The Daleth Effect

22

“Aren’t they all aboard yet?” Arnie asked, looking out at the wharf from the high vantage point of the bridge. Two men came out of the customs shed, bending over and holding their homburgs down with their hands as the Baltic wind whipped around them. The porters, with their suitcases, came after them.

“Not yet, but we should be nearing the end,” Nils told him. “TU check with the purser.” He dialed the office in the entrance hallway, and the small telephone screen lit up with full color image of the chief purser.

“Sir?”

“How is your head count going?”

The purser consulted his charts, ticking them off with a pencil. “Six more passengers to go, and that’s the lot.”

“Thanks.” He hung up. “Not too bad. Considering that they are doing everything but x-ray them and examine the fillings in their teeth. I suppose that I’ll be hearing plenty of complaints. Ship captains never appear among the passengers until after the first day at sea. I think maybe I’ll try that.”

“With the new computer setup I imagine that you do not have to worry about your exact take-off time?”

“There’s nothing to it.” He patted the gray cabinet of the computer readout near his pilot’s position. “I tell this thing when I want to leave and it gets the answer back almost before we’re through typing. While we are in dock it is plugged into a direct land line to Moscow. After takeoff our computer talks to theirs and there are constant course and velocity checks and corrections.”

They watched another late arrival hurry across the wharf.

“Were the Americans upset about our using the Soviet computer?” Arnie asked.

“I suppose so, but they couldn’t complain because we had no simple line connections to theirs. But we are using only U.S. spacesuits so it evens out. Done on purpose, I’m sure. How was Ove when you saw him?”

Arnie shrugged. “Still in bed, coughing like a seal, still with a fever. I waved from the door, he would not let me come in. He wished us the best of luck. The flu went to his chest.”

“I’m glad you could take his place—though I’m sorry we had to ask you. As soon as all the bugs are ironed out we won’t be needing physicists in the engine room anymore.”

“I do not mind. In fact I enjoy it. Research and teaching are going to be very tame after some of these flights. Like Blaeksprutten to the Moon…”

“With the telephone box welded to the hull! God, those were the days. Look how far we have come.” He waved around the expanse of the bridge, at the uniformed crewmen on duty. The radio operator, talking to control ashore, the navigator, second pilot, instrumentation operator, computer mate. It was an impressive sight. The phone sounded and he answered it.

“All passengers aboard, Captain.”

“Fine. Prepare for take-off in ten minutes.”

Arnie was in the engine room for take-off, and in all truth he found very little to do. The crewmen were respectful enough, but they knew their jobs well. The Daleth drive had been automated to the point where the computer monitored it, and human attention was almost redundant. And the same was true of the fusion generator. When Arnie was hungry he had some food sent in, although he knew that he had been invited to the first night banquet. That he would avoid, with good reason, since he loathed this kind of affair. He was only too glad to help out and to take Ove’s place, when his friend was ill, but he did not really enjoy it The laboratory at Manebasen interested him far more, the new line of research he had started, and the classes he held in Daleth theory for the technicians.

And then there were the passengers. He had the list, and it did not take too much honesty to admit that this was the real reason he stayed sealed in the operating section. He had found no friends or associates among the scientists, they were all second-rate people for the most part. Not second rate, that wasn’t fair, but juniors—assistants to the important people. As though the universities of the world were not trusting their top minds to this unorthodox endeavor. Well, it did not matter. The young men could take observations as well as the old, and the raw facts and figures they returned with would have the others clamoring for a place on the next mission. Making a start, that was what counted.

As to the others, the politicians, he knew nothing about them. There were very few names he had ever heard before. But then, he was not the most careful of political observers. Probably all second consuls and that sort of thing, trying the water temperature this first trip so their betters could take a plunge later on.

But he knew one politician. He must face the fact—this was why he was staying away from the passenger section. But what good was it doing? General Avri Gev was aboard and he would have to meet him sooner or later. Arnie looked at his watch. Why not now? They would all be full of good food and drink. Perhaps he would catch Avri in a good mood. Knowing that this was impossible even as he thought it. But the entire voyage to Mars would take less than two days—and he was not going to spend all of the time skulking down here.

After checking with the technicians—no, everything was fine now, they would call him if there were any problems—he went to his cabin for his jacket, and then to the airtight doorway that led to the passenger section.

“Fine flight, sir,” the master-at-arms said, saluting. He was an old soldier, a sergeant, obviously transferred from the Army with all his stripes and decorations. He looked at his television screen that showed the empty corridor beyond, then pressed the button that opened the door. There were airtight doors throughout the Holger Danske, but this was the only one that could not be opened from either side. Arni nodded and went through, and found General Gev waiting for him around the first bend.

