Captives of the Flame

  CHAPTER IX

  Clea Koshar had been installed in her government office for three days.The notebook in which she had been doing her own work in inversesub-trigonometric functions had been put away in her desk for exactlyfifty-four seconds when she made the first discovery that gave her apermanent place in the history of Toromon's wars as its first militaryhero. Suddenly she pounded her fist on the computer keys, flung herpencil across the room, muttered, "What the hell is this!" and dialedthe military ministry.

  It took ten minutes to get Tomar. His red-haired face came in on thevisiphone, recognized her, and smiled. "Hi," he said.

  "Hi, yourself," she said. "I just got out those figures you people sentus about the data from the radiation barrier, and those old readingsfrom the time Telphar was destroyed. Tomar, I didn't even have to feedthem to the computer. I just looked at them. That radiation wasartificially created. Its increment is completely steady. At least onthe second derivative. Its build-up pattern is such that there couldn'tbe more than two simple generators, or one complexed on ..."

  "Slow down," Tomar said. "What do you mean, generators?"

  "The radiation barrier, or at least most of it, is artificiallymaintained. And there are not more than two generators, and possiblyone, maintaining it."

  "How do you generate radiation?" Tomar asked.

  "I don't know," Clea said. "But somebody has been doing it."

  "I don't want to knock your genius, but how come nobody else figured itout?"

  "I just guess nobody thought it was a possibility, or thought ofgratuitously taking the second derivative, or bothered to look at thembefore they fed them into the computers. In twenty minutes I can figureout the location for you."

  "You do that," he said, "and I'll get the information to whomever it'ssupposed to get to. You know, this is the first piece of information ofimport that we've gotten from this whole battery of slide-rule slippersup there. I should have figured it would have probably come from you.Thanks, if we can use it."

  She blew him a kiss as his face winked out. Then she got out hernotebook again. Then minutes later the visiphone crackled at her. Sheturned to it and tried to get the operator. The operator was not to begotten. She reached into her desk and got out a small pocket tool kitand was about to attack the housing of the frequency-filterer when thecrackling increased and she heard a voice. She put the screw driver downand put the instrument back on the desk. A face flickered onto thescreen and then flickered off. The face had dark hair, seemed perhapsfamiliar. But it was gone before she was sure she had made it out.

  Crossed signals from another line, she figured. Maybe a short in thedialing mechanism. She glanced down at her notebook and took up herpencil when the picture flashed onto the screen again. This time it wasclear and there was no static. The familiarity, she did not realize, wasthe familiarity of her own face on a man.

  "Hello," he said. "Hello, Hello, Clea?"

  "Who is this?" she asked.

  "Clea, this is Jon."

  She sat very still, trying to pull two halves of something back together(as in a forest, a prince had felt the same things disengage). Cleasucceeded. "You're supposed to be ... dead. I mean I thought you were.Where are you, Jon?"

  "Clea," he said. "Clea--I have to talk to you."

  There was a five-second silence.

  "Jon, Jon, how are you?"

  "Fine," he said. "I really am. I'm not in prison any more. I've beenout a long time, and I've done a lot of things. But Clea, I need yourhelp."

  "Of course," she said. "Tell me how? What do you want me to do?"

  "Do you want to know where I am?" he said. "What I've been doing? I'm inTelphar, and I'm trying to stop the war."

  "In Telphar?"

  "There's something behind that famed radiation barrier, and it's a moreor less civilized race. I'm about to break through the rest of thebarrier and see what can be done. But I need some help at home. I'vebeen monitoring phone calls in Toron. There's an awful lot of equipmenthere that's more or less mine if I can figure out how to use it. AndI've got a friend here who knows more in that line than I gave himcredit for. I've overheard some closed circuit conference calls, and I'mtalking to you by the same method. I know you've got the ear of MajorTomar and I know he's one of the few trustworthy people in that wholemilitary hodge-podge. Clea, there is something hostile to Toromon behindthat radiation barrier, but a war is not the answer. The thing that'smaking the war is the unrest in Toromon. And the war isn't going toremedy that. The emigration situation, the food situation, the excessman power, the deflation: that's what's causing your war. If that can bestopped, then the thing behind the barrier can be dealt with quickly andpeacefully. There in Toron you don't even know what the enemy is. Theywouldn't let you know even if they knew themselves."

  "Do you know?" Clea asked.

  Jon paused. Then he said, "No, but whatever it is, it's people withsomething wrong among them. And warring on them won't exorcise it."

  "Can you exorcise it?" Clea asked.

  Jon paused again. "Yes. I can't tell you how; but let's say what'stroubling them is a lot simpler than what's troubling us in Toromon."

  "Jon," Clea asked suddenly, "what's it like in Telphar? You know I'llhelp you if I can, but tell me."

  The face on the visiphone was still. Then it drew a deep breath. "Clea,it's like an open air tomb. The city is very unlike Toron. It wasplanned, all the streets are regular, there's no Devil's Pot, nor couldthere ever be one. Roadways wind above ground among the tallerbuildings. I'm in the Palace of the Stars right now. It was amagnificent building." The face looked right and left. "It still is.They had amazing laboratories, lots of equipment, great silvered meetinghalls under an immense ceiling that reproduced the stars on the ceiling.The electric plants still work. Most houses you can walk right in andturn on a light switch. Half the plumbing in the city is out, though.But everything in the palace still works. It must have been a beautifulplace to live in. When they were evacuating during the radiation rise,very little marauding took place...."

