Millard Cavendish sighed. “This nation is not a warlike one, Mr. Terris. Possession of this secret, judging from what you say, would make America so powerful that no other nation, or coalition of nations, would dare launch a war.”
I laughed shortly. “Secret weapons as a deterrent to war are useful only as long as they are controlled by one nation. Need I remind you that spies invariably manage to get their hands on such weapons and peddle them to other nations?”
Winston Blake said, “I’m getting tired of this nonsense.” He leaned across the table and stabbed me with his chill blue eyes. “I’ll put this in words of one syllable for you, Terris. We want this secret and we want it now. Either you give us the exact location of these devices, or whatever they are, or you’ll be branded a traitor to your country in the eyes and ears of every one of your fellow Americans. You’re a rich man, I’m told. Well, this is one time your wealth isn’t going to save you.”
I said, “It’s fatheads like you that guarantee my silence.”
His face turned a violent crimson and for a moment I thought he was on the verge of a stroke. “I want this man arrested!” he bellowed. “I’ll show him he can’t vilify a member of this body and get away—”
The banging of the gavel cut him off. Cavendish said frostily, “Mr. Blake is ready for your apology, Mr. Terris.”
“Then let him earn it,” I said, just as frostily. “I don’t have to take that kind of talk from him or anybody else.”
By this time Blake was on his feet. “I see no reason to continue questioning this witness. His reasons for refusing to turn over to us such vital information are patently the usual Communist Party line. A man like this deserves to be named a traitor — and if we can’t make that stick, let him answer for his unprovoked assault on an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the brutal slaying of six men in something less than twenty-four hours.”
Beside me, Lodi spoke for the first time. “Tell them what they want to know, Karl. It doesn’t matter.”
I stared at her, aghast. “You don’t know what you’re saying! Do you want your people to go through what the rest of the world has suffered? Have you forgotten what happened to them that first time?”
Her voice was firm. “You know the kind of protection my people have, Karl. Ten thousand planes couldn’t find our city in hundreds of years if they didn’t want to be found. Tell these men the whole story. I don’t want the man I love to be hated by his own country.”
I placed a hand lightly on her veil. “Do you want them to know about you? Do you want this veil stripped away for the world to see? Do you want to be laughed at, shunned, hear every so-called comedian toss off a collection of gag lines about you?”
“It doesn’t matter, Karl. Your real reason for refusing them is your wish to protect me, not my people. I know that, and it must not be that way. All that does matter is your love for me.”
They were listening to us. The room was silent as a morgue. I took a deep slow breath. “Is that the way you want it, Lodi?”
“Yes.”
I rose from the chair and look at the men behind the table. “Okay,” I said. “I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story I want the world to hear from my lips, not to learn through a lot of distorted secondhand accounts. Bring in the newsmen and the spectators.”
“We’re running this, Terris,” Winston Blake said coldly. “I see no reason to—”
“You’re not running it now,” I said. “Either I tell it my way or you can sweat turpentine and not get a word out of me. It’s strictly up to you.”
An almost invisible smile was tugging at Millard Cavendish’s fine lips. He said, “I suggest a compromise. Newsmen, yes; but no spectators. Any part of Mr. Terris’ story that can be a threat to our national security will not be published. Is that satisfactory to you, Mr. Terris?”
Once more I looked at Lodi. She nodded ever so slightly. I said. “Bring ’em in and let’s get this over with.”
It required only a few minutes before the press seats were filled. Curious eyes bored into us, but more of them were on the veiled woman next to me than anywhere else. Cavendish rapped his gavel lightly once and said, “We’re ready to hear you, sir.”
I stood there, bending forward slightly, one hand resting on the table. I said:
“Two years ago, I crashed my plane in an African jungle hundreds of miles from civilization. The reason for my being in that part of the world is known to everybody. I was injured in the crash and lay at the edge of a clearing for hours in great pain before I finally blacked out. When I came to, I found myself in a vast underground city, attended by the kindest, most generous people who ever lived. These people nursed me back to health and made me one of them. They trusted me, and when I fell in love with the daughter of their ruling family, they gave her to me as my wife.
“I learned the history of this race. Many thousands of years ago this race lived in four great cities on the surface of the Earth. These were cities of great beauty, of towering spires and luxurious homes. The rest of the Earth was just emerging from the Paleolithic Age, and nothing broke the peace and contentment of their lives.
“And then one day a vast armada of airships swooped down on these peaceful people. Bombs leveled the four cities and those who did not die were taken away as captives. When the enemy finally left, the few survivors sought refuge in underground caves.”
Everybody in the room was hanging on my words. A few of the reporters were taking notes, but most of them simply listened with open mouths. I took a couple of steps down the room and came back and stood there, resting a hand lightly on Lodi’s shoulder.
“These people I’m telling you about,” I went on, “had the knowledge of great power. They knew how to harness cosmic rays — a force sufficient to blow this globe of ours into atoms. They could have constructed weapons that would make the H-bomb something, by comparison, you could shoot off in your fingers!
“But they used this power for more important things. With it they illuminated their caves to the brilliance of sunlight. As the centuries passed, their numbers increased until the population was back to where it had been at the time the attack had come. But they chose to remain underground, so that never again would they be attacked; and except for a few surface guards, none of them ventured out of those caves.”
I paused again, this time to look at the three men across the table from me. Cavendish was leaning back in his chair, staring fixedly at my face; Blake was staring down at the pince-nez in his hand; Rasmussen, the third man, sat with his chin resting on one palm. The silence was absolute.
“One of those surface guards found me,” I said. “Instead of killing me, he brought me to safety. I grew to love those people, made one of them my wife, and through her and them I knew happiness for the first time in my life.
“But there was one factor I forgot to take into consideration, gentlemen. We call it homesickness. I wanted to go back, to leave that paradise, for the doubtful benefits of what we call civilization. And against my better judgment, knowing exactly what it would mean to her, I brought Lodi with me.”
I stopped long enough to pour water into a glass and drink it, then lit a cigarette and went on:
“This brings me to something I failed to mention earlier. These people had learned the secret of longevity. I knew men and women three and four hundred years old who looked and acted younger than I did!”
A murmur of astonishment and open doubt ran through the room. I kept right on talking, getting it all out before my vocal cords gave up: