The Second Murray Leinster Megapack (68 page)

“I have guessed,” said Igor, wearily, but only because they would do no more to him while they had hope of a slip on his part, “I have guessed that our President made his speech only to keep his hand from being forced by those like myself who wanted to fight to the death. He made the speech in order to accomplish the surrender to you. He hoped despairingly that you might be content. When I felt sure of that, I rebelled even though it was too late. I tried to do my small bit to make sure that not he nor anyone else would ever surrender to you again.”

They watched him. It was intended to be unsettling—to make him nervous. He understood and was drearily amused.

“It still seems most likely, to me, that our President merely bluffed. But I hope that I am wrong. We have atomic energy, as you have. We have only large power-installations, that I know of, but we may have atomic bombs and other forms of atomic-energy missiles. Or it is possible that our scientists have found a deadly form of radiation that you do not know how to detect. Perhaps your army is actually already dead, in that every man may have been exposed to deadly radiation as he crossed the border, and his death is already certain.”

One of the white-coated figures said flatly:

“The most careful check of a large number of our soldiers has shown no sign of injury from any sort of radiation.”

“Perhaps,” said Igor, “there are monstrous atomic bombs placed so deeply underground that no detector can discover them.”

“We have used detectors,” said another man shortly, “which would detect a critical mass at more than a mile, behind the most effective shielding yet devised.”

“Then possibly,” said Igor, “our President spoke out of his knowledge that your seizure of our provinces is unjust. Perhaps he knows that the unjust do not prosper. Perhaps the peril to your soldiers is not contrived, but is a simple natural law, such as that they who live by the sword will die by it, and they who rule by terror—”

“Military policies,” said one of the white-coated men harshly, “are not determined by superstition. And there is a specific danger. Your President’s threat would not prevent the occupation of territory, and he knew it. Today we sent him a second ultimatum. We had evidence, we told him, that secret devices designed to murder members of our forces had been left behind in the province we occupied. We cited your capture and his speech as evidence that the government of your country was responsible. We demanded immediate information permitting the neutralization and removal of those devices.”

“Well?” said Igor tiredly. Nerve-racked as he was, and playing for time, he was not capable of emotion. But he felt, suddenly, that he would give almost anything for a cup of coffee. It would hearten him and strengthen him. It was not a normal reaction. It had all the irrelevance of hysteria. He recognized it as a symptom of his own weakness and was stern with it.

“Your government replied,” said the psychologist angrily, “that there were no devices or explosives left behind to its knowledge. But it repeated that every man of our army remained on its soil at his peril!”

Igor shrugged. He had reached a stage of mental and emotional exhaustion where it hardly seemed worth while even to continue to play for time. But he thought wistfully that a cup of coffee would be very, very good.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he repeated indifferently. “I did try to raise hell with your cocksureness. Apparently I did. Now I can say that I was bluffing because you won’t believe it, or that our President was bluffing either. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he isn’t bluffing. But I don’t know.”

“You lie!” raged the psychologist, suddenly. “No man would surrender and threaten at the same time! Not unless he could make good his threat! It would be insane! It would be suicide!” He snatched out a revolver. “Now! What is the trick your government holds in reserve? Quick, or I fire!”

Igor looked at him drearily. He didn’t feel anything. Certainly not fear. But it did occur to him that the enemy was in a deplorable state of nerves because of the President’s cryptic warning. Evidently the pressure upon these psychologists to wrest his non-existent secret from him was extreme.

The white-coated man did not shoot. He subsided, biting his lips nervously. They ordered Igor taken out, so they could consult upon further measures to extract his secret from him. He submitted lethargically when he was led away to a cell. He might be waked to further torture, to offers of bribes, or to face a firing-squad. But since for the moment he was left alone, he practically staggered to the cot the cell contained and fell upon it. He was too shaken and tormented to be able to sleep, but too exhausted even to twitch. He lay still and concentrated all his thoughts upon the idea of how good a cup of coffee would taste. It was soothing to think of a cup of good strong coffee, turned brown with cream… He needed soothing.

Time passed, and he lay in something like semi-consciousness. In the enemy capital outside, flags flew bravely in the sunshine and martial music blared from loudspeakers set up everywhere in the streets. From time to time the brassy music stopped so that magnificently resounding proclamations could be read. No citizen could avoid hearing them.

But just the same, there was tension in the air. The invading army had not been resisted, but it had been warned. If the warning was a bluff, national vanity demanded that it be called, that the army already outnumbering the former population of the invaded province move on. That it should overrun the rest of the tiny nation which had dared to defy, if only verbally, the dauntless, unresisted troops of holy something-or-other. Some of the enemy population demanded this drastic action furiously. But on the other hand—

After all, there was that warning. Any invading soldier in the occupied territory remained at his own peril. A small nation should not dare to make a threat it could not make good. But what menace could there be? The threat was not to the larger nation as a whole—in fact, it specifically did not threaten the cities or civilian population of the greater country—but only the invading troops.

