James P. Hogan (48 page)

General Snell rubbed, his chin hesitantly “Although, I don’t know… Maybe there could be something to it…”

“We’ve been through all this,” the defense secretary said, He nodded toward Foleda to concede the point. “Yes, I agree with Mr. Foleda; under normal circumstances all the things he’s reminded us of would constitute grounds for concern – serious concern. But there is one fact that outweighs those considerations: virtually the entire Soviet leadership – its top leadership, including the First Secretary of the Party, chairman of the Council of Ministers, chiefs of the KGB and the military – are either there already, or will be within the next couple of days. We’ve asked ourselves, Is that where anyone in their right mind would concentrate the brain of the entire national organism at a time of intended conflict? On a battle station out in space that would be bound to be a first target? Of course not. It just wouldn’t make sense. A more plausible explanation for all the Soviet military activity we’re seeing is that since they won’t be having their big parade this year, they’re organizing exercises instead.”

It was the first week of November, and Soviet television was already broadcasting live coverage into the world news grid of the first groups of Soviet leaders arriving inside
Valentina Tereshkova
. More transporters were en route, and others, including the UN vessel with the Western VIPs, would be departing from Earth orbit in the next day or so. As the defense secretary had pointed out, they would all be very vulnerable if there were hostilities.

The factors that made
Valentina Tereshkova
a virtually unassailable weapons platform didn’t make it automatically a safe haven for people. The reason, was that to disable its weapons effectively, the West’s orbiting lasers and other beam projectors would have to knock them all out simultaneously with a first shot. With the devastating and instantaneous return-fire that
Tereshkova
– if the rumors were true – could bring to bear, there would never be a chance for a second shot. But such a first-shot knockout would be impossible for the simple reason that the West’s weaponry was designed to attack pinpoint targets in space; without knowing exactly where to aim, it would have no chance of surviving long enough to find a few compact, hardened spots on a structure measuring miles around.

But for people loose in the general volume of the main torus, the situation was different. A salvo from all the West’s orbiting beam weapons fired in unison could blow away enough of the relatively thin skin to decompress the whole ring in seconds. Even if the Soviet weapons operators were protected inside their hardened emplacements, the chances for survival of anyone out in the general colony areas would be slim. That was why the consensus had gone the way it had, leaving Foleda out on his own. If there was anything to what he said, nobody for a moment could see the Soviets acting the way they had.

The large screen at one end of the room was showing a still picture of the Soviet chairman of the Council of Ministers standing on a rostrum, a garland of flowers hanging down over the front of his suit, addressing a crowd in the main square of Turgenev, inside
Tereshkova
, minutes after his party had descended from the docking facilities at the hub. It was from a clip of the latest Soviet news bulletin, which the people at the meeting had watched earlier and not bothered to turn off. Behind the crowd were glimpses of
Tereshkova’s
bewildering, Oz-like architecture, and above, the strange curving sky with its elongated suns.

Foleda leaned back and extended a hand briefly to indicate the screen. “Just suppose,” he suggested, “that what we saw there a little while ago isn’t happening at all. Wouldn’t that make a difference?”

The President shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean, not happening, Mr. Foleda? I’m not sure I follow.”

“Of course it’s happening,” the secretary of state muttered impatiently. “I’m starting to wonder if this is happening.”

“We know the transmission is coming in from the Soviet news service, that’s all,” Foleda said. “But how do we know that the events it’s showing are happening
now
– up there inside Mermaid, right at this moment?”

“NASA’s picking up the TV transmissions from Mermaid independently of the Soviet news broadcasts down here,” Collins said. “There’s no question that’s where it’s coming from, if that’s what you mean.”

“Look at the screen,” the secretary of state said, gesturing. “You can see where it is.”

“That only demonstrates that a signal is being transmitted down from Mermaid,” Foleda persisted. “No, that wasn’t my question. What I said was, how do we
know
that the events that it depicts are actually taking place right now?” He looked around the table. Nobody seemed to be quite with him. He drew a breath. “How do we know that it isn’t all something they did months ago – that what they’re transmitting isn’t a recording, just like what we’re looking at on the screen here?”

