Berserker - Earth Descended Part 10

When I say something you know is wrong, please straighten me out. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now isn't your industry essentially intact?"

"Well, yes." The captain looked at him, and amplified: "But theirs is too, more than you'd think. They're dug in like you wouldn't believe now, and dispersed. Nothing centralized any more."

"You've seen how it is over there?"

A shrug. "Common knowledge."

"Ungava's not going to blast you, are they? And they're not going to invade you. I mean, ifyour three invasion tries ontheir continent couldn't settle the war-?"

"By G.o.d, I wish they'd try that."

"But they won't. So, they're not really all that dangerous to Condamine, not now at least.Hasn't the war really been over, Captain, for the last forty-six years?"

The other stood up, outraged though not surprised. His face had been grim before, but now it was beginning to look dangerous. "Tell that to my buddy, who was killed last month. He'll have a good laugh."

At the military s.p.a.ceport on Condamine, Shen-yang walked down the ramp from the great sphere of the patrol ship, under a sunny sky tinged green near the horizon. A sprightly wind made banners snap; a good day, he thought, for a parade.

Three harried-looking civilians stood at the foot of the ramp, looking up it anxiously. At first glance Shen-yang knew they had come for him. Hurtling with them in a buried tubecar toward the capital city, Vellore, and the foreign minister who waited there to see him, Shen-yang chatted with the three and lamented the fact that this mode of travel kept him from appreciating the beauties of the countryside.

Aboard ship he had been told this was the best season to see the blooms.

They a.s.sured him that he would have a chance, tomorrow or the next day. They were relieved that he accepted his capture in s.p.a.ce so equably and had no real maltreatment to complain of. His own thought was that he who chooses to ride with smugglers must take some chances. He had not come for a sterile protocol tour but to find out what was going on.

"Have you read Orwell?" his boss at the foundation, a hundred light-years distant, had asked him just before he left.

"Orwell. Yes, a little anyway."

"Remember the bit in 1984, where a man is asked to envision the future as a boot, stamping on a human face, forever? That bit's always stuck in my mind."

"I can well imagine." Now that it was mention-ed, he did recall it.

"I think the world I'm sending you to look at may furnish an example, Nick-what's the most terrible conclusion you can imagine for a war?"

"I don't know. Everybody killed on both Sides."

"That's bad, all right. But what we're looking at on Lorenzoni may be something more Orwellian and therefore-Ithink -even worse. What about no conclusion at all? The winner knocks out the loser with the first punch and then goes on beating until his victim dies-and then goes on beating some more."

"Ungava's certainly not completely dead."

"That's what the Condaminers say. I think they're keeping the so-called conflict going, to distract their own people from other matters. Just what, I don't know."

"That ploy is common enough in history. What did you think of the Ungavan envoy?" The first ship out of the Lorenzoni-Shearwater system when the nebula parted had brought such a per-sonage, pleading the cause of his tormented peo-ple to the galaxy.

Dr. Nicobar considered, brushing back long gray hair from her eyes. "He's a very good talker. He tells how, somehow, dug in against the hail of missiles, working wonders of medical research against radiation poisoning-all good achievements due to the High Leader, of course- Ungavan life and heroic resistance go on. He understates, or gives the impression that he's understating. He-I don't know, I wanted to like him and I couldn't, quite. For a man who represents an absolute dictatorship, he's perhaps just a little too good, too gentle-saintish, to be taken at face value."

"And what about the man from Condamine?" He had come out on the second ship.

"In the brief exchange I had with him, he didn't seem to want to talk about the war at all, just about Condamine's rejoining the League of Galac-tic Nations. I'm going to talk to him again, of course. But, meanwhile, there's a ship leaving tomorrow to go in, and I want us to have a representative on it. Here's your diplomatic card. Go there and see for yourself, and think for yourself, and report personally to me when you come out."

In the streets of Vellore the war- if it was a real war-seemed as remote as something on another planet. In every block electronic posters burned energy from street level up to twenty stories high or higher, urging the people to smash Ungava, not to waste, not to talk loosely of military secrets, not to grumble about the rules. But all these exhortations seemed to Shenyang to be largely set at naught by the stores, full of good things to buy; the theaters and houses of enter-tainment, varied enough to suit any taste and any credit balance, doing a ma.s.s business; and by the people themselves.

