The visitors inspected the battery of accelerators and massive electromagnets inside which the beam originated and followed the transmission tube, wreathed in its elaborate sheath of coils and coolant pipes, that conveyed it into the sphere of the J-reactor itself—there to be somehow squeezed by forces they were unable to comprehend out of the very universe. The party’s mood grew somber. Hardened as these men were by daily exposure to the harsh realities of systematically engineered methods of mass destruction, they found themselves daunted and apprehensive as the full meaning of the things they saw on every side percolated through to their understanding.
	Finally they saw the “brain” by which the entire operation of this awesome ensemble was coordinated and directed—the computer room where the three mighty BIACs ( mighty in performance, that is; each machine occupied just two six-foot-high cabinets) presided over several hundred assorted slave processors and cubicle after cubicle of attendant electronics.
	The operation of every component and subsystem that went to make up this aggregate was controlled ultimately from a single nerve center designated simply CONTROL ROOM. Here where all the data and control channels from every part of the vast machine were finally brought together in tiers of instrument panels and monitor screens, and where the command interface with the BIACs was situated. From here, every facet of system operation—control of the reactors and generator banks, beam modulation, target identification and location, direction of the fire-control computers—was orchestrated by just two human operators. The Control Room could, in an emergency, be sealed off from the inside, and with it the critical sections of the weapons system. Thus, regardless of what went on in other parts of the Brunner
mont complex, unimpaired operation of. Jericho could be guaranteed at any time.
	The raised gallery that gave access to the Control Room looked down over the panorama of the Operational Command Floor—the new war room of the Western Democratic Alliance. In this brightly illuminated setting of communications consoles and thickly carpeted surgical cleanliness, enormous mural displays presented the global picture that was revealed from the combined inputs of a network of orbital and ground-based surveillance systems, the interconnected radar and early-warning chains of a score of nations, high-flying robot drones above the Siberian tundra and the Gobi Desert, and ships dotted all the way from Spitsbergen to the Ross Sea. From these surroundings of superficial calm and tranquillity, the integrated war machine of the Western powers could be unleashed in minutes. This was where the men from Washington and the observers sent by the governments of Europe, Russia, Australia, and Japan eventually assembled to see the end-product of Jericho in action.
	Clifford and Aub had taken up their positions inside the Control Room, leaving Morelli to attend to the guests. While Morelli was describing the various facilities that were available on the Operational Command Floor, they put the system through a routine checkout drill. Everything was working fine.
	The first item on the agenda was a demonstration of the resolving power of the Mark III detector to show how it was used for target registration; also it would give the spectators an insight to the meaning of dynamic real-time control via BIAC interaction between the operator and the machine.
	“Just to recap for a moment on some of the things I said earlier, every piece of matter in the universe gives rise to hi-radiation that appears instantly at
nfl .i
every point in space.” Morelli spoke in a loud to make sure that his words carried to the back crowd of attentive faces arrayed before him. at this moment, hi-radiation is pervading this r radiation that is being generated in the mass of on the Sun, in Jupiter, in every star in our gala:
every galaxy in the universe.” He turned sb take in the fascinated expressions all around.
	“This hi-radiation that originates from object and small, near and far, can be made to proi measurable response by means of the instrume. you have just seen. The intensity of this radiatic off rapidly with distance from its source, in s’ its traveling instantly between points in oi space, but it does carry information from whi tam characteristics of the source object can be structed. The amount of information that from each source also becomes less the farthei the source is.
	“This means that although the detector in receives hi-wave information from every object universe at the same time, in practice the 2 that is contributed from beyond comparatively distances . . . at our present state of the art, a of hundred thousand miles or so . . . is so sm~ you can neglect it. There are exceptions to th~ instance the Sun and some other bodies appe normally ‘bright’ for their distance—but by an what I’ve said is true. Any questions so far?”
	“Just one.” The speaker was a tall, swarth wearing the uniform of a Vice Marshal of the States of Europe Air Force. “If I remember co:
you said earlier that this hi-radiation that exists where gives rise to conventional background by a process which, I believe, you called ‘sec interactions.’ This background is immeasurabl)
even on Earth, because by astronomical standards Earth is really very tiny.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
	“Fine. Does this mean then that near other, much more massive astronomical bodies, you would see greater amounts of background radiation . . . ones that were readily measurable?”
	“Precisely so, and it does happen,” Morelli responded. “In fact, the black holes in space have very intense radiation halos. This could never be explained by classical physics, and was one of the things that led to k-theory being recognized in the first place.”
	“I see. Thank you.”
	There were no further questions, so Morelli resumed his lecture. “The detector, then, responds to hi-waves that originate, to all intents and purposes exclusively, from objects situated in the nearby regions of space. Now, by using very sophisticated computerprocessing techniques, we are able to extract from the information they carry, sufficient data to single out one portion of the composite hi-wave signal . . . we can zoom in, if you will, on any region that we care to select out of the whole volume in space that the total signal is coming from. Within limits, that region can be as large or as small as we like. Moreover, from the information that we have extracted, we can derive spacelike solutions to the equations involved, which enable internal and external visual representations of the selected object to be constructed.”
	“Another question, Professor Morelli,” a voice called from the back.
	“Yes?”
	“What are the limits that you mentioned? What range of sizes of object can you resolve?”
“At the small end it gets worse the farther away the object is . . . also, don’t forget, what we’re really see2A~
ing is a measure of the difference in mass-~ between the object and its surroundings. We’ looking at any kind of optically generated im~ you won’t see normal visual contrasts and
What you will see are contrasts in density.
	“But to answer your question—if you swalic .22 caliber lead bullet, we could pick it up if yo standing a mile away. For an object sitting other side of the world—somewhere in the sc Indian Ocean, say—if it were solid steel stand in air, we could go down to a size of, aw, 1 twenty-five feet. So, you see, we could identify
	“At the big end, well, we’re only limited by fective range of the detector itself . . . in other its sensitivity, since the signals from places ti farther away get smaller. But as I said earbiet are some quite strong radiators a long way aw until about a year ago we did start to make r of things such as the Sun—nothing detailed, saw were smudges—but that was with an model of the detector. The one we’ve got here do a lot better, but I guess we’ve been too 1 with other things to bother much about taking ther.”
	A muttering of interest arose as some of the F realized for the first time the full potency of t tern, if only as a means of surveillance, neve as a weapon.
	“Let’s now have a look at some of the thu been talking about,” Morelli said. He gestur ward toward one of the huge screens above th “This screen is coupled to slave off of the mair monitor display in the Control Room. On it y see an enlarged copy of what the BIAC opera project on to his own console. Ready, Brad?” dressed his last words to Clifford, who, he km

2R4.
following events on one of the monitor screens in the Control Room.
	“Ready.” Clifford’s voice came over the loudspeaker system above the Command Floor. An auxiliary screen, set below and to one side of the main display, showed the two operators in the room above.
	“I’ll hand the demonstration over to Bradley Clifford at this point, then,” Morelli informed the group. “Brad, over to you. I’ll leave you to do your own commentating. Okay?”
	“Okay.” Almost at once the main display came to life to show the hazy but unmistakable outline of a ship. It was positioned roughly halfway up the screen and was shown broadside; its bulk could be seen clearly floating in the ghostly haze produced by the water. “I’ve been tracking this ship for the past few minutes now, while Al was talking,” Clifford’s voice announced. “It’s in the eastern part of the North Atlantic, between the Azores and the Bay of Biscay. If you want the exact position it is fifteen degrees thirtysix minutes west, forty-two degrees ten minutes north, course two hundred sixty-one degrees, speed thirty-five knots. From the general outline it’s obviously a fairly large carrier, almost certainly one that’s involved in the exercises being held in that area this week. If you watch closely, you will see a small dot rise from the left-hand end from time to time. These are aircraft being launched at this instant . . . there goes one now.”
	The audience had been well prepared with what to expect, but even so, gasps of astonishment and surprise rose around the floor.
	“If I close in a little . . .“ the shape rapidly enlarged,

:‘you should just be able to make out details of the internal structure. In particular, note the brighter parts
midships and toward the stern. These are the densest parts of the structure—the engines and propulsion ma
chinery. You may be able to see also just the f~ hairlines of brightness inside the midships
room. I’m pretty sure that the vessel is ni powered and that those are fuel rods in its rc Note also the pinpoints in several compartmen ther forward—probably fissile material contair nuclear warheads that are parts of weapons mi in the ship’s armory.”
	The effect upon the watchers of actually bein to gaze inside a ship sailing on the high seas thousand miles away was overwhelming. To
they just stood and stared as coherent speech ri to come to their lips. Clifford’s lazy, matterdrawl seemed only to add somehow to the effect.
	“Another aircraft is just taking off. This tim follow it.” A finger of pale orange, larger than th seen previously because of the enlarged vie’~ tached itself from the bow of the carrier. Thc closed in on the aircraft and the ship slid rapi( the bottom edge of the screen. It seemed to around in space as the viewpoint altered to prc from all angles, finally zooming in to reveal the tapered nose and triangular wings.
	“Again, the engines show up more distinctivel’ the rest of the structure,” Clifford commented. it doesn’t show up on the screen but I can see tI the BIAC a slightly darker cone extending bac1~ the tail. That is the result of the bower density exhaust gases. From the data contained in that p we could compute the running temperature of t gines and make a fair guess as to what kind the~ He allowed them a few more seconds to watch th climbing aircraft before speaking again.
	“You will have noticed that we are manag track steadily a target that is now moving quit What may not be apparent is that this is all
done completely automatically, without requiting any kind of continuous participation by either of us in here. When I made the decision to follow this target aircraft, I issued a command to the BIAC to lock on and track, using procedural routines that it has already learned. At this moment neither I nor my colleague here, Aubrey Philipsz, is interacting or communicating with the system in any way whatsoever. But as you can see, the target is being tracked and displayed faithfully.”
	Clifford began warming to his subject, and his voice took on a measure of excitement. “In fact, the system is capable of automatically following thousands of discrete, independent objects simultaneously, objects distributed anywhere within its range of operation. Moreover, I could instruct the machine to inform me when any of those objects reaches some predetermined point in its course—for example, the aircraft that you see is flying eastward now, toward the French coast; I could deposit an instruction to be informed if and when it gets inside one hundred miles of the shore; until that happens, the machine will do all the necessary work and I can forget about it. Similarly, I could command a general surveillance routine, whereby I would be informed of any aircraft or object entering French airspace . . . not just specific targets that I have previously identified, such as the one on the screen. In both those examples, I could, instead of being simply informed, program for the targets to be destroyed automatically. So too for all the other targets that the system is capable of tracking and detecting.
	“You will appreciate therefore, gentlemen, that the surveillance and weapons-guidance capabilities of this machine are in no way limited to the number of events that one human brain can keep track of at any one time. The machine can make most of its decisions for
itself, using generalized criteria that I give it. like, its functions include the duties of a whol ment of staff officers.”
	Clifford then proceeded to conjure up a se
images of places and events taking place a
Earth, which included several examples of thc
mated facilities he had described. He finished t sion by capturing the image of two U.S. spa carrying out a prearranged docking maneuver v~ orbit. While this was being shown on the ma play, an adjacent screen provided a convention~ of the same sequence, which was picked up by camera aboard one of the craft and transmitted through the normal channels. The difference w the conventional picture required a camera to there, on the scene of the event; the J-scope
	Then it was Morelli’s turn to speak again.
	“So much for how we can guide the weapor
let us see exactly what the weapon itself can do.
	“Hi-radiation gives rise to a secondary effect ventional radiant energy that exists as a halo every object you can name. For most objec secondary radiation is so tiny that it exists moi mathematical abstraction than anything you hope to measure . . . but it’s there.” The face by now tense and expectant as the moment of in action the weapon they had heard about for drew nearer.
	Morelli continued. “In the J-reactor, we in amplify enormously what takes place in ordinar ter. The process causes secondary energy to m~ ize as a halo, which is most intense in the imn vicinity of the reactor but extends outward .
ting thinner all the time . . . throughout all of Now, the important thing to bear in mind is this He paused for a moment to add emphasis. “Al
the secondary energy is denser around the reactor, the amount of it is only a small fraction of the total—”
	“I’m not quite with you there, Professor,” one of the listeners came in. “Could you clarify that please?”
	“Think of it as heat,” Morelli suggested. “A red-hot needle is at a high temperature, but doesn’t hold much heat. The water in the boilers of a power station is not as hot, but it contains a far larger amount of heat. Using that analogy, the energy in the vicinity of the reactor is more intense . . . ‘hotter,’ but when you add up all the ‘colder’ energy that’s distributed all through billions of cubic light-years of space, you find that the amount is greater. In other words, forget the ‘temperature’; most of the energy—most by far—that the reactor produces is spread out thinly across space .
when you add it all up. Is that clearer?”
	“Thank you, yes.”
	“Fine.” Morelli took a long breath. “The situation I’ve just described applies when the reactor is running with the focusing system switched off. By bringing the focusing system in, we can force all of that
energy to materialize not all through space, but concentrated inside one tiny volume. One way of visualizing it is to imagine the mass consumed in the reactor as being converted into its energy equivalent and instantly appearing elsewhere. The effect is the same as that of a hydrogen bomb that suddenly appears out of nowhere. A big difference is that the mass conversion can be a lot higher than in an H-bomb, so we can produce effects far more devastating . . . not that there’d be a lot of point in that.”
	Morelli turned and gazed expectantly up at the main display. Scores of pairs of eyes followed his, tense. . . waiting.
	This time the screen showed a normal TV transmission. It was a view from the air, looking down