“We can see the ships arriving up there…” the secretary of state started to answer automatically, but then his voice trailed away as he realized that it didn’t mean very much. Everyone else saw it too, and Foleda didn’t bother pointing out the obvious.

“That has to be ridiculous,” the defense secretary declared, sitting back abruptly.

Collins looked at Foleda, frowned, then looked away again. Borden had half-turned and was sitting with his face propped on a hand, staring as if Foleda had just grown another head. The President was shooting looks all around the table to get someone to respond. Everyone seemed to be thinking that someone ought to say why the idea was crazy, but no one wanted to say it first.

“Well?” Foleda challenged. “Okay, I agree I’m suspicious, but that’s what you pay me to be. Our job is to make worst-case assumptions. I’ve made one. Show me I’m wrong.”

The secretary of state spread his hands. “There have to be some things you can’t always prove. Some things you just have to take on trust and hope you’re right. It’s possible that anyone in this room could be a KGB spy. We don’t
know
it isn’t true. We just have to carry on and hope it isn’t. If everyone waited for everything to be proved, they’d never do anything. Who was the general who said that if you wait until all the information’s in, you’ll be bound to be too late?”

“I’m not so sure, Joe.” General Snell was leaning back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe there is a way we can find out if those Russians are really where they say they are.”

“How?” the President asked from the end of the table.

“We’ve got agents up there, right now. And we’ve got a means of communicating with them. We don’t have to rely on what the Soviet news service says. Can’t we ask our own people if they can see with their own eyes the same things we’re seeing on screens down here? If they say they can, that would be good enough for me.”

The heads turned back toward Foleda. Foleda blinked, He had discredited Sunflower so much in his own mind, he realized, that the possibility of using the link for this purpose hadn’t occurred to him. An unskilled agent’s failing to find weapons that might be there was one thing – negative evidence was always questionable. But confirmation of something taking place right in front of one’s eyes constituted positive evidence. That was a different matter.

“What do you say, Mr. Foleda?” the President asked. “You have expressed the greatest skepticism toward Sunflower. If we took up General Snell’s suggestion and got confirmation from our own agents there, would that satisfy you?”

Foleda’s brow creased into a frown. The truth was that he didn’t trust the Soviets an inch, and didn’t like the way the West in general – and the US in particular – were dancing eagerly to the Soviet tune to demonstrate their inoffensiveness. But those were prejudices pure and simple, and there was no way to defend them now. He looked up and nodded.

“Yes, Mr. President, I guess that would change the picture a whole lot,” he agreed unhappily.

In the background, the large screen in the graphics lab at Turgenev still displayed the exchange cycle of gases between soil bacteria and the atmosphere. But Paula and Olga were more interested in the smaller deskscreen pivoted to face them on the console below, which was showing on a local channel the crowd gathering in the square outside the building. The second transporter bringing Soviet government and Party officials had arrived at the hub twenty minutes previously, and they were expected to emerge from the spoke at any time. There was considerable excitement among the privileged-category inmates back at Zamork, too. Rumors had been circulating of large-scale amnesties to be announced during the November 7 celebrations, and the compound was alive with speculations about whose names might have been chosen.

“But why?” Olga asked again. She shook her head and moved over to a worktop at the side of the room and stared down again at the transcript of the latest request to come in from Tycoon. “They can see on the public television channels that there are important people arriving here. Why should they want corroboration from you? And why does it matter so much, anyway?”

“It’s strange…” Paula answered in a faraway voice, leaning back and staring at the large screen but not seeing it. They had established some time ago now that since it was part of the Environmental Department, which was classed as a normal civilian work area, the graphics lab was not wired for surveillance. Therefore they could speak freely there.

Olga turned and came back to stand behind Paula’s chair. “Why should the Americans doubt it? Do they think that what they’re watching down there might be recordings or something? Maybe they still believe this is a war platform.” She tapped her lips with her fingertip for a moment. “Could they be afraid that the Russians might be planning to hijack the Western VIPs who are on their way here? You know them better than I do. Are they capable of dreaming up something like that?” Paula didn’t answer. Olga waited, then looked at her. “What are you thinking?”