The streets were full of folk who obviously en-joyed a wide choice of clothing and personal decoration and of vehicles in which to travel. They were busy, and they looked basically healthy and certainly well-fed. Just a touch gla.s.sy-eyed, perhaps-but Shen-yang saw that often enough at home, in the larger cities at any rate.

The people from the foreign ministry had a hotel room ready for him in one of the bigger and fan-cier inns on a main street of the capital. With the small bag of personal effects he had so far retain-ed through thick and thin, he moved in, announc-ing a tiredness which certainly seemed likely enough under the circ.u.mstances, and was left alone. Five minutes later he moved right out again. In the first place, he was morally certain- although he had no technical means of proving it -that they had bugged his room. In the second place, he wanted to see just how his hosts would react. And in the third place, he wanted to make what free and unofficial contact he could manage with the citizens.

He left word at the desk of his departure and mentioned that he would call back, saying where he could be reached when he had picked himself another hotel. Reason for leaving, he gave none.

Apparently free of all restraints and even obser-vation, he walked the crowded thoroughfares briefly, then settled himself in another hotel, chosen at whim from half a dozen that looked in-viting. The men from the ministry had thought-fully established electronic credit for him, and there was no problem about paying. The room he got this time was a lot smaller but looked just as comfortable. He left his bag in it and walked out again, to try a little mingling with the people.

Across the street, in the public bar of yet a third hotel, a young woman with a startlingly beautiful face gave him the eye so insistently that he decid-ed to accept Fate again. Shortly she was walking with him back to his room.

When the door had closed behind them, he cleared his throat and said, "You may have heard this before."

"You're not a stickman," she opined, raising an eyebrow.

"If that means am I with the police, no, I'm not. I just meant that all I really want to do is talk."

In her fact amus.e.m.e.nt began to struggle with other things and eventually prevailed. "As a mat-ter of fact," she said at last, "that's all I really wanted to do myself."

He started to offer money, but she pantomimed it away, at which point he began to watch her very alertly.

She said, "Mr. Shen-yang ..." and paused there to let him appreciate the fact that she already knew his name. "I am sorry your trip was inter-rupted so unpleasantly but glad that you got to Lorenzoni in one piece. I represent what the rulers of Condamine call the underground. Dirty Ungavan sympathizers."

"Ah. Are there many of you in Vellere?"

She waved aside the question, preferring to speak of something she considered more important. "If you go out again in the next hour-walk clear of Middle Street. It would be your most direct route from here to the foreign ministry, should you be going that way. But do not take it."

He nodded. "All right. But why?"

"Now I must go. They will soon be here to keep a watch on you again."

He nodded again.

When the door had closed behind the girl, it would have been easy to imagine that she had never been here.

He looked at his timepiece and laughed. His appointment at the foreign ministry was in just half an hour.

A quarter of an hour later, he was given the chance to show his diplomatic card again. When the Condamine police had looked at it and had talked quietly on their radios to some invisible authority, they saluted and let him go on his way at once, brushing the dust of the recent spinbomb blast from his new clothing and shaking his head in an effort to dispel the ringing ache that the explosion had installed immediately inboard from his right ear.

He a.s.sumed the thing had been a spinbomb because other kinds of explosives were now too easy to detect. He calculated that he must have been leaving his new hotel just about the time the nameless terrorist was setting down the bomb on Middle Street and quietly pulling its axis pin and walking on, colorless and invisible in the crowd. Shen-yang had just bypa.s.sed Middle Street and gone on arounda corner when someone brushed the bomb in its no doubt innocent-looking container, or traffic shook the walk enough to make it wobble, and its tiny flywheels, counter-rotating inside their vacuum bottle with a rim speed equal to a substantial proportion of the velocity of light, disintegrated. If it had been a small nuke instead of a tiny spinner, Shen-yang supposed, the ministry three blocks away might have gone up with a sizable surrounding chunk of city, instead of a mere storefront or two. But certainly the police would have detected a nuke before it had been carried into the middle of the city.

