joe waved him politely into the living room. The three thugs had vanished, and even Joe seemed somewhat restrained. Stormgren could see at once that he was now confronted by men of a much higher calibre. There was intellectual force, iron determination, and ruthlessness in these six men. Joe and his like were harmless – here were the real brains behind the organisation.

With a curt nod, Stormgren moved over to the seat and tried to look self-possessed. As he approached, the elderly, thick-set man on the far side of the table leaned forward and stared at him with piercing grey eyes. They made Stormgren so uncomfortable that he spoke first – something he had not intended to do.

‘I suppose you’ve come to discuss terms. What’s my ransom?’

He noticed that in the background someone was taking down his words in a shorthand notebook. It was all very businesslike.

The leader replied in a musical Welsh accent.

‘You could put it that way, Mr Secretary-General. But we’re interested in information, not cash. You know what our motives are. Call us a resistance movement, if you like. We believe that sooner or later Earth will have to fight for its independence. We kidnapped you partly to show Karellen that we mean business and are well organised, but largely because you are the only man who can tell us anything of the Overlords. You’re a reasonable man Mr Stormgren. Give us your co-operation, and you can have your freedom.’

‘Exactly what do you wish to know?’ asked Stormgren cautiously.

‘Do you know who, or what, the Overlords really are?’

Stormgren almost smiled.

‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘I’m quite as anxious as you to discover that.’

‘Then you’ll answer our questions?’

‘I make no promises. But I may.’

There was a slight sigh of relief from Joe and a rustle of anticipation went round the room.

‘We have a general idea,’ continued the other, ‘of the circumstances in which you meet Karellen. Would you go through them carefully, leaving out nothing of importance?’

That was harmless enough, thought Stormgren. He had done it scores of times before, and it would give the appearance of co-operation.

He felt in his pockets and produced a pencil and an old envelope. Sketching rapidly while he conversed, he began:

‘You know, of course, that a small flying machine, with no obvious means of propulsion, calls for me at regular intervals and takes me up to Karellen’s ship. There is only one small room in that machine, and it’s quite bare apart from a couch and table. The layout is something like this.’ As Stormgren talked, it seemed to him that his mind was operating on two levels simultaneously. On the one hand he was trying to defy the men who had captured him, yet on the other he was hoping that they might help him to unravel Karellen’s secret. He did not feel that he was betraying the Supervisor, for there was nothing here that he had not told many times before. Moreover, the thought that these men could harm Karellen in any way was fantastic.

The Welshman conducted most of the interrogation. It was fascinating to watch that agile mind trying one opening after another, testing and rejecting all the theories that Stormgren himself had abandoned long ago. Presently he leaned back with a sigh and the shorthand writer laid down his stylus.

‘We’re getting nowhere,’ he said resignedly. ‘We want more facts, and that means action – not argument.’ The piercing eyes stared thoughtfully at Stormgren. For a moment he tapped nervously on the table – the first sign of uncertainty that Stormgren had noticed. Then he continued.

‘I’m a little surprised, Mr Secretary, that you’ve never made an effort to learn more about the Overlords.’

‘What do you suggest?’ asked Stormgren coldly. ‘I’ve told you that there’s only one way out of the room in which I’ve had my talks with Karellen – and that leads straight to the airlock.’

‘It might be possible,’ mused the other, ‘to devise instruments which could teach us something. I’m no scientist, but we can look into the matter. If we give you your freedom, would you be willing to assist with such a plan?’

‘Once and for all,’ said Stormgren angrily, ‘let me make my position perfectly clear. Karellen is working for a united world, and I’ll do nothing to help his enemies. What his ultimate plans may be, I don’t know, but I believe that they are good. You may annoy him, you may even delay the achievement of his aims, but it will make no difference in the end. You may be sincere in believing as you do: I can understand your fear that the traditions and cultures of little countries will be overwhelmed when the World State arrives. But you are wrong: it is useless to cling to the past. Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying. No one can save it now, and no one should try.’

There was no reply: the man opposite neither moved nor spoke. He sat with lips half open, his eyes now lifeless and blind. Around him the others were equally motionless, frozen in strained, unnatural attitudes. With a little gasp of pure horror, Stormgren rose to his feet and backed away toward the door. As he did so the silence was suddenly broken.

‘That was a nice speech, Rikki. Now I think we can go.’

‘Karellen! Thank God – but what have you done?’

‘Don’t worry. They’re all right. You can call it a paralysis, but it’s much subtler than that. They’re simply living a few thousand times more slowly than normal. When we’re gone, they’ll never know what happened.’

‘You’ll leave them here until the police come?’

‘No: I’ve a much better plan. I’m letting them go.’

Stormgren felt an illogical sense of relief which he did not care to analyse. He gave a last valedictory glance at the little room and its frozen occupants. Joe was standing on one foot, staring very stupidly at nothing. Suddenly Stormgren laughed and fumbled in his pockets.

‘Thanks for the hospitality Joe,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll leave a souvenir.’

On a reasonably clean sheet of paper he wrote carefully:

BANK OF MANHATTAN

Pay ‘Joe’ the sum of Fifteen Dollars

Thirty-five Cents ($15.35)

R. Stormgren.

As he laid the strip of paper beside the Pole, Karellen’s voice inquired: ‘Exactly what are you up to?’

‘Paying a debt of honour,’ explained Stormgren. ‘The other two cheated, but I think Joe played fair.’

He felt very gay and light-headed as he walked to the door. Hanging just outside it was a large, featureless metal sphere that moved aside to let him pass. He guessed that it was some kind of robot, and it explained how Karellen had been able to reach him through the unknown layers of rock overhead.

