dupe for you, which she didn't know.'
'That's right.'
'And so was Ilona.'
'Yes – but something more as well.' Highman sounded regretful.
'So she told me. And you were really hooked on her, weren't you? But then why did you have her killed?'
'It was inevitable once she took up with you, Mr. Victor. If only you had gone to New Delhi with Singh as planned, she would be alive today. It would have been you who was killed if you had gone to India. Everything was arranged for your quiet assassination. How did you happen to pick up Ilona's trail anyway?'
'Sheer chance. I spotted her at the airport.'
'Sheer chance,' Highman repeated. 'And so you signed her death warrant. A death warrant, I can assure you, which I executed with great reluctance.'
'Just how was she killed?' I asked. 'And your wife – how did you manage that in a locked room? There wasn't a mark on either body to show what killed them.'
'Both were killed by sound, Mr. Victor.'
'Sound?'
'Yes. In my wife's case, I simply hooked a high-frequency device in on the Sonuswitch lines operating the appliances in her study. There was a timing mechanism attached so it would go off about an hour after the two of you were in there. You see, I wanted to give you time to get into a compromising position so that it might look as if you assaulted her. Oh, yes, I knew my wife. I knew how she arranged to enjoy her sex without ever admitting to herself what she was doing. I banked on her sucking you into some sort of sex situation. But what I didn't bank on was you going out to the bathroom. Again, sheer chance. If not for that, you would have died with her as you were meant to die.'
'I still don't quite understand how sound killed her.'
'Then let me explain. The pitch of the frequency directed into the room is so high that it can't be heard. It bypasses the eardrum and goes directly to the brain. It makes for a direct and agonizing sort of 'hearing.' Every muscle in the victim's body contracts from it. Spasm after spasm seizes the body as the clothes are ripped off in an effort to pluck the ultra-sensitized nerve-ends themselves from the body. The stress is so great that eventually the victim breaks her own neck in an effort to escape the deadly – but actually unheard – sound.'
'You sound like you enjoy it.' I shuddered.
'Well, you must admit it's ingenious. It was even more ingenious in Ilona's case. I had to virtually invent a hand transmitter with all-transistor components, a new weapon which could aim a beam of high frequency at her without the sort of leakage that might have killed half of Salisbury. I tell you, it wasn't easy.'
'I'll bet. But why did you send Ilona to Salisbury in the first place? And why did you go there yourself? Surely that wasn't necessary just to transport the phallus. Any underling could have seen to that.'
'True. The phallus was secondary. I only took it with me to Salisbury to throw those seeking its return off the track. I had to go to Salisbury anyway, and I simply took advantage of the trip to send it to Hammerfest from there. My real reason for going to Salisbury was gold, Mr. Victor.'
'Gold?'
'Yes. The gold necessary to finance S.M.U.T.'s operations. You see, the stealing and selling and reclaiming of art objects like the phallus is not sufficient to finance our expanding needs. I went to Salisbury to arrange a deal through T.U.M.S. with the Rhodesian government. That government faces an international embargo on its gold exports. I was arranging terms whereby S.M.U.T. would bypass that embargo and dispose of the gold for the Rhodesians at a handsome profit. Unfortunately, the details were still being worked out when your Russian counterpart succeeded in rifling my room and getting a lead on the whereabouts of Dr. Nyet. That made it necessary for me to leave Rhodesia and fly here immediately. S.M.U.T. couldn't take any chances of the Russians' finding Dr. Nyet.'
'Just what was it that Vlankov discovered?' I asked.
'You don't know? But how amusing! I naturally thought you were in cahoots when you traveled to Hammerfest together. What Vlankov found was a half- written message from me to my superiors requesting a plane to pick up Dr. Nyet in Hammerfest and fly her here.'
'Then Dr. Nyet was in Hammerfest along with Olga?'
'Not with her, no. But they were both there at the same time. The original plan was for Dr. Nyet to wait there for the delivery of the phallus, and then sail to Franz Josef Land. Olga was to be sent back to Paris. But your interference made me nervous, and so I decided Dr. Nyet should be taken to safety as soon as possible while Olga waited to deliver the phallus.'
'And the name of the ship was in the letter,' I guessed. 'That's why Vlankov went straight to it when he reached Hammerfest.'
'Yes.'
'Something he had just said stuck in my mind. 'You mentioned your superiors,' I said. 'Does that mean you're not top man?'
'No, I'm not. I'm very close to the top. But I'm not the man in charge of S.M.U.T.'
Who is?
'If I told you the name it wouldn't mean anything to you, Mr. Victor. It's just a name. Some day the whole world will know it. But that's in the future. By then you will be long dead.'
'The whole world…' I picked up the phrase. 'You really think that S.M.U.T. can enslave the population of the whole world by multiplying it? But how will you control them? And how will you feed them if their numbers increase? There's not enough food to sustain the population of the world as it exists today.'
'Control and survival are intertwined, Mr. Victor. Let me give you an example. Did you notice the Eskimos above ground when you arrived?'
'Yes. I wondered about them. I've never seen so many Eskimos gathered together in one place. They don't usually crowd together in such numbers.'
'Quite so. And the reason there are so many of them here is that S.M.U.T. carefully selected them as a sample population to test the theories we intend to apply to all the peoples of the world. To understand this, let me give you some facts about Eskimos. Twenty years ago, when the last worldwide census was taken, those countries with an Eskimo population put the total number of Eskimos in the world at 100,000. Today those same nations place their combined Eskimo populations at 30,000. A fantastic drop during a period when the rest of the world is faced with a population explosion.'
'What caused it?' I asked.
'Civilization. That's right, Mr. Victor. Civilization is responsible for decimating the Eskimo population. As new frontiers were opened, Eskimos retreated farther and farther into the arctic wildernesses. Those who remained fell prey to diseases brought by civilized man. Believe it or not, measles killed thousands of them. There was no heritage of immunity to diseases which to us are minor. Indeed, the Eskimos have been dying off at such an alarming rate that both the U.S. and Canadian governments are taking measures to check their declining birth rate before the Eskimos become extinct.'
'But what has this to do with S.M.U.T.?'
'We took our lead from those government programs. We sought out small bands of Eskimos on the brink of starvation and held a carrot in front of their noses. The carrot was food – just that, food, the means of survival – and they readily followed it to this settlement. Here our control over them is total. They labor for S.M.U.T. in return for food and shelter – and one thing more.'
'Which is?'
'The security of knowing that their children will live. The infant mortality rate among Eskimos is fantastically high ordinarily. But not among the Eskimos here. We have reduced it to an insignificant ftaction. We encourage our Eskimos to have children and we guarantee the survival of those children. The Eskimos here know that S.M.U.T. controls that survival, and so they work willingly in exchange for it.'
'In other words, you're breeding them like work animals. You're creating a slave population.'
'I don't deny it,' Highman said. 'But it is only the beginning of S.M.U.T.'s great experiment. What has worked with the Eskimos will work on a far vaster scale with all the people in the world.'
'I'm not so sure. You still haven't answered my second question. How will you feed your hordes of slaves if you succeed in creating an overpopulated world?'
