He paused to let that sink in. “I am going to say some things now which are triple-A classified. You are being given this information because you must make a decision for the safety of this country that no machines or equations can make. No other branch of the government can make these decisions because they are rightfully yours to make, as agents of our national power, the people.”
There was a stir, a rising murmur of warmth, because Bahr had delivered the statement to every single one of them, and they felt proud.
“In facing an alien invader, we have been helpless. Where the aliens are, what they are, how they .communicate, what they intend to do—we do not know. This latest blow is a mockery. We are powerless to retaliate. Now we are faced with an inescapable choice. We can wait for the next blow, and the next, and ultimately succumb—or we can carry the attack to the aliens!”
There was no applause, only a long tense silence as the idea sank in. Then: “There is only one way we can do that, only one weapon that can save us.” He turned and pointed to the wall screen behind him.
On the screen a gleaming silver image had appeared, the old, almost forgotten spaceship, the XAR3, beginning its takeoff from the New Mexico desert. The ancient film showed in colored slow motion the belching of the engines, the dust cloud. Bahr signaled, and the roar of the massive engines was amplified to deafening volume, cutting all conversation, all thinking to a standstill, the fiery white blast of the jets blinding and fascinating. The huge ship rose slowly, like a tower floating on the searing jet blast, then up, up, die camera panning upwards, the motors screaming, heat waves and sound waves scorching the air, rising, and finally vanishing out of sight.
The screen darkened.
“That,” Bahr said, “could have been the most powerful military weapon in history. Had it succeeded, it would have been impregnable, irresistible, omniperceptive. It failed. If the time had been right, space would have been conquered in the nineties, but the time was not right, and we all have bitter memories of that era.
“But that was thirty years ago, thirty years of control, balance, and evolution. Because of the vast reaction of the people, and the teachings of a few biased men who damned Space and science and physical laws to gain power for themselves, this entire area of our culture had been held taboo, while we turned our energies inward. We wanted stability, no matter what the cost. All right—now we can see the cost. But now we must fight .for more than stability; we must fight for survival. And that means we must build that spaceship again if we hope to survive. A spaceship that will work can be assembled and launched in three months. Until that day we are defenseless. But it is within your power to initiate this great military and scientific project again. This is the time to use your power.”
The cheering rose to a deafening roar as they rose from their seats. Bahr was gone from the rostrum long before the noise had subsided, and when G. Allen White was finally able to secure the attention of the Congress, he read a short, simple request for congressional action. He had not rehearsed the proclamation, which had been handed to him on a sheet of white paper under the DIA letterhead, but experienced thespian that he was, he delivered it without hesitation, tears in his eyes, straight from the heart. “I propose that the Chief Executive be granted full authority in this emergency to establish a project which shall be called Project Tiger, for the development of a spaceship, and subsequently a space armada, to hunt out and destroy the alien enemy in his lair, and that this project be placed under the special supervision of the Joint Chiefs and Julian Bahr, Director DIA, to take precedence over every other jurisdiction and activity until this emergency is at an end.”
There could be no doubt.
Later, in an anteroom that was crowded with people, Bahr pulled off his coat, drenched with sweat, and loosened his tightly strapped Markheim. Libby was staring at him, wide-eyed. When he came into the room there had been a silence, broken by a rising buzz of excited conversation as the immensity, the swiftness, of the thing began to dawn. Something that could not have happened had happened: it was, incredibly, the end of an era.
Reporters were crowding the room, flashbulbs snapping as statements were distributed. Carl Englehardt was there, shaking Bahr’s hand vigorously, pounding him on the back. Bahr was voluble, laughing, almost intoxicated. Two of his DIA men crossed over to him, congratulated him, and said something in low voices. Bahr frowned, his eyes searching across the room.
Near the doorway he saw a thin-faced man, still wearing his trench coat and overdone jump-trooper uniform.
“Kocek!” Bahr pulled away from the clump of people surrounding him, walked to the doorway past Kocek, who fell into step beside him. In the temporary privacy of the hallway, Bahr turned.
“Carmine broke,” Kocek said.
Bahr nodded, a hard smile crossing his face. “Who was it? Who was backing him? Who put him up to it?”
“Before he died, he talked.” Kocek jerked his head toward the clamoring, racket-filled room. “It was Englehardt,” he said. “Carl Englehardt.”
Part IV
Project Tiger
Chapter Sixteen
There was darkness, and pain, and then the sudden, startling realization that he could move his body again. Tentatively, Harvey Alexander tried it, wiggling a toe, stiffly clasping and unclasping a hand. It hurt to breathe and when he tried to sit up, there was a lacerating spasm of pain through his chest. He lay back again, panting and trembling.
He could see the room dimly, and it was not the place where he had been. It seemed to him that there were great gaping holes in his memory. Resting, he closed his eyes, and tried to piece together the fragments.
There was a hospital smell, but it was not a hospital room he was in now. There was a high ceiling, and a heavy oaken door. Bandages on his head and chest, stiffness in his right arm, and a slow dripping bottle of intravenous fluid above his right shoulder.
The fire! There had been a fire, and he had tried to reach the window. But then what? It jolted back memories, a kaleidoscopic blaze of fragments without time-relationships to draw them together. The metallic voice of his interrogators; the questions and questions and endless questions, he remembered that; then darkness, not like the restful seclusion of light here, but almost utter blackness. Muffled voices below. The endless clack-clack-clack of some kind of machinery . . . traffic sounds outside.
And then unconnected bits, only partial consciousness, long periods of waiting for the heavy steps of the questioners outside the door. The tight constriction of the respirator, the utter helpless lethargy and paralysis from the drugs. He had seen curare in use before.
Puzzles, things he could not understand. At one point someone had come into the room from the hall, silently, stealthily, though he had sensed the presence, sensed the violent distillation of danger. There was the vaguest outline of a large man with a stunner in his hand . . . then, incredibly, it was gone. Frightened away? Why? By what? And later, the harsh ripping sound of stunners on the floor below, the screams, the crackle of flames, the heat.