2~9
from high altitude on a desolate Arctic waste of bleak rocky shorelines, inlets of sea and ice floes
a range of broken, jagged mountains visible i

middle distance. An unfamiliar voice came ov loudspeaker.
	“This is Foxtrot Five to Bluebird Control. Al fifty thousand feet, on course, target range tw miles, bearing one-six-zero degrees. All systems c ing positive.”
	Another voice replied:
	“Bluebird Control. Dead on time Foxtrot Maintain course and follow Plan Baker Two. r
—Baker Two. Redsox reports you’re on the air Reception good. Countdown on schedule. Acl~ edge.”
	“Foxtrot Five acknowledging. Wilco—Baker
	“You are looking at an area reserved as a m testing ground on Somerset Island, in the far no Canada,” Clifford’s voice informed them. “The is being sent back from an Air Force RB6 flying of the target area. The target is the high peak 1i near the center of the group now in the center I

picture. You might just be able to see a small of red against the background just above and sI to the right of the target peak. That’s a large n balloon for visual identification.
	“Back here, we have been starting up the re2 beam energizers. I am about to switch on the into the J-reactor. . . .“ A pause of a few secon lowed. “Not far below where you are standin~ beam is now on—pouring energy out across th verse. I have already preset the space coordina the target into the programs that are running fire-control computers. All I have to do now is vate the focusing modulators to direct the retui ergy on to some specific point. As soon as I dc
1)7
the fire-control programs will take over, and direct the concentrated energy to the coordinates supplied.”
	He waited for a moment, allowing time for the suspense to build up. “I am priming the focusing systern to self-activate automatically and slave to the fire control programs ten seconds from . . . now.” A numerical display, superimposed upon the target picture, appeared and began reeling off the seconds.
Nine.. . Eight. . . seven...
	“Note that from now on I play no further part. All operations are automatic.”
Three. . . two .. . one...
	The whole room gasped in unison. The entire central portion of the mountain range instantly vanished in a brilliant blaze of pure whiteness. The familiar, sinister shape of a slowly swelling and rising fireball rose up out of the maelstrom that erupted where the whiteness had been. A writhing, swirling column of fire and vapors climbed up through the clouds and began spreading outward to form a boiling canopy that blotted out the surrounding landscape.
	“Holy Moses, what was that?” yelled the voice of

Foxtrot Five.
	“Search me,” came another voice on the circuit. “Musta been a ground burst. There was nothing coming in on radar.”
	“Cut the cackle, Foxtrot Five. You’re still alive.”
	“Wilco.”
	In the next half-hour, Clifford repeated the performance on a series of other preprepared targets, including the burned-out shell of a shuttle booster that had been orbiting high above Earth for over ten years. In each case the results were as spectacular as the first. The shuttle booster demonstration showed that Jericho could be controlled right down to destructive levels that were far lower than the minimum unleashed
by a thermonuclear explosion; it was vaporized equivalent of less than one hundred tons of TNT.
	For his finale, Clifford brought up views of fi”~ ferent targets on separate screens, the locations scattered across hundreds of miles of Arctic ‘~ ness. Then he announced that, as already prearr~ ten dummy warheads would be launched toward ous parts of the North American continent from ing space vehicles simulating ORBS satellites. ~4 mock attack was set in motion, the trajectories i warheads were reported on an additional
hooked into the regular tracking network.
	“The fire-control computers have been fed ti ordinates of the ground targets,” he announced.
are also being updated continually with the in to-instant positions of the incoming missiles, are now being tracked automatically by the s~ lance system. What I am about to do is actival focusing system and set the fire-control routii direct the weapon on to each of the targets in tu will fire on each target for exactly one milliontF second. Focus will activate ten seconds from . .
	The countdown ticked by in a way that w now familiar.
	As zero flashed up, all five targets exp together; at the same instant all traces of the a ing missile salvo were lost. The action had been less.
	A stunned silence had taken over the room.
faces registered the dawning of the first full re tions of what all this meant. The five menacing i rooms were still spreading across the screens Clifford’s voice sounded again, still cool and d sionate.
	“Allow me to put what you have just seen perspective. In the last demonstration, the J-r~
was operating at low power only, and the exposure time per target was one microsecond. With thoderate power and a longer exposure, it would be perfectly feasible to wipe out a large city. Simple calculations show that, without taxing the system, one hundred selected enemy cities could, once the relevant coordinates had been fed into the fire-control programs, be totally destroyed in just over one hundredth of a second.”
	Hardly a word was spoken as one by one the screens went blank and the machines were shut down. Clifford emerged from the Control Room and looked down from the raised gallery over the silent upturned faces. His cheeks were hollow from the strain of more than a year of unbroken work, his eyes dark-rimmed from lack of sleep.
	“You demanded my knowledge and my skills to be harnessed for the ends of war,” he said. “You have them.”
	He said no more. There was nothing more to say.
















273
Chapter 22

	After testing the intentions of the Wes nearly twelve months of escalating provocatio:
Eastern Alliance nations had satisfied themselvc no serious attempts would be forthcoming to hi their designs in India. The Afrab and Chinese fighting on the frontiers, committed originally fend the so-called People’s Uprising, gradual sumed the role of regular armies of invasion internecine squabbles within the Indian nation forgotten as rival civil factions united and turn face the common threat, but by that time the coi cohesive power was draining fast.
	Afrab armies took over all of the northwest and advanced southward to occupy the Kati Peninsula, little more than two hundred miles Bombay. In the east, the Chinese reached the of the Mahanadi River, and pushed along the of the Ganges to take Lucknow and Kanpur. was thus left precariously between the closing j2 the pincer with both of its main arteries of comm tion severed, all the time becoming more isola the potential source of relief was compressed in southern half of the subcontinent.
	By then every armed satellite deployed b West was being marked by at least two hostile owers. The strategic calculations of the Easten

07A
showed a tip in the balance that would preolude the West from so much as contemplating an all-out conflict, and developments in India seemed to confirm
it.
	The Vladivostok government declared its commitment to a crusade for the reunification of Siberia and Russia, denouncing the Moscow regime as unrepresentative. A mood of defeatism swept across Europe as Euro-Russian and Siberian armies clashed with renewed ferocity west of the Urals. The Afrabs struck northward from Iraq into the Caucasus; Americans and Europeans counterattacked from eastern Turkey.
	The world braced itself.

Alexander George Sherman, President of the United States and cosignatory to the Alliance of Western Democracies, sipped approvingly at his whiskey and allowed his head to sink back into the luxurious leather padding of one of the armchairs facing the fireplace in the sitting room that adjoined the presidential study. The eyes that looked over the rim of his glass at the guest sitting opposite bore the marks of the burden of Atlas. And yet the expression in those eyes was calm and composed, mellowed by the compassion that comes with maturity and the wisdom of a thousand years.
	“The provocations to which we are being subjected might seem to constitute a clear-cut justification for using the J-bomb without restriction,” he said. “I am satisfied that were I to give the word, our enemies would be completely and utterly crushed within an hour. However, I must consider not only the heat of the moment today, but also the cool that will come when the world looks back from tomorrow.”
	Bradley Clifford tasted his own drink and looked back without speaking.