The blast seemed to have made no great impression on the vast majority of the folk hurrying busily through the streets. No one who was not bleeding seemed to take it all that hard. It was evidently something that happened from time to time, like rain, and the business of getting and spending had to go on.

The foreign ministry was no bigger than a large house and tastefully ornate, set apart from the city around it only by a simple-looking fence and a narrow belt of lawn. There were uniformed guards at the door, keen-looking though they did not seem to be actually doing much. They gave Shen-yang and his card a simple looking over and courteously directed him on his way; if he underwent any other inspection, the means by which it was accomplished were imperceptible.

The elevator went down instead of up, down for almost twenty levels. Maybe, after all, a small nuke three blocks away would not have taken out the ministry's most important parts.

Only a little late, Shen-yang reached the proper office, where he had to wait about thirty seconds before being pa.s.sed on it. His appointment was with Minister Hondurman himself, who came around his desk with hand outstretched to offer greetings. He was a large, dark man, very correctly dressed, with a handsome face beginning to go puffy.

One of the first things Shen-yang said was: "I bring you personal greetings from Director Nicobar-she regrets that urgent business kept her from coming herself."

"Yes...we did know each other once, in school. How long ago that was...but how is Dr. Nicobar?"

"In good health. Extremely busy. It sometimes seems that the whole galaxy is bringing the Peace Foundation jobs these days. We arbitrate, we investigate, we publish a great deal."

"I am well aware that great advantages can accrue from your endors.e.m.e.nt. That was true even before we were cut off here."

"It is more true now, Minister Hondurman. We have more real power in the galaxy than do the governments of some small worlds. If, when we make our formal investigation of this war on Lorenzoni, we can report a reasonable settlement, it will in fact go a long way to help your government rejoin galactic society-which I understand you are eager to do." Hondurman was waiting silently, and Shen-yang went on: "Frankly, while the war continues, I don't see how any favorable report can be made."

The minister, unsurprised, nodded and took thought. Then he asked, "What did they tell you on Shearwater about the war?"

"Next to nothing. They expected I would be going directly from there to Ungava, and I suppose they thought the High Leader would prefer to present his own case."

"We can make travel arrangements with Ungava, if you .still wish to go on and see him."

"Of course I do."

Hondurman nodded again and made a note to himself on the surface of his desk, which seemed constantly awash with electronic projections of one kind or another. "Believe me, Mr. Shen-yang." He coughed. "My government would like to end the war, when it can be done honorably and decently. We have not yet found a way."

Shen-yang gestured disagreement. "Why not simply end the bombardment and the raids?"

"We have in fact several times suspended such activities. But Ungavan operations against us are out of our control, and while they persist, the war goes on. Did you hear the blast in the street not half an hour ago?"

"Very well; in fact I am still hearing it." He explained just how close he had been.

The other rose and came around the desk, concerned. "But you should have said something. Do you need medical attention?"

"I don't think so."

"My own physician is not far away. I wish you would allow me to call her."

"If you like, but later, Now, do these terrorists attacks really amount to a war waged against you? Do they compare to what your forces have done and are still doing to" Ungava?"

Hondurman shrugged. "I'll show you some things. See if you think they add up to a war or not."

The charts and figures began to appear, like some conjurer's props, projected on walls, spewed in printape from the desk. They detailed Ungavan attacks on fishing vessels, on shipping, on mining and drilling operations in all the oceans of the world. Terrorist bombs in Condamine cities. Condamine aircraft (unarmed recon ships and transports, Hondurman claimed them to be) shot down. Hit-and-run raids by small forces against the Condamine coast. Ungavan atrocities in the planet's ministates, small societies trying to cling to independence and neutrality. More atrocities against any of the people dwelling in Ungava who cooperated in the least degree with Condamine. All in all, if it were true, it certainly added up to a lot of killing and a lot of damage. Not a hundred million dead, of course. Not the destruction of a great industrial society.

At last Shen-yang broke into the flow of data with a question. "How do you suppose they can keep going, making such a war effort as you describe? After attacks like those you have made and are still making?"

