The throne of saturn, p.47
The Throne of Saturn, page 47
“Yes,” Andy said. “It gives Percy Mercy and Kenny Williams something to do. I get the feeling it’s sort of on stand-by—they’ll stir it up again if it suits their purposes.”
“Maybe we’re getting to the point in the mission where it’s going to,” Jim suggested. “Maybe things are beginning to tie into one another. They couldn’t stop it before but now it’s narrowing down to a few points where it can be blocked again.”
“You could be right,” the administrator agreed thoughtfully. “But Clete didn’t give you any indication.”
“This is strictly hunch. Clete doesn’t give indications, at least to me.”
“I’ll get on it right away,” Andy promised. “Be careful.”
“We are,” Jim said. “I hate like hell for the mission to have trouble again, but—I guess that’s the way it is.”
“I guess so,” the administrator agreed grimly. “People like that never rest.”
“And they only succeed when we do.”
“That’s right. This time, we’re not going to.”
But even before he had a chance to start checking, other calls began to come in from McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, Grumman on Long Island, IBM in Huntsville, and the rest. He began to discover a pattern that made him wonder whether they had not already rested too long. No one had any big specifics to report but several had small ones; and in a machine as infinitely complex as the Saturn V, in which the tiniest malfunction could become the greatest disaster, even one small thing wrong was one too many. Yet after he had received worried assurances that security would be tightened and procedures made more stringent everywhere, he talked to Al Freer at the Cape and found that everything was still, apparently, as peaceful as he had found it on his visit two weeks ago.
Perhaps Clete and his friends were saving up for the Cape. Perhaps that was where the big battle would come, if all the little sabotages down the line were successfully thwarted. He would give a lot to know what Clete was up to right now. But he decided he would let him show his hand a little more clearly before he made any attempt to challenge him direct.
At the moment, however, Clete could not have been more innocent, lying suntan-oiled and apparently sleepy in the sun at his favorite hotel on Miami Beach; outwardly oblivious to the world, inwardly, as always, thinking, thinking, thinking. “Clete never stops,” one of his coconspirators had said admiringly back in college days. “He’s always working on something.” And so he was, and so, he supposed, he always would be, until the day when all the rotten society around him collapsed and he could move into his rightful position as one of the managers who would make it over into the Model State.
Unlike so many of the mindless, incorrigibly infantile anarchists who had attempted to destroy America in the past decade, Clete knew where he was going and what he intended to do when he got there. He was one of those who had been vouchsafed a revelation of the Plan and to it he had long since sworn absolute and undeviating loyalty. He despised the anarchists with their gibberings of “Revolution!” which meant nothing but chaos: that was not how real revolutions were made. He could use that type and now in this problem of Planetary Fleet One he was getting ready to. But never for a moment would he really trust or rely upon them. They were there to be used and after they were used, disposed of. He and his friends knew all about that: they had done it in half a hundred countries already. It had not always brought them control of the countries, but it had almost always successfully eliminated the “revolutionaries.”
You had to have a plan to succeed in an enterprise so vast as the crippling, looking toward the ultimate destruction, of the United States of America. Otherwise, sheer numbers and the sentimental loyalties of the great middle areas of America’s population would defeat you. These loyalties were not geographic nor were the middle areas: they spread across the whole spectrum of land and people. It would take many combinations of craft, fear, national embarrassment, disillusion, mistrust, despair, disappointment, uncertainty, before the morale of the country could finally be reduced to a state in which takeover would become feasible.
Somehow, despite all the stout attempts that had been made by some very shrewd minds in the past few years, America had survived them all and was still here. It was disappointing but it was not disheartening. No one had ever said it would be a short and easy battle. Only true patience and an absolutely unshakable determination, extending over many years and even decades, could bring success.
Patience and determination were something Clete and his friends possessed in ample measure. They had perceived many years ago that the way to destroy America was not by childlike frontal assaults, or by infantile posings in front of television cameras, or by a destructive and terrifying but essentially wasteful and pointless use of bombs and guns and frightfulness. The way to destroy America was to get inside and play the game and move up the ladder and acquire respectability within the system until finally you arrived at a fulcrum from which you could topple the world. That was how to do it and that was the way he had done it. Clete O’Donnell, lying in the opulent sun by the opulent pool in opulent Miami Beach, outwardly the perfect symbol of wealth and power and liberal respectability, was worth a hundred thousand sick children playing with terror. He was the real terror because he was in the arms of the system, holding a knife at its throat even as it embraced him.
He had known for a long time that the destruction of Planetary Fleet One was to be his particular project but neither he nor those with whom he conspired could have known that he would be called upon so soon to do his damage. Probably no one had known until there had been one of those convulsions within the Kremlin, a decision long deferred had been suddenly reached, those who had not yet reached the category of being-permitted-to-know were abruptly informed, and a predetermined plan was put into action.
He had not been aware that the Soviet Union was capable of an early launch. He did not really understand why it had been decided to make one. He had learned over the years that such decisions could sometimes be as abrupt, irrational, emotional, and human as any decision in a democracy.
