“North or South?”
“South. I was born in Dunedin.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Not right now—all my papers are at my home on Cawley Island.”
“So you can’t prove you’re not a spy?” Martine had ceased looking like an amateur yachtsman, and was craning forward with his head tilted for Tarrant’s reply.
“A spy?” Tarrant looked at him in astonishment. “What would a spy be doing out here in the middle of …?”
“You were the one who mentioned Bergmann,” Martine cut in.
Tarrant recalled his country’s interest in Harpoon Island seven years earlier and half-formed ideas began to stir in his mind. “Look,” he said, “if I was snooping on your research into dysteleonics I wouldn’t come right out and say it, would I?”
Martine gave an unexpected laugh. “If that sort of reasoning was valid anybody who was caught doing anything, anywhere, would only have to mention his crime first, and thus prove his innocence.”
“I haven’t committed any crime.”
“Then perhaps you’ll tell me what you have been doing.”
“I guess I’d better.” Tarrant, having decided on complete honesty, led off with a brief sketch of his service career and his desertion from the South Newzealand Air Force. While he was changing into the dry clothes Martine had provided, he described the events of the past few days, beginning with his first brush with the Horra and ending with his being plucked overboard from his boat. The account took twenty minutes, but Martine heard him out with no interruptions, although at times he grew distinctly restless.
“You said earlier that you hadn’t committed any crime,” Martine commented after a lengthy pause. “What about this nuclear mortar bomb you took?”
“I didn’t take it—I’ve explained to you that I had no moral responsibility.” Tarrant’s concern about the two bombs remaining on Cawley Island came back to him. “I’d like you to put a signal through to the chairman of the Inner Council on Cawley and let him know the armoury isn’t secure.”
“I’ll do that, but right now I’m worried about the third bomb—the one your friend has.” Martine squeezed his lower lip between finger and thumb, his eyes hard on Tarrant’s. “You see, we have nearly twenty people on Harpoon Island, and—from what you say—Mr Somerville would have no compunction about wiping them out.”
Tarrant shook his head impatiently. “I tell you it isn’t Will Somerville who … What are your people doing on Harpoon?”
“I shouldn’t tell you, but you’ve given me some valuable information. …” Martine’s face relaxed slightly. “They’re excavating for the machine.”
“Then it is there. Will was right!”
“There’s something down there. We haven’t been able to measure its size or depth. The amount of dysteleonics activity in the area makes nonsense of all our readings. That’s the trouble with this stuff—above a certain intensity it makes compasses and most other instruments go haywire, but once it drops below a threshold level we can’t even detect it.” Martine’s eyes glistened as he warmed to his subject. “We’ve got to have dysteleonics—it’s the only way we’ll ever get the per capita energy quota back up to 21st century levels—but progress has been so slow.
“Would you believe that picking you out of the water this morning, a chance find if ever there was one, has advanced our work by six months or a year?”
“In what way?” Tarrant felt exhausted and had a pounding headache, but his mind had never been so alert.
“There must be a Bergmann transceiver just north of Cawley Island, so—for the first time—we can draw a line on a map and know it represents a dysteleonics beam.”
“That’s good,” Tarrant said. “I’m glad about that—but what are you going to do about Will Somerville and the others?”
“There’s only one thing I can do.” Martine blinked mildly behind his glasses. “I have to turn the matter over to the military and have them stopped.”
‘When I was with Interceptor Command,” Tarrant said thoughtfully, “there was a very strict policy for dealing with nuclear threats, even tactical stuff.”
“I’m not a military man,” Martine replied, “but I can see the need for such a policy. I’m sorry.”
“But they don’t deserve to be killed.”
Martine walked around the room before answering. “There’s more at stake than the lives of the twenty people on Harpoon, though in my opinion that issue alone justifies the use of maximum force against Somerville. There’s more at stake than the South Newzealand dysteleonics research programme. We’ve made the rather humbling discovery that human life on this planet has been artificially nurtured for millennia, and now that we know about the system of balances we have to protect it or bear the full brunt of future climatic changes.
“There could be millions of lives at stake here, billions of lives—and that’s why your friend Somerville has to be stopped before he gets anywhere near that machine. He’s a threat to the future of the whole race.”
Tarrant leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair. “I keep telling you it isn’t Will Somerville who’s the enemy. He and the others have no control over their actions.”
“Even if that were true, the situation remains effectively the same.”
Tarrant was taken by surprise. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Look at it from my point of view,” Martine said reasonably. “A week ago would you have believed in a mutated medusa-fish with telepathic powers? One which can exert control over animals and human beings?”
“But you believed everything else, didn’t you? I mean, a planetoid made up of sea water is a pretty unlikely. …”
“That’s different,” Martine interrupted. “I already knew about the planetoid.”
Tarrant looked at him in surprise. “How?”
“We located it by telescope and long-range radar more than two years ago. In fact, we found two planetoids in the same orbit, between Earth and Venus.”
“I see.” Tarrant began to appreciate the extent of the South Newzealand investigations. “And naturally you didn’t tell anybody?”
“Of course not. That information is all part of a single matrix.”
Tarrant cradled his head in his hands for a moment, trying to fight off his pain and tiredness. “Have you a drink? Anything alcoholic?”
Martine went to a wall locker and came back with a glass of brandy. “I’ll leave you to work on that while I go to the radio room.” His voice was quiet but firm. “I can’t delay that message any longer.”
He went out and closed the door behind him. Before the door had completely shut Tarrant saw him begin to speak to someone in the corridor outside, and knew he was under guard. He sipped the brandy and thought about Will Somerville sailing his boat towards a death which was now doubly certain. The others deserved a better fate, too. It filled Tarrant with a peculiar anguish to think of Myrah, in particular, living her grim travesty of a normal life for more than twenty years, then going through the enormity of a marriage to Ka, and surviving the transit to Earth—only to be obliterated by an air-to-surface rocket or a homing torpedo. He would have to renew his efforts to persuade Martine to stay his hand, even if it was only to gain a little breathing space.
“That’s that,” Martine said, coming back into the room. “They’re checking with Cawley Island to confirm that a nuclear mortar has been taken, then the hunt will be on. Incidentally, somebody on Cawley is going to get a roasting for possessing those things.”
“To hell with them,” Tarrant snapped. “Look, Captain, is it the …?”
“I’m not actually a naval officer,” Martine interrupted. “I don’t even know how to drive this ship. I’m a Principal Science Officer with the Marine Technology Board.”