1)7i;
	“The emotions that tempt us toward acting in sively, however real they might be now, will SO( forgotten,” Sherman continued. “History would condone the indiscriminate use of a weapon ol kind, whatever the circumstances. If the West survive as the defender of all the things it has a:
claimed to stand for, it must uphold its prin even in war. It cannot and must not permit itsi precipitate the wholesale slaughter of civilians b:
means, or to embark on an orgy of mass destrt by methods against which there can be no defens
	“But the deadlock has to be broken,” Cliffor plied at last. “Without an imbalance, it must rc a deadlock permanently.”
	“Yes, I agree with you. Clearly it would be a for us to concede any form of parity with the now; your weapon should enable us to dictatc terms we choose. What I’m really saying is tha message is so obvious that there should be no nec us to let loose a worldwide holocaust to spell it have conferred with our allies on this, and they Europe, Australia, and Japan feel the same way Russians are all for going straight in with the 1 but they’re outvoted.”
	“I understand, of course,” Clifford said. “But did you have in mind as an alternative—some of token demonstration?”
	Sherman shook his head slowly, apparently h been expecting the suggestion. “Mmm . . . no. W discuss such a possibility, but we came to the elusion that even that would be too risky. Yo~ Dr. Clifford, the kind of people we are up agains shall we say, unpredictable. Much of the Eastern’ has plunged straight from the Stone Age int twenty-first century, without having any of the to adjust in the same way the Western nations
but even in the case of the West, the transition was far from easy. Many of their leaders still think and react in the manner of tribesmen rather than statesmen; that was why the UN collapsed and why any form of rational negotiation has been impossible for the last twenty years or more.
	“But these people now possess enormous arsenals of the most sophisticated weapons systems known—apart from this latest, of course. It took our own experts a long time to realize the full implications of the bomb. The problem with a demonstration is that our adversaries might react first and think afterward; they might see it as a bluff and try to call it. If they did, we could end up taking a lot of casualties on our own side before we convinced them, and that’s the one thing I’m here to prevent if I can. I know that it looks as if the J-bomb would neutralize anything they tried to do, but we haven’t actually proved that yet. Until we’re more sure of that, I think we have to keep the element of surprise as an added insurance. That’s one advantage that it would be foolish to sacrifice prematurely.”
	Clifford sipped his drink again and nodded slowly. None of this came very much as a surprise. He thought he knew what would follow next, but chose not to interrupt.
	The President leaned forward and rested an elbow on the arm of his chair. “What I wanted to ask you about was the feasibility of using the J-bomb for a no-holds-barred surprise strike, but selectively. We want to be able to knock out the offensive capability of the other side in a single, lightning blow, especially the means of delivering any form of retaliation against our own territories. If we could first of all, without warning, eliminate their ORBS system, ICBM sites, and missile subs before they even knew what was
happening, then it wouldn’t really matter ho’ rationally they react, since they would no longer a position to do anything drastic.
	“After that, if they saw sense, the whole would be over and only purely military targets ‘~ have been attacked. If they still refused to buy it, just keep hammering at their ground forces whe they’re engaged in offensive actions against us they did. Once again, the targets would be mu there’d be no mass killings of civilians, and we take all the time in the world since there would 1 threat to our own population or to our cities.” H back and waited for a reply.
	“That would be no problem,” was all Clifforc to say. He made the destruction of the military i of half the world sound like a simple matter of control.
	“Easy, huh?” Sherman could not contain a smile as he gazed with a strange mixture of fascin and admiration at the young man, barely half his age, who was casually accepting the challenge to on virtually single-handed a thousand million fa~ equipped with every device of devilment tha armorers of modern warfare could provide.
	“I wasn’t meaning to be flippant,” Clifford swered with sincerity. “I know what the machi capable of, and what you ask is well within its I Have I ever failed to deliver anything once I’ve r ised it?”
	“No, you never have, and I don’t think you would. You’re not the kind of person who ~ promise something he didn’t mean to deliver iT first place. So—I can carry on from here on tli sumption that it’s feasible?”
	“You can.”
	Sherman caught the curious inflexion of~ the scientist’s voice.
	“You agree to being instrumental in the execution of a strategic plan along the lines I’ve just indicated,” he stated, just to be sure.
	“I didn’t say that,” Clifford replied quietly. “I said you could carry on and assume it’s feasible.”
	Sherman looked at him with a suddenly puzzled frown as, for a few seconds, he backtracked mentally over the most recent part of the conversation. He was suddenly a trifle suspicious.
	“Let’s make certain we understand one another, Dr. Clifford. Exactly what is it that you are promising to deliver?”
	“What I’ve always promised—an end to the power deadlock that is destroying this world.”
	“And exactly how do you see that being achieved?”
	A long time seemed to pass while Clifford returned
an unblinking stare. “I can’t be any more frank than
I am being right now,” he said, in barely more than
a whisper that seemed to add to its firmness.
	The eyes of the two men met and in a brief moment an indefinable understanding flowed between them that could not have been expressed in a thousand words. Sherman gazed into the unwavering stare of absolute composure, instinctively seeking to divine the purpose that the extraordinary mind behind was unable to disclose. He became acutely conscious that only a quirk of fate gave him the right to question and command a brain that could comprehend and harness the workings of mysterious realms of time and space that no man before had even suspected to exist. Could he presume to be the infallible arbiter of its deepest workings? For a long time his instincts grappled with the objectiveness and caution demanded by his office.

~~7Q
	“I could rule that we don’t use it at all,” he said eventually.
	“Then you would have won your gamble of a year ago, without collecting any winnings.”
	Another long silence ensued. The sound of the clock on the mantel above the fireplace and the subdued hum of the air conditioner became noticeable for the first time. The noise of a low-flying vehicle came from the darkness outside the window.
	“Let me ask you a hypothetical question,” the President said. “If you had a free hand to use the J-bomb in any way that you pleased and you set out to achieve the objective that you have specified by whatever means you consider it requires, would the situation that you visualize involve any unnecessary loss of life to any citizen of this country or of its allies, or the acceptance of any casualties that could be avoided by other means?”

	“Would it entail any form of indiscriminate use against the civilian populations of hostile belligerents?”
	‘‘l~~o.’’
	Sherman took a deep breath and set his glass down on a small side table.
	“If the people who elected me could hear what I’m going to say next, they’d probably kick me out of office without a second thought,” he said “I am not going to demand an explanation of what has been implied I’m going to forget that we even said it~~
	Clifford remained expressionless and said nothing The President thought to himself for a while before resuming.
“Earlier this evening it was reported that the Chinese and Afrab forces in northern India have begun using nuclear weapons on a limited scale in certain key areas The Indians are retaliating in kind Unnon
doubtedly this will spread and escalate if tl~ings are left to run their course.
	“It was agreed between myself and the heads of allied governments less than three hours ago that we would issue a joint ultimatum calling upon the invading forces to cease hostilities in all theaters and to withdraw immediately to the recognized international frontiers. This ultimatum will almost certainly be rejected, at which point it was our intention to proceed immediately with the first phase of our selective strategy I described—an instant J-bomb strike at their means of nuclear retaliation.
	“Now, going back to our hypothetical situation, if you were free to use the weapon in the way that you visualize, would there be any reason for me to change my mind? Would there be any reason for me not to convey to the allied governments confirmation of my intent to endorse the ultimatum as planned?”
	“No reason at all,” Clifford replied. “In fact, if that were the position, it would be important that you did.”
















2R1
Chapter 23
TO
THE REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE GRAND ALLIANCE OF
PROGRESSIVE PEOPLES REPUBLICS


IN A SERIES OF ACTS OF INTERNAL SUBVERSION AND
OVERT AGGRESSION THAT HAS BEEN PERPETRATED OVER
MANY YEARS, THE CONSORTIUM OF POWERS TO WHOM
THIS MESSAGE IS ADDRESSED HAVE REPEATEDLY AND
BLATANTLY INTERFERED IN THE AFFAIRS OF NATION-
STATES THAT HAVE EXPRESSED NEITHER THE WISH TO
AFFILIATE THEMSELVES IN ANY WAY, POLITICALLY,
MILITARILY, OR ECONOMICALLY, WITH THE OBJECTIVES
OF THAT CONSORTIUM, NOR TO ACCEPT THE IDEOLOGICAL CREEDS TO WHICH IT SUBSCRIBES THESE ACTS HAVE
BEEN COMMITTED IN PURSUIT OF THE CONSORTIUM’S
DECLARED GOAL OF SECURING FOR ITSELF THE STATUS
OF DOMINATION OVER ALL OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLES,
RACES, AND NATIONS, WITHOUT REGARD EITHER FOR
THEIR WISHES OR FOR THE POLICIES OF THEIR FREELY
ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES AND GOVERNMENTS REPEATED ATTEMPTS BY THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE
FREE WORLD TO ESTABLISH A RATIONAL DIALOGUE
WITH THE CONSORTIUM NATIONS AND TO ACHIEVE THE
PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE OF ALL NATIONS HAVE BEEN
MET ONLY WITH HOSTILITY AND PROGRESSIVELY HIGHER
LEVELS OF PROVOCATION. THE CONTINUING INVASION
BY FORCE OF THE TERRITORIES OF INDIA AND RUSSIA
MARKS THE ESCALATION OF THAT PROVOCATION TO A
LEVEL THAT THE FREE WORLD FINDS ITSELF UNABLE
TO TOLERATE.
	ACCORDINGLY, WE, THE APPOINTED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE NATIONS THAT
ARE SIGNATORY TO THE FORMAL ALLIANCE OF WESTERN
DEMOCRATIC STATES, GIVE NOTICE OF OUR DEMANDS
AS FOLLOWS:

1.	THAT THE MILITARY FORCES OF ALL NATIONS
THAT ARE INCLUDED IN THE ALLIANCE TO
WHOM THIS MESSAGE IS ADDRESSED CEASE
FORTHWITH THEIR OPERATIONS IN ALL THEATERS OF COMBAT.
2.	THAT THE FORCES REFERRED TO IN (1) ABOVE WITHDRAW COMPLETELY ALL PERSONNEL, ARMAMENTS, MUNITIONS, AND MATERIEL TO THE APPROPRIATE INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FRONTIERS.
3.	THAT THE ILLEGALLY IMPOSED REGIMES IN
HONG KONG, TAIWAN, AND SOUTH KOREA BE
DISSOLVED AND THAT NEW GOVERNMENTS BE
ESTABLISHED BY PROCESSES OF FREELY CONDUCTED AND INTERNATIONALLY SUPERVISED
ELECTIONS.
4.	THAT AN INTERNATIONAL BODY BE CONVENED,
COMPOSED OF REPRESENTATIVES OF BOTH THE
EASTERN AND WESTERN ALLIANCES OF NATIONS, TO EXPLORE WAYS OF LIMITING AND ULTIMATELY OF TERMINATING TOTALLY THE
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF STRATEGIC WEAPONS SYSTEMS OF ALL TYPES.

	WE HEREBY GIVE NOTICE ALSO THAT IF FORMAL ACCESSION TO THESE DEMANDS HAS NOT BEEN RECEIVED BY 12:00 NOON, LOCAL TIME IN WASHINGTON,

nr~ fi
D.C., ON THE 27TH DAY OF NOVEMBER 2007, A STATE
OF WAR WILL BE DEEMED TO EXIST BETWEEN ALL
NATIONS INCLUDED IN THE GRAND ALLIANCE OF PRO
GRESSIVE PEOPLES REPUBLICS, AND THE NATIONS THAT
ARE SIGNATORY TO THE TREATY OF THE ALLIANCE OF
WESTERN DEMOCRATIC STATES.

ALEXANDER GEORGE SHERMAN,
PRESIDENT OF THE	UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WOLFGANG KLESSENHAUER,
PRESIDENT OF THE	UNITED STATES OF EUROPE MAXWELL JAMES DOMINIC,
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CANADA YURI JOSEF SASHKAVOV,
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF EURO-RUSSIA MARTIN CRAIG-WILSON,
PRIME MINISTER OF THE FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
SIMIL KUNG YO SAN,
	PRESIDENT OF THE MALAYSIAN AND INDONESIAN
FEDERATION
YASHIRO MITSOBAKU,
PRESIDENT OF JAPAN

ISSUED FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.
12:00 NOON, 25 NOVEMBER 2007.

