H Beam Piper Uller Uprising

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on this planet."
"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We've been
compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Uller, to set up nuclear
power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium to the geeks to fuel
them. The Company doesn't want the natives here learning of the possibility of
using nuclear energy for destructive purposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead
issue. They've learned it, thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my
estimate is entirely wrong, King Orgzild already has at least one
First-Century Nagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he
had at least one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sent
to his embassy here, for the poisoning of Governor-General Harrington."
With that, he selected a cigarette from his case, offered it to Paula, and
snapped his lighter.
She had hers lit, and he was puffing on his own, when the others finally
realized what he had told them.
"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though that would
make it so. Another-
one of the civil administration crowd-almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's
words at Skilk:
"What the hell was Intelligence doing, sleeping?"
"General von Schlichten," Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance of the
question, "you've just made, by implication, a most grave charge against my
department. If you're not mistaken in what you've just said, I deserve to be
court-martialed."
"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were a court-martial
matter, I'd belong in the dock with you," von Schlichten told him. "It seems,
though, that a piece of vital information was possessed by those who were
unable to evaluate it, and until this afternoon, I was ignorant of its
existence. Colonel Quinton, suppose you repeat what you told me, on the way
down from Skilk."
"Well, general, don't you think we ought to have Dr. Gomes do that?" Paula
asked. "After all, he constructed those bombs on Niflheim, and it'll be he
who'll have to build ours."
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E...es%20(4)/01%20-%20Uller%20Upris
ing%201.0.txt (61 of 76) [12/24/2004 11:42:33 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Beam%20Piper,%...man/Federa
tion%20series%20(4)/01%20-%20Uller%20Uprising%201.0.txt
"That's right." He looked around. "Where's Dr. Lourenco Gomes, the nuclear
engineer who came in on the Pretoria, two weeks ago? Send out for him, and get
him in here at once."
There was another awkward silence. Then Kent Pickering, the chief of the
Gongonk Island power-
plant, cleared his throat.
"Why, general, didn't you know? Dr. Gomes is dead. He was killed during the
first half hour of the uprising."
Chapter XIII- A Bag of Tricks We Don't Have
He flinched inwardly, and tightened his eye-muscles on the edge of the monocle
to keep from flinching physically as well, trying to freeze out of his face
the consternation he felt.
"That's bad, Kent," he said. "Very bad. I'd been counting heavily on Dr. Gomes
Page 72
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
to design a bomb of our own."
"Well, general, if you please." That was Air-Commodore Leslie Hargreaves. "You
say you suspect that King Orgzild has developed a nuclear bomb. If that's
true, it's a horrible danger to all of us. But I find it hard to believe that
the Keegarkans could have done so, with their resources and at their
technological level. Now, if it had been the Kragans, that would have been
different, but..."
"Paula, you'd better carry on and explain what you told me, and add anything
else you can think of that might be relevant.... Is that sound-recorder turned
on? Then turn it on, somebody; we want this taped."
Paula rose and began talking: "I suppose you all understand what conditions
are on Niflheim, and how these Ulleran native workers are employed; however,
I'd better begin by explaining the purpose for which these nuclear bombs were
designed and used...."
He smiled; she realized that he needed time to think, and she was stalling to
provide it. He drew a pencil and pad toward him and began doodling in a bored
manner, deliberately closing his mind to what she was saying. There were two
assumptions, he considered: first, that King Orgzild already possessed a
nuclear bomb which he could use when he chose, and, second, that in the
absence of Dr.
Gomes, such a bomb could only be produced on Gongonk Island after lengthy
experimental work. If both of these assumptions were true, he had just heard
the death-sentence of every Terran on
Uller. The first he did not for a moment doubt. The reasons for making it were
too good. He dismissed it from further consideration and concentrated on the
second.
"... what's known as a Nagasaki-type bomb, the first type of plutonium-bomb
developed," Paula was saying. "Really, it's a technological antique, but it
was good enough for the purpose, and Dr.
Gomes could build it with locally available materials___"
That was the crux of it. The plutonium bomb, from a military standpoint, was
as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at the time of the Second World
War. He reviewed, quickly, the history of weapons-development since the
beginning of the Atomic Era. The emphasis, since the end of the
Second World War, had all been on nuclear weapons and rocket-missiles. There
had been the H-bomb, itself obsolescent, and the Bethe-cyle bomb, and the
subneutron bomb, and the omega-ray bomb, and the nega-matter bomb, and then
the end of civilization in the Northern Hemisphere and the rise of the new
civilization in South America and South Africa and Australia. Today, the
small-arms and artillery his troops were using were merely slight refinements
on the weapons of the First
Century, and all the modern nuclear weapons used by the Terran Federation were
produced at the
Space Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills were almost
as closed to the general scientific and technical world as the secrets of a
medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historical curiosity, and there was
nobody on Uller who had more than a layman's knowledge of the intricate
technology of modern nuclear weapons. There were plenty of good nuclear-power
engineers on Gongonk Island, but how long would it take them to design and
build a plutonium bomb?
"... also has a good understanding of Lingua Terra," Paula was saying. "He and
Dr. Murilio conversed bi-lingually, just as I've heard General von Schlichten
and King Kankad talking to one another. I haven't any idea whether or not
Gorkrink could read Lingua Terra, or, if so; what
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E...es%20(4)/01%20-%20Uller%20Upris
ing%201.0.txt (62 of 76) [12/24/2004 11:42:33 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Beam%20Piper,%...man/Federa
tion%20series%20(4)/01%20-%20Uller%20Uprising%201.0.txt papers or plans he
Page 73
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
might have seen."
"Just a minute, Paula," he said. "Colonel Grinell, what does your branch have
on this Gorkrink?"
"He's the son of King Orgzild, and the daughter of Prince Jumkonk," Grinell
said. "We knew he'd signed on for Nif, two years ago, but the story we got was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podstrony