Gilead found himself suddenly in possession of the films which were at the root of the matter. He unspooled a few frames and made certain that they were indeed the right films. He sat still and considered how he might get off this limb and back to the ground without dropping the eggs. The speaker again uttered something; Baldwin did not answer it but said, “We won’t be down here long.”
“Bonn seems to have decided to check my report.” Some of his — former — comrades were upstairs. If he did Baldwin in, could he locate the inside control for the door?
“Bonn is a poor sort. He’ll check me — but not too thoroughly; I’m rich. He won’t check Mrs. Keithley at all; she’s too rich. He thinks with his political ambitions instead of his head. His late predecessor was a better man — he was one of us.”
Gilead’s tentative plans underwent an abrupt reversal. His oath had been to a government; his personal loyalty had been given to his former boss. “Prove that last remark and I shall be much interested.”
“No, you’ll come to learn that it’s true — if you still insist on knowing the answers. Through checking those films, Joe? Toss ’em back.”
Gilead did not do so. “I suppose you have made copies in any case?”
“Wasn’t necessary; I looked at them. Don’t get ideas, Joe; you’re washed up with the FBS, even if you brought the films and my head back on a platter. You slugged your boss — remember?”
Gilead remembered that he had not told Baldwin so. He began to believe that Baldwin did have men inside the FBS, whether his late bureau chief had been one of them or not.
“I would at least be allowed to resign with a clear record. I know Bonn — officially he would be happy to forget it.” He was simply stalling for time, waiting for Baldwin to offer an opening.
“Chuck them back, Joe. I don’t want to rassle. One of us might get killed — both of us, if you won the first round. You can’t prove your case, because I can prove I was home teasing the cat. I sold ‘copters to two very respectable citizens at the exact time you would claim I was somewhere else.” He listened again to the speaker, answered it in the same gibberish.
Gilead’s mind evaluated his own tactical situation to the same answer that Baldwin had expressed. Not being given to wishful thinking he at once tossed the films to Baldwin.
“Thanks, Joe.” He went to a small oubliette set in the wall, switched if to full power, put the films in the hopper, waited a few seconds, and switched it off.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Gilead permitted his eyebrows to climb. “Kettle Belly, you’ve managed to surprise me.”
“How?”
“I thought you wanted to keep the nova effect as a means to power.”
“Nuts! Scalping a man is a hell of a poor way to cure him of dandruff. Joe, how much do you know about the nova effect?”
“Not much. I know it’s a sort of atom bomb powerful enough to scare the pants off anybody who gets to thinking about it.”
“It’s not a bomb. It’s not a weapon. It’s a means of destroying a planet and everything on it completely — by turning that planet into a nova. If that’s a weapon, military or political, then I’m Samson and you’re Delilah.
“But I’m not Samson,” he went on, “and I don’t propose to pull down the Temple — nor let anybody else do so. There are moral lice around who would do just that, if anybody tried to keep them from having their own way. Mrs. Keithley is one such. Your boy friend Bonn is another such, if only he had the guts and the savvy — which he ain’t. I’m bent on frustrating such people. What do you know about ballistics, Joe?”
“Grammar school stuff.”
“Inexcusable ignorance.” The speaker sounded again; he answered it without breaking his flow. “The problem of three bodies still lacks a neat general solution, but there are several special solutions — the asteroids that chase Jupiter in Jupiter’s own orbit at the sixty degree position, for example. And there’s the straight-line solution — you’ve heard of the asteroid ‘Earth-Anti’?”