The Zap Gun

24

Security, Lars discovered when he landed, had been even further augmented; it took over an hour for him to obtain clearance. In the end it required personal, face-to-face recognition of who he was and what he had come for on the part of a long-time, trusted Board assistant. And then he was on his way down, descending to join what might well turn out to be, he realized, the final convocation of UN-W Natsec at its intact fullness.

The last decisions were now being made.

In the middle of his discourse General Nitz took a moment, unexpectedly, to single out Lars and speak to him directly. "You missed a lot, due to your being away at Iceland. Not your fault. But something, as I indicated to you on the phone, has come up." General Nitz nodded to a junior officer who at once snapped on an intrinsic, homeo-programmed, vid aud scanner with a thirty-inch screen, parked in one corner of the room, at the opposite corner from the instrument which linked the Board, when desired, with Marshal Paponovich and the SeRKeb in New Moscow.

The set warmed up.

An ancient man appeared on it. He was thin, wearing the patched remnants of some peculiar military uniform. Hesitantly he said, "...and then we clobbered them. They didn't expect that; they were having it easy."

Bending, at General Nitz' signal, the junior officer stopped the Ampex aud-vid tape; the image froze, the sound ceased.

"I wanted you to get a look at him," General Nitz said to Lars. "Ricardo Hastings. Veteran of a war that took place sixty-some years ago... in his view of it, at least. All this time, for months, years perhaps, this old man has been sitting every day on a bench in the public park just outside the surface installations of the citadel, trying to get someone to listen to him. Finally someone did. In time? Maybe. Maybe not We'll see. It depends on what his brain, and our examination has already disclosed that he suffers from senile dementia, still contains by way of memory. Specifically, memory of the weapon which he serviced during the Big War." Lars said, "The Time Warpage Generator."

"There is little doubt," General Nitz said, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall behind him, professor-wise, "that it was through the action, perhaps accumulative and residual, of this weapon, of his constant proximity to it, especially to defective versions of it, that he wound up, in a way we don't understand, back here. In what, for him, is almost a century in the past. He is far too senile to notice; he simply does not understand. But that hardly matters. The 'Big War' which for him took place years ago, when he was a young man, we have already established to be the war we are currently engaged in. Ricardo Hastings has already been able to tell us the nature and origin of our enemy; from him we've finally learned something, at long last, about the aliens."

"And you hope," Lars said, "to obtain from him the weapon which got to them."

"We hope," Nitz said, "for anything we can get."

"Turn him over to Pete Freid," Lars said.

General Nitz cupped his ear inquiringly.

"The hell with this talk," Lars said. "Get him to Lanferman Associates; get their engineers started working."

"Suppose he dies."

"Suppose he doesn't. How long do you think it takes a man like Pete Freid to turn a rough idea into specs from which a prototype can be made? He's a genius. He could take a child's drawing of a cat and tell you if the organism depicted covered its excretion or walked away and left it lying there. I have Pete Freid reading over back-issues of The Blue Cephalopod Man from Titan. Let's stop that and start him on Ricardo Hastings."

Nitz said, "I talked to Freid. I—"

"I know you did," Lars said. "But the hell with talk. Get Hastings to California or better yet get Pete here. You don't need me; you don't need anyone in this room. You need him. In fact I'm leaving." He rose to his feet. "I'm stepping out of this. So long, until you start Freid on this Hastings matter." He at that point started, strode, toward the door.

"Perhaps," General Nitz said, "we will try you out on Hastings first. And then bring in Freid. While Freid is on his way here—"

"It takes only twenty minutes," Lars said, "or less to get a man from California to Festung Washington, D.C."

"But Lars. I'm sorry. The old man is senile. Do you literally, actually, know what that means? It appears to be almost impossible to establish a verbal bridge to him. So please, from the remains of his mind that are not accessible in the ordinary, normal—"

"Fine," Lars said, deciding on the spot. "But I want Freid notified first. Now." He pointed to the vid-phone at Nitz' end of the table.

Nitz picked up the phone, gave the order, hung the phone up.

"One more thing," Lars said. "I'm not alone now."

Nitz eyed him.

"I have Lilo Topchev with me," Lars said.

"Will she work? Can she do her job here with us?"

"Why not? The talent's there. As much as there ever was in me."

"All right." Nitz decided. "I'll have both of you taken into the hospital at Bethesda where the old man is. Pick her up. You can both go into that odd, beyond-my-comprehension trance-state. And meanwhile Freid is on his way."

"Fine," Lars said, satisfied.

Nitz managed to smile. "For a prima donna you talk tough."

"I talk tough," Lars said, "not because I'm a prima donna but because I'm too scared to wait. I'm too afraid they'll get us while we're not talking tough."