Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fiction, #Science fiction, #General, #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Adventure
like trying to hear radio with your bare ears."
"That's what I mean. Mysterious. Like the Indians when they first met up
with the white man's fire arms, they died and they didn't know why. Think
about it. I'll shut up and let you."
Graham produced the first suggestion. "Major?"
"Yes?"
"Why couldn't we kidnap 'em?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, your idea is to throw a scare into 'em, isn't it? How about a
surprise raiding party, using the Ledbetter effect. We could go in one of the
scout cars at night and pick out some really big shot, maybe the prince royal
himself. We knock out everybody we come in contact with the projectors, and
we walk right in and snatch him."
"Any opinions about that, gentlemen?" Ardmore said, reserving his own.
"It seems to have something to it," commented Brooks. "I would suggest
that the projectors be set to render unconscious for a number of hours rather
than to kill. It seems to me that the psychological effect would be heightened
if they simply awoke and found their big man gone. One has no recollection
of what has happened under such circumstances, as Wilkie and Mitsui can
testify."
"Why stop at the prince royal?" Wilkie wanted to know. "We could set up
four raiding parties, two to a car, and make maybe twelve raids in a single
night. That way we could knock over enough of their number-one men to
really cause some disorganization."
"That seems like a good idea," Ardmore agreed. "We may not be able to
pull off these raids more than once. If we could do enough damage right at
the top in one blow, we might both demoralize them and set off a general
uprising. What's the matter, Mitsui?"
He had noticed the Oriental looking unhappy as the plan was developed.
Mitsui spoke reluctantly, "It will not work, I am afraid."
"You mean we can't kidnap them that way? Do you know something we
don't about their guard methods?"
"No, no. With a force that reaches through walls and knocks a man down
before he knows you are there I believe you can capture them, all right: But
the results will not be as you foresee them."
"Why not?"
"Because you will gain no advantage. They will not assume that you are
holding their chief men as prisoners; they will assume that each one has
committed suicide. The results will be horrible."
It was purely a psychological point, with room for difference of opinion.
But the white men could not believe that the PanAsians would dare to
retaliate if it were made unmistakably plain to them that their sacred leaders
were not dead, but at the mercy of captors. Besides, it was a plan that
offered immediate action, which they were spoiling for. Ardmore finally
agreed to its adoption for want of something better, although he had a feeling
of misgiving which he suppressed.
For the next few days all effort was bent toward preparing the scout cars
for the projected task. Scheer performed Herculean mechanical jobs, working
eighteen and twenty hours a day, with the others working joyfully under his
supervision. Calhoun even came off his high horse and agreed to take part in
the raid, although he did not help with the "menial" work. Thomas went out on
a quick scouting trip and made certain of the location of twelve well-scattered
PanAsian seats of government.
In the buoyancy of spirit which resulted from a plan of campaign, any
plan of campaign, Ardmore failed to remember his own decision that what
was required was a sixth column, an underground, or at least, unsuspected
organization which would demoralize the enemy from within. This present
plan was not such a one, but an essentially military plan. He began to think of
himself as, if not Napoleon, at least as a modern Swamp Rat, or Sandino,
striking through the night at the professional soldiers and fading away.
But Mitsui was right.
The television receiver was used regularly, with full recording, to pick up
anything that the overlords had to broadcast to their slaves. It had become
something of a custom to meet in the common room at eight in the evening to
listen to the regular broadcast in which new orders were announced to the
population. Ardmore encouraged it; the "hate session" it inspired was, he
believed, good for morale.
Two nights before the projected raid they were gathered as usual. The
ugly, broad face of the usual propaganda artist was quickly replaced by
another and older PanAsian whom he introduced as the "heavenly custodian
of peace and order." The older man came quickly to the point. The American
servants of a provincial government had committed the hideous sin of
rebelling against their wise rulers and had captured the sacred person of the
governor and held him prisoner in his own palace. The soldiers of the
heavenly emperor had brushed aside the insane profaners in the course of
which the governor had most regrettably gone to his ancestors.
A period of mourning was announced, commencing at once, which would
be inaugurated by permitting the people of the province to expiate the sins of
their cousins. The television scene cut from the room from which he spoke.
It came to rest on great masses of humanity, men, women, children,
huddled, jammed, behind barbed wire. The pick-up came down close enough
to permit the personnel of the Citadel to see the blind misery on the faces of
the crowd, the wept-out children, the mothers carrying babies, the helpless
fathers.
They did not have to watch those faces long. The pick-up panned over
the packed mob, acre on acre of helpless human animals, then returned to a
steady close-up of one section.
They used the epileptigenic ray on them. Now they no longer resembled
anything human. It was, instead, as if tens of thousands of monstrous
chickens had had their necks wrung all at once and had been thrown into the
same pen to jerk out their death spasms. Bodies bounded into the air in
bone-breaking, spine-smashing fits. Mothers threw their infants from them, or
crushed them in uncontrollable, viselike squeeze.
The scene cut back to the placid face of the Asiatic dignitary. He
announced with what seemed to be regret in his voice that penance for sins
was not sufficient, it was necessary also to be educational, in this case to the
extent of one in every thousand.
Ardmore did a quick calculation in his head. A hundred fifty thousand
people! It was unbelievable.