Aub stared once more at the copy of the ultimatum that lay on top of the console beside him. His eyes still registered a stunned disbelief, even after two days, and kept straying back to the document as if hoping that some mystical agency might miraculously have changed the grim message carned in its words All hopes were gone now, drowned in the dull sickness that lay in the pit of his stomach So now, after everything, it had finally come to this The nightmare that he had staunchly and trustingly refused to believe for
noA
all that time was really happening. He felt bitter, betrayed, and confused.
	A few feet away from him, seated in the second operator’s position in the Control Room, Clifford was engrossed with updating the fire-control programs via the BIACs. Deep below them in the lower recesses of Brunnermont, the dreadful machine that Aub had grown to hate was primed and ready, generators humming and beam ori and up to power, waiting to unleash its holocaust. There were only minutes left to run before the ultimatum expired. For the past forty-eight hours, Aub and Clifford had been taking shifts to maintain a constant readiness against the possibility of a surprise attack during the ultimatum period. But there had been no change in the pattern of activity across the global scene; there had been no acknowledgment of the ultimatum at all. Reports from the fronts were that the fighting was continuing unabated.
	Aub attracted Clifford’s attention and indicated his desire for Clifford to keep his eye on things alone for a moment while he took a final breath of air outside the Control Room before the action commenced. Clifford nodded his assent, whereupon Aub removed his BIAC skull-harness, stretched his cramped limbs gratefully, rose from the console, and walked out to the access gallery where he stopped to lean on the balustrade and stare out over the Operational Command Floor.
	The scene that confronted him, with its air of calm, well-regulated efficiency and smooth organization, could have been the inside of the control center for a space mission . . . were it not for the preponderance of military uniforms. All the communications posts were manned; the display screens were alive; the duty operators were all at their assigned positions and attending to their well-rehearsed tasks, while groups
no
of senior officers surveyed the proceedings various parts of the room. To one side President man, Vice President Donald Reyes, and Del Secretary Foreshaw were standing at the center semicircle of aides in front of a permanently communications console, ready for any last-m response to the ultimatum. This all reminded grimly of a prison warden in an earlier age star by for an eleventh-hour reprieve before executing tence on a condemned criminal. He doubted if would be any reprieve of the death sentence that been passed on mankind.
	He asked himself again why he had faile declare his dissociation from the business long fore this. Why had he not walked out? Had it simply because he had continued deep down to be in the man he had once called a friend until it wa late? Or was it now just a case of animal sur~ Was he, like the priests performing their rituals a sacrificial altars below, just reacting to the sul scious knowledge that only the power of the new they served could preserve them through the ~
that was ordained to come? But whatever things written on the pages that Destiny had not yet closed, there could be no going back now; to qi this stage would be merely to guarantee the gr disaster.
	He gazed at the clock set high on the far wall c
Command Floor, its window at the extreme right s
ing the relentless flow of seconds. Uncontrollabli
gers of ice caressed his spine, and nausea rose t
throat. Less than three minutes. Time to get I
back in. He turned and re-entered the Control R Clifford was looking toward the door as he can
as if waiting for Aub to enter. Aub sat down dully
began positioning the BIAC harness.
	“Aub.” Clifford’s voice was barely more than a hiss, yet it carried a strange note of urgency. Aub looked up and noticed the expression of earnestness. Clifford was leaning toward him, while at the same time holding his arm outstretched to keep a key on his panel depressed, thus temporarily cutting off audio and visual contact between the Control Room and the Command Floor below.
	“Aub, it’s not the way you think,” Clifford said, whispering hurriedly. “There isn’t time to explain now. But it was important that your reactions and Sarah’s be absolutely genuine all the way through. Everybody has been under observation here, all the time. I couldn’t risk anyone not acting out his part faithfully.” Aub started to shake his head in bewilderment, but just then Clifford glanced at the clock and hushed him with a gesture of his hand.
	“When the action starts, I want you to do everything I say without any questions. I know how you’ve been feeling. But it’s gonna be okay. Trust me.”
	As if in a trance, Aub nodded mutely, his eyes wide and dazed, his jaw hanging limp. Before he could form any coherent reply, the auxiliary screen came to life above Clifford’s head.
	“Hello, Control Room. We’ve lost you on the primary channel. Switch to standby while we check for faults.” The face of one of the operators below spoke out of the display. Clifford released the key he had been holding.
	“Sorry, my fault,” he advised. “Must have knocked the switch. How’s that?”
	The face of the operator glanced off screen for a second.
	“That’s fine. Clearing down standby.” One of the two faces now showing disappeared; the other continued to stare at them for a moment and then,
evidently satisfied, turned to attend to other ci Aub began to frame some kind of a question
a new voice came through the speaker above the trol Room doorway. “H-hour minus thirty sec Still no response to ultimatum.”
	After that there was no time to think of ques
	“Report status of weapon delivery system,” or
the voice of the operations coordinator from the s visory platform below.
	“Fire-control sequence primed and ready for I
One Strike,” Clifford replied. “Awaiting orders.”
	“Acknowledged. Stand by.”
	“Standing by.”
	General Carlohm, Supreme Commander ol Allied Integrated Command, approached the I dent, still standing by the open-channel console.
	“Request confirmation of present standing or
he said. Sherman nodded.
	“No change.”
	Carlohm turned to his deputy, who was sta~
behind him.
	“Confirm orders to all military forces. All un
maintain a condition of armed alert. Defend as r sary if attacked, but otherwise do not enga~ offensive hostilities.” The deputy acknowledged, walked over to a console operator to relay the me out to the global command chain of the Wc armed forces.
	Ten seconds.
	The eyes in the group of tense, grim faces clus
around the communications unit were all fixed o
President. His gaze was riveted on the screen v
above the operator’s head, his tongue running m
sciously back and forth across his dry lips. Nothing Zero. Still nothing.
	“The ultimatum has expired,” Carlohm rep
000
formally. “I request confirmation of your approval to authorize Phase One.” Sherman took a long, deep breath and turned at last away from the empty screen. Absolute silence had descended on all sides.
	“Proceed, General,” he instructed.
	Carlohm passed the order to the deputy who conveyed it to the operational coordinator. The coordinator activated the channel that connected him to the Control Room.
	“Authorization to proceed confirmed. Execute Phase One Strike.”
	“Proceeding,” Clifford returned. “Executing Phase One Strike now.”
	What followed was practically an anticlimax. A second or two later, Clifford’s voice calmly informed them:
	“Phase One completed.”
	There was nothing more to it than that. The information coming in from a thousand tracking points all around and over the world told the story on the displays surrounding them: between the last two times that Clifford had spoken, every ORBS satellite and orbiting antisatellite laser deployed by hostile powers had ceased to exist. The immediate threat of any direct attack on the Western nations had been totally removed. That still left, however, the less immediate but nevertheless formidable threat of submarine, surface- and air-launched missiles. These had to be dealt with next.
	The tension began to ease somewhat. The worst was over. The victory was in the bag. In one or two places, amused grins appeared at the thought of the confusion and consternation that would at that moment be breaking out in similar places on the other side of the world.
	“Permission to authorize Phase Two?” Carlohm

“on
asked the President. “Missile subs and launch s~
	“Proceed,” Sherman responded. The order rea the operations coordinator, who turned toward~ panel. Suddenly his face knotted into a puzzled fr He began jabbing repeatedly at the buttons in fro him. An assistant sitting slightly forward of him turning and muttering, making helpless gestures to
his own console.
	“What’s happening?” came the voice of Vice I
dent Reyes, sharply.
	“I’m not sure.” The coordinator looked perpl~ “We’ve lost contact with the Control Room. Pri:
channel’s dead; standby’s dead; backup sys aren’t responding.” He spoke into a microphone on the panel. “Control Room, Control Room. ‘V lost you completely. Do you hear? Come in ple He toggled more switches furiously and tried a No response.
	“You’ve got a fault,” somebody said.
	“Impossible. Triple redundancy circuits. Some
funny’s going on.”

A low hum followed by the dull thud of a I object striking solid resistance came from above
heads. Every face turned upward. The massive door had closed in the far wall of the gallery, se off the Control Room. Indignant voices rose up c sides.
“What in hell’s going on?” “Somebody’s flipped.”
“Christ! It’s all gonna screw up.”
	Then one of the operators at a monitoring St a few feet away from the coordinator became ex “Access doors to generator floors, acceler~ J-reactor, modulator levels, and computer floor all closed. The entire system is sealed off and a

“on
cal controls have been deactivated by Contrcil Room override.”
	“What’s he talking about?” Reyes demanded. The coordinator slumped back in his seat and showed his upturned palms.
	“The whole system is being controlled by those two guys up there.” He pointed up toward the gallery. “We can’t get in, and they’re not talking to us. We can’t get at any part of the machine either.”
	“Well. . . damn it. . . what can you do?”
	“Nix.”
	“Can’t you pull the plug on the damn thing—or something?”
	“Wouldn’t do any good. It’s got its own generating station below that can run for years. There’s no way we can get in at that either.”
	Reyes spun round to confront the group of agitated Presidential aides. Sherman himself seemed to be taking the situation more calmly than anybody .
unnaturally so. His reaction, or apparent lack of one, served only to confuse the Vice President more.
	“I don’t understand it,” Reyes said. “Alex. What are you going to do?”
	“You’ve just heard,” Sherman told him. “It doesn’t look as if there’s anything we can do. So I guess we just have to do what the old lady said—if it’s gonna happen anyway, lie back and enjoy it.”
	Carlohm, who had been conferring with his staff officers and studying the details of the reports coming in on the displays, interrupted. “Excuse me. Can I update you on our evaluation of the situation. Not all enemy satellites have been destroyed. Their strategic bombardment system and orbital lasers have been eliminated, but their capability for intercepting our own satellites with space-launched missiles is still intact. Since it looks as if we might not be able to rely

