Laszlo looked impressed despite himself and Lynn smiled grimly. It was easy to resent Breckenridge and the coming intrusion of several hundred scientists of nonrobotics specialties, but the problem itself was an intriguing one. There was that consolation, at least.
* * *
It came to him quietly.
Lynn found he had nothing to do but sit in his office alone, with an executive position that had grown merely titular. Perhaps that helped. It gave him time to think, to picture the creative scientists of half the world converging on Cheyenne.
It was Breckenridge who, with cool efficiency, was handling the details of preparation. There had been a kind of confidence in the way he said, ‘Let’s get together and we’ll lick Them.’
Let’s get together.
It came to Lynn so quietly that anyone watching Lynn at that moment might have seen his eyes blink slowly twice – but surely nothing more.
He did what he had to do with a whirling detachment that kept him calm when he felt that, by all rights, he ought to be going mad.
He sought out Breckenridge in the other’s improvised quarters. Breckenridge was alone and frowning; ‘Is anything wrong, sir?’
Lynn said wearily, ‘Everything’s right, I think. I’ve invoked martial law.’
‘What!’
‘As chief of a division I can do so if I am of the opinion the situation warrants it. Over my division I can then be dictator. Chalk up one for the beauties of decentralization.’
‘You will rescind that order immediately.’ Breckenridge took a step forward. ‘When Washington hears this, you will be ruined.’
‘I’m ruined anyway. Do you think I don’t realize that I’ve been set up for the role of the greatest villain in American history: the man who let Them break the stalemate? I have nothing to lose-and perhaps a great deal to gain.’
He laughed a little wildly. ‘What a target the Division of Robotics will be, eh, Breckenridge? Only a few t ousand men to be killed by a TC bomb capable of wiping out three hundred square miles in one micro-second. But five hundred of those men would be our greatest scientists. We would be in the peculiar position of having to fight a war with our brains shot out, or surrendering. I think we’d surrender.’
‘But this is impossible. Lynn, do you hear me? Do you understand? How could the humanoids pass our security provisions? How could they get together?’
‘But they are getting together! We’re helping them to do so. We’re ordering them to do so. Our scientists visit the other side, Breckenridge. They visit Them regularly. you made a point of how strange it was that no one in robotics did. Well, ten of those scientists are still there and in their place, ten humanoids are converging on Cheyenne.’
‘That’s a ridiculous guess.’
‘I think it’s a good one, Breckenridge. But it wouldn’t work unless we knew humanoids were in America so that we would call the conference in the first place. Quite a coincidence that you brought the news of the humanoids and suggested the conference and suggested the agenda and are running the show and know exactly which scientists were’ invited. Did you make sure the right ten were included?’
‘Dr Lynn!’ cried Breckenridge in outrage. He poised to rush forward.
Lynn said, ‘Don’t move. I’ve got a blaster here. We’ll just wait for the scientists to get here one by one. One by one we’ll X-ray them. One by one, we’ll monitor them for radioactivity. No two will get together without being checked, and if all five hundred are clear, I’ll give you my blaster and surrender to you. Only I think we’ll find the ten humanoids. Sit down, Breckenridge.’
They both sat.
Lynn said, ‘We wait. When I’m tired, Laszlo will spell me. We wait.’
Professor Manuela Jiminez of the Institute of Higher Studies of Bue- nos Aires exploded while the stratospheric jet on which he traveled was three miles above the Amazon Valley. It was a simple chemical explosion but it was enough to destroy the plane.
Dr Herman Liebowitz of M. I. T. exploded in a monorail, killing twenty people and injuring a hundred others.
In similar manner, Dr Auguste Marin of L’Institut Nucleonique of Montreal and seven others died at various stages of their journey to Cheyenne.
Laszlo hurtled in, pale-faced and stammering, with the first news of it. It had only been two hours that Lynn had sat there, facing Breckenridge, blaster in hand.
Laszlo said, ‘I thought you were nuts, Chief, but you were right. They were humanoids. They had to be.’ He turned to stare with hate-filled eyes at Breckenridge. ‘Only they were warned. He warned them, and now there won’t be one left intact. Not one to study.’
‘God!’ cried Lynn and in a frenzy of haste thrust his blaster out toward Breckenridge and fired. The Security man’s neck vanished; the torso fell; the head dropped, thudded against the floor and rolled crookedly.
Lynn moaned, ‘I didn’t understand, I thought he was a traitor. Nothing more.’
And Laszlo stood immobile, mouth open, for the moment incapable of speech.
Lynn said wildly, ‘Sure, he warned them. But how could he do so while sitting in that chair unless he were equipped with built-in radio transmission? Don’t you see it? Breckenridge had been in Moscow. The real Breckenridge is still there. Oh my God, there were eleven of them.’
Laszlo managed a hoarse squeak. ‘Why didn’t he explode?’
‘He was hanging on, I suppose, to make sure the others had received his message and were safely destroyed. Lord, Lord, when you brought the news and I realized the truth, I couldn’t shoot fast enough. God knows by how few seconds I may have beaten him to it.’
La zlo said shakily, ‘At least, we’ll have one to study.’ He bent and put his fingers on the sticky fluid trickling out of the mangled remains at the neck end of the headless body.
Not blood, but high-grade machine oil.
Pâté de Foie Gras
I couldn’t tell you my real name if I wanted to, and, under the circumstances, I don’t want to.
I’m not much of a writer myself, so I’m having Isaac Asimov write this up for me. I’ve picked him for several· reasons. First, he’s a biochemist, so he understands what I tell him; some of it, anyway. Secondly, he can write; or at least he has published considerable fiction, which may not, of course, be the same thing.
I was not the first person·to have the honor of meeting The Goose. That belongs to a Texas cotton farmer named Ian Angus MacGregor, who owned it before it became government property.
