The Daleth Effect

equipment.”

“It will work. I know that it will work.”

Arnie twisted his mouth wryly and reached for the bottle.

“Have some more snaps,” he said.

4

“It is a matter of security,” Skou said. He had a first name, Langkilde, but he never mentioned it, perhaps with good reason. “Skou,” he insisted, “just call me Skou.” As though welcoming all men to the informal friendship of a world-wide billiard parlor. “Go’davs, Hansen—Go’davs, Jensen —Go’davs, Skou.” But, although he insisted that he was just plain Skou to all men, he was most correct with others.

“We must always take security seriously, Herr Professor Rasmussen,” he insisted, his eyes watching everything while he talked. “You have something that requires security, therefore you must have security at all times.”

“What we have here…”

“Don’t tell me, I insist. The fewer who know, the fewer who can tell. Just permit me my security arrangements, and go about your work without a worry.”

“Goodness, man, I have no worry. We’ve only started work recently and no one knows about the project yet.”

“Which is the way it should be. I prefer to be in at the beginning or even before the beginning to make my arrangements. If they don’t learn one thing they won’t learn anything.”

He had the knack for constructing pseudo-colloquialisms that made him appear a bit of a fool, which he definitely was not. When he stood, hands stuffed into the pockets of his well-worn tweed jacket, he canted at an angle like a perpetual half-drunk. His blank face and sandy, thinning hair helped this illusion. Ove knew that it was illusion only. Skou had been a police officer for years, his German was perfect, and he had been a rather despised collaborator and card-playing companion of the occupying Germans in Helsingor during the war. He had also been head of the underground in that area, and the angle of his stance had something to do with his being shot by his former drinking companions, then escaping out of a second-story hospital window before they got around to questioning him too closely. Now he was connected with some government bureau, he was never too clear about it, but it added up to security and he got his way whenever he wanted it. He had been in and out of the labs for over a month, enforcing some rules and operations, so what was meant to be private was kept private.

“This all seems very cinematic, Herr Skou,” Arnie said. “If we just put the unit in a truck and cover it up no one would ever notice.”

“Skou, if you please. The unreal borrows from the real, the cinema from life, if you know what I mean. And maybe we can learn a thing or two from them. It is best to take precautions. A matter of security.”

Skou was not to be argued with. They waited, out of sight inside the Nils Bohr Institute building, while the red and black post office truck pulled up at the loading ramp outside. There was a certain amount of shouting when, backing in, it almost knocked over a stack of milk-bottle crates. But with not too many “Stop, Hendrik!” and “Lidt ertdnu! Sa er den derf” cries it put its back doors at the platfonn edge. Two postmen, bulky in their reddish-pink jackets and heavy with the thud of their wooden-soled traesko, brought in some armloads of parcels. That they were more than postmen was apparent by their complete ignoring of the presence of the three watchers: no normal Danish postman could have resisted this opportunity for a chat. Skou silently pointed to the crates that contained the unit and, just as silently, they pushed them into the waiting van. The wide doors were closed, the big padlock sealed, and the truck rumbled its engine and moved out into die road. They watched it until it vanished in the morning traffic.

“Post trucks are not invisible, but they are the next best thing to invisible,^,, Skou said. “They will go to the central office on Kobmagergade, along with many other trucks of the same shape and color. They will emerge a few minutes later—with new numbers, of course—and proceed to the quay. I suggest, gentlemen, that we proceed there as well to greet them upon arrival.”

Skou drove them in his car, a disreputable Opel of uncertain age, and did a certain amount of cutting down narrow streets and darting in and out of traffic until he was sure that they were not being followed. He parked near the yacht basin and went to find a telephone while they walked on ahead. A biting wind keened in off the waters of the Oresund, directly from Sweden and the arctic beyond. The sky was low and gray.

“It feels like snow,” Ove said.

“Is that the ship?” Arnie asked, looking toward the far end of Langelinie quay, where a single vessel was tied up.

“Yes, the Isbjorn. It seemed the best for our needs. After all, we can’t be too sure about stress and, old as she is, she’s still an icebreaker. I watched her half of last winter keeping the channel clear out here.”

Two policemen, massive in their great, long coats, looked out toward Sweden and ignored them when they passed. As did two equally solid men in a car halfway down the quay.

“Sfcou has his watchdogs out,” Ove said.

“I doubt they’ll have much to do. In this weather not many sightseers will want to walk along here.”.

The ship loomed over them, a black wall studded with rows of bulging rivet-heads. The gangplank was down, but no one was in sight on deck. They climbed up slowly, the ramp creaking beneath them.

“Quite an antique,” Ove said once they had reached the deck. “But a little too dark to match her *polar bear’ name with all the soot.” A thin ribbon of coal smoke rose from her stack from the furnace below.

“Old but strong,” Arnie said, pointing at the massive reinforcing in the bows. “The new generation of icebreakers slide up onto the ice and break it with their weight. This old-timer does it the hard way by bashing right on through. This was a wise choice. I wonder where everyone is?”

As though summoned by his words the door to the pilot house swung open and an officer appeared there, as dark and brooding as the ship in his black coat and boots, a great piratical beard concealing the lower part of his face. He stomped over to them and executed a very perfunctory salute.

“I assume that you are the gentlemen I was told to expect. I am Captain Hougaard, the commander of this vessel.” There was no warmth at all in his tone or his manner.

They shook hands with him, embarrassed by Skou’s instructions not to give their names.

“Thank you for having us aboard, Captain. It was very kind of you to make your ship available,” Ove said, trying to be conciliatory.

“I had no choice.” He was not in a peacemaking humor. “I was ordered to do so by my superiors. My men are staying below as was also ordered.”

“Very kind,” Ove said, working hard to keep any sarcastic edge from his words. There was the thin squeal of brakes as the post office truck pulled up on the quay below; a welcome interruption. “Would you be so kind as to have some of your men bring up the packages from that truck?”

Captain Hougaard’s only answer was to bellow commands down a hatchway, which brought a half-dozen sailors on the run. They were far more interested than the captain in what was happening, and perhaps grateful for the break in routine.

“Gently with those,” Arnie said when they carried the boxes up the gangway. “They can’t be dropped or jarred.”

“Couldn’t treat it more gendy if my mother was inside,” a blond giant of a seaman said. His wide sideburns vanished into a heroic moustache. He winked at them when the captain wasn’t looking.

They had gone over the blueprints of the ship and had selected the engine room as best suited to their needs. The bow end of the space was cut off by a screened wall into a room for the electrician, with his supplies and workbench. The power board and generator were here and, equally important, it was against the outer skin of the ship’s hull. The boxes were brought here and, under the watchful eyes of the two physicists, were gently lowered to the deck. When all of the men had gone the captain stepped forward.

“I have been instructed that your work is to be done in absolute privacy. However, since one boiler must be