Part 15 (1/2)
”We know that you're from the Martian Federation, that you came in via Roosevelt s.p.a.ceport ten days before Anderscliff, posing as a structural engineer called Paul Langley, and that after a.s.suming the role of Hadley Kra.s.sen you spent some time touring around the continent to test your cover. I can give you a list of the places you stayed at if you want.”
The a.s.sa.s.sin's face remained blank, but inwardly he felt uneasiness. If they had known this much all along, he would never have gotten within a hundred miles of Anderscliff. On the other hand, how could they have worked it out since his capture? He could think of no obvious flaw in his getaway arrangements.
”But let's start with introductions to prove that we are all civilized people,” the Englishman continued. ”I am Colonel Arthur Barling-this is Carl May. Our precise functions need not concern us for now. You are . . . ?” He let the question hang. The a.s.sa.s.sin remained silent.
”Never mind. We'll call you Hadley for the time being. Any objections?” He paused but there was no response. ”Very well, Hadley, now let's get down to business. It's obvious that you were sent here after the most meticulous preparations in order to eliminate Brozlan. Equally obviously, you are just one member of a team that includes some extraordinary talents.” Silence. ”Just think of it-all that effort, all that distance . . . just for one man. A man of your undoubtedly high intelligence must have wondered what made him so important. I know that people like you are never told that kind of thing.”
The colonel regarded him silently for a few seconds. Carl May continued to sit frowning, saying nothing.
The a.s.sa.s.sin guessed that he was the observer, there to study his reactions while Barling did the talking.
No doubt a camera was concealed somewhere as well.
The colonel carried on with what the a.s.sa.s.sin had already decided was an outwardly nonchalant probing for weak spots.
”It's the old, old problem that separates you and us, isn't it, Hadley-the breakaway pressures of the New World pulling against the restraining influences of the Old. On the one hand there's the progressive new ideology of the former colonial city-states, and on the other the conservative and tradition-bound regimes of Earth.” Barling made an empty-handed gesture and pulled a face. ”And so we hear the old song about an oppressed people yearning to be free and go its own way. But in reality it's an old story of another kind-a bunch of opportunists who've spotted something that's up for grabs, only this time it's a whole planet. So they feed out the same claptrap that we've been hearing for a thousand years . . .
liberty, justice, that kind of thing . . . and the incredible thing is that people like you still swallow it.” An expression of disbelief spread across the Englishman's face. ”Do you really believe that you'd be a penny's worth of anything better off if Mars did go its own way? I mean . . . Take that bunch that sent you off on your little errand. You can see the kind of methods that they don't think twice about using . . .
the sort of scruples that they have. What kind of society do you think they'd make for you if they didn't have to answer to anybody? Is that the great 'cause' that you're all so dedicated to fighting for?”
The Englishman paused and considered the Martian quizzically, but was rewarded only by a stare of indifference. This was the kind of thing that the a.s.sa.s.sin had expected. He knew that the mild taunts were intended to be provocative-to lure him into making the mistake of responding before he could think clearly.
Barling tried another angle. ”Anyway, it couldn't possibly work, could it? Mars depends on the industrial capacity and resources of Earth. As long as that remains fact, any talk about Martian independence can be nothing more than an illusion. Without us you couldn't last a month.”
The a.s.sa.s.sin's jaw tightened as he fought to repress the indignation welling up inside him. The statement the colonel had just uttered was outrageous. Mars had no natural resources worth talking about. With no biosphere, no hydrosphere, and virtually no atmosphere, the planet had never experienced the processes of erosion, biological activity, and marine deposition that had laid down the treasures of Earth. But the pioneers had not expected to find any. What they had expected to find was freedom-freedom from stifling bureaucracy and legislation, and the freedom to tackle their problems in their own ways. Their first problem had been the horrendous cost of importing every ton of needed material from Earth.
In answer, the scientists of Mars had realized a dream that was centuries old, but on a scale that no alchemist had ever imagined. They perfected techniques for trans.m.u.ting elements on an industrial scale.
