Within twenty-four hours he was on a shuttle. He carried with him sworn depositions from Art and Doris, who could not be spared from the Kennedy project. Neil was supervising in-place static tests of electrical systems and the power plant. He resented being pulled away, leaving the team working, but he went down, roaring into the muggy atmosphere, noting double security at the Cape. He flew a carefully guarded jet to Washington.
The hearing was held deep inside the main DOSE installation outside the city. Dom made his statement and answered questions. Nothing new came out of the piles of paper which were the result of the hearing. However, Dom was reminded of the ability of the Firsters to penetrate the most secure installations.
Since all of the inside team of terrorists had been killed, there were unanswered questions. No one could suggest how the explosives were smuggled into DOSEWEX. It was possible that the traitor space marines could have done it, or one or more of the technicians who were Firsters.
J.J. expressed the doubt. “We are reluctant to admit that there might be high-level traitors among us. You and I, Dom, are more or less sensible men. We can think that it took someone with more clout than techs or marines to place so many Firsters on your lab team.”
“It was your office which cleared each one of them,” Dom said. They were having a meal in a secure hotel while Dom waited for a flight back to the Cape.
“My office,” J.J. said, “consists of more than just a room. It involves a couple of hundred people. They’ve all been investigated backward and forward, and I wouldn’t bet my life on the loyalty of more than a handful of them. Some minor clerk somewhere could influence a screening with a deft shuffling of papers. Someone in higher authority could bring pressure on people elsewhere to get a particular man into DOSEWEX. Personally, I don’t think the raid on the computer could have been planned without someone of at least administrative rank pulling strings, and that opens such a vast array of possibilities that I don’t dare start an investigation. One thing for damned sure, we’re going to have to be one hundred percent sure of every person aboard the Kennedy.”
“I should hope,” Dom said.
“We’re sure of so few,” J.J. said.
“Me, you, Art, Doris, Neil,” Dom said.
“Are we sure of all of them?”
“If we’re not, we’re in so much trouble we might as well give up,” Dom said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the crew list, J.J. In addition to the basic five, it calls for a cook, a powerplant engineer, a survival-systems specialist, and a medical tech. I think we can weed the list down. We can take turns with the cooking. We can risk going without a medical tech. We’ve all been around enough to have learned basic medicine, first aid, treatment of minor ailments. If something major comes up a medical tech might save a life, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. That would leave us needing only two people in addition to our hard core of five, an engineer and a survival-systems specialist.”
“I’ve been thinking along the same lines,” J.J. said. “Any suggestions for the two we need?”
“Paul Jensen and Ellen Overman,” Dom said.
“You’ve worked with both of them, I think.”
“I’ve been on two tours with Paul. He’s a damned fine engineer and he hates radicals of all sorts. The last time I was in touch with him he was going to ground on Mars to supervise the installation of a new generator. He said he was doing it because he got so goddam mad each time he came back home and saw what the world was coming to.”
“He’s still there,” J.J. said.
“Ellen was with me on the Saturn expedition and on one Mars run. She’s good at her job.”
“I’ll start the checks on them,” J.J. said. “What about Ellen? I know Jensen, but I know her only from her service record.”
“She’s the independent type, the complete woman. I don’t know a lot about her politics, because I wasn’t that close to her.”
“Would you personally vouch for both of them?”
“For Jensen, yes. I’d like to know more about Ellen. And I’ll qualify my vote for Jensen by saying that I’ll vouch for him as much as you can vouch for anyone these days. As far as his abilities go, I’d put my life in his hands in space.”
“You’ll be doing that if he’s chosen,” J.J. said. “Anyone aboard could abort the project or destroy it completely. You know how many ways there are aboard ship to do damage.”
Dom nodded. “Still, you have to have crew.”
“Have you had a briefing lately on the world situation?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “The Worldsavers are in complete control in China. They’re training an army. Japan is pulling out of space to avoid invasion from China. The government fell in the U.K. and the new prime minister has put both Worldsavers and Earthfirsters in his cabinet. France is tottering. Germany is going through the throes of repression of individual rights in an effort to wipe out the Firsters there. It’s civil war for all practical purposes. The Russians are compromising with their own Firsters. They’ve pulled five exploration ships out of space and are refitting them to carry phosphates.”
“And here?” Dom asked.
“It’s strangely quiet,” J.J. said. “There hasn’t been a major incident in months, not since the battle of DOSEWEX. It’s as if they’re mustering their strength. There’s the usual claptrap in the media and in Congress, but the killers are being quiet. A lot of people, including the FBI, are worried. Hedges reports to me from over there that several FBI plants have been exposed and killed in the last month. He thinks he has a top-level traitor right in the Washington office, and he’s working desperately to find out what’s going on. His private theory is that there’ll be one major push before we can take off for Jupiter.”
“Any guesses as to what kind of push?”
“Maybe revolution,” J.J. said.
“It’s that bad?”
“Take one small unit,” J.J. said, “that squad of space marines at DOSEWEX. It was fifty percent infiltrated. How many Firsters are in a company of the army? A dozen men could wipe out a company if they hit a barracks in the middle of the night, killing men who thought they were buddies.”
“You think armed revolution would succeed?”
“I don’t know. No one does, because we don’t know their strength. There are times when I feel that ninety percent of the population must be radical or radical in sympathy, but the great and unwashed masses are still a question mark. Would they support a radical armed revolution? In spite of what’s been done to democracy in the name of equality of opportunity and freedom from want, there just might be a strong, hard core of democracy in the masses. It’s impossible to guess how the public would turn. They hear political promises day after day, and day after day their food gets worse. They might buy the Firsters’ propaganda. Get the world out of space and the milk and honey will flow.”
“But, damnit, phosphates from Mars fertilize the fields which feed them,” Dom said.
“We know that. Tell it to a welfare bum in Detroit who wants real steak every day instead of once a month. The Firsters tell him they’ll develop better agricultural methods with the money now wasted in space.”
“Is anyone thinking of a preemptive strike against them?” Dom asked.
“We think about it, but they’re spread all over the country. They mass only for specific attacks, such as on DOSEWEX. They have no strong, individual leaders. They’re splintered. That’s the thing which has saved us so far. There’s almost as much blood shed in fighting between radical groups jockeying for power as in their attacks on the government. If they ever form a united front, it will be big trouble, and that’s one thing they might be doing now. If they were having internal consolidation meetings, that would account for the quiet.”