Seconds later the familiar bipolar mechanism was noisily carted into the UN leader's office, along with a thoroughly unnerved-looking technician; minus his goggles he looked frightened and — small.
To the Telpor technician, Horst Bertold said, "Does this operate to permit teleportation two ways? Or only one? Zwei oder ein ? Antworte."
"Just outward, Mein Herr Sekretar General," the technician quavered. "As Theorem One demonstrates, the recession of matter toward — "
Horst Bertold said to his aide, "Bring in our 'wash psychiatrists. Have them start with their EEG machines."
At that, the Telpor technician said, in a voice that broke with dismayed intimidation, "Dasz brauchen Sie nicht."
"He's saying," Bertold said to Rachmael, "that he will cooperate; we don't need to employ our psychiatrists with him. So ask him." He jerked his head fiercely toward the cowering THL employee, this man in his white smock who had assisted in the emigration of literally millions of innocent human beings. "Ask him whether the Telpors work both ways."
The technician said, virtually inaudibly, "Beide. Both ways."
"There never was any 'Theorem One,' " Bertold snapped.
"Sie haben Recht," the technician agreed, nodding.
"Bring in Dosker," Bertold said to his overworked female secretary.
When Dosker appeared he said to Rachmael at once, "Freya is still alive over there." He indicated the Telpor instrument. "We've been in contact through this. But — "He hesitated.
Horst Bertold said, "Matson Glazer-Holliday is dead. They murdered him immediately. But nearly half of Lies Incorporated's field personnel remain alive at various installations at Newcolonizedland, and we're beginning to supply them on a strategic basis. With weapons of types which they instantly need. And presently we will, at tactical spots, try commando teams; we can do a lot, I think, with our commando teams."
"What can I do?" Rachmael said. He felt overwhelming impotence; it was going on — had been going on — without him. While he journeyed — pointlessly — through 'tween, utterly empty, space.
This, the UN Secretary General seemed to read on his face. "You awakened Matson," he pointed out. "Which caused Matson to attempt his aborted coup. And the relayed message from Freya Holm to Dosker and then to the Omphalos informed us of the reality hidden under Theodoric Ferry's cover; a cover which we carry the moral stigma for accepting all these fifteen years. Everything based on the one fundamental hoax that teleportation could be achieved in only one direction..." He grimaced. "However, Trails of Hoffman Limited made an error as great as their cover when they did not impede your two thousand Lies Incorporated veterans from crossing over." To Dosker he said, "But even so, that would not have been enough. However, with our tactical support — "
"It wasn't enough even at the start," Dosker said, "since they took out Matson right away." Half to himself, half to Rachmael, he said, "We never had a chance. Probably Matson never knew; he probably didn't even live that long. Anyhow, maybe you can retrieve Freya. Do you want to?"
Instantly Rachmael said, "Yes." To Horst Bertold he said, "Can I get equipment out of you? Defensive screens, if not offensive hardware? And I'll go alone." They would not, in the confusion, notice him, perhaps. Whale's Mouth had become a battlefield, and too many participants were involved; one lone man was a cypher, a mote; he would enter inconspicuously and if he found her at all it would be that way, as an entity too trifling to be considered by the vast warring entities. Within the context of the power struggle which had already truncated Lies Incorporated; one contender had been abolished at the start, and now only the two monoliths existed in the field to slug it out, THL on one hand, the UN as its wise old antagonist, its roots of victory deep in the last century. The UN, he reflected, had a headstart, that of fifty years.
But Trails of Hoffman Limited had the inventive genius of half-senile but still crafty old Dr. Sepp von Einem. And — the inventor of the Telpor instrument might not have ceased with that construct.
He wondered if Horst Bertold had considered this.
It didn't matter, because if von Einem had produced something else of equal — or of merely significant — value, it would show up now.
In the streets of Newcolonizedland, whatever Dr. Sepp von Einem and THL had over the years developed would be at this moment in full use. Because this was, for all participants, the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath; now they were, like beasts in the field, being tried. And God help, Rachmael thought, the contender who was found wanting. Because out of this only one participant would live; there would be extended to the loser no partial, no half, life. Not in this arena.
He himself — he had only one task, as he saw it. That of getting Freya Holm out of Whale's Mouth and back safely to Terra.
The eighteen-year journey, the odyssey aboard the Omphalos, learning Attic Greek so that he could read the Bachae in the original — that childlike fantasy had withered at the press of the iron glove of the reality-situation, the struggle going on — not eighteen years from now — but at this instant, at the Whale's Mouth terminals of six thousand Telpor stations.
" 'Sein Herz voll Hasz geladen,' " Horst Bertold said to Rachmael. "You speak Yiddish? You understand?"
"I speak a little Yiddish," Rachmael said, "but that's German. 'His heart heavy with hate.' What's that from?"
"From the Civil War in Spain," Bertold said. "From a song of the International Brigade. Germans, mostly, who had left the Third Reich to fight in Spain against Franco, in the 1930s. They were, I suppose, Communists. But — they were fighting Fascism, and very early; and they were Germans. So they were always 'good' Germans... what that man, Hans Beimler, hated was Nazism and Fascism, in all its stages and states and manifestations." After a pause he said, "We fought the Nazis, too, we 'good' Germans; verges' uns nie." Forget us never, Bertold had said, quietly, calmly. Because we did not merely join the fight late, in the 1950s or '60s, but from the start. The first human beings to fight to the death, to kill and be killed by the Nazis, were —
Germans.
"And Terra," Bertold said to Rachmael, "ought not to forget that. As I hope they will not forget who at this moment is taking out Dr. Sepp von Einem and creatures allied with him. Theodoric Ferry, his boss... who, by the way, is an American." He smiled at Rachmael. "But there are 'good' Americans. Despite the A-bomb dropped on those Japanese women and children and elderly."
Rachmael was silent; he could not answer this.
"All right," Bertold said, then. "We will put you together with a wep-x, a weapon expert. To see what gear you should have. And then good luck. I hope you bring back Miss Holm." He smiled — fleetingly. And turned at once to other matters.
A minor UN official plucked at Rachmael's sleeve. "I'm to take charge of your problem," he explained. "I will be handling it from now on. Tell me, Mr. ben Applebaum; precisely what contemporary — and I do not mean last month's or last year's — weapons of war you are accustomed to operating, if any? And how recently you have been exposed to the neurological and bacterial — "
"I've had absolutely no military training," Rachmael said. "Or antineuro or -bac modulation."
"We can still assist you," the minor UN official said. "There is certain equipment requiring no prior experience. However — " He made a mark on the sheet attached to his clipboard. "This does make a difference; eighty percent of the hardware available would be useless to you." He smiled encouragingly. "We must not let it get us down, Mr. ben Applebaum."