Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

Page 49

from being turned into one huge morgue was for us to use the power first and

drastically-get the upper hand and keep it.

We were not at war, legally, yet we had been in the war up to our necks with

our weight on the side of democracy since 1940. Manning had proposed to the

President that we turn a supply of the dust over to Great Britain, under conditions

we specified, and enable them thereby to force a peace. But the terms of the peace

would be dictated by the United States-for we were not turning over the secret.

After that, the Pax Americana.

The United States was having power thrust on it, willy-nilly. We had to

accept it and enforce a worldwide peace, ruthlessly and drastically, or it would be

seized by some other nation. There could not be coequals in the possession of this

weapon. The factor of time predominated.

I was selected to handle the details in England because Manning insisted,

and the President agreed with him, that every person technically acquainted with the

Karst-Obre process should remain on the laboratory reservation in what amounted to

protective custody-imprisonment. That included Manning himself.

I could go because I did not have the secret-I coul not even have acquired

it without years of schoolingand what I did not know I could not tell, even under

well, drugs. We were determined to keep the secret a long as we could to consolidate

the Pax; we did nc distrust our English cousins, but they were Britisher with a

first loyalty to the British Empire. No need to tempt them.

I was picked because I understood the backgroun if not the science, and

because Manning trusted me. don’t know why the President trusted me, too, hi. then

my job was not complicated.

We took off from the new field outside Baltimore o a cold, raw afternoon

which matched my own feeling I had an all-gone feeling in my stomach, a runny nos

and, buttoned inside my clothes, papers appointin me a special agent of the

President of the Unite States. They were odd papers, papers without prec~ dent; they

did not simply give me the usual diplomati immunity; they made my person very nearly

as sacre as that of the President himself.

At Nova Scotia we touched ground to refuel, tF F.B.I. men left us, we took

off again, and the Canadia transfighters took their stations around us. All the du:

we were sending was in my plane; if the President representative were shot down, the

dust would go 1 the bottom with him.

No need to tell of the crossing. I was airsick and mi erable, in spite of

the steadiness of the new six-engine jobs. I felt like a hangman on the way to an

executio] and wished to God that I were a boy again, with not] ing more momentous

than a debate contest, or a trac meet, to worry me.

There was some fighting around us as we neare Scotland, I know, but I could

not see it, the cabin beir shuttered. Our pilot-captain ignored it and brougi his

ship down on a totally dark field, using a beam,

suppose, though I did not know nor care. I would have welcomed a crash. Then the

lights outside went on and I saw that we had come to rest in an underground hangar.

I stayed in the ship. The Commandant came to see me to his quarters as his

guest. I shook my head. “I stay here,” I said. “Orders. You are to treat this ship

as United States soil, you know,”

He seemed miffed, but compromised by having dinner served for both of us in

my ship.

There was a really embarrassing situation the next day. I was commanded to

appear for a Royal audience. But I had my instructions and I stuck to them. I was

sitting on that cargo of dust until the President told me what to do with it. Late

in the day I was called on by a member of Parliament-nobody admitted out loud that

it was the Prime Minister-and a Mr. Windsor. The M.P. did most of the talking and I