Klaber didn’t answer right away but after a few moments he said slowly, “Why, yes, I go along with you on that.”
“Fine. Now, in the meantime, down here on the ground, our agents’ll be active in trying to find a lead of their own… as a matter of fact we started on the questioning of known Red sympathizers as soon as we had the first word through from London about a threat — now we step it up, but fast! Of course, there’ll be no Press releases about the Communists’ known intentions. There’s no sense stirring up alarm on a world-wide scale and getting public opinion
dangerously emotionalized. The same goes for the spacemen’s families — we do not want any leaks at all on this side of the world, so they’re not to be told anything about this outside threat. That stands unless and until the President says different, Mr. Klaber. You’ll have to dream something up for the papers to cover any queries as to why Skyprobe isn’t after all being brought down early.” Grant gathered up a sheaf of documents and stuffed them into a briefcase. He stood up. The trousers of the cheap, anonymous suit bagged at the knees. “If it’s humanly possible, Mr. Klaber, we’re going to find that interference set-up long before Skyprobe reaches its twenty-four hours extension limit — even if Schuster can’t make Danvers-Marshall sing.”
Grant had asked and obtained permission to use the security line to Washington and soon after he had gone the White House came on the line and put the President on. No time was being lost, it seemed. The President repeated what the CIA man had said; and Klaber was told that a ‘go’ had been given to the Pentagon for the despatch of the revealing message to the astronauts. The President asked, “What about the second space vehicle, Klaber?”
“Skyprobe V… we’re doing all we can, Mr. President, but the computer fault is not corrected yet and frankly I’m in two minds about the wisdom of sending her up anyway. We don’t want a gun fight in space, and we can surely take it Danvers-Marshall is armed. I suggest that once we’ve reported the situation to Schuster, if that’s what you really want, Mr. President, we’ll be better able to reach a decision on this point. As I see it, from what London has told us, these people need help from Danvers-Marshall… so if Schuster can deal with Danvers-Marshall he should be able to bring Skyprobe IV down safely. Then there’s the point Grant of CIA made — Schuster can maybe get Danvers-Marshall to talk about the whereabouts of the base. In either of these cases, Mr. President, we would not need Skyprobe V—”
“Maybe,” the President broke in. “But if Danvers-Marshall wins out up there, and I agree we have to assume he’ll be armed and may manage to get control — and if neither us nor the British find the base in time, then sending up the second spacecraft to try a docking operation may be the only thing left.”
“But Mr. President… they can’t go into docking procedure without co-operation from Skyprobe IV, and if Danvers-Marshall is in control—”
“I said it may be the only thing left to try, Klaber. If it comes to that, I’ll be banking on Danvers-Marshall losing his nerve once he sees another capsule with an armed crew aboard coming in to dock. Klaber, I want you to go right ahead with the preparations — and keep on remembering we’re right up against the time factor.”
At 0930 hours Latymer pushed a folder across his desk and said, “Here’s your airline ticket, Shaw. The Governor’s been warned to expect you. Your job is to pick up any leads you can on any unusual goings-on in the North Pacific area. Remember you have to find that base within the next five days. Currently we have two hopes — the second spacecraft, and you. Have it well in mind that if this thing can be kept out of the hands of the generals and the admirals and what-not until we can face the Communists with the truth and show up both them and their base before the whole world — then we’ll have a chance of avoiding war. But once the military moves in ahead of us, we’ve all had it. Admirals and generals shouldn’t be let loose except in the sunniest and most idyllic conditions of perfect peace.” He opened a file on his desk. “Meanwhile, I have a report from the Special Branch. It doesn’t help us at all. All ports and airfields have been closely watched but they’ve failed to produce Rudolf Rencke — he’s vanished. He was probably slipping through our fingers under an alias and with irreproachable papers long before you got away from that house, or he may have gone a similar way to Katherine Danvers-Marshall. Talking of her, that Polish ship, the Czestochowski, has already berthed in Leningrad — so that’s that. The Special Branch has sealed the Purfleet house, but the birds had flown, as I—”
“Flown? They were all dead!”
“Except the girl, Beatty,” Latymer said, looking irritated. “I should have said bird, in the singular. Someone must have gone in to get her before the Special Branch made it.”
Ten minutes later Shaw was in a fast car heading out for London airport and the first leg of the long flight to Hong Kong.
FOURTEEN
Mary Schuster, who had got up late after a mostly sleepless night, picked up the newspapers that had been thrown into the porch and went inside with them, reading as she went, her face dead white and her eyes deeply circled. In spite of Klaber’s telephone call warning the families about the fault, in spite of the television news flashes, it was still a renewed shock to see it in black and white.
The children were waiting for her. She had had to tell them; they would only have heard about it at school and that would have been unthinkable. Jane, the eldest, was the spokeswoman now for the three of them. She asked, as Mary came into the room where they were having their breakfast, “Is there anything about pop, mummy?”
Mary said quietly, “Yes, of course, Jane. Everybody’s going to help get him down… that’s what it says.”
“Oh.” Jane scooped up a spoonful of creamy cereal. She looked as drawn now as her mother. On her instructions the boys were not bothering their mother but their faces were filled with the unasked questions. “Will he be all right, mummy?” she couldn’t help asking. “They will get him down, won’t they?”
“Yes, darling, of course they will,” Mary answered firmly. “You’re just not to worry about daddy, any of the three of you. It’s… nothing really bad. Just a technical fault he and Major Morris will put right just as soon as they can. They know all about it.”
With a child’s directness Jane asked, “Why haven’t they put it right already, then?”
“I don’t know, Janey.” There was a crack in the façade now; Mary’s voice shook and tears pricked at her eyes, threatening to spill over in front of the children. “Let’s just trust daddy, shall we… he knows best. He wouldn’t want us to be worrying, Janey. Hurry and eat your breakfast, dear. You’re going to be terribly late for school as it is.”
Jane didn’t comment; she went back to her cereal and ate without appetite. Mary couldn’t face food at all. Instead she read the papers, hungry for news, for reassurance. There wasn’t a great deal of that. The banner headlines leaped at her: FAULT DEVELOPS IN SKYPROBE IV.… CAPSULE UNABLE TO DITCH. And in smaller print, Spacemen unworried says NASA Chief. Then, lower down, the story itself; the failure of the retro-rockets on both systems each time they had tried to fire them and Gregory Schuster’s complete inability to find a fault anywhere. After the facts, which were so bare and stark and simple, the speculators moved in — and they didn’t all follow the optimism of the NASA handout. If the men in space, the speculators suggested, couldn’t locate the fault, how could they hope to put it right? There was no real way of helping them from the ground either, they said bluntly — and Mary knew enough to realize the truth of this. Plenty of advice had been passed up to them but evidently it hadn’t helped. Nor could the manned space stations in their fixed permanent orbits help; they had no means of making physical contact with a vehicle like Skyprobe IV, in her exploratory orbit so far out in space, so far beyond their own positions. It was now known that at Kennedy work was going on around the clock, had been for the last two or three days, to prepare a launch pad for blasting off another spacecraft to go into docking procedure. But even if they could get it up in the time available, which was highly doubtful according to the experts, it couldn’t really be much help — unless the idea was to take the men off and jettison the capsule itself. But it was a curious thing, the speculation-mongers further suggested, that the men at Kennedy had thought it necessary to prepare the second launch at all before the fault had occurred. Had the fault been expected, they asked now — or had it first happened some days earlier? Had the news been suppressed?