But it was soon believed. The pick-up cut again, this time to a residential
street in an American city. It followed a squad of PanAsian soldiers into the
living room of a family. They were gathered about a television receiver,
plainly stunned by what they had just seen. The mother was huddling a
young girl child to her shoulder, trying to quiet her hysteria. They seemed
stupefied, rather than frightened, when the soldiers burst into their home. The
father produced his card without argument; the squad leader compared it
with a list, and the soldiers attended to him.
They had evidently been instructed to use a method of killing that was
not pretty.
Ardmore shut off the receiver. "The raid is off," he announced. "Go to
bed, all of you. And each of you take a sleeping pill tonight. That's an order!"
They left at once. No one said anything. After they were gone, Ardmore
turned the receiver back on and watched it through to the end. Then he sat
alone for a long time, trying to get his thoughts back into coherence. Those
who order sleeping drafts won't take them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ardmore kept very much to himself for the next two days, taking his
meals in his quarters, and refusing anything but the briefest interviews. He
saw his error plainly enough now; it was small solace to him that it had been
another's mistake which had resulted in the massacres-he felt symbolically
guilty.
But the problem remained with him. He knew now that he had been right
when he had decided on a sixth column. A sixth column! Something which
would conform in every superficial way to the pattern set up by the rulers, yet
which would have in it the means of their eventual downfall. It might take
years, but there must be no repetition of the ghastly mistake of direct action.
He knew intuitively that somewhere in Thomas' report was the idea he
needed. He played it back again and again, but still he couldn't get it, even
though he now knew it by heart. "They are systematically stamping out
everything that is typically American in culture. The schools are gone, so are
the newspapers. It is a capital offense to print anything in English. They have
announced the early establishment of a system of translators for all business
correspondence into their language; in the meantime all mail must be
approved as necessary. All meetings are forbidden except religious
meetings."
"I suppose that is a result of their experience in India. Keeps the slaves
quiet." That was his own voice, sounding strange in reproduction.
"I suppose so, sir. Isn't it an historical fact that all successful empires
have tolerated the local religions, no matter what else they suppressed?"
"I suppose so. Go ahead."
"The real strength of their system, I believe, is in their method of
registration. They apparently were all set to put it into force, and pressed
forward on that to the exclusion of other matters. It's turned the United States
into one big prison camp in which it is almost impossible to move or
communicate without permission from the jailers."
Words, words, and more words! He had played them over so many times
that the significance was almost lost. Perhaps there was nothing in the
report, after all-nothing but his imagination.
He responded to a knock at the door. It was Thomas. "They asked me to
speak to you, sir," he said diffidently.
"What about?"
"Well--they are all gathered in the common room. They'd like to talk with
you."
Another conference-and not of his choosing, this time. Well, he would
have to go. "Tell them I will be in shortly."
"Yes, sir."
After Thomas had gone, he sat for a moment, then went to a drawer and
took out his service side arm. He could smell mutiny in the very fact that
someone had dared to call a general meeting without his permission. He
buckled it on, then tried the slide and the change, and stood looking at it.
Presently he unbuckled it and put it back into the drawer. It wouldn't help him
in this mess.
He entered, sat down in his chair at the head of the table, and waited.
"Well?"
Brooks glanced around to see if anyone else wished to answer, cleared
his throat, and said, "Uh-we wanted to ask you if you had any plan for us to
follow."
"I do not have-as yet."
"Then we do have!" It was Calhoun.
"Yes, Colonel?"
"There is no sense in hanging around here with our hands tied. We have
the strongest weapons the world has ever seen, but they need men to
operate them. "
"Well?"
"We are going to evacuate and go to South America! There we can find
a government which will be interested in superior weapons."
"What good will that do the United States?"
"It's obvious. The empire undoubtedly intends to extend its sway over
this entire hemisphere. We can interest them in a preventive war. Or perhaps
we can raise up an army of refugees."
"No!"
"I am afraid you can't help yourself, Major." The tone held malicious
satisfaction.
He turned to Thomas. "Are you with them on this?"
Thomas looked unhappy. "I had hoped that you would have a better
plan, sir."
"And you, Dr. Brooks?"
"Well-it seems feasible. I feel much as Thomas does."
"Graham?"
The man gave him answer by silence. Wilkie looked up and then away
again.
"Mitsui?"
"I'll go back outside, sir. I have things to finish."
"Scheer?"
Scheer's jaw muscles quivered. "I'll stick if you do, sir."
"Thanks." He turned to the rest. "I said, `No!' and I mean it. If any of you
leave here, it will be in direct violation of your oaths. That goes for you,
Thomas! I'm not being arbitrary about this. The thing you propose to do is on
all fours with the raid I canceled. So long as the people of the United States
are hostages at the mercy of the PanAsians we can not take direct military
action! It doesn't make any difference whether the attack comes from inside
or outside, thousands, maybe millions, of innocent people will pay for it with
their lives!"
He was very much wrought up, but not too much so to look around and
see what effect his words were having. He had them back-or would have
them in a few minutes. All but Calhoun. They were looking disturbed.
"Supposing you are right, sir"-it was Brooks speaking very gravely"supposing you are right, is there anything we can do?"
"I explained that once before. We have to form what I called a `sixth
column,' lie low, study out their weak points, and work on them."
"I see. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is necessary. But it calls for a
sort of patience more suited to gods than to men."