Check and Checkmate Part 5

They glared at each other for a moment.

"There is no conference?"

"There is no conference."

"Then why this farce?"

The eastern leader wore a tight smile. He glanced at his watch, began counting backwards: "Seven, six, five, four--"

When he reached zero, there was a long pause; then a sharp whistle from outside.

"Your men are now disarmed," said the Asian. "Your cadre commander is ours."

"Impossible! The recheck--"

"He joined us since the recheck. Further, three of your televiewphone stations in the relay chain are ours, and are relaying recorded broadcasts prepared especially for the purpose."

"I don't believe it!"

The Asian shrugged. "In addition, your entire defense system will be in our hands within six days--while your nation imagines that we are here conferring on disarmament."

"Ridiculous!" the President sputtered. "No system of infiltration or subversion could--"

"Your people were not subverted, Smith. They were merely replaced by ours. Your two Stand-ins, for instance, the ones that died in the fire.

They were not the original men."

"You could not possibly find exact doubles--" Something about the Asian's smile made his voice taper off.

He picked up the container of explosives and prepared to rise. "I am going to walk out. And you are going with me. We will return in a helicopter to my plane. Let me explain this mechanism. I have no control over the detonator, for it is not a suicide device. The detonator can be triggered only by either of two events."

"Which are?" The Peoplesfriend was smiling.

"The relay would be closed by a sudden drop in my arterial pressure. Or by an attempt to remove it without knowing how. I am going out, and you are going with me."

"Why?"

"Because I am about to reach in my pocket and produce a gun. Your deputy cannot shoot without blasting a fifty-foot crater where this building now rests." Gingerly, while he watched the wavering deputy, he made good the promise. He kept the snub-nosed automatic aimed at the easterner's belly.

But the Peoplesfriend continued to smile. "May I say something before we _go_?"

There was a sour mockery about it that made Smith pause. He nodded slowly.

"I hoped to keep you here alive, so that we would not have to destroy the whole mission, including the ships. Of course, when the building is blown up, your little fleet will see and hear and try to respond, and we shall have to destroy it before word can be gotten to your capital. Our plans included that possibility, but it is unfortunate."

"Our aircraft will--"

"You do not seem to realize the nature of our weapons yet. And there is no harm in telling you now, I suppose."

"Well?"

"We have a microscopic crystalline relay, so small that millions of them can be packed into a few cubic inches. The crystals are minute tetrahedrons, with each pointed corner an electrical contact. And there is a method for arranging them in circuits without individual attention to each connection. It involves certain techniques in electro-plating and the growing of crystals."

Smith glanced questioningly at one of his Stand-ins, a weapons expert.

The man shook his head.

"I can see," he muttered, "how it might replace a lot of bulky circuit elements in some electronics work--particularly computers and servo-mechanisms--but--"

"Indeed," said Ivan, "We have built many so-called 'thinking-machines'

no larger than a human brain."

"For self-piloting weapons, I suppose?" asked the Stand-in.

"For self-piloting weapons."

"I fail to see how this could do what you seem to think."

The Peoplesfriend snorted. "Jacob--?" He nodded to the deputy, who immediately fumbled in his pocket, found a penknife, opened it, and handed it to Ivan.

He laid his finger on the table. He cut it off at the second joint with the penknife. There was no blood. Flesh of soft plastic. Tendons of nylon. Bones of bakelite.

"Our leader," the robot said, "is still in Singapore."

The President looked at the robot and a great, weariness swept over him.

Suddenly it all seemed futile--a senseless game, played by madmen, dancing over countless graves--playing tag among the tombstones.

Check and checkmate. But always there was a way out. Never a final move.

Life eternal and with life, the eternal plotting and scheming. And never a final victor.

Almost regretfully, the President turned his mind back to the affair at hand.