"We're just middlemen, Sonny," the old man said, glaring as he emerged from the toilet, and for one heart-stopping moment Adam thought that he had been discovered. But it was the classic remark. "Goes in one end then out the other."
Door locked behind him and tested. Good. Two lengths of magnetic tape this time; there was a lot to report. On tiptoe he reached up and slipped the bandaid into place — and experienced a feeling of intense relief. It was done. His part was finished. Others would process the information he had obtained. Relief, and two beers, gave him good excuse to use the facilities. To flush, to wash his hands in the grimy sink, dry them on his handkerchief then unlock the door. Two grim-faced men stood waiting for him outside.
"You are under arrest," the first man said, showing him a gold badge of some sort. "Just don't make any fuss and you won't get hurt."
Adam was too startled, too numb to react. He let them click the cold handcuffs to each wrist, to pull him firmly toward the front door. There was one glimpse of Mom's hanging jaw, then he was outside and being hustled toward the open door of the waiting limousine. He held back — but was pulled inexorably forward.
"My car," he said. "It's being washed. ." But when he looked up he saw that a stranger was driving it into the street. His captors said nothing, just pulled him forward and into the back seat. After that a numbness and despair washed over him as they sat in silence during the drive. It was over. All over.
The interrogation took place as soon as they were inside the Federal building. His two captors pushed him into a chair at the large conference table, then sat one to each side of him. They did not remove the handcuffs, perhaps to remind him of his perilous position. A tall man, obviously senior to them, entered and pulled up a chair on the other side of the table, then reached out and turned on the tape recorder.
"What is your name?"
"Adam Ward. What do you think you are doing. ."
"Answer my questions correctly and don't act stupid. Whoever you are, whatever your name is, we have been watching you since you came here. Who are you — and where is the real Adam Ward?"
"This is preposterous — I want a lawyer…"
He went silent as his interrogator slid across very clear photographs of the magnetic bits of tape attached to their bandaids.
"You will talk and you will tell us everything. Now begin."
Adam took a deep breath and let it out with a tremulous sigh. It was over. There was some relief in that. "Take these cuffs off and I'll answer your questions. Isn't this what they call a fair cop in the cinema? In a way I'm glad that it's over. I've done what I had to do. What has been discovered here belongs to all mankind — it is not just the property of one country. If I have done that, why then I have done something important."
"You've done nothing — except probably get yourself shot," the interrogator said with malice-filled satisfaction. "We've monitored all of your drops and know all of the people involved. They'll be picked up tonight. It's all over and you have lost."
"Really," he said, irritated at the man's superior tones, then looked at his watch. "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. The tapes were just backup. The typed originals are well on their way by now."
The sudden pain drove him to the table, gasping. Then the fist struck his face again, even harder. "Tell us what you mean — tell us!" The pain again. He had meant to keep this part secret until there was time for the contact to be long gone. He had not counted on the pain. He had to speak. It was almost seven. The papers would surely be safe by now.
"What papers?" the interrogator asked. He must have spoken the word aloud, although he had no memory of doing so.
"The notes I typed," he said through puffed lips. "I always typed the report out before encoding it. Then I left the sheets under the mat in the car when I brought it into the carwash. Each time when the car was returned the sheets were gone."
There was a silence and he sat up, shaking. But he had them, he could tell by the grim expressions on their faces. They had not known about the carwash.
"You are out of your mind, you commie bastard," the man who had struck him shouted. "Every guy in that carwash is black. You Russkies are good — but not that good. You don't have any black Russians yet."
"I beg your pardon," Adam said, speaking slowly through his bloodied lips. "Of course those chaps are black. Mostly from the West Indies. Good agents. And I resent the suggestion that I am Russian. I'm Canadian, Oxford graduate, Rutherford Laboratories. I believe my recruiters were MI5. British, you know."
Even though it hurt he found himself smiling at their shocked faces. "Nice of you to share your technical advances with your allies. Greatly appreciated."
One Step From Earth
THIS LANDSCAPE WAS DEAD. It had never lived. It had been born dead when the planets first formed, a planetary stillbirth of boulders, coarse sand, jagged rock. The air was thin and so cold that it was closer to the vacuum of space than to any habitable atmosphere. Though it was nearly noon and the pallid, tiny disc of the sun was high overhead, the sky was dark, the wan light shining on the uneven plain that was unmarked by any footprint. Silent, lonely, empty.
Only the shadows moved. The sun paced its way slowly across the horizon until it set. Night came and with it an ever greater cold. Silently the dark hours passed, the stars arched by overhead, until on the opposite horizon the sun appeared once again.
Then something changed. High above there was a tiny flicker of movement as the sun glanced from some shining surface, a motion where none had existed ever before. It grew to a spot of light that blossomed suddenly into a long tongue of flame. The flame continued, even brighter as it came close to the surface, dropped, hovering. Dust billowed out and the rocks melted and then the flame was gone.
The squat cylinder dropped the last few feet and landed on wide-stretched legs. Shock absorbers took up the impact, giving way, then slowly leveling out the body of the device. It bobbed slightly for a few seconds and was still.
Minutes passed and nothing more happened. The dust had long settled and the molten slag hardened and cracked in the cold.
With sudden, sharp explosions the side of the cylinder blew away and landed on the ground some yards distant. The capsule bobbed slightly in reaction to this but quickly came to rest. In the area uncovered by the discarded plate were a number of small devices, all ringed about a gray plate, some two feet in diameter, that resembled an obscured porthole.
Nothing else happened for quite a while, as though some hidden internal device were marking time. It reached a decision because, with a distant humming, an antenna began to emerge from its opening. At first it projected straight out from the side of the capsule, until a curved section emerged, then it began to slowly rise until it towered into the air. Even as it was erecting itself a compact television camera moved jerkily into view on the end of a jointed arm. It hesitantly changed directions until it was above the circular plate and angled down toward it and the patch of ground below. Apparently satisfied it locked into this position.
With a loud ping the circular plate changed color and character. It was now a deep black and it seemed to shift without moving. A moment later a transparent plastic container appeared, coming from the surface of the plate as though emerging from a door, dropping forward and hitting the ground, rolling over.
The white rat inside the container was terrified at first, knocked off its feet and dropped onto its side as the tube struck the ground. The rat rolled onto its feet and scurried about trying to get a grip with its claws on the slippery walls, climbing up then sliding back to the bottom again. In a few moments it settled down, blinking its pink eyes at the gray wastes outside. There was nothing moving, nothing to see. It sat and began to smooth its long whiskers with its paws. The cold had not yet penetrated the thick walls.