291
on further J-strikes, I suggest we alert our cc tional defenses to prepare for independent a
	“Very well,” Sherman agreed. “From now
treat this as a conventional operation. You nos~
sole command of all forces. Act as you see fit.”
	Carlohm issued a brief list of instructions
staff, who dispersed to translate them into orde
the commanders of the Western defenses. Withir utes, salvos of missiles were discharged by the s ing enemy satellites; ground launchings were de from Siberia to South Africa, which proved to I ICBMs but interceptor missiles streaking upw~ join in the assault on the unscathed Western s~ array. As the attacking waves closed in upon targets, orbiting lasers and defensive missiles brought into action to counter them.
	During the next fifteen minutes the pattern
trition unfolded: The enemy missiles were not ~ through. All the calculations and simulations shown that even with all the most favorable as tions, the Western defensive system could achieve the kill-rate that was being indicated c
screens. Something else was at work. That som
could only be the J-weapon, which made it a more strange for the two scientists to seal them
in.
	Then a new and inexplicable trend became
ent in the reports: a terrible toll was being tal~ the friendly ORBS and laser satellites. The
missiles were not getting through to their target yet the targets were being destroyed. Suc Carlohm realized what was happening.
	“It’s those two crazy bastards up there!” he ~
turning purple. “They’re wiping out our own
lites!”
	At the end of an hour the situation was
1)01)
Neither side was left with the means of delivering a strategic attack from orbit, both having lost their ORBS systems entirely. However, since the East had suffered the loss of its system in the first swift blow, it had been obliged to attempt to redress the balance by sending its anti-satellite missiles against the ORBS system of the West, which at that time had been still intact. This had forced the West to respond by firing off much of its stock of antimissile missiles.
	The result was that the East was left with ample stocks of antimissile missiles, having had no attacking waves to contend with, while the West was not . . . at least, until the West had had time to redeploy its defenses. The implications of the situation slowly dawned on the military staffs present. A worried Carlohm explained to Sherman:
	“Until we’ve had time to reorganize our defenses, we’re wide open. Our antimissile systems have been depleted, and for the time being we’ve got nothing that would effectively stop a classical attack from subs and ICBMs. The problem is that the other side hasn’t had any reason to fire off their antimissile systems, so the chances of success for a counterstrike by us wouldn’t be too good. Those guys over there aren’t stupid; the message must be obvious to them, too. If I were in their position, I’d hit now and hit hard.”
	His concern was soon proved to be well-founded. Reports began pouring in all over the Command
Floor:
	“Salvo of sixteen missiles launched from underwater, three hundred miles south of Nova Scotia. Climbing and turning due west.”
	“Launchings reported from four positions in the eastern Pacific. First course indications point to western U.S.A.”
	“Mass launch profiles in northern Siberia, heading
north over the Pole. Launches in central Siberia directed west toward Europe.”
	“Missiles climbing over inshore regions of Algeria and Tunisia, heading north toward Mediterranean.”
	A peppering of red traces started to appear across the enormous map of the world that was framed by the largest of the mural displays. The apprehension of the watchers rose to a point bordering on panic. The calm and composure that Sherman had exhibited throughout at last broke down. He stared aghast at the thin red lines that were beginning to elongate on the map, his mind refusing to accept what was demanded of him now. The lines began consolidating into irregular arcs that covered the North American continent from three sides, Europe from the south and east, and Australia from the north. The arcs were converging, agonizingly slowly, but relentlessly.
	“Initial computations of trajectories put first missile on target in four-point-five minutes,” a voice announced. “Origin, west Atlantic. Impact point, New York area. Impacts in Spain predicted at four-pointnine minutes, Italy, five minutes, British Isles, fivepoint-three minutes. Further data coming in now.”
	Carlohm and Foreshaw faced the President expectantly, but Sherman just stood immobilized, his eyes glazed and his head shaking weakly from side to side.
	“It’s an all-out attack,” Carlohm said after a few seconds. “You have to order full retaliation . . . now.” Sherman slowly sank into a chair. The color had drained from his face; perspiration glistened on his brow.
	“What will that achieve flow?” he whispered in a strangled voice. “It can change nothing. Sheer, futile savagery. . . for no purpose..
	“You have to,” Foreshaw said grimly. “It’s the price.”
	Sherman brought his hands up to cover his face. He shook his head mutely and became paralyzed. Suddenly Reyes stepped forward and proclaimed in a firm and decisive voice:
	“I declare the President temporarily incapacitated and unable to carry out his duties. I therefore assume Presidential authority and accept full responsibility for my decisions. General Carlohm, order a full retaliatory offensive to be launched immediately.”
	Carlohm hesitated for a second, then nodded to his staff officers. Within thirty seconds the whole strategic missile arsenal of the Western world was thundering skyward. On the map above them, chains of dots of bright green was added to the story that was already there. Both sides had now hurled in everything they had; the difference was that the longer traces in red, now closing in on the frontiers of their target countries, would be almost unopposed.
	“First computed impact now confirmed as New York. Time to impact, thirty-two seconds. Further confirmed targets are Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, and Ottawa. Los Angeles and San Francisco confirmed on the West Coast. Trajectories of following missiles being computed. We expect they will fractionate into independent warheads.”
	“What’s the defensive situation?” Reyes asked Carlohm.
	“They’re firing what they can. Most emplacements aren’t programmed for local interceptions, since that was supposed to be taken care of by the orbital defensive system.”
	“Report status now,” Reyes called out.
	“Object previously reported homing on New York was a decoy. Full salvo of interceptors expended. Missile following has now altered course toward same
target. Area Defense Commander reports insufficient reserves to intercept. Revised time to impact, fortythree seconds.”
	“Jesus. . . !“ Somebody breathed.
	“Impact will coincide with arrival time of first expected on targets in southern Europe,” the report continued. “More decoys causing uncertainties in previous predictions.”
	“Never mind them now,” Reyes snapped. “Read me that one that’s zeroing on New York.”
	“Due on target in twenty-two seconds . . . twenty
fifteen.. . CONTACT LOST!”
	“What the . . . ? You mean we got it?” Reyes was nonplused.
	“Negative, sir. There were no defensive missiles near. It just seems to have . . . vanished.” The voice came again, now sounding utterly at a loss. “Predicted impacts in southern Europe deleted from latest computations. Traces of incoming missiles have been lost. . . Disregard confirmations for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia . . .“ The voice grew totally bewildered. “Disregard confirmations previously given for West Coast . .
	All over the map the leading lines in red were stopping as soon as they got anywhere near their targets, as if an invisible eraser were working along the coastlines of North America. The same pattern developed along the approaches to Europe, Australia, and Japan. The attacking waves were being wiped out by the score.
	“Your defenses aren’t doing that?” Reyes asked, incredulous.
	“They’ve fired everything they had left,” Carlohm answered, equally bemused. “I doubt if there’s more than a handful of serviceable missiles left in the whole of the West.”
	“They’re being J-bombed!” Foreshaw exclaimed abruptly. “Can’t you see what those guys are doing? They’ve lured the whole damn Commie missile force up into the sky at once; now they’re J-bombing it out of existence.”
	“Not their whole missile force,” Carlohm reminded him. “Only their attack force. Don’t forget they still haven’t used their antimissile missiles.”
	Soon the whole of the network of red lines had frozen into immobility, marking the limit of penetration that had been reached before the last warhead was vaporized. Not one had made it past the frontier of any territory of a Western Alliance nation. Only the green traces were left in motion now, crawling inexorably onward toward their own destinations. By now the leading ones, fired from patrolling allied and U.S. submarines, were getting close.
	Sherman had by this time recovered from his despair and had gotten involved in the proceedings again. “Nothing will threaten our security for a long time to come now.” He turned toward Carlohm. “That attack that’s going on there no longer has any purpose. It must be stopped. Order immediate remote disarming of all warheads.”
	Carlohm looked amazed for a second, then started to protest.
	“But there’s nothing to lose now. There’ll never be another chance like. .
	“Those weapons were conceived and built only as a deterrent. Now there’s nothing left to deter anybody from using. Do it.”
	Carlohm gave the order. From a score of command centers around the world, the transmissions were broadcast to transform the most sophisticated instrument of total destruction that the world had ever seen into just so many free-falling chunks of harmless metal.
On—
	The green tentacles continued stretching their way forward to condense into a thorny girdle around the Eastern world. It was the picture of a little while earlier all over again, but in reverse. A speckled haze of red pinpoints began to appear, adorning the enemy coastlines and borders.
	“Antimissile interceptors coming up,” Carlohm observed, now just a relaxed and passive spectator, as were the rest of them. “They’ve got no way of knowing that those warheads have been deactivated.”
	The display produced by the defensive-missile screen put up by the other side was truly spectacular. The amused observers at Brunnermont lounged back in their seats and pictured the alarm that must have been rife on the other side of the world. The whole of the Eastern bloc was becoming outlined by vivid streaks of blood red as thousands of individual tracks merged together; everything that could move was, it seemed, being fired into the sky.
	And then the J-bomb went into action again.
	The swarms of interceptors were methodically cut to shreds and then obliterated. The attacking salvos from the West were allowed to penetrate just far enough—far enough to act as bait to draw up the last of the defending missiles; then they too were destroyed. The destruction of the West’s own attack force did not produce any reactions of surprise or anger now; the watchers around the Operational Command Floor had already resigned themselves to being merely puppets in the design that Clifford and Aub were revealing. They had all played out their assigned roles on cue as unerringly and as surely as if they had been manipulated on physical strings.
	Carlohm watched as the last scattered defenders were mopped up and the green attack pattern ground to a final halt.

‘)00
	“I wonder what they’ll make of that,” he commented. “They’ll know that none of their interceptors were getting through. It sure as hell wasn’t them that stopped it.”
	Then it was all over. The entire war machine, which had required forty years and the lion’s share of the world’s finance, industry, and talents to conceive and put together, had been wiped from the face of Earth in less than an hour. Not a single manned target on either side had been attacked successfully and, as far as anybody could tell, there had not been a single casualty.
	Sherman stood for a long time gazing up at the now inanimate display, faithfully preserving its record of the things that had happened through every agonizing second of that hour. There was an expression of wonder on his face, a mixture of awe and almost reverence, as if he alone could divine a deeper meaning to it all. The rest of the room remained silent, still savoring the relief and the sweet taste of the reprieve that none had dreamed possible.
	Suddenly the operator at the communications console sat forward as words began appearing on the screen before him. He read for a moment, then looked towards Carlohm.
	“It’s a reply to the ultimatum,” he announced.
	Carlohm strode over and looked over his shoulder. Then the general turned. “Peking has ordered immediate cease-fires in India and Russia,” he informed the room. “Also, they agree unconditionally to all the demands that we have put to them.” Forgetting his formal duties for a moment he added wryly: “Boy—we sure must have scared the shit outa those bastards!”



