All right; now tell them the truth.

"I was also to find out anything I could about a secret giant computer used during the War by the Third Fleet-Army Force, code-named Merlin.

I went over all the records available to the public; I used your letter, Professor, and the head of our Modern History department secured me access to non-public material, some of it still cla.s.sified.

For one thing, I have locations and maps and plans of every Federation installation built here between 842 and 854, the whole period of the War." He turned to his father. "There are incredible things still undiscovered; most of the important installations were built in duplicate, sometimes triplicate, as a precaution against s.p.a.ce attack.

I know where all of them are."

"s.p.a.ce attack!" Klem Zareff was indignant. "There never was a time we could have attacked Poictesme. Even if we"d had the ships, we were fighting a purely defensive war. Aggression was no part of our policy--"

He interrupted: "Excuse me, Colonel. The point I was trying to make is that, with all I was able to learn, I could find nothing, not one single word, about any giant strategic planning computer called Merlin, or any Merlin Project."

There! He"d gotten that out. Now go on and tell them about the old man in the dome-house on Luna. The room was silent, except for the small insectile hum of the electric clock. Then somebody set a gla.s.s on the table, and it sounded like a hammer blow.

"Nothing, Conn?"

Kurt Fawzi was incredulous. Judge Ledue"s hand shook as though palsied as he tried to relight his cigar. Dolf Kellton was looking at the drink in his hand as though he had no idea what it was. The others found their voices, one by one.

"Of course, it was the most closely guarded secret ..."

"But after forty years ..."

"Hah, don"t tell me about security!" Colonel Zareff barked. "You should have seen the lengths our staff went to. I remember, once, on Mephistopheles ..."

"But there _was_ a computer code-named Merlin," Judge Ledue was insisting, to convince himself more than anybody else. "Its memory-bank contained all human knowledge. It was capable of scanning all its data instantaneously, and combining, and forming a.s.sociations, and reasoning with absolute accuracy, and extrapolating to produce new facts, and predicting future events, and ..."

And if you"d asked such a computer, "Is there a G.o.d?" it would have simply answered, "Present."

"We"d have won the War, except for Merlin," Zareff was declaring.

"Conn, from what you"ve learned of computers generally, how big would Merlin have to be?" old Professor Kellton asked.

"Well, the astrophysics computer at the University occupied a volume of a hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I"d say something of the order of three million to five million.

"Well, it"s a cinch they didn"t haul that away with them," Lester Dawes, the banker, said.

"Oh, lots of places on Poictesme where they could have hid a thing like that," Tom Brangwyn said. "You know, a planet"s a mighty big place."

"It doesn"t have to be on Poictesme, even," Morgan Gatworth pointed out. "It could be anywhere in the Trisystem."

"You know where I"d have put it?" Lorenzo Menardes asked. "On one of the moons of Pantagruel."

"But that"s in the Gamma System, three light years away," Kurt Fawzi objected. "There isn"t a hypership on this planet, and it would take half a lifetime to get there on normal-s.p.a.ce drive."

Conn was lifting his gla.s.s to his lips. He set it down again and rose to his feet.

"Then," he said, "we will build a hypership. On Koshchei there are shipyards and hyperdrive engines and everything we will need. We only need one normal-s.p.a.ce interplanetary ship to get out there, and we"re in business."

"Well, I don"t know we need one," Judge Ledue said. "That was only an idea of Lorenzo"s. I think Merlin"s right here on Poictesme."

"We don"t know it is," Conn replied. "And we don"t know we won"t need a ship. Merlin may be on Koshchei; that"s where the components would be fabricated, and the Armed Forces weren"t hauling anything any farther than they had to. Koshchei"s only two and a half minutes away by radio; that"s practically in the next room. Look; here"s how they could have done it."

He went on talking, about remote controls and radio transmission and positronic brains and neutrino-circuits. They believed it all, even the little they understood. They would believe anything he told them about Merlin--except the truth.

"But this will take money," Lester Dawes said. "And after that infernal deluge of unsecured paper currency thirty years ago ..."

"I have no doubt," Judge Ledue began, "that the Planetary Government at Storisende would give a.s.sistance. I have some slight influence with President Vyckhoven ..."

"Huh-_uh_!" That was one of Klem Zareff"s fellow planters. "We don"t want Jake Vyckhoven or any of this First-Families-of-Storisende oligarchy in this at all. That"s the gang that bankrupted the Government with doles and work relief, and everybody else with worthless printing-press money after the War, and they"ve been squatting in a circle deploring things ever since. Some of these days Blackie Perales and his pirates"ll sack Storisende, for all they"d be able to do to stop him."

"We get a ship out to Koshchei, and the next thing you know we"ll be the Planetary Government," Tom Brangwyn said.

Rodney Maxwell finished the brandy in his gla.s.s and set it on the table, then went to the pile of belts and holsters and began rummaging for his own. Kurt Fawzi looked up in surprise.

"Rod, you"re not leaving are you?" he asked.

"Yes. It"s only half an hour till time for dinner, and I think Conn and I ought to have a little fresh air. Besides, you know, we haven"t seen each other for six years." He buckled on the heavy automatic and settled the belt over his hips. "You didn"t have a gun, did you, Conn?" he asked. "Well, let"s go."

III

It wasn"t until they were down to the main level and outside in the little plaza to the east of the Airlines Building that his father broke the silence.

"That was quite a talk you gave them, Conn. They believed every word of it. I even caught myself starting to believe it once or twice."

Conn stopped short; his father halted beside him. "Why didn"t you tell them the truth, son?" Rodney Maxwell asked.

The question, which he had been throwing at himself, angered him. "Why didn"t I just grab a couple of pistols and shoot the lot of them?" he retorted. "It wouldn"t have killed them any deader, and it wouldn"t have hurt as much."

"There is no Merlin. Is that it?"

He realized, suddenly, that his father had known, or suspected that all along. He started to say something, then checked himself and began again:

"There never was one. I was going to tell them, but you saw them. I couldn"t."

"You"re sure of it?"

"The whole thing"s a myth. I"m quoting the one man in the Galaxy who ought to know. The man who commanded the Third Force here during the War."

"Foxx Travis!" His father"s voice was soft with wonder. "I saw him once, when I was eight years old. I thought he"d died long ago. Why, he must be over a hundred."

"A hundred and twelve. He"s living on Luna; low gravity"s all that keeps him alive."

"And you talked to him?"

"Yes."