"Mr. Shen-yang, have you studied the history of strategic bombardment? It has never broken the will of any people to fight."

"Of course it has never before been applied quite so-thoroughly-has it? Minister Hondurman, I'd like to pa.s.s on for your comment some figures recently given the Peace Foundation by the first Ungavan envoy to the galaxy. They concern that first missile strike of yours."

The man across the desk nodded, poker-faced, and Shen-yang began to produce the data he had been carrying in his memory. How many missiles Condamine had delivered, without warning, in that first awesome blow. How many cities were roasted, how much land and water poisoned, how many tens of millions of the Ungavan people had died in the first ten minutes-and how many more in the next hour, the next day, the next year....

"Let us suppose," Hondurman interrupted coldly, "for the sake of argument, that all this is substantially correct. What is the point you wish to make from it?"

"Simply this. The war is effectively over. You won it a long time ago. How can that poor battered remnant of a people pose any real threat to you? Sure, as long as Shearwater supports them with material, they can burrow under the mountains, cling to life, to some kind of military organization. They can even carry on hara.s.sing operations against you. But what do you want of them before you will make peace?"

"It is not what we want of them, sir, but what they want of us. Peace talks have been convened many times-I really forget how many. Talks are presently suspended, as long as our present government remains in office. That is the latest Ungavan condition for resuming peace talks, sir, that we replace our government!"

"All right." Shen-yang could picture the fanatic Ungavan leaders-utter, bitter fanatics they must be by now, and one could hardly blame them-making such demands, in sheer all-out defiance. "But why do you really need a peace conference at all? Why not simplystop?"

"We could stop. But they would not. They continue, a bombing here, and raid there. Sooner or later we would strike at them again." Hondurman made a curiously helpless gesture.

"Excuse me, sir, but I find that hard to believe. If you really let them know it was all over. Ceased building ICBMs or long-range cruise missiles. Offered them some reparations, which it would seem you can afford."

Hondurman was silent, listening attentively, and Shen-yang pressed on: "According to the Ungavan's figures, which I notice you don't deny, they can have very little left in the way of heavy industry and not a lot in the way of natural resources. I repeat, don't you think the war is really over?"

"They keep a war machine going," the minister answered stolidly. "They have great help from Shearwater, whose government is bitterly opposed to ours, for historical reasons which you may or may not-"

"I've read some of the history of your system."

"Good. However, an all-out interplanetary war remains unthinkable, in this system or elsewhere. There is simply too much-"

"I've read the theories on that, too. What I have never read anywhere is any reason for the Ungavans'

fighting on if you stopped."

"Well-you will have to ask them about that, I suppose."

"I intend to."

"Excuse me, Mr. Shen-yang, you said a moment ago that you did not see what real threat they pose to us. Are you aware that they still have their own strategic missiles?"

A silence began to grow. Shen-yang fingered his aching right ear, wondering if it might have played him false. Then he understood, or thought he did. "You mean they are starting now to build some? Or to import some from Shearwater?"

"No. I mean that the Ungavans still have more than a thousand of their own ICBMs emplaced, mostly in hardened sites-have had them since before the war. Some have been knocked out by our missiles, of course. I am not at liberty to quote you our best intelligence estimates of how many remain-but a thousand would be a good, fair, round figure."

There was silence again. Shen-yang noticed that his chair squeaked if he rocked in it.

His ears were evidently working fine. Either something in his brain was badly askew, though, or something in this world. "Let me see if I under-stand. Your official claim is that Ungava still possesses a sizable strategic strike force, intact after more than forty years of pounding by nuclear missiles-"

"Excuse me." The minister leaned forward. "It is important that you understand, there has not been forty years of continuous pounding, as you call it. If we had built missiles and fired them as fast as we could for forty years, both we and the Ungavans would long since have perished from radiation poisoning, and there would be no world of Lorenzoni to fight about-no world that anyone could live on."

"I understand that," said Shen-yang stiffly. "I have some military experience."

"Ah? Very good. Proceed."

"You say they have a sizable strategic strike force, still intact.But in more than forty years of war, in which you have hit them again and again with similar weapons, they have never fired even one of these missiles at you."

"That is correct."

"Can you explain why?"