nna
Chapter 24

	The atmosphere at the meeting, called c afternoon of the following day at the White IF was still one of dazed bewilderment. To make ters worse, a completely new and unexpected c cation had been added to the already unprecec situation that confronted the men sitting aroun table in the President’s private conference room.
	Vice President Donald Reyes leaned forward
chair and looked at William Foreshaw with a m
of noncomprehension and plain disbelief.
	“Sorry, Bill, I’m not quite with you,” he said.
say that again, will you?”
“I said,” the Defense Secretary replied, “thai haven’t just taken out the whole of the world’s ity to wage global nuclear war; they have totall completely paralyzed the possibility of any ki strategic military operations for at least the nexi dred years! They’ve demolished the whole struct the East-West political balance of power.”
	“That’s what I thought you said. Now could y
plain it?”
	Foreshaw passed his hand wearily across a
that had been creased with concentration for m
the previous twenty-four hours.
	“Aw, hell, this all gets a bit technical. P~
through it again, would you?”
	Patrick Cleary, the principal Presidential adyiser on computing matters, nodded from the far end and cleared his throat.
	“Before they came out of the Control Room at Brunnermont yesterday, the last thing they did was activate an extremely complicated system of interlocked programs in the supervisory BIAC . . . that’s the main computer that controls all the rest. It appears that the only person who knew that these programs even existed in the system at all was Dr. Clifford; he’d begun developing them even before he and his team~ moved from Sudbury to Brunnermont.”
	“You mean they’re still running there now . that thing is still live?”
	“Absolutely. There’s no way anyone can shut it down. . . but I’ll come to that in a minute. Let’s begin at the beginning.”
	Reyes sat back to listen as Cleary continued. “The first thing that they do is limit the operating range of the J-bomb. The bomb is still functional, but it will only accept target coordinates inside North America and allied Western nations, and up to fifty miles beyond their coastlines and frontiers.” He noted one or two looks of bafflement and explained hurriedly. “This means that, in effect, it can only be used as a purely defensive weapon. Any form of attack from another part of the world—whether by land, sea, or air . . . using conventional weapons or nuclear ones
—can be devastatingly crushed before it gets anywhere near us. But since the range can’t be extended into the homelands of the other side, the weapon has no offensive value whatsoever. We couldn’t attack with it.”
	“What about space weapons?” General Carlohm asked.
“The J-bomb will fire	inside an umbrella that ex5~fl1
tends for up to one hundred miles above all frü territory. So, if the East wants to put itself to al effort and expense it can build itself up a whole ORBS ~system if it wants to . . . but the moment try to drop anything on us, we can blow it out o sky. Somehow I don’t think they’ll bother.”
	President Sherman raised a hand to hold Clea that point.
	“There’s something I’m not clear about here, said. “You’re talking about our being able to fir bomb in defense if we need to. Who exactl you mean by ‘us’? Clifford and Phiipsz are the two who seem to really understand how the s~ works, and I’ve got a feeling they won’t be sti around for much longer. Who else do you figure operate it?”
	“They’ve taken care of that,” Cleary replied. that the special programs have been integrated the system, any experienced BIAC operator ca trained to use them. He only has to input dat doesn’t have to know how they are structured or connected internally.”
	“In fact,” Foreshaw supplied, “as I understai the two of them are offering to stay on at Brunnei for a period of eight weeks, solely to train the team of operators for us. After that, they blow.”
	“Where to?” Sherman enquired.
	“They haven’t said. Back to get on with wh~ they want to do at 1SF, I guess.”
	To the continuing surprise of most of those pr Sherman merely smiled as if he found the whole a huge joke. His evident inclination to treat the with something approaching cheerful nonchalanc’ almost amusement . . . had been a source of p ment ever since the session began.
	“Okay,” Reyes conceded. “It looks as if they’i
000
the Brunnermont machine locked into a defense-only kind of role. But our security policy still requires an effective means of attack.” He swept his eyes around the table to invite support. “My suggestion is this:
Since Brunnermont is ruled out, we get together another scientific team, probably with the nucleus from ACRE, and figure out how to build another one. After all, the design data for Brunnermont itself is all available; it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
	Cleary pursed his lips and shook his head.
	“I’m afraid it wouldn’t work, Don. You see, the essential part of any other machine that’s built to work on the same principles would be the artificial black hole that sits inside the J-reactor. The hole constitutes an intense emission source of hi-radiation; it would stand out like a lighthouse in the local regions of space.”
	“So?”
	“The Brunnermont surveillance mechanism would detect it straight away. The whole system has been programmed to function as a never-sleeping .
watchdog, if you like . . . in hi-space. It will fire automatically on any phenomenon of that kind that it identifies. In other words, if we build another J-bomb, Brunnermont will blow it sky-high the first instant we switch it on.”
	Reyes looked at him aghast.
	“You mean here . . . in our own country? If we built one here and turned it on, we’d get zapped off the planet?”
	“That is exactly what I mean.”
	Reyes thought for a moment; his face slowly formed into a frown. He looked up again.
“But that’s crazy. It leaves us wide open. What happens if the other side hits on the same technology? Their system wouldn’t have any of these lunatic proso~
grams. They’d be able to blow us all to hell over here, and we wouldn’t be in a position to even turn on anything to hit back with.”
	Cleary was shaking his head again before Reyes had finished.
	“Not so. Brunnermont would fire on any black hole that they tried to turn on as well. If they did make one, they’d never be able to use it.”
	“But . . .“ Reyes was getting confused again. “But I thought you said Brunnermont wouldn’t fire outside the West. You don’t expect that Peking would set up their J-bomb in the Nevada desert or somewhere, do you . . . just to make it easy for us to wipe it out?”
	“They’ve been rather cunning,” Cleary replied. “Or rather, Clifford has. You see, the limitations on the range of the target coordinates that the system will accept only apply to fire commands issued through the operator interface programs; they don’t apply to fire commands issued by the watchdog programs. So if the operator tries to hit a target, say, in Mongolia, the system simply won’t work. But if somebody puts a J-bomb in Mongolia and switches it on, it’ll get blasted automatically. It’s neat. We can’t build another one and they can’t build another one.”
	“In fact, when you think about it, the whole thing is very subtle,” Foreshaw came in. “There can be no question now of keeping a security blanket over our k-technology. If anyone anywhere in the world— maybe in some research lab somewhere or in a university in the middle of a city—quite innocently stumbles on the same thing and makes himself a piece of equipment similar to the GRASER that they built at Sudbury, Brunnermont will fire on it. We have to publish full details of all the facts—and fast.”
	“We’re already working on a preliminary statement for communication through diplomatic channels and
1)nA
for all the news media,” the Secretary of State informed them from his seat next to Sherman. “It should be going out any time now.”
	Reyes sighed with exasperation as he turned it all over again in his mind. The West had the world’s one and only J-bomb, it was true, but it had no value as a tool for exerting international leverage or for extracting concessions, for it would only respond to deliberate commands if the West were physically attacked
	or at least inside prescribed geographic limits, which amounted to the same thing. As long as Brunnermont remained functioning, there was no way out of it.
	“Tell me again why we don’t just turn it off,” he said at last.
	“Because we can’t,” Cleary told him simply.
	“But, hell—it can’t stay sealed off all the time. Every machine ever built has to be maintained. Somebody has to be able to get in sooner or later, if only to do routine maintenance on . . .“ He caught the look on Cleary’s face. “No . . . ? Why? Don’t tell me it’ll never need it.”
	“Oh, you’re right enough about that. It’s just that it isn’t sealed off . . . for that very reason. You could walk right into any part of it now if you wanted to.”
	“Really?”
	“Really.”
	“So why couldn’t I just do that and pull out all the right wires while I’m in there?”
	“Because . . .“ Cleary’s voice became very sober, “if you did that, you would completely eliminate the United States from the world scene as a viable military power.”
	“I.. . don’t understand. What d’you mean?”
	Cleary took a deep breath and placed his hands firmly palms-down on the table in front of him.
	“All the critical components of the system have power regulators that will keep the voltages on the power lines high enough for the circuits to carry on functioning for a couple of seconds after the power supplies are cut. They are also equipped with sensor circuits that will detect the falling supply-line voltages and automatically transfer control of the computers to a power-down routine. The first function that that routine will perform will be to activate a special firecontrol sequence for the J-bomb; its effect would be to blow up the White House, the Pentagon, and just about every major military base and installation in the country. In short, you don’t tamper with it.”
	Reyes stared at him, openly appalled.
	“That’s insane.”
	“Those are the facts.”
	Reyes turned toward Sherman as if pleading for a note of reason to be reinjected into the conversation.
	“Alex, you can’t let them get away with that. They’re both mad.”
	Sherman shrugged.
	“What do you want me to do?”
	“Well, damn it, you’re the President. Use your Presidential authority. Order them to disarm it.”
	“There’d be no point, Don. I wouldn’t expose the Presidential image to the public indignity of being told to go to hell. They wouldn’t do it.”
	“Then you could shoot the bastards.”
	“They’d let me, too. I’m telling you—they just wouldn’t do it and nobody else knows how to. Forget it.”
	Reyes looked wildly from one end of the table to the other.
	“How the hell am I supposed to forget it?” he shouted. “If anything goes wrong with that psycho machine we could all be zapped right here in this

~flR
room any moment. I could forget it like I could forget a cobra in my bed . . . .“ He looked back at Cleary. “What’s to stop its power-supply system from going faulty? How’s it supposed to be able to tell the difference between a line just failing and somebody pulling it out?”
	“Actually the risk of anything like that is so near zero that you can forget it,” Cleary said in a voice that was calm and unperturbed. “Everything in Brunnermont was designed and constructed to the strictest military standards. The technology throughout features the most advanced concepts of reliability engineering, triple redundancy, and self-checking known. Every subsystem works on triple voting and has at least one backup that switches on automatically if a fault is detected. Even if outside power is cut off for any reason, its own generating complex will keep it running for years if need be. Any combination of component failures, right up to impossibly unlikely levels, can be tolerated for way beyond the worst-case repair times.” He paused for everyone to digest these remarks, then went on.
	“What it does mean is that if and when faults do develop, and common sense dictates that we have to assume they will, those faults will have to be fixed and fixed good.. . without any messing around.”
	“That’s one of the other things we’ve also begun working on already,” Foreshaw told them. “We’re talking to the manufacturers and outside contractors that were involved in all aspects of the system so that we can get together a permanent team of highly trained maintenance engineers to be permanently resident on the Brunnermont site. A first-aid team has already been put in to cover in the meantime.”
	“To summarize, the system is as near fail-proof as

!ifl7
makes no difference, and it’s tamper-proof,” Cleary rounded off.
	General Carlohm spoke next. “So we still haven’t solved the problem of our attack arm. But why are we assuming all the time that it has to be based on the J-bomb at all? After all, we got along okay before we had it. There’s nothing to stop us building up our conventional ORBS and missile deterrents again. It’ll cost us an arm and a leg, but . . . if that’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do.”
	“I’m afraid there is something to stop you.” Cleary was beginning to sound apologetic. “You see, the Brunnermont surveillance programs are very sophisticated. They can identify the characteristics and trajectories of an attack profile and distinguish an offensive missile from, say, a regular suborbital aircraft, space shot, or satellite orbit. You could set up another deterrent system, sure, just as the other side can, but the moment either of you tried to use it, you’d trigger off the watchdog. You saw what happened yesterday; nothing would get through if either side launched any kind of offensive missile strike against the other.”
	“It’s back to the last century again then,” Carlohm growled. “We’ll have to start building B-52s again.”
	“Now, you know that would be crazy,” Foreshaw responded. “For one thing, today’s forms of conventional defense would leave any kind of classical attack like that with no chance; it would be like attacking machine guns with cavalry. And for another, the sheer numerical superiority of the East means we could never think of taking them on in any kind of unlimited war along the lines of 1939—45. Doing so would be suicide.”
	“Cruise missiles then?” Carlohm suggested. Foreshaw looked at Cleary. Cleary shook his head.
~no
	“Not when you think about it,” Cleary said: “Cruise missiles were low-cost, mass-produced weapons designed to be used in large numbers to saturate the defenses. A saturation-attack profile would be easy to identify and the J-bomb would break it up in minutes. If you tried to conceal the pattern by sending them over piecemeal, conventional defenses would be able to pick them off easily. Not feasible.”
	“Biological weapons then?” Carlohm tried. “Gas
•	. . bugs. . . viruses . . . anything. . . ?“
	“Too uncontrollable; too unpredictable,” Foreshaw pronounced “We abandoned that line years ago and so has the other side. There’s nothing to be gained for either of us by wiping out the whole planet. I can’t see that being resurrected—not in a million years.”
	As Sherman listened to the exchange going on around him the horizons of his understanding slowly broadened to encompass the full meaning of the thing that Clifford had done. For the first time since he had last seen Clifford earlier that morning, he comprehended the reason for the light of triumph that had burned behind the scientist’s tired eyes. At that time, Sherman had come away still somewhat shaken by the tide of recent events, but at a deeper level excited and exultant, eager to commence at once with the rebuilding of a new and sane world upon the foundations of salvation and opportunity that had been offered. No possibility could have been more remote than that all men could be anything but similarly inspired and exalted.
	He saw now that, in spite of his worldliness and his years, he had been naive; only the scientist, as befitted his calling, had seen and understood the true reality. He heard the words that men had uttered for a thousand years and he listened to minds that wallowed in the clay of a lifetime’s conditioning and stereotyping.
It	was a microcosm of a world that would never learn. And as he listened and his eyes opened, he marveled
at the perfection of the web that the scientist had spun. Every question that was being asked had been anticipated; every twist and turn that the human mind could devise to escape from the maze was blocked; every objection had been forestalled. It was beautiful in its completeness.
	Donald Reyes slumped back in his chair and slammed his hand down on the table in a gesture that finally signaled defeat.
	Foreshaw then summed up the situation. “The East cannot hope to succeed in any form of offensive action against the West, nuclear or otherwise, because the J-bomb will stop them. We can’t attack them with the J-bomb at all, and we can’t attack them with any kind of missile strike because if we do the bomb will stop that. We can attack with outdated weapons if we like, but we won’t because we’d be sure to come off worst.
	“The East can’t break the deadlock in any way at all. We can break the deadlock, but only by trying to switch off the machine; however, we won’t do that either because we’d wipe out practically all of our armed forces if we did—and be left with nothing to attack with anyway. And as long as it stays switched on, nobody can build another J-bomb.”
	“And it will stay like that until it self-deactivates
	•	one hundred and eleven years from now,” Cleary completed.
	A solemn silence descended upon the room.
	“It’s just sitting there under those mountains,” Reyes fumed after a while. “It won’t switch off and we can’t switch it off. It’s . . .“ he sought for the words, “it’s like one of those movie things . . . a Doomsday Machine. . . only this is the granddaddy of all of them.”
1)1 n
	“Hardly, Don,” Sherman remarked affably. “Doomsday Machines are supposed to guarantee the end of the world. I’d say that this does exactly the opposite.”
	“Well, I guess the opposite of the end of the world is the beginning of the world,” Foreshaw mused. “What’s it called. . . ? Genesis . . .“
	“Then that’s what it is,” Sherman declared. “A Genesis Machine.” He looked slowly around the circle of faces. “Don’t you think you’re all missing the point? There’s one obvious alternative strategy that nobody’s asked about yet. After what nearly happened yesterday, it’s the only thing that we ought to be talking about.”
	Perplexed looks greeted his imploring gaze.
	“You’ve all been living under the threat for so long that you can’t wake up to the fact that it isn’t there any more,” he said. “You’ve been hooked on missiles and bombs for as long as you can remember, and the idea of getting along without them just doesn’t get through. It’s over. Can’t you get that into your heads? We don’t need it any more—any of it. Everything that the West has publicly claimed to want for the last fifty years has happened. Doesn’t it occur to you that we might be able to do something constructive with all those armaments budgets now?”
	He stood up and made it plain that his part in the meeting was finished. Before turning toward the door, he concluded: “I am going out to take a long, quiet walk. You are going to stay here and start talking about how the people in this world are going to find ways of getting along with one another. It might be new to you, but you’re just gonna damn well have to figure out how it’s done. You haven’t been left with any choice now.”


