Read Online The Star Fox by Poul Anderson - Free Book Online Page B

hand you behave yourself, you will continue to receive occasional word from her.
    Yours for peace and sanity.
    He had to read three or four times before it registered.
    ‘San Francisco meter,’ Vadász said. He crumpled the plastic and hurled it at the wall. ‘Not that that means anything.’
    ‘
Gud i himlen
.’ Heim stumbled to a lounger, fell down, and sat staring into the unspeakable. ‘Why don’t they go straight after me?’
    They have done so,’ Vadász answered.
    ‘Personally!’
    ‘You would be a risky target for violence. A young and trusting girl is easier.’
    Heim had a feeling that he was about to weep. But his eyes remained two coals in his skull. ‘What can we do?’ he whispered.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Vadász said like a robot. ‘So much depends on who they are. Obviously not anyone official. A government need only arrest you on some excuse.’
    ‘The Militants, then. Jonas Yore.’ Heim rose and walked toward the exit.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Vadász grabbed his arm. It was like trying to halt a landslip.
    ‘For a gun,’ Heim said, ‘and on to Chicago.’
    ‘No. Hold. Stop, you damned fool! What could you do except provoke them into killing her?’
    Heim swayed and stood.
    ‘Yore may or may not know about this,’ Vadász said. ‘Certainly no one has definite information about your plans, or they would simply tip the Peace Control. The kidnappers could be in the lunatic fringe of the Militants. Emotions are running so high. And that sort must needs be dramatic, attack people in the street, steal your daughter, strut their dirty littleegos – yes, Earth has many like them in the upper classes too, crazed with uselessness. Any cause will serve. “Peace” is merely the fashionable one.’
    Heim returned to the bottle. He poured a drink, slopping much.
Lisa is alive
, he told himself.
Lisa is alive. Lisa is alive
. He tossed the liquor down his gullet. ‘How long will she be?’ he screamed.
    ‘Hey?’
    ‘She’s with fanatics. They’ll still hate me, whatever happens. And they’ll be afraid she can identify them. Endre, help me!’
    ‘We have some time,’ Vadász snapped. ‘Use it for something better than hysterics.’
    The glow in Heim’s stomach spread outward.
I’ve been responsible for lives before
, he thought, and the old reflexes of command awoke.
You construct a games theoretical matrix and choose the course with smallest negative payoff
.
    His brain began to move. ‘Thanks, Endre,’ he said.
    ‘Could they be bluffing about spies in the police?’ Vadász wondered.
    ‘I don’t know, but the chance looks too big to take.’
    ‘Then … we cancel the expedition, renounce what we have said about New Europe, and hope?’
    ‘That may be the only thing to do.’ It whirred in Heim’s head. ‘Though I do believe it’s wrong also, even to get Lisa home.’
    ‘What is left? To hit back? How? Maybe private detectives could search—’
    ‘Over a whole planet? Oh, we can try them, but—No, I was fighting a fog till I got the idea of the raider, and now I’m back in the fog and I’ve got to get out again. Something definite, that they won’t know about before too late. You were right, there’s no sense in threatening Yore. Or even appealing to him, I guess. What matters to them is their cause. If we could go after
it—
’
    Heim bellowed. Vadász almost got knocked over in the big man’s rush to the phone.
    ‘What in blue hell, Gunnar?’
    Heim unlocked a drawer and took out his private directory. It now included the unlisted number and scrambler code of Michel Coquelin’s sealed circuit. And 0930 in California was – what? 1730? – in Paris. His fingers stabbed the buttons.
    A confidential secretary appeared in the screen. ‘
Bureau de – oh, M. Heim
’
    ‘
Donnez-vous moi M. le Minister tout de suite, s’il vous plaît
.’ Despite the circumstances, Vadász winced at what Heim thought was French.
    The secretary peered at the visage confronting him,