The Sentinel - Arthur C. Clarke [26]
“Our motives,” he began, “should be pretty obvious. We’ve found that argument’s useless, so we have to take other measures. There have been underground movements before, and even Karellen, whatever powers he’s got, won’t find it easy to deal with us. We’re out to fight for our independence. Don’t misunderstand me. There’ll be nothing violent—at first, anyway. But the Overlords have to use human agents and we can make it mighty uncomfortable for them.”
Starting with me, I suppose, thought Stormgren. He wondered if the other had given him more than a fraction of the whole story. Did they really think that these gangster methods would influence Karellen in the slightest? On the other hand, it was quite true that a well-organized resistance movement could make things very difficult.
“What do you intend to do with me?” asked Stormgren at length. “Am I a hostage, or what?”
“Don’t worry—we’ll look after you. We expect some visitors in a day or two, and until then we’ll entertain you as well as we can.”
He added some words in his own language, and one of the others produced a brand-new pack of cards.
“We got these especially for you,” explained Joe. His voice suddenly became grave. “I hope you’ve got plenty of cash,” he said anxiously. “After all, we can hardly accept checks.”
Quite overcome, Stormgren stared blankly at his captors. Then, as the true humor of the situation sank into his mind, it suddenly seemed to him that all the cares and worries of office had lifted from his shoulders. Whatever happened, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it—and now these fantastic criminals wanted to play cards with him.
Abruptly, he threw back his head and laughed as he had not done for years.
There was no doubt, thought van Ryberg morosely, that Wainwright was telling the truth. He might have his suspicions, but he did not know who had kidnapped Stormgren. Nor did he approve of the kidnapping itself. Van Ryberg had a shrewd idea that for some time extremists in the Freedom League had been putting pressure on Wainwright to make him adopt a more active policy. Now they were taking things into their own hands.
The kidnapping had been beautifully organized, there was no doubt of that. Stormgren might be anywhere on earth and there seemed little hope of tracing him. Yet something would have to be done, decided van Ryberg, and done quickly. Despite the jests he had so often made, his real feeling towards Karellen was one of overwhelming awe. The thought of approaching the Supervisor directly filled him with dismay, but there seemed no alternative.
Communication Section had several hundred channels to Karellen’s ship. Most of them were operating continuously, handling endless streams of statistics—production figures, census returns and all the bookkeeping of a world economic system. One channel, van Ryberg knew, was reserved for Karellen’s personal messages to Stormgren. No one but the Secretary-General himself had ever used it.
Van Ryberg sat down at the keyboard and, after a moment’s hesitation, began to tap out his message with unpracticed fingers. The machine clicked away contentedly and the words gleamed for a few seconds on the darkened screen. Then he waited; he would give the Supervisor ten minutes and after that someone else could bring him any reply.
There was no need. Scarcely a minute later the machine started to whirr again. Not for the first time, van Ryberg wondered if the Supervisor ever slept.
The message was as brief as it was unhelpful.
NO INFORMATION. LEAVE MATTERS ENTIRELY TO YOUR DISCRETION.
Rather bitterly, and without any satisfaction at all, van Ryberg realized how much greatness had been thrust upon him.
During the last three days Stormgren had analyzed his captors with some thoroughness. Joe was the only one of any importance: the others were nonentities—the riffraff one would expect any illegal movement to gather round itself. The ideals of the Freedom League meant nothing to them: their only concern was earning a living with the minimum