311
Chapter 25

	As with a man who awakens from the terrors of a bad dream to find only the serenity of sunrise and the joys of birdsong, so the realization slowly dawned on the world that the nightmare was over. And from a world that could now breathe free emerged a new understanding.
	Delegations of politicians, generals, and scientists from Peking, Vladivostok, Beirut, Cairo, and Cape Town came to Brunnermont to gaze in wonder at the embodiment of the final triumph of reason. U.S. Army BIAC operators demonstrated for them the truth of the prophesies that had been pronounced. Unerringly they could direct cataclysmic bolts of destruction upon any point they chose in the domain of the West or to guard its approaches; they proved it with a selection of prepared targets in the northern wastes of Arctic Canada, the deserts of Australia, and the offshore waters of Europe and the U.S.A. But when they attempted to extend the range of the weapon to reach certain locations in the Sahara, the Gobi, and the far north of Siberia that the East had agreed could be used for the tests, the computers refused to obey. That was as much proof as anybody was prepared to ask for; neither side seemed immediately disposed to embark on the billions of dollar expenditure that testing out the rest of the system would require. Some of the
040
predictions, without any shadow of a doubt, would never be risked anyway. And besides that, as time went by, the need to find out if the system could be outwitted somehow subsided. It didn’t seem really important any more as the world began finding more pressing problems to turn its attention to.
	Full details of the new physics that had made Brunnermont possible had, of course, been published throughout the world, and Clifford spent a busy period delivering a series of lectures on the subject to gatherings of scientists from all nations. In these he revealed a final piece of information about the Brunnermont watchdog, something he had neglected to mention previously.
	The automatic surveillance system, programmed to fire immediately upon any strong source of hi-radiation that it detected in the nearby regions of space, would function only against targets located inside a distance of two hundred thousand miles. Beyond that radius k-technology could be developed and used safely.
	He explained that it would not be feasible for a would-be aggressor to mount a I-bomb in a spacecraft with the intention of firing on or threatening terrestrial targets from outside Brunnermont’s effective range. The target-location system aboard such a craft would be capable of “seeing” clearly from that distance only sources of intense hi-radiation, which in practice meant the solitary “beacon” of Brunnermont itself since no other source would be permitted to survive. But this beacon would be detected merely as a mathematical figment in the complexity of k-space, without yielding of itself the solutions of the equations that would be needed to mark its associated target coordinates in ordinary three-dimensional space. In other words, Brunnermont would not be vulnerable to destruction by these means. Before a J-bomb fire-

313
control system could be accurately registered on selected targets in normal space, it was necessary to calibrate it with a reference framework of known locations derived from previously resolved sets of spacelike images. But these images depended on the system being able to distinguish ordinary objects by viTtue of the low level of radiation that was generated by the spontaneous particle annihilations taking place inside them; this was not practicable from distances outside two hundred thousand miles, and it followed that a hypothetical space-borne J-bomb would not constitute a workable threat to either Brunnermont or any other potential target anywhere else on the surface of Earth.
	Clifford was of the opinion that technology would one day progress to a point where these restrictions could be overcome, but by that time the reasons for their having been imposed in the first place would long have gone away. In the meantime, scientists would be able to continue their researches into the new physics in laboratories on the Moon, anywhere else in the Solar System, and perhaps, one day, beyond. For the next one hundred and eleven years, however, as far as this kind of activity went Earth itself was quarantined. That was regrettable, but it seemed a small price to pay.











~1 4
Chapter 26

	The squat-nosed, ungainly surface-transport ship from Tycho Base slowed to a halt and hung amid the star-strewn black velvet of the sky over the observatory complex at Joliot-Curie, on Lunar Farside. In among the huddle of domes and receiver dishes that stood in the middle of the arid wilderness below, the massive steel shutters over the underground landing bay had already been rolled aside to uncover a splash of warm, yellow light and relieve the harsh monotony of the ash-gray dust. Its flight-control processors concluded their dialogue with the ground computers and the ship sank gently out of sight of the surface.
	Inside the landing bay, after the shutters had closed and the bay had filled with air, an access ramp telescoped out to mate with the ship’s entry lock as the last moans of its engines died away in the new world of sound that had come into being. The lock slid open and the small procession of new arrivals made its way down the ramp to the reception antechamber.
	Professor Heinrich Zimmermann, his face wreathed in a smile of delight, stepped forward to greet the three young people as they approached him.
	“How was your journey?” he asked as he shook each one warmly by the hand. “No unpleasant complications, I trust?”
	“Very relaxing,” Clifford told him. His face had
1)1 ~
filled out again and regained its fresh and healthy color. His eyes were shining brightly, just like old times.
	“Starting to feel at home on this ol’ dust ball already,” Aub said.
	“And what about you, my dear?” Zimmermann asked, turning toward Sarah. “Do you think you will enjoy living here on the Moon?”
	“Who cares?” she smiled, snuggling nearer to Clifford. “I’m still getting used to the idea of having my husband back again.”
	Zimmermann smiled and turned to usher them in the direction of the far door of the antechamber. “First I must show you where the bar is and join you in a welcoming drink . . . just to keep our priorities correct. Don’t worry about your baggage and so on; that will be taken care of. After that, we will show you to the living quarters so that you can clean up, settle in, and rest if you wish. I would like to suggest that we dine together later, in the main dining room at 2300 hours . . . in case you haven’t got used to the local time yet, that’s just over three hours from now. After that, I would be pleased to take you on a tour of the base and observatories. I warn you, it’s a bit of a rabbit-warren underground, and newcomers here tend to be confused at first, but I’ve no doubt that you will get used to it.”
	He stopped and looked down at the sign that had been positioned across the doorway to which their torturous route had by that time brought them.
	“Oh, dear—it appears that we cannot get through this way. The tunnel is temporarily out of use for maintenance.” He sighed. “We will have to go back a little way, up and across into the next dome through the interconnecting tube on the surface. I am sorry about this.. . . This way .. .“

~41R
	As they emerged from the access lock of the tube and entered the dome, Zimmermann called them over to a viewing port in the outside wall. From it they were able to see the limit to which the surface constructions extended on one side of the base. The professor pointed to the bare tract of dust and boulders that lay beyond.
	“That is where you will be working,” he said. “The area has been surveyed and we have completed preliminary designs for three additional domes to house the new laboratories. Initially they will all extend five levels down below the surface and be connected into the main complex, of course. The new GRASER will be built below the largest of them . . . roughly halfway between that prominent crater and that group of boulders . . . and the BIACs and associated equipment will be next door, about fifty yards to the left. The third is really for storage space at this stage; it will be useful should you require room to expand later.”
	“It sounds just great,” Clifford said admiringly. “I think we’re going to enjoy being part of your team here.”
	“I am sure that I am going to enjoy having you on the team,” Zimmermann replied. “You will also be pleased to learn that headquarters has now signed firm contracts, and the initial shipments of materials to begin construction should arrive within two months.”
	Five minutes later, below ground level again, they settled themselves down around a table in the corner of the room that doubled as bar and informal social center for the base. It had a warm, friendly atmosphere enhanced by the background of piped music and the murmur of conversation from the dozen or so other persons already there. Zimmermann cast an eye