The Martian wilderness was no longer a waste. Not only that. Scientists eventually learned how to use the elements that they had created to synthesize increasingly more complex compounds, until virtually anything they required could be derived from a few common, locally available raw materials. Fusion reactors had satisfied the demand for the enormous amounts of energy required by these processes.
The new technology from Mars had transformed the industries of Earth in a few decades; indeed, all the nations of Earth rose to levels of affluence that would have been inconceivable, even to the most optimistic, only fifty years previously. The costs of synthetic compounds from Earth's own processing plants had plummeted so far that it became uneconomical for Mars to develop its pilot installations into full-blown industries and it continued to rely on imports.
And now Barling was turning that fact around and using it to imply that Mars could never survive alone.
But it was Earth that would never have survived without Mars! Mars had paid its debt. It had earned the right to decide its own destiny, alone and without interference. The a.s.sa.s.sin continued to say nothing, but his eyes glared his defiance.
”Oh dear. This really isn't getting us anywhere at all,” the colonel conceded. ”If we carry on in this fas.h.i.+on, the conversation is going to be very dull and one-sided. Although I'm sure you'd find the story of why Brozlan came to Earth a fascinating one, I've a feeling I might be wasting my breath if I tried to tell it to you. Therefore, I won't attempt it. Instead, I'll get someone else to tell it to you-someone who, I'm sure you will agree, will be able to make it far more interesting.” The colonel nodded briefly to the guard, who turned and left the room. Silence descended, to be broken after a few seconds by the colonel whistling tunelessly to himself through his teeth. The a.s.sa.s.sin remained expressionless, but deep inside he was becoming troubled.
Something was wrong. An alarm was sounding somewhere deep in his brain. There was something about the Englishman's tone and manner that didn't fit. The a.s.sa.s.sin hadn't expected moral reproaches or accusations of criminal outrage; he had already a.s.sessed Barling as a professional at this kind of business. But the Englishman's nonchalance was coming through too sincerely to be contrived. If Brozlan's removal had been so important to the Federation, it followed that it should also have const.i.tuted a major disaster to the Western Democracies of Earth. The seriousness of the situation should have been detectable in the way that Barling spoke and acted. It wasn't.
The guard returned, ushering in before him somebody who had presumably been waiting outside. For the first time, the a.s.sa.s.sin's iron self-control broke down. His eyes bulged, and he gaped across the room as if he had seen a ghost . . . which was not surprising.
”Good morning,” said Professor Malleborg Brozlan.
Time seemed to stand still. For once, the wheels in the a.s.sa.s.sin's mind ground to a complete halt. No coherent thought formed in his head; no words came to his lips. This was definitely no illusion . . . but there was no doubt that the man he had left at Anderscliff had been totally, absolutely, unquestionably . . .
dead.
”Surprised?” The dryness in the colonel's voice did not conceal a faint trace of amus.e.m.e.nt.
The a.s.sa.s.sin closed his eyes and slumped back against the pillows. ”How?” he managed, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. ”How is this possible?”
”So-you're hooked, eh? You've got to know, haven't you? You'll listen to what we have to say?”
The a.s.sa.s.sin nodded numbly without opening his eyes.
”Good.” A pause. ”Professor?”
The guard placed a spare chair at the foot of the bed. Brozlan sat down and began speaking. Clearly he had been following the conversation on a monitor outside the room.
”Maybe there were some hotheads among us.” He nodded his snowy head slowly. ”But the thought of a truly independent Martian civilization . . . free to benefit from all the lessons and mistakes that are written through the history of Earth . . . without having to inherit any of the consequences . . . a chance to begin again, in a way, but this time to get it right. It was a dream that fired the imagination and raised the pa.s.sions of practically every young man of my generation.” The professor s.h.i.+fted his eyes and regarded the figure lying in the bed. ”I'm sure you know the kind of thing I mean.” Despite himself the a.s.sa.s.sin found his gaze drawn irresistibly to the apparition sitting a few feet away from him. Brozlan was real; he was warm; he was alive . . . and talking matter-of-factly to the man who, without a moment's thought or hesitation, had killed him.