‘Carry on for a hundred yards,’ said the sphere, speaking in Karellen’s voice. ‘Then turn to the left until I give you further instructions.’

He ran forward eagerly, though he realised that there was no need for hurry. The sphere remained hanging in the corridor, and Stormgren guessed that it was the generator of the paralysis field.

A minute later he came across a second sphere, waiting for him at a fork in the corridor.

‘You’ve half a mile to go,’ it said. ‘Keep to the left until we meet again.’

Six times he encountered the spheres on his way to the open. At first he wondered if somehow the first robot had slipped ahead of him; then he guessed that there must be a chain of them maintaining a complete circuit down into the depths of the mine. At the entrance a group of guards formed a piece of improbable still life, watched over by yet another of the ubiquitous spheres. On the hillside a few yards away lay the little flying machine in which Stormgren had made all his journeys to Karellen.

He stood for a moment blinking in the fierce sunlight. As he climbed into the little ship, he had a last glimpse of the mine entrance and the men frozen round it. Quite suddenly a line of metal spheres raced out of the opening like silver cannon balls. Then the door closed behind him and with a sigh of relief he sank back upon the familiar couch.

For a while Stormgren waited until he had recovered his breath, then he uttered a single, heartfelt syllable:

‘Well?’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t rescue you before. But you’ll see how very important it was to wait until all the leaders had gathered here.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ spluttered Stormgren, ‘that you knew where I was all the time? If I thought—’

‘Don’t be so hasty,’ answered Karellen, ‘or at any rate, let me finish explaining.’

‘It had better be good,’ said Stormgren darkly. He was beginning to suspect that he had been no more than the bait in an elaborate trap.

‘I’ve had a tracer on you for some time,’ began Karellen, ‘and though your late friends were correct in thinking that I couldn’t follow you underground, I was able to keep track until they brought you to the mine. That transfer in the tunnel was ingenious, but when the first car ceased to react, it gave the show away and I soon located you again. Then it was merely a matter of waiting. I knew that once they were certain I’d lost you, the leaders would come here and I’d be able to trap them all.’

‘But you’re letting them go!’

‘Until now,’ said Karellen, ‘I did not know which of the two billion men on this planet were the heads of the organisation. Now that they’re located, I can trace their movements anywhere on Earth. That’s far better than locking them up. They’re effectively neutralised, and they know it.’

That rich laugh echoed round the tiny room.

‘In some ways the whole affair was a comedy, but it had a serious purpose. It will be a valuable object lesson for any other plotters.’

Stormgren was silent for a while. He was not altogether satisfied, but he could see Karellen’s point of view and some of his anger had evaporated.

‘It’s a pity to do it in my last few weeks of office,’ he said, ‘but from now on I’m going to have a guard on my house. Pieter can be kidnapped next time. How has he managed, by the way? Are things in as big a mess as I expect?’

‘You’ll be disappointed to find how little your absence has mattered. I’ve watched Pieter carefully this past week, and have deliberately avoided helping him. On the whole he’s done very well – but he’s not the man to take your place.’

‘That’s lucky for him,’ said Stormgren, still rather aggrieved. ‘And have you had any word from your superior about – about showing yourself to us? I’m sure now that it’s the strongest argument your enemies have. Again and again, they told me, “We’ll never trust the Overlords until we can see them.”’

Karellen sighed.

‘No, I have heard nothing. But I know what the answer must be.’

Stormgren did not press the matter. Once he might have done so, but now for the first time the faint shadow of a plan had come into his mind. What he had refused to do under duress, he might yet attempt of his own free will.

Pierre Duval showed no surprise when Stormgren walked unannounced into his office. They were old friends, and there was nothing unusual in the Secretary-General paying a personal visit to the chief of the Science Bureau. Certainly Karellen would not think it odd, even if by any remote chance he turned his attention to this corner of the world.

For a while the two men talked business and exchanged political gossip; then, rather hesitantly, Stormgren came to the point. As his visitor talked, the old Frenchman leaned back in his chair and his eyebrows rose steadily millimetre by millimetre until they were almost entangled in his forelock. Once or twice he seemed about to speak but each time thought better of it.

When Stormgren had finished, the scientist looked nervously around the room.

‘Do you think he was listening?’ he said.

‘I don’t believe he can. This place is supposed to be shielded from everything, isn’t it? Karellen’s not a magician. He knows where I am, but that’s all.’

‘I hope you’re right. Apart from that, won’t there be trouble when he discovers what you’re trying to do? Because he will, you know.’

‘I’ll take that risk. Besides, we understand each other rather well.’

The physicist toyed with his pencil and stared into space for a while.

‘It’s a very pretty problem. I like it,’ he said simply. Then he dived into a drawer and produced an enormous writing-pad, the biggest Stormgren had ever seen.

‘Right,’ he began, scribbling furiously. ‘Let me make sure I have all the facts. Tell me everything you can about the room in which you have your interviews. Don’t omit any detail, however trivial it seems.’

Finally the Frenchman studied his notes with puckered brow.

‘And that’s all you can tell me?’

‘Yes.’

He snorted in disgust.

‘What about lighting? Do you sit in total darkness? And how about heating, ventilation …’

Stormgren smiled at the characteristic outburst.

‘The whole ceiling is luminous, and as far as I can tell the air comes through the speaker grille. I don’t know how it leaves; perhaps the stream reverses at intervals, but I haven’t noticed it. There’s no sign of any heaters, but the room is always at normal temperature. As for the machine that takes me up to Karellen’s ship, the room in which I travel is as featureless as an elevator cage.’