~17
around him as he sat down with a small tray of di and passed them around.
	“I won’t bother you with any introductions for n’ he said. “There will be plenty of time for that la He sat back and raised his glass. “And now, friends, to what shall we drink? A successful par ship, I suppose . . .“
	They responded.
	“One word of advice,” he said as they drank.
it easy with alcohol until you’ve had time to bee acclimated. The gravity here can do strange things I suppose it’s a case of being light-headed b you start. . . literally.”
	Clifford started to laugh. “Hey—I nearly forg Al and Nancy asked me to give you their regards says he’s sorry that they left things too late for 1 to make the same launch that we did, but they’r set for next month’s.”
	“Yes, I know about that,” Zimmermann nodded a smile. “I understand that he found Nancy dif~ to persuade.”
	“Aw, she’ll be okay,” Aub tossed in. “Espe with Sarah around; they get along fine. She just living next to that lake too much. That’s all.”
	“Al’s going off into the realms of science fict~ Clifford said. Zimmermann raised his eyes towarc ceiling.
	“Is he really. . . ? What is it this time?”
	“He’s gotten all hooked up on the idea of bea energy through hi-space. He figures that one day be the way that energy will be piped to whereve needed, all over the Solar System . . . anywhere. got this picture of some enormous distribution net’ being fed from great big artificial black holes mu of miles out in space.”
	“Good lord. . .“
010
	“He says it’ll be the only way to power spaceships one day, too,” Aub added. “Why should they bother carting their own energy around with them when they can have as much as they like beamed right at them wherever they want to go?”
	“Well, I must say it will be entertaining to have Al with us,” Zimmermann grinned. “I only hope that he doesn’t start redesigning everything in sight the minute he arrives. What about you, Brad? What plans do you have until the new labs begin to take shape? It’s going to be some time, you know.”
	“Oh, I’ll be busy enough all right. I’ve got a year’s lost time to make up, don’t forget . . . on account of . . .“ his face twisted into a crooked smile, “a certain minor matter that needed attending to. The main thing I want to do is pick up where I left things with you and your astronomers here. They’re pretty keen to get to grips with that Wave Model that we started to talk about once. They’ve been carrying out a lot of observations over the last year, as you know, and one thing I have to do is get involved again and updated.” He stopped and thought for a second. “In fact, I’ve been thinking ever since you mentioned that third dome you’re planning . . . we’re gonna need to build a specialized long-range detector system for studying cosmological k-data—a k-telescope, if you like. If you’re not planning on using that dome for anything in particular for now, it sure would be a good place to consider putting it.”
	Zimmermann scratched his nose and grinned mischievously.
	“As a matter of fact, strictly between ourselves, that was exactly what I had in mind. It’s just that I haven’t . . . ah, shall we say . . . quite gotten round to telling Geneva about it yet.” He added hastily: “But I’m sure they will agree it’s an excellent idea. I just
think it would be better if the dome were actually there before I raise the matter. It keeps things simple, you understand.. . .“
	“I understand too well,” Sarah said. “If I ever saw three conspirators in league together . . . I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve let myself in for.”
	Aub had been staring far into space for the last minute or so. He returned suddenly and regarded them with a curious look, his head cocked to one side.
	“You know, I’ve been thinking about something on and off for the last coupla months, too. It’s to do with the way the GRASER modulators initiate the particle annihilations.”
	The others looked at him, waiting expectantly. “Well, the method that Al uses concentrates everything at one point in space,” he continued. “That’s what produces the intense spacetime distortion and gives you a simulated gravity effect. . . which, taken to the limit, gives you a black hole. It makes sense he should do it that way, since that’s the kind of thing he was investigating in the first place. Sudbury is a gravitationalphysics Institute.”
	“Great,” Clifford conceded. “Al’s methods make sense. Nice to hear it. What’s new?”
	“Al’s way is fine for what he set out to do, sure, but I figure there’s another way you could do it. I figure it would be possible to set up a distributed modulation and annihilation pattern that would take in a defined volume of space . . . and you wouldn’t be talking about gravity intensities anywhere near like what you get around black holes, anywhere inside it. In other words, you’d be able to initiate the annihilation of a piece of matter . . . an object . .
not just of a focused particle beam.”
	“Why should you want to do that?” Clifford asked him, looking nonpiused.
	“Oh, all sorts of reasons . . . like, it would be a quick and easy way to excavate the holes under those new domes you were talking about, for instance. You just blow away all the rock you don’t need into hi-space. But that really wasn’t the point. The thing I had in mind was something more.”
	“Like what?”
	Aub’s expression took on a shade of earnestness.
	“Well, this might sound way-out, but I can’t see why it couldn’t work. You know how the I-bomb director modulators focus all the hi-radiation on one selected target point. Well, I reckon that they could define a distributed pattern in space too, instead of just one point. . . in the same way that the annihilator modulators could.”
	Clifford screwed up his face and glanced at Zimmermann, then back at Aub.
	“Still don’t get what you’re driving at.”
	“You could synchronize them both together!” Aub exclaimed, gesticulating excitedly. “It would enable you to project a piece of structured matter instead of simply a focused charge of energy. You’d be able to annihilate an object at one place in space and instantly reconstitute it, intact, somewhere else! That’s what I’m driving at.”
	“You’re crazy,” Clifford told him. “I thought Al’s science fiction was bad enough. This is science fairyland.”
	“I just can’t see any reason why it couldn’t work,” Aub insisted. He looked appealingly at Sarah. She shrugged and pulled a face.
	“Don’t ask me. Sounds crazy.”
	“It’s not crazy,” Aub declared emphatically. “I tell you, it’d work.”
	“I hate to say it,” Zimmermann joined in, “but while I have seen some examples of your unusual
1)1)1
inventive abilities in the past, I do feel that what you are saying now is somewhat far-fetched. I am afraid that, were you approaching me as a potential investor, I would not for one moment consider putting any of my money into it.”
	“It’s the drink,” Clifford decided. “The gravity’s getting to you already.”
	“Never you mind them, Aub,” Sarah said soothingly. “I’ve changed my mind. If those two are ganging up on you, I’ll come over to your side. I believe it will work.”
	“There you are,” Aub retorted. He thrust out his bearded chin in an attitude of proud defiance. “I’ve got one convert already. I’m telling you—it’ll work.”
	“Very well,” Zimmermann raised a hand to quell the issue, “I have no wish for us to fall out so soon. We shall no doubt find out in good time.” His eyes were nevertheless still twinkling with amused disbelief. “In the meantime, however, I insist upon getting you all another drink.”
















~22
Epilogue

	Bornos Karenski settled back into the enveloping luxury of his seat and closed his eyes while he pictured the life awaiting him and his family in what was to become their new home. There was so much land there and so few inhabitants that they grew and ate fresh food—grown in the soil itself. And they reared stocks of animals that they allowed to roam free . . . all over the sun-drenched meadows of open hills that tumbled down under their necklaces of silver streams all the way from the mountains. And what mountains! And the sizes of the trees in those forests!
	He’d seen it all in the holomoviegrams that the immigration agency had shown them. And so keen was the government there to attract new immigrants that they had not only paid half the fare for the whole family, they had subsidized his purchase of the land to the tune of 70 percent and granted him a twenty-year, interest-free loan to cover the building of his new home and the provision of machinery and other equipment. His savings had bought him over two thousand acres with plenty set aside for contingencies. There would be no more claustrophobia in computerized, plasticized, conglomerized antiseptic cities now . . . no more rounds of garish parties designed as the last vain attempt to relieve the boredom of garish people . . . no more of the mass hysteria of screaming people packed
in by the thousands into sports stadiums . . . no more drug-assisted going to sleep, drug-assisted waking up again, and drug-assisted everything else that went on in between.
	Bornos Karenski was going to go back to living the life of health, honest hard work, and contentment that had once been the right of every man to follow if he so chose—the life that he had always dreamed of.
	A sudden voice filled the huge volume of passenger cabin 3 on C deck and brought him out of his reverie.
	“Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking again.
	“Well, while you were having your lunch we’ve been gaining speed and covering quite a lot of distance. We’re well over a million miles from Earth now and have been under normal gravitic-drive acceleration all the time, which is why you will have been unaware of any sensation of movement.
	“The power beam from Jupiter has been following us all the way and charging up our on-board boosters, and we’re now into a region of sufficiently low gravity gradient to switch over to Philipsz Drive. Transfer into the system of Sirius will only take a second, but the process can induce a mild feeling of giddiness and we strongly recommend passengers to take their seats. Would all cabin staff now remain seated at their stations, too, please.
	“When we exit from Philipsz Drive, passengers will be able to see Sirius A on the forward viewscreens in all cabins. Its companion star, Sirius B, will be partially eclipsed from our point of re-entry into normal space, but will be visible above and slightly to the right of the primary when we darken down the screens a little.
	“Well, we’re going to be pretty busy for a while now here in the control center, so I’m going to have to cut out. I hope you all have a pleasant trip. When I

~24
next speak to you, we will be eight-point-seven lightyears from where we are now. Latest indications are that we should arrive at the planet Miranda on schedule, eight hours after re-entry.
	“That’s all. Thank you.”
	Signs illuminated in various parts of the cabin to announce:

TRANSFER TO	PHILIPSZ DRIVE IMMINENT— PLEASE BE SEATED

	“Why do they call it such a funny name?” ten-yearold Tina Karenski asked from the seat next to him.
	“Oh, well now,” he replied, turning to look down at her. “That was the name of a very famous scientist who died a long time ago—long before you were born.”
	“Why do they give it his name? Did he invent it?”
	“Not exactly, but he was the first man to discover how to make it work. He proved by what are called experiments that it was possible.”
	“How dumb can you get?” her twelve-year-old brother asked scornfully from the next seat. “Everybody’s heard of Aubrey Philipsz. He was the friend of Bradley Clifford—the most famous scientist ever.”
	“Of course I’ve heard of Clifford,” Tina retorted pertly. “He was the man who stopped everybody in the world from going crazy once. That’s right, isn’t it, Mommy?” She directed the last question at Maria Karenski, who was sitting on the far side of her brother.
	“Yes, that’s right, dear. That’s enough questions for now. Look at your Sun on the screen there. You may not see it again for a long time.”
	Tina considered the suggestion.

~25
	“Won’t there be any sun in Miranda then?” she asked as the awful implication dawned on her.
	“Yes, of course there will, but it will be a different one.”
	“She’s just dumb.”
	“Don’t say things like that.”
	Suddenly the view on the screen seemed to flicker, and then it had changed. The sun that dominated the scene had moved to one side; it was larger and more brilliant than the one that had been there an instant before. And the background of stars had altered subtly. A chorus of oohs and ohs came from all parts of the cabin of the mile-long ship.
	“My head feels funny,” Tina said. “What happened?”
	“It’s nothing to worry about, dear,” her mother replied. “Look there; that’s your new sun.”
	Tina gazed for a while at the new image on the screen, eventually arriving, by the irrefutable logic of her years, at the undeniable conclusion that a sun was a sun was a sun. . . . Her mind turned to other things and she looked back again at her father.
	“How did Bradley Clifford stop everybody from going crazy?” she asked.
	Bornos sighed, smiled, and rubbed his brow.
	“Oh, now, that’s a little difficult to explain. He set up what was probably the biggest hoax ever in history.”
	“What’s a hoax?”
	“You’ll learn all about it at your new school,” her mother interrupted. “I think your daddy would like a rest now. Look—the signs have gone out. They’ll be putting on more movies downstairs in a minute. How would you like to go and watch them?”
The two children squeezed out between the seats and disappeared along the aisle. Bornos was just set~2A
tling back to resume his daydreams when his wife asked: “Was it all a hoax, I wonder?”
	“Not all of it,” he told her. “The J-bomb was supposed to be able to fire only at places inside the territories of the Western allies of the time . . . to make it purely defensive. That was certainly true; they tried to fire it at tests targets in Siberia and places like that, but it wouldn’t work.”
	“And the rest of it?”
	“Well,” he said, rubbing his chin. “That’s the mystery. Everybody believed for over a century that if they allowed the machine to lose power it would destroy places in America, and if anybody else on Earth built a similar machine, then it would be destroyed too. But lots of people say that this was just bluff to stop the world from rearming. If it was, it certainly worked. ..
	She thought to herself for a while. “I must say, it doesn’t really sound like the kind of person you imagine Clifford as being . . . I mean . . . setting up a gigantic booby trap that could have killed lots of peopie . . . innocent people probably. It just doesn’t sound like him at all.”
	“That’s exactly why lots of people believe that part of it was a hoax,” Bornos answered. “There was something funny about the whole thing anyway. The people who were actually there at Brunnermont on the day that the machine deactivated would never talk about what they learned. I’m pretty sure, though, that they’d have known. I’m sure it would have printed out something just before it switched itself off after all those years. . .
	“Anyway, it doesn’t really matter now,” his wife declared. “The main thing is that neither the East nor the West were prepared to go to all the trouble and expense of testing it. They believed everything they
were supposed to and they did everything they supposed to. That’s what matters.”
	“Absolutely right,” he agreed readily. “It mak difference now. How much of it was true and much of it wasn’t is something that I don’t suppose one will ever know for sure now.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR



JAMES HOGAN was born in London in 1941 and educated at the Cardinal Vaughan Grammar School, Kensington. He studied general engineering at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, subsequently specializing in electronics and digital systems.
	After spending a few years as a systems design engineer, he transferred into selling and later joined the computer industry as a salesman, working with ITT, Honeywell, and Digital Equipment Corporation. He also worked as a Life Insurance salesman for two years “. . . to have a ‘break’ from the world of machines and to learn something more about people.”
	Currently he is employed by DEC as a Senior Sales Training Consultant, concentrating on the applications of minicomputers in science and research. In mid-1977 he moved from England to the United States and now lives in Massachusetts.