“There. Now I’m sure that we’re alone. That switch isolates the room completely. Not even my private secretary can listen to us now.”
Leoh felt his eyebrows rising toward his scalp.
“You have every right to look surprised, Professor. And I should look apologetic and humble. That’s why I had to make certain that this meeting is strictly private.”
“This meeting?” Leoh echoed. “Then the meeting we just had, with the others and the newsmen…”
Martine smiled broadly. “Kanus is not the only one who can put up a smoke screen.”
“I see. Well, what did you want to tell me?”
“First, please convey my apologies to Lieutenant Hector. He was not invited here for reasons that will be obvious in a moment. I realize that he wormed the truth out of Odal, although I’m not convinced that he knew what he was doing when he did it.”
Leoh suppressed a chuckle. “Hector has his own way of doing things.”
Nodding, Martine went on more soberly. “Now then, the real reason for my wanting to speak to you privately: I have been something of a stubborn fool. I realize that now. Kanus has not only outwitted me, but has actually penetrated deeply into my government. When I realized that Lal Ponte is a Kerak agent.…” The Prime Minister’s face was grim.
“What are you going to do with him?”
A shrug. “There’s nothing I can do. He has been implicated indirectly by Odal. There’s no evidence,” despite a thorough investigation. But I’m sure that if Kanus conquered the Acquataine Cluster, Ponte would expect to be named Prime Minister of the puppet government.”
Leoh said nothing.
“Ponte is not that much of a problem. He can be isolated. Anything that I want from his office I can get from men I know I can trust. Ponte can sit alone at his desk until the ceiling caves in on him.”
“But he’s not your only problem.”
“No. It’s the military problem that threatens us most directly. You and Spencer have been right all along. Kerak is building swiftly for an attack, and our defensive building is too far behind them to be of much use.”
“Then the alliance with the Commonwealth.…”
Shaking his head unhappily, Martine explained, “No, that’s still impossible. The political situation here is too unstable. I was voted into office by the barest margin… thanks to Ponte. To think that I was elected because Kanus wanted me to be! We’ve both been pawns, Professor.”
“I know.”
“But, you see, if Dulaq and Massan and all their predecessors never allied Acquatainia with the Commonwealth, then for me to attempt it would be an admission of weakness. There are strong pro-Kerak forces in the legislature, and many others who are still as blind and stubborn as I’ve been. I would be voted out of office in a week if I tried to make an alliance with the Terrans.”
Leoh asked, “Then what can you do?”
“I can do very little. But you can do much. I cannot call the Star Watch for help. But you can contact your friend, Sir Harold, and suggest that he ask me for permission to bring a Star Watch fleet through the Cluster. Any excuse will do… battle maneuvers, exploration, cultural exchange, anything.”
Leoh shifted uneasily in his chair. “You want me to ask Harold to ask you…”
“Yes, that’s it.” Martine nodded briskly. “And it must be a small Star Watch fleet, quite small. To the rest of Acquatainia, it must appear obvious that the Terran ships are not being sent here to help defend us against Kerak. But to Kanus, it must be equally obvious that he cannot attack Acquatainia without the risk of killing Watchmen and immediately involving the Commonwealth.”
“I think I understand,” said Leoh, with a rueful smile. “Einstein was right: nuclear physics is much simpler than politics.”
Martine laughed, but there was bitterness in it.
2
Kanus sat in brooding silence behind his immense desk, his thin, sallow face dark with displeasure. Sitting with him in the oversized office, either looking up at him at his cunningly elevated desk, or avoiding his sullen stare, were most of the members of his Inner Cabinet.
At length, the Leader spoke. “We had the Acquataine Cluster in our grasp, and we allowed an old refugee from a university and a half-wit Watchman to snatch it away from us. Kor! You told me the plan was foolproof!”
The Minister of Intelligence remained calm, except for a telltale glistening of perspiration on his bullet-shaped dome. “It was foolproof, until…”
“Until? Until? I want the Acquataine Cluster, not excuses!”
“And you shall have it,” Marshal Lugal promised. “As soon as the army is re-equipped and…”
“As soon as! Until!” Kanus’ voice rose to a scream. “We had a plan of conquest and it failed. I should have the lot of you thrown to the dogs! And you, Kor; this was your operation, your plan. You picked this mind reader… Odal. He was to be the express instrument of my will. And he failed! You both failed. Twice! Can you give me any reason for allowing you to continue to pollute the air with your presence?”
Kor replied evenly, “The Acquataine government is still very shaky and ripe for plucking. Men sympathetic to you, my Leader, have gained important posts in that government. Moreover, despite the failures of Major Odal, we are now on the verge of perfecting a new secret weapon, a weapon so powerful that…”
“A secret weapon?” Kanus’ eyes lit up.
Kor lowered his voice a notch. “It may be possible, our scientists believe, to use a telepath such as Odal and the dueling machine to transport objects from one place to another—over any distance, almost instantaneously.”
Kanus sat silent for a moment, digesting the information. Then he asked: “Whole armies?”
“Yes.”
“Anywhere in the galaxy?”
“Wherever there is a dueling machine.”
Kanus rose slowly, dramatically, from his chair and stepped over to the huge star map that spanned one entire wall of the spacious room. He swept the whole map with an all-inclusive gesture and shouted:
“Anywhere! I can strike anywhere. And they will never know what hit them!”
He literally danced for joy, prancing back and forth before the map. “Nothing can stand in our way now! The Terran Commonwealth will fall before us. The galaxy is ours. We will make them tremble at the thought of us. We will make them cower at the mention of my name!”
The men of the Inner Cabinet nodded and murmured agreement.
Suddenly Kanus’ face hardened again and he whirled around to Kor. “Is this really a secret, or is someone else working on it too? What of this Leoh?”
“It is possible,” Kor replied as blandly as he could, “that Professor Leoh is also working along the same lines. After all, the dueling machine is his invention. But he does not have the services of a trained telepath, such as Odal.”
Kanus said, “I do not like the fact that you are depending on this failure, Odal.”
Kor allowed a vicious smile to crack his face. “We are not depending on him, my Leader. We are using his brain. He is an experimental animal, nothing more.”
Kanus smiled back at the Minister. “He is not enjoying his new duties, I trust.”
“Hardly,” Kor said.
“Good. Let me see tapes of his… ah, experiments.”
“With pleasure, my Leader.”
The door to the far end of the room opened and Romis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, stepped in. The room fell into a tense silence as his shoes clicked across the marble floor. Tall, spare, utterly precise, Romis walked straight to the Leader, holding a lengthy report in his hand. His patrician face was graven.