Nils was finished with patience and formality now. He spat the words with a slow anger that had finally burned through.
“I’m talking about stopping you, little man. Violence, death, killing—that is all you know. I don’t see an ounce of difference between you and your paid creatures here, and that swine now in charge of the engine room. In the name of good you do evil. For national pride you would destroy mankind. When will you admit that all men are brothers—and then find some way to stop killing your brothers? Your country alone has enough atomic bombs to blow up the world four times over. So why must you add the additional destruction of the Daleth effect?”
“The Russkies—”
“Are the same as you. From where I am, here in space, about to die, I can’t tell the difference.”
“Die?” Baxter was frightened, he raised his gun again. “Yes. Did you think we would just hand you the Daleth drive? We tried to keep it away from you without killing, but you forced this on us. There are at least five tons of explosive distributed about the frame of this ship. Actuated by radio signal from Earth…”
A series of rapid musical notes was sounding from the speaker and Baxter screamed hoarsely, turning, firing at the controls, hitting the radio operator, emptying his gun into the banks of instruments.
“A radio signal that cannot be interrupted from here.” Nils turned to Arnie who was standing quietly. Nils took his hand and started to say something. General Gev was laughing, victoriously, enjoying this cosmic jest. The lightness appealed to him. Baxter shouted…
With a single great burst of flame everything ended.
24
For Martha Hansen, events had a dreamlike quality that made them bearable. It had started when Ove had called that night, 4:17 in the morning, her clearest recollection of his call had been the position of the glowing hands in the dark while his voice buzzed in her ear.
4:17. The numbers must mean something important cause they kept coming to the front of her mind. Was that the time her world had ended? No, she was still very much alive. But Nils was away on one of his flights. He had always returned from his flights before this…
That was the point where her thoughts would always slide around and come to something else. 4:17. The people who had called, talked to her, the Prime Minister himself. The Royal Family… 4:17. She had tried to be nice to everyone. Surely she had. She had at least learned to be polite in finishing school, if she had not learned anything else.
But she should have noticed more about the trip to the Moon. But even then the numbness had prevailed. They had flown in one of the new Moon ships, space-buses they were being called. Very much like flying in a jet, only with more room all around. A long cabin, rows of seats, sandwiches and drinks. Even a hostess. A tall ash- blond girl who had seemed to stay quite close for most of the trip, had even talked to her a bit. With the kind of lilting Swedish accent the men loved. But sad now, like all of them. When had she seen a smile last?
The funeral ceremony had seemed empty. There was the monument all right, in the airless soil just beyond the windows. Draped in flags, a bugle had wailed a plaintive call that pulled at the heartstrings. But no one was buried there. No one would ever be buried there. An explosion, they had told her. Died instantly, painless. And so far away. Days later Ove Rasmussen had told her the real story behind the explosion. It sounded like madness. People did not really do this kind of thing to each other. But they did. And Nils was the kind of man who could do what he had done. It wasn’t suicide, she could not imagine Nils committing suicide. But a victory for what he knew was right. If he had to die at the same time she knew he would consider this second, and not give it much consideration at all. In dying he had taught her things about the man, living, that she had never realized.
“Just a drop of sherry?” Ulla asked, bending over her with a glass in her hand. They were in a lounge, the ceremony was over. They would be returning to Copenhagen soon.
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
Martha sipped the drink and tried to pay attention to the others. She knew she had not been doing this of late, and also knew that they had been making allowances for it. She did not like that. It was too much like being pitied. She sipped again, and looked around. There was a high-ranking Army officer at the table with them, and someone—she forgot his name—from the Ministry of Space.
“It won’t happen again,” Ove said angrily. “We treated the other countries as if they were civilized, not monsters of what?—national greed, that is the only term for it. Smuggled weapons, hired thugs, subversion, piracy in space. Almost unbelievable. They won’t have a second chance. And we are not going to kill ourselves any more. We’ll kill them if they ask for it.”
“Hear, hear,” the Army officer said. “The new Daleth ships will be built with a complete internal division. Well advertise the fact. Crew on one side, passengers on the other, without as much as a bulkhead in between. We’ll have a troop of soldiers aboard if needs be. Armed with guns, gas…”
“Let’s not get carried away, old boy.”
“Yes, of course. But you know what I mean. It can’t ever happen again.”
“They won’t stop trying,” the man from the Ministry said gloomily. “So they’ll probably get
“Fine,” Ove said. “But we’ll put that day off as long as possible. What else can we do?”
Silence was the only answer to this. What else
“Excuse me,” Martha said, and the men rose as she left. She knew where to find the commanding officer oi he base, and he was most accommodating.
“Of course, Mrs. Hansen,” he told her. “There is no cause at all to refuse a request like this. We’ll of course take care of sending Captain Hansen’s effects back
“No, it’s not that so much. I just want to see where he lived when he was here. I hardly saw him at all this last year.”
“Quite understandable. If you will permit me, I’ll take you there myself.”
It was a small room, not luxurious, in one of the first sections that had been built. She was left alone there. The walls, under their coats of paint, still showed the grain of the wooden mold the cement had been poured into. The bed was metal framed and hard, the wardrobe and built-in drawers functional. The only note of luxury was a window that faced out upon the lunar plain. It was a porthole, really, one of the first jury-rigs. Two standard ship’s portholes that had been welded together to make a double-thick window. She looked out at the airless reaches and the hills, sharp and clear beyond, and could imagine him standing here like this. His extra uniforms were hung neatly in the closet and she missed him, how she missed him! She still had tears left, not many, and she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. It had been a mistake coming here, he was dead and gone and would never return to her. It was time to leave. As she turned to go she noticed the framed picture of her on the little desk. Small, in color, in a bathing suit, laughing during some happier time. For some reason she did not want to look at it. It was here because he had loved her, she knew that. She should always have known that. Despite everything.
Martha started to put the picture into her purse, but she did not really want it. She opened the top drawer of the dresser and poked it down under his pajamas. Her hand brushed something hard, and she pulled out a paperbound booklet.
He must have been studying it; he always had to know all the details of the planes he flew. The new ships would be no different. He had stuffed it in here, forgotten it.
Men had died to obtain what she held in her hand. Other men had died to stop them.
She began to put it back into the drawer, then hesitated, looking at it again.
