"You have my tranquilizer?" Lars asked. Dr. Todt had something in his hands, resting on his lap out of sight.
"I have here," Dr. Todt said, "a laser pistol." He displayed it, pointing it at Major Geschenko. "I knew I had it somewhere in my bag, but it was under everything else. You are under arrest, Major, for holding a Wes-bloc citizen captive against his will."
From his lap he produced a second object, a minute audio communications-system, complete with microphone, earphone and antenna. Snapping it on he spoke into the flea-size mike. "Mr. Conners? J. F. Conners, please?" He explained, for the benefit of Lars, Lilo and Major Geschenko, "Conners is in charge of FBI operations here at Fairfax. Um. Mr. J. F. Conners? Yes. We are at the motel. Yes, Apt. six. Where they first brought us. Evidently they plan to transport Mr. Powderdry to the Soviet Union when they return Miss Topchev and are awaiting transport-connections at this moment. There are KVB agents all over so—well, okay. Thanks. Yes. And thank you again." He shut off the communications-system and restored it to his medical bag.
They sat inertly, saying nothing and then presently outside the door of the motel room there was a flurry of sharp, abrupt noise. Grunts, labored, and muffled thumps, a voiceless cat-fight of confusion that lasted several minutes. Major Geschenko looked philosophical but not very happy. Lilo, on the other hand, seemed petrified; she sat bolt-upright, her face stark.
The door snapped spring-like open. An FBI man, one of those who had brought Lars to Iceland, peered in, laser pistol sweeping potentially everything in the room with its ability to include them all as targets. However, he did not fire but merely entered, followed by a second FBI man who had somehow, in what had happened, lost his tie.
Major Geschenko rose to his feet, unbuttoned his holster, silently turned over his side arm to the FBI men.
"We'll go back to New York now," the first man said to Lars.
Major Geschenko shrugged. Marcus Aurelius could not have achieved more stoic resignation.
As Dr. Todt and Lars moved toward the door with the two FBI men, Lilo Topchev suddenly said, "Lars! I want to come along."
The two FBI men exchanged glances. Then one spoke into his lapel-mike, conversed inaudibly with an unseen superior. All at once he said brusquely to Lilo, "They say okay."
"You may not like it there," Lars said. "Remember, dear—we're both out of favor."
"I still want to come," Lilo said.
"Okay," Lars said, and thought of Maren.
22
In the park in Festung Washington, D.C. the aged, feeble, shabbily dressed war veteran sat mumbling to himself and watching the children playing, and then he saw, making their way without haste down the wide gravel path, two second lieutenants from the Wes-bloc Air Arm Academy, youths of nineteen with clean, scrubbed, beardless but arrestingly, unusually intelligent faces.
"Nice day," the ancient hulk said to them, nodding.
They paused briefly. That was enough.
"I fought in the Big War," the old man cackled, with pride. "You never saw combat but I did; I was main-man for a front-line T.W.G. Ever seen a T.W.G. recoil 'cause of an overload, when the input-line circuit-breaker fails, and the induction field shorts? Fortunately I was off a distance so I survived. Field hospital. I mean a ship. Red Cross. I was laid up months."
"Gee," one of the shavetails said, out of deference.
"Was that in the Callisto revolt six years ago?" the other asked.
The ancient cobwebbed shape swayed with brittle mirth. "It was sixty-three years ago. I been running a fixit shop since. Until I got to bleeding internally and had to quit except for small work. Apt appliances. I'm a first-rate swibble man: I can fix a swibble that otherwise—" He wheezed, unable to breathe momentarily.
"But sixty-three years ago!" the first shavetail said. He calculated. "Heck, that was during World War Two; that was 1940." They then both stared at the old veteran.
The hunched, dim, stick-like figure croaked, "No, that was 2005. I remember because my medal says so." Shakily, he groped at his tattered great-cloak. It seemed to disintegrate as he poked at it, turning further into dust. He showed them a small metal star pinned to his faded shirt.
Bending, the two young commissioned officers read the metal surface with its raised figures and letters.
"Hey, Ben. It does say 2005."
"Yeah." Both officers stared.
"But that's next year."
"Let me tell you about how we beat 'em in the 'Big War,' " the old vet wheezed, tickled to have an audience. "It was a long war; sheoot, it seemed like it'd never end. But what can you do against T.G. warp? And that's what they found out. Were they surprised!" He giggled, wiped then at the saliva that had sputtered from his sunken lips. "We finally came up with it; of course we had all those failures." With disgust he hawked, spat onto the gravel. "Those weapons designers didn't know a thing. Stupid bastards."
"Who," Ben said, "was the enemy?"
It took a long time before the old veteran could grasp the nature of the question and when he did his disgust was so profound as to be overwhelming. He tottered to his feet, moved shufflingly away from the two young officers. "Them. The slavers from Sirius!"
After a pause the other second lieutenant seated himself on the other side of the old war veteran and then, thoughtfully, he said to Ben, "I think—" He made a gesture.
"Yeah," Ben said. To the old man he said, "Pop. Listen. We're going below."
"Below?" The old man cringed, confused and frightened.
"The kremlin" Ben said. "Subsurface. Where UN-W Natsec, the Board, is meeting. General Nitz. Do you know who General George Nitz is?"
Mumbling, the veteran pondered, tried to remember. "Well, he was way up there," he said finally. "What year is this?" Ben said. The old man eyed him gleefully. "You can't fool me. This is 2068. Or—" The momentarily bright eyes dimmed over, hesitantly. "No, it's 2067; you were trying to catch me. But you didn't, did you? Am I right? 2067?" He nudged the young second lieutenant.
To his fellow officer, Ben said, "I'll stay here with him. You get a mil-car, official. We don't want to lose him."
"Right." The officer rose, sprinted off in the direction of the kremlin's surface-installations. And the funny thing was he kept thinking over and over again, inanely, as if it had any bearing: What the hell was a swibble?
23
On the subsurface level of Lanferman Associates, more or less directly beneath the mid-California town of San Jose, Pete Freid sat at his extensive work-bench, his machines and tools inert, silent, off.
Before him lay the October 2003 copy of the uncivilized comic book, The Blue Cephalopod Man from Titan. At the moment, his lips moving, he examined the entertainment adventure, The Blue Cephalopod Man Meets the Fiendish Dirt-Thing That Bored to the Surface of Io After Two Billion Years Asleep in the Depths! He had reached the frame where the Blue Cephalopod Man, roused to consciousness by his sidekick's frantic telepathic efforts, had managed to convert the radiation-detecting portable G-system into a Cathode-Magnetic Ionizing Bi-polar Emanator.
With this Emanator, the Blue Cephalopod Man threatened the Fiendish Dirt-Thing as it attempted to carry off Miss Whitecotton, the mammate girlfriend of the Blue Man. It had succeeded in unfastening Miss Whitecotton's blouse so that one breast—and only one; that was International Law, the ruling applying severely to children's reading material—was exposed to the flickering light of Io's sky. It pulsed warmly, wiggled as Pete squeezed the wiggling-trigger. And the nipple dilated like a tiny pink lightbulb, upraised in 3-D and winking on and off, on and off... and would continue to do so until the five-year battery-plate contained within the back cover of the mag at last gave out.
Tinnily, in sequence, as Pete stroked the aud tab, the adversaries of the adventure spoke. He sighed. He had by now noted sixteen "weapons" from the pages so far inspected. And meanwhile, New Orleans, then Provo, and now, according to what had just come over the TV, Boise, Idaho was missing. Had disappeared behind the gray curtain, as the 'casters and 'papes were calling it.