”How can this be?” the a.s.sa.s.sin whispered again.
Brozlan looked at him coldly, but without overt malevolence. When he spoke again, his voice was sad.
”You know nothing of the power that exists on Mars today. You allow yourself to be manipulated by people who are interested only in serving their own ends . . . as I myself was once manipulated.”
”I . . . don't understand.” In spite of his resolve not to be drawn into conversation, the a.s.sa.s.sin was unable to restrain the question. ”What power are you talking about?”
”Science!” Brozlan replied, his voice trembling slightly with sudden emotion. ”The power of science. The domes of Mars contain some of the finest brains that the human race has ever produced. Think back over the last twenty or thirty years. Think of the discoveries and developments that have come from the laboratories of Mars . . . the whole science of gravitics and the first practicable gravitic drive; economical trans.m.u.tation of elements on a bulk scale; bulk synthesis of molecular compounds; computer biocommunications; genetic programming . . . the list is long. But do you think for one moment that all the knowledge acquired in those laboratories is public knowledge? Things have happened there, and are still happening, that people have never dreamed of.”
The a.s.sa.s.sin stared at him incredulously for a few seconds. ”Are you saying that you are a reincarnation?” he gasped. ”Something like that is really possible?”
Brozlan shook his head briefly. ”No, nothing like that. Let me begin at the beginning.” He paused to collect his thoughts. ”I am a physicist. I specialize in molecular structures. Practically all of the raw materials used in industry today are synthesized from artificially trans.m.u.ted elements-using techniques originally perfected on Mars.” The a.s.sa.s.sin nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the professor. Brozlan did not continue at once, but gestured toward the flask of water that stood on the bedside locker. Carl May filled a gla.s.s and pa.s.sed it to him, while Barling rose from his chair and began pacing to and fro between the bed and the window, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.
”To produce a full range of materials needed on Mars, it was not sufficient to just synthesize unstructured molecules in bulk,” Brozlan resumed. ”We needed to be able to duplicate, say, the crystal lattice structures of many metal-base compounds, or the polymer chains of organic substances-things that are abundant on Earth but totally lacking back there.”
”I'd have thought that that's where you'd use traditional processing methods,” the a.s.sa.s.sin muttered.
He didn't mind talking as long as it was he who was asking the questions. It could only be to his ultimate advantage to know more about what was going on.
”We could have done that.” Brozlan nodded. His face creased into a frown. ”But we were not satisfied with that idea. We had a virgin planet with no set ways or traditions to uphold. It seemed unsatisfactory simply to follow slavishly the methods that had evolved on Earth. We could have spent fortunes copying all of Earth's industrial complexes on Mars only to find them obsolete before they went into production.
We were convinced that there had to be a better way.”
The a.s.sa.s.sin thought for a moment and looked puzzled. ”How?” he asked at last. Brozlan's eyes glinted. He replied: ”Consider any form of component that is used in the construction of a larger a.s.sembly . . . the parts of a machine, for example. How is the component made? We take a lump of whatever material we need and cut away from it all the excess to leave the shape that we require. That forms the basis of just about every machining process that is used traditionally.”
The a.s.sa.s.sin shrugged. ”What other way is there?”
”Deposition!” Brozlan peered at him intently. ”Instead of cutting material away to leave the part, we deposited material to build the part up!”
”You mean like electrolytic forming? That's not new.”
”The idea isn't,” Brozlan agreed. ”But the way we were doing it was. You see, electrolytic forming works only with certain metals. We were working with every kind of molecule.”
”You mean you could build up something out of anything-any substance at all?”
”Exactly! And it didn't have to be all the same kind of molecule. We could mix them together any way we chose. We could produce a solid block that was phophor-bronze at one end and polythene at the other, with a smooth transition from one to the other in between. It opened up a whole new dimension in engineering design possibilities. The whole process was computer-controlled. A designer could develop a program to create any part he wanted out of any material he chose or any combination of materials-molecule by molecule if he really wanted to go down to that level of detail.”