So the warning could only be a bluff. But it could not be a bluff, because by it Igor’s country practically defied the country to which it had just yielded. Yet there could be no explosives or other deadly material in the province! Every square yard of its surface had been checked and checked again! So it must be a bluff! But the time when a monstrous army was on the march against one was no time to bluff! It was inconceivable that a government could risk a bluff at such a moment…

Flags flew in the sunshine, and loud-speakers blared military music, and there were boastful proclamations at frequent intervals. But there was tension. If Igor’s nation really possessed some monstrous new device in the art of destruction, it should not have yielded without using it. But if it did not have something new and unprecedentedly deadly, it would not have dared threaten the invading troops…

The Cabinet of the eastern nation bit its collective fingernails, not knowing what to do. The Premier-President would decide, of course, but the Cabinet worried. The warning, as an insult, justified a declaration of war. Repeated, it was a threat which simply had to be regarded with a certain respect because of its very daring. If the smaller nation could achieve slaughter on a gigantic scale, the invaders should withdraw their army and make peace at any price. But to back down would be to admit a blunder, and the Premier-President could not afford that. So the ruling clique of the eastern nation felt it safer to risk the lives of half a million men than certainly to sacrifice their own prestige. And if risk was taken, they might as well make a glorious campaign and annex the whole of the little western nation. Half-way measures had nothing to recommend them.

But the Premier-President took all necessary precautions. He summoned the commanding general in the field to give a final intelligence report. The general flew back the four-hundred-odd miles from his field headquarters to the capital in a jet-bomber that made it in something under an hour. He was ushered into the Cabinet meeting-room. He was greeted sardonically.

“It seems,” said the Premier-President tartly, “that our neighbor dares us to move again. What are we to do, General? Shall we tremble at their threat? What is your opinion?”

The general sweated and cleared his throat.

“Ha-hmmmm,” he said profoundly. “Excellency, we have found no evidence that the enemy has any military device we do not have. We have found no planted explosives, atomic or other. We are sure that the enemy cannot send them in quantity upon us. We have an air-patrol along the tentative border from ground level to sixty thousand feet, and of course our radars watch even beyond the stratosphere. We have issued an unofficial warning to the enemy air force that any plane operating within twenty-five miles of our line will be considered as intending attack, and that we will take retaliatory measures. So far, his aircraft have not even approached that limit.”

“And your troops are dispersed,” said the Premier-President. “No air-attack could do more than local damage against your army. On the ground, of course—”

“Excellency, a mouse could not cross our lines!” said the general. “An attack by ground-forces would be simply ridiculous. As for the smuggling of dangerous devices—atomic bombs or other—our technical forces are superb, Excellency. They have been directed by your Excellency in person. They assure me that, as far as science can know, we are prepared in every possible level from underground to as high as a rocket can be driven, we are able to smash any attack the enemy could possibly mount! They assure me that the enemy President’s threat is only rhetoric which can have no meaning.”

The Premier-President glanced around the cabinet table.

“That was my opinion,” he said shortly, “only there were some who seemed timorous. If the threat against us is only rhetoric, it is insolent rhetoric, and we will make use of it. We will proceed as planned. I assume that you have everything in readiness. An hour before dawn tomorrow we will report the discovery of attempts to destroy our army by a synthetically-created disease of unparalleled virulence and horror. Our propaganda department has designed a quite imaginary disease whose symptoms will take all sympathy away from the enemy who will be accused of infecting our troops with it. On the instant the first broadcasts are made, you will send our air-force forward. How long will the complete subjugation of our enemy require?”

The general expanded his chest.

“Two days, Excellency! Two days, no more! We have devised some improvements on the original tactical movements.”

The Premier-President raised his eyebrows.

“Nonsense! It must not be too easy! So quick a conquest would look as if we were aggressors! You will seize all important objectives within those two days, of course. I shall count on you, General, to run no risks! But—ah—it would be well if fanatical army groups of the enemy were able to hold out for at least a week, making constant efforts to use ever more horrible and inhuman weapons, which we can count upon our propaganda department to invent. And—ah—it is necessary that we have a casualty-list, General!”

The general said proudly:

“The new tactical improvements, Excellency, cut our probable losses to an almost unbelievable minimum!”

“Are you a fool?” asked the Premier-President coldly. “We must have heroes to decorate. We must have tragic tales to prove that only by superhuman efforts did even our gallant soldiers overcome the long-prepared and ruthless machinations of our enemies! We must have victory, of course, and quick victory. We do not want other Powers intruding in this affair. But our people must realize that every sacrifice they have made in the past was justified and necessary. Even you, my dear General—” here the Premier-President smiled “—will gain far greater credit from a hard-fought campaign than a smashing, overwhelming single victory! Our people must realize that defeat was possible and that only you—and I, of course—have saved our country from disaster.”

The Premier-President’s expression was quite indescribable. The general swallowed. There was silence. He sensed that he was dismissed. He rose heavily to his feet. The Premier-President nodded affably.

“An hour before dawn as planned. But no super-efficient tactics to make things too easy and cut our casualty-list too low. We must have our casualty-list!”

“Yes, Excellency. How—how great should it be?”

The Premier-President glanced about the cabinet table. “Ten thousand casualties?” he asked amiably. “Normally, that would be about a thousand killed—our men, of course, not the enemy.”

The Minister of Propaganda frowned.

“Excellency! We should have at least five thousand killed. This is a struggle for the survival of our country, and we win it only by the superlative courage of our soldiers and of course the ceaseless planning of our leaders… At least five thousand killed, Excellency, or it is not plausible!”

“Make it ten thousand if you can, General,” said the Premier-President pleasantly. “If you cannot run the list quite so high without seeming to be careless of your men, I will consent to a reduction. But we should have as near ten thousand dead as you can make plausible. That will give us a splendid war, and will justify quite anything we do afterward with the enemy population.”

The general saluted. He made a smart exit. But on his way to the jet-bomber that would take him back to his command, his face was gray. He looked like a man who knows despairingly that he is afraid not to do as he is told, and is therefore terribly and desperately ashamed.