  "The radiation ..." began Clea.

  Jon laughed, "Oh, that doesn't bother us. It's too complicated toexplain now, but it doesn't."

  "That's not what I meant," Clea said. "I figured if you were alive, thenit obviously wasn't bothering you. But Jon, and this isn't governmentpropaganda, because I made the discovery myself: whatever is behind thebarrier caused the radiation rise that destroyed Telphar. Some placenear Telphar is a projector that caused the rise, and it's stillfunctioning. This hasn't been released to the public yet, but if youwant to stop your war, you'll never do it if the government cancorrectly blame the destruction of Telphar on the enemy. That's all theyneed."

  "Clea, I haven't finished telling you about Telphar. I told you that theelectricity still worked. Well, most houses you go into, you turn on thelight and find a couple of sixty-year-old corpses on the floor. On theroads you can find a wreck every hundred feet or so. There're almost tenthousand corpses in the Stadium of the Stars. It isn't very pretty.Arkor and I are the only two humans who have any idea of what thedestruction of Telphar really amounted to. And we still believe we're inthe right."

  "Jon, I can't hold back information...."

  "No, no," Jon said. "I wouldn't ask you to. Besides, I heard your lastphone call. So it's already out. I want you to do two things for me. Onehas to do with Dad. The other is to deliver a message. I overheard aconference call between Prime Minister Chargill and some of the membersof the council. They're about to ask Dad for a huge sum of money tofinance the first aggressive drive in this war effort. Try and convincehim that it'll do more harm than good. Look, Clea, you've got amathematical mind. Show him how this whole thing works. He doesn't meanto be, but he's almost as much responsible for this thing as any oneindividual could be. See if he can keep production from flooding thecity. And for Toromon's sake, keep an eye, a close eye on hissupervisors. They're going to tilt the island into the sea with alltheir cross-purposes intrigues. All I can do is start you on
the righttrack, Sis, and you'll have to take it from there.

  "Now for the message. The one circuit I can't break in on is the RoyalPalace system. I can just overhear. Somehow I've got to get a message tothe Duchess of Petra. Tell her to get to Telphar in the next forty-eighthours by way of the transit ribbon. Tell her there are two kids she owesa favor to. And tell her the girl she owes four or five favors. She'llbe able to find out who they are."

  Clea was scribbling. "Does the transit ribbon still work?" she asked.

  "It was working when I escaped from prison," Jon said. "I don't see whyit should have stopped now."

  "You used it?" Clea said. "That means you were in Toron!"

  "That's right. And I was at your party too."

  "Then it was ..." She stopped. Then laughed, "I'm so glad, Jon. I'm soglad it was you after all."

  "Come on, Sis, tell me about yourself," Jon said. "What's been happeningin the real world. I've been away from it a long time. Here in Telphar Idon't feel much closer. Right now I'm walking around in my birthdaysuit. On our way here we got into a shadowy situation and I had toabandon my clothes for fear of getting caught. I'll explain that later,too. But what about you?"

  "Oh, there's nothing to tell. But to you I guess there is. I graduated,with honors. I've grown up. I'm engaged to Tomar. Did you know that? Dadapproves, and we're to be married as soon as the war's over. I'm workingon a great project, to find the inverse sub-trigonometric functions.Those are about the most important things in my life right now. I'msuppose to be working on the war effort, but except for this afternoon,I haven't done much."

  "Fine," Jon said. "That's about the right proportions."

  "Now what about you? And the clothes?" She grinned into the visaphone,and he grinned back.

  "Well--no, you wouldn't believe it. At least not if I told it that way.Arkor, the friend who's with me, is one of the forest people. He leftthe forest to spend some time in Toron, which is where I met him.Apparently he managed to accumulate an amazing store of information,about all sorts of things--electronics, languages, even music. You'dthink he could read minds. Anyway, here we are, through the forest,across the prison mines, and in Telphar."

  "Jon, what were the mines like? It always made me wonder how Dad coulduse tetron when he knew that you were being whipped to get it."

  "You and I'll get drunk some evening and I'll tell you what it waslike," Jon said. "But not until. When you're trying to convince Dad,bring that up about me and the mines."

  "Don't worry," she said. "I will."

  "Anyway," Jon went on, "we had to get through the forest without beingseen and with all those leaves it was pretty dark. Arkor could getthrough because he was a forest man and nobody would stop him. Butbecause they'd have seen me, I had to go most of the way naked as ajaybird."

  Clea frowned. "I don't understand. Are you sure you're all right?"

  Jon laughed. "Of course I'm all right. I can't really explain to youjust yet. I'm just so happy to see you again, to be able to talk toyou. Sis, I've wanted to be free for so long, to see you and Dad again,and--there's nothing wrong with me except the sniffles."

  It welled up in her like a wave and the tears flooded her lower lids,and then one overflowed and ran down the left side of her nose. "You seewhat you're doing," she said. And they laughed once more. "To see youagain, Jon is so ... _fine_."

  "I love you, Sis," Jon said. "Thanks, and so long for a little while."

  "I'll get your message out. So long." The phone blinked dark and she satthere wondering if perhaps the tension wasn't too much. But it wasn't,and she had messages to deliver.