Paula swiveled the chair slowly, her elbow resting on the armrest, and looked up over her loosely closed fist. “I think it’s worse than that,” she said.

Olga frowned. “Worse?”

“A lot.”

“What do you mean?”

Paula pushed herself up from the chair, paused to choose her words, and then turned to stand with her back to the console, resting herself against the edge. “We don’t know what’s been going on down on Earth between your side and mine over the past few months. But we do know they’re run by some people who can be pretty irrational.”

Olga nodded. “Yes, I would agree with that. So?”

“Well, if you were the Americans,” Paula said, “what would the fact that practically the entire Soviet leadership had gone up to
Valentina Tereshkova
for the November seventh celebrations say to you?”

“Why… that they were taking time off to go away and enjoy themselves for once, I suppose. And since a potential target would be the last place they’d pick, I’d be pretty happy that they weren’t planning to —” Olga broke off and turned her head toward Paula quizzically as she saw what Paula was implying.

“Yes,” Paula said. “And what would it say if they hadn’t gone there at all, but wanted you to think exactly the things you’ve just said?”

Olga stared incredulously. “No!”

“I think so.” Paula nodded somberly. She met Olga’s eyes fully. “I think the Americans believe you’re about to launch.” Olga sat down weakly and shook her head. “And worse,” Paula said. “What if the West decides to preempt?”

“Oh God…” Olga licked her lips and turned her head first one way and then the other. She seemed to be having trouble coming to terms with the enormity of it. Paula watched silently. At last Olga gestured at the transcript, then indicated the BV-15 terminal standing in a corner. “We must do something…” Her voice choked. She waved a hand again. “The channel. We must send them an answer.”

“Yes, I know.” Paula straightened up from the console, gathered the transcript, and sat down at the terminal. Her movements were purposeful and resolute, as if she had been giving Olga time to catch up with the conclusion she had already recognized in her own mind as inevitable. Paula took a screwdriver from a drawer and removed the BV-15’s cover. Then she reached in her pocket, took out a small plastic box containing one of the preprogrammed chips, and plugged the chip into the socket that it was coded to work in. Then she replaced the cover, sat down, and activated the screen. Olga moved her chair closer to watch.

Then a frown crossed Paula’s face. She sat back uncertainly and turned her head to glance at the small screen showing the scene outside the building. The crowd was denser now, and officials were buzzing excitedly around the doors that opened from the concourse outside the spoke elevators. Paula looked back at the terminal again with a suddenly numb expression. “I can’t do this,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” Olga asked. She sounded alarmed.

“This message. I can’t send it. I
can’t
tell them those leaders are arriving here.”

“But why not?”

“Because I don’t
know
that they are.” Paula turned her head and looked at Olga oddly. “Am I being paranoid too, now? But don’t you see? All I have to go by is a TV picture, just like the people down there in America. I can’t tell if it’s real any more than they can.”

Olga was shaking her head. “But… but that’s ridiculous. You’re
here
. They’re not.” She waved frantically at the deskscreen. “That’s all happening right outside the building we’re in.” They couldn’t simply walk out and look, of course, because their Zamork bracelets would trigger alarms if they tried leaving their authorized working vicinity, which would achieve nothing but get them spells in solitary.

Paula was adamant. “If I sound silly, I’m sorry, but I think it’s important. You’re always reminding me that we’re scientists. Well, this would be confirming reported data that we haven’t observed for ourselves. Scientists can’t do that.”

Olga was looking dazed. “But… we’re talking about possibly averting
war
!” she insisted. Her voice was pleading, her face strained. “Global war. How many times we’ve talked about this, what it would mean… You can’t stop because of something like this.” She got up from her chair and stood with her hands pressed flat together against her face. Her eyes darted this way and that, as if seeking answers on the walls. “I can show you…. Yes, look, wait there. I’ll go and get Gennadi.”