“There seems to be a stalemate here. We hold the bridge and the controls.”
“While I and my men are in charge of the engines and the drive unit. My forces are not as strong as they should be—but we are well armed. I think that you will find it impossible to defeat us. You will not get us out of here. So what do you intend to do, Mr. Baxter?”
“Is Dr. Nikitin with you?”
“Of course! Why else do you think we are here?” Baxter broke the connection and turned to Nils. “This is very bad, Captain.”
“WTiat are you talking about?” The fog was clearing somewhat from Nils’s battered head. “Who is this Nikitin?”
“One of their better physicists,” Arnie said. “With the diagrams and circuitry he should know the basic principles of the Daleth drive by now.”
“Exactly,” Baxter said and put his gun away. “They hold the engine room, but cannot take the bridge, so all is not lost. Report that to your superiors,” he ordered the radio operator. “It is a stalemate for the moment—but if we had not been here they would have taken the entire ship. You see, Captain, you were mistaken about us.”
“Where~did you get the guns?” Nils asked. “That explosive?”
“Of what importance is that? Gun barrels looking like fountain pens, swallowed ammunition, plastic explosive in toothpaste tubes. The usual thing. It’s not important.”
“It is to me,” Nils said, sitting up straighter. “And what do you propose to do now, Mr. Baxter?”
“Hard to say. Bandage you people up first. Try to arrange a deal with that double-agent Kraut. We’ll work something out. Have to turn back, I guess. Prevent any more killing. They know about the drive now, so the cat is out of the bag. No secrets left between allies, hey? Your people in Copenhagen will understand. I imagine America will handle it through NATO, but that’s not my area of responsibility. I’m just the man in the field. But you can be sure of one thing.” He drew himself up. “There is going to be no Daleth gap. The Russians are not going to get ahead of us with this one.”
Nils rose slowly, painfully, and stumbled to his chair at the controls. “Who are you talking to?” he asked the radio operator.
“There is a patch to Copenhagen. One of the Minister’s assistants. It is the middle of the night there and the others were asleep when I called. The King, the Prime Minister, they’re on the way.”
“I’m afraid we can’t wait for them.” They spoke English so Baxter could understand. Nils now turned to him. “I would like to explain what has happened.”
“By all means, sure. They’ll want to know.”
Still in English, slowly and carefully, Nils outlined the recent occurrences. After a long delay, while the signal reached out to Earth and the answer came back, the man at the other end spoke in Danish, and Nils answered in the same language. When he had finished, there was a tense silence on the bridge.
“Well?” Baxter asked. “What was that about? What did they say?”
“They agreed with me,” Nils told him. “The situation is hopeless.”
“Good thinking.”
“We agreed on what must be done. He thanked us.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Nils was finished with patience and formality now. He spat the words with a slow anger that had finally burned through.
“I’m talking about stopping you, little man. Violence, death, killing—that is all you know. I don’t see an ounce of difference between you and your paid creatures here, and that swine now in charge of the engine room. In the name of good you do evil. For national pride you would destroy mankind. When will you admit that all men are brothers—and then find some way to stop killing your brothers? Your country alone has enough atomic bombs to blow up the world four times over. So why must you add the additional destruction of the Daleth effect?”
“The Russkies—”
“Are the same as you. From where I am, here in space, about to die, I can’t tell the difference.”
“Die?” Baxter was frightened, he raised his gun again. “Yes. Did you think we would just hand you the Daleth drive? We tried to keep it away from you without killing, but you forced this on us. There are at least five tons of explosive distributed about the frame of this ship. Actuated by radio signal from Earth…”
A series of rapid musical notes was sounding from the speaker and Baxter screamed hoarsely, turning, firing at the controls, hitting the radio operator, emptying his gun into the banks of instruments.
“A radio signal that cannot be interrupted from here.” Nils turned to Arnie who was standing quietly. Nils took his hand and started to say something. General Gev was laughing, victoriously, enjoying this cosmic jest. The lightness appealed to him. Baxter shouted…
With a single great burst of flame everything ended.
24
For Martha Hansen, events had a dreamlike quality that made them bearable. It had started when Ove had called that night, 4:17 in the morning, her clearest recollection of his call had been the position of the glowing hands in the dark while his voice buzzed in her ear.
4:17. The numbers must mean something important cause they kept coming to the front of her mind. Was that the time her world had ended? No, she was still very much alive. But Nils was away on one of his flights. He had always returned from his flights before this…
That was the point where her thoughts would always slide around and come to something else. 4:17. The people who had called, talked to her, the Prime Minister himself. The Royal Family… 4:17. She had tried to be nice to everyone. Surely she had. She had at least learned to be polite in finishing school, if she had not learned anything else.
But she should have noticed more about the trip to the Moon. But even then the numbness had prevailed. They had flown in one of the new Moon ships, space-buses they were being called. Very much like flying in a jet, only with more room all around. A long cabin, rows of seats, sandwiches and drinks. Even a hostess. A tall ash-blond girl who had seemed to stay quite close for most of the trip, had even talked to her a bit. With the kind of lilting Swedish accent the men loved. But sad now, like all of them. When had she seen a smile last?
The funeral ceremony had seemed empty. There was the monument all right, in the airless soil just beyond the windows. Draped in flags, a bugle had wailed a plaintive call that pulled at the heartstrings. But no one was buried there. No one would ever be buried there. An explosion, they had told her. Died instantly, painless. And so far away. Days later Ove Rasmussen had told her the real story behind the explosion. It sounded like madness. People did not really do this kind of thing to each other. But they did. And Nils was the kind of man who could do what he had done. It wasn’t suicide, she could not imagine Nils committing suicide. But a victory for what he knew was right. If he had to die at the same time she knew he would consider this second, and not give it much consideration at all. In dying he had taught her things about the man, living, that she had never realized.
“Just a drop of sherry?” Ulla asked, bending over her with a glass in her hand. They were in a lounge, the ceremony was over. They would be returning to Copenhagen soon.
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
Martha sipped the drink and tried to pay attention to the others. She knew she had not been doing this of late, and also knew that they had been making allowances for it. She did not like that. It was too much like being pitied. She sipped again, and looked around. There was a high-ranking Army officer at the table with them, and someone—she forgot his name—from the Ministry of Space.