He was willing to bet that somebody in Moscow had suddenly become scared to death that the United States was planning a secret early launch. He had received queries about this, he had checked, he had ascertained the truth, he had knocked the rumor down. He could not convince whoever the skittish souls were back there. The ponderous machinery of Communist decision, like a pachyderm suddenly frightened by a mouse, had gone trumpeting off despite all the evidence he had given them, all the evidence others had given them, and the evidence of their own spy-satellites. They lived by the theory of conspiracy in Moscow and so they constantly believed conspiracy of others. They began feverish plans for launch—the United States immediately learned of it and began feverish plans for launch—and here they were.
Here they were and it was up to him to do what he could to interfere with, inconvenience, and, if possible, destroy Piffy One. To aid him in this enterprise, which he approached without the slightest hesitation or regret, he had the solid standing and reputation he had laboriously created with the opinion-molders of the country over the past ten years. As an extremely shrewd and intelligent student of his own country he had early perceived that there were certain causes and certain people who were the key to acceptance by the media. If you faithfully endorsed these causes and people, faithfully supported them, faithfully praised them and worked for them, you had an automatic ticket to headlines, editorials, coy little friendly references in society and gossip columns, constant and flattering mentions in political columns and commentary, and a guaranteed permanent invitation to be on all the major television programs which provided so sure and effective an access to the minds and emotions of your countrymen.
If you combined this with an effective power base of your own, you very rapidly became one of the movers and shakers of America. You became part of the Group. You were In.
The power base had come easily, more easily than he had anticipated when he first began the task of putting it together. Its creation had been aided by his standing with the media, his standing with the media had been aided by its creation: the two formed a whipsaw that he used with great effect. Because he backed certain causes and people, he in turn was supported by certain causes and certain people. It was considered very sensible, in all the publications and columns that Really Mattered, that there should be a young, vigorous, dynamic Right-Thinking leader of the unions at the Cape, and it was considered very sensible that he should be assisted in his drive to break the hold of the older, more traditional organizations and remold their fragmented parts into the “One Big Union” of his official slogan. It had taken him the better part of a decade to do this, but he had received a fine assist from all the publicity he received in all the right places. A couple of years ago the goal had been won: he was ready to keep his date with Planetary Fleet One.
Since the announcement of the crash program for the launch, an extra dimension had been added. Now he was put in touch with others around the country. Another phase of the program was put into operation. Sabotage, which had never succeeded with the veterans of NASA in the old days but might with the green hands whose hasty recruitment had been made necessary by previous penny-pinching, was to be attempted. So it had always been in the sick, kindness-destroying world to which he belonged. And so it would be now.
And not once in all these years had anyone who Really Mattered given the slightest credence to the occasional rumors or charges that he might be a Communist. As cheerfully as the president, as scornfully as Percy Mercy, they had laughed it off. Clete O’Donnell? It was impossible. Good old Clete, who worked so hard for Presidential Candidate A, who was so devoted to the civil rights campaign of Soul Brother B, who attended so many Waldorf-Astoria banquets for the agricultural strikes of Professional Innocent C, who had such a well-publicized collection of the paintings of With-it Artist D, who lolled about the baths of Palm Springs with Very-In Author E?
A Communist? Our Clete? How crazy-fool-ridiculous could you be?
No one, he had found, could be so easily duped as the self-congratulating clever. And so, with an utter contempt for those who fawned upon him, and a completely cold blooded and ruthless manipulation of their naïve and eager support, he had moved along until he was virtually unassailable. Not even his quickie strike against the Cape four months ago had done him any real harm where it counted. There had been some grumbling here and there over the country, a few reactionary newspapers and minor columnists had mumbled, but, again, those who Really Mattered had quickly forgiven and forgotten. The whole episode was hazed over now in the public mind. Dr. Freer was long since back on the job. Stu Yule was up and around again, his tragedy never mentioned except within NASA, which was reactionary and old-fashioned in its emotional loyalties anyway. And Pad C was nearing completion. There had been a chance to nail him but nobody had. So, who remembered anymore? Clete O’Donnell was as popular and invulnerable as ever.
In fact, he thought with a cruel little smile as he signaled the pool attendant to bring a portable Picturephone to his cabana, he owed a great debt to fools such as the one he was going to talk to now, because without them he would never have been where he was, potentially able to do such devastating damage to the plans and morale of the country they shared and despised together.
“Hello, Percy?” he said easily when the self-important face appeared, “I hope you’re working as hard as I am.”
“You look it,” Percy said with a smile. “Aren’t you absolutely boiling in the sun down there?”
Clete chuckled.
“I’m like a lizard on a rock. The hotter it gets the more I like it. I suppose that comes of growing up in northern Michigan. What’s new with Planetary Fleet One these days?”
“I was going to call you and find out. Apparently, everything is proceeding on schedule.”
“Are we going to let it go without doing anything more about it?” Clete inquired. “It seems to me CAUSE ought to be giving some serious thought to what we’re going to do around launch time.”
“Oh, very definitely,” Percy agreed. “If you’ve noticed, I’ve had an editorial about that every two or three weeks for the past couple of months.”