“I was hoping you would come out,” Gev said. “If not I would put a call in for you.”

“Good evening, Avri.”

“Would you come to my cabin? I have some Scotch whisky I want you to try.”

“I’m not much of a drinker ,…”

“Come anyway. Mr. Sakana gave it to me.”

Arnie stared at him, trying to read something from those impassive, tanned features. They had been talking in English. There was no one named Mr. Sakana. It was a Hebrew word meaning “danger.”

“Well—if you insist.”

Gev led the way, showing Amie in then locking the door behind him.

“What is wrong?” Arnie asked.

“In a moment. Hospitality first. Sit down, please, take that chair.”

Like all of the cabins, this one was luxurious. The port, with the metal cover now automatically swung back after passing through the Van Allen belt, opened onto the stars of space. A hand-made Rya rug was on the floor. The walls were paneled with teak and decorated with Sikker Hansen prints. The furniture was Scandinavian modern.

“And color television in every cabin,” Gev said, pointing to the large screen where cannon fired silently in a battle scene from the new film From Atlanta to the Sea. He took a bottle from the bar.

“It is practical,” Arnie said. “As well as furnishing entertainment from taped programs. It is part of the telephone system as well. Did you get me here to talk about interior decorating?”

“Not really. Here, try this. Glen Grant, pure malt, unblended, twelve years old. I developed a taste for it while I served with the British. There is something wrong aboard this ship. Lehayim.”

“What do you mean?” Arnie held his drink, puzzled.

“Just taste it. A thousand percent better than that filthy slivovitz you used to serve. I mean just that. Wrong. There are at least two men among the Eastern delegation whom I recognized. They are thugs, known agents, criminals.”

“You are sure?”

“Of course. Have you forgotten that I am charged with internal security? I read all the Interpol reports.”

“What could they be doing here?” Abstracted, he took too big a drink and started coughing.

“Sip it Like mother’s milk. I don’t know what they are doing here, but I can readily guess. They are after the Daleth drive.”

“That is impossible!”

“Is it?” Gev managed to look cynically amused and depressed at the same time. “Might I ask you what kind of security precautions have been taken?” Arnie was silent, and Gev laughed.

“So don’t tell me. I don’t blame you for being suspicious. But I do not make a very good army of one, and the only other Israeli aboard is that round-shouldered shlub of a biologist. A genius he is supposed to be, a fighting man he is not.”

“You were not this friendly the last time we talked.”

“With good reason, as you well know. But times have changed and Israel is making the best of what she has. We don’t have your Daleth drive—though at least it has a good Hebrew name—but the Danes are being far more accommodating than we ever expected. They admit that a lot of the Daleth theory was developed in Israel, therefore are giving us first priority in scientific and commercial exploitation. We are even going to have our own base on the Moon. Right now there is nothing to really complain about. We still want the Daleth drive, but at the moment we don’t intend to shoot anyone for it. I want to talk to Captain Hansen.”

Arnie chewed his lip, concentrating, then finished the rest of the whisky without even realizing it. “Stay here/’ he finally said. “I will tell him what you have seen. He will call you.”

“Don’t be too long, Arnie,” Gev said quietly. He was very serious.

Nils had made a short speech at the banquet, then retreated to the bridge pleading the charge of duty. He was sitting with one leg over the arm of his chair, looking .at the stars. He spun about when Arnie told him what Gev had said.

“Impossible!”

“Perhaps. But I believe him.”

“Could it be a trick of his own? To get to the bridge?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. He is a man of honor—and I believe him.”

“I hope that you are right—and that he is wrong. But I can’t just ignore his charges. I’ll get him up, but the master-at-arms will be standing behind him all the time.” He turned to the phone.

General Gev came at once. The sergeant walked two paces behind him with his drawn automatic pistol in his hand. He held it at his waist, where it could not be grabbed, and he looked ready to use it.

“Could I see your passenger list?” Gev asked, then went through it carefully.

“This one and this one,” he said, underscoring their names. “They have different aliases in the files, but they are the same men. One is wanted for sabotage, the other is suspected in a bombing plot. Very nasty types.”

“It is hard to believe,” Nils said. “They are the accredited representatives of these countries…”

“Who do exactly whatever Mother Russia asks them to. Please don’t be naive, Captain Hansen. A satellite means just that. Bought and paid for and ready to dance when someone else whistles the tune.”

The telephone burred at Nils’s elbow and he switched it on automatically.

A man’s frightened face appeared on the screen, bright blood running down his face.

“Help!” he screamed.

Then there was a loud noise and the screen went blank.