“I know,” Clete said in an admiring tone. “And Percy, I think they’ve been among the best you have ever done. I just don’t think this nation realizes how much it owes you for the way you’ve helped to keep major issues in perspective. It has been a magnificent job, all the way.”
“You’re too kind,” Percy said, and Clete thought with a withering contempt that the monstrous little ego was lapping it up as usual.
“I really mean it,” he said solemnly. “It has been a public service virtually without parallel. In my humble estimation.”
“I have done my best,” Percy said solemnly. “It is all a man to whom God has given a modest talent can do.”
“It has been magnificent,” Clete repeated. “Simply magnificent. What do you think we should do about the launch?”
“I would think some sort of nationwide moratorium, wouldn’t you? Possibly combined with mass picketing at the White House and NASA headquarters.”
Clete smiled.
“All NASA installations, why not? Why be exclusive?”
“Well, do you think—I mean, as far as the Cape is concerned—do you think—?”
“I didn’t say strike it,” Clete said, his smile broadening. “I just said picket it.”
“I don’t know that we want more violence, though,” Percy said. “I mean—do you?”
“I have never wanted violence,” Clete said blandly. “Nor do I want it now. If peaceful, legitimate protesters are subjected to it, then they will probably respond. But I can’t be responsible for that, can I?”
“No-o.”
“Can I?” Clete repeated and their eyes met. After a moment Percy’s dropped. His doubts were resolved as Clete had known, contemptuously, they would be.
“No, you cannot,” he said firmly. “I suppose we should begin some serious work on organization, then.”
“Shouldn’t the executive board of CAUSE pass an official resolution calling the moratorium?” Clete asked. “Just a suggestion, but it might be better to make it legal.”
“You’re so right,” Percy agreed.
“You can probably poll by phone. I vote Yes.”
“You don’t want to leave Miami,” Percy remarked with a smile.
“I may be needed in Florida,” Clete said with a lazy grin. “Anyway, I like it in the sun. I hope you’re thinking in terms of a really big moratorium.”
“Oh, yes,” Percy said quickly. “I think we should make it very impressive. Then even though we can’t stop the launch, we’ll at least register a protest that will make the government think twice before it contemplates another.”
“Oh, maybe we can stop it,” Clete said in the same lazy way. “If it gets that far.”
“Why won’t it?” Percy asked quickly. “You don’t know—I mean, there isn’t anything—?”
“Just a hunch,” Clete said soothingly. “But it is a big project, and they’ve been moving awfully fast, and a lot of the personnel are green and inexperienced, and—well, you know. Many a slip, and all that. A lot of things can happen through just sheer carelessness. We’ll see.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt,” Percy said somewhat nervously, “but I would like to see it stopped.”
“We’ll see,” Clete repeated. “Maybe,” he added lightly, just to give the little twerp something to think about, “sooner than we think.”
“I hope so,” Percy said. “I hope there will be some accident that won’t hurt anyone but will stop it.”
“Accidents aren’t always that particular,” Clete pointed out dryly. “But maybe somebody can arrange one that will be.”
But when it came, two weeks later, it appeared that whoever had done the arranging had not been that careful.
FIVE DIE AS PLANETARY MISSILE SECTIONS EXPLODE AT TEST SITES, the headlines said. MISSISSIPPI, HUNTSVILLE ROCKED BY BLASTS. NASA HINTS SABOTAGE. MARS FLIGHT MAY BE DELAYED.
And P.C.M., deliberately putting out of his mind the dreadful and impermissible thought that had crossed it when the news came—and with it, like a flash, an instantaneous mental picture of his self-satisfied and arrogant friend lying bland and lazy in the sun—wrote the words he had to write for the next edition of View:
“The twin tragedies at NASA’s Huntsville and Mississippi test sites have called into grave question once again, after several months of relative quiet, the wisdom of the American attempt to beat the Soviet Union in the race for Mars.
“That it should be a race at all is a disgrace to this country and a blow to world brotherhood. That it should now have resulted in new disasters which have taken the lives of five Americans is a shame for which the Administration bears a heavy burden.
“It was with great misgivings that this publication, in common with all thoughtful Americans, acquiesced finally in the president’s determination to go ahead with Planetary Fleet One despite the difficulties that had plagued it from the beginning. Memories are still vivid of the controversies that surrounded the decision to challenge the Soviet Union to another improvident and wasteful contest in space; the selection of a multiracial crew truly representative of all the nation; and the argument over the absurd and hysterical proposition that the spacecraft should be armed because the Soviets might, in some mysterious and unexplained fashion, seek to attack them in the skies.
“Any one of these issues standing alone was enough, in our estimation, to warrant cancellation of the mission. Together they appeared to us, and we believe to the overwhelming majority of the American people, to present an insurmountable argument for terminating it without delay.
“But the president, encouraged by certain individuals in NASA and possibly by his own desire to appeal politically to shortsighted and reactionary elements among his own countrymen, plowed on. And so once again we have disaster for Planetary Fleet One and a renewal of all the grave questions that continue to make of its flight a most foolish exercise in American egotism and a most inexcusable waste of American dollars that could better be used for pressing domestic needs.
