Public-domain ebook
by Algis Budrys
Language: en430 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #71868.
The opening · free to read
He had spent fifteen patient years of painstaking work, all to construct an exit--which could be used only once!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The breeze soughed through the linden trees. It was warm and gentle as it drifted along the boulevard. It tugged at the dresses of the girls strolling with their young men and stirred their modishly cut hair. It set the banners atop the government buildings to flapping, and it brought with it the sound of a jet aircraft--a Heinkel or a Messerschmitt--rising into the sky from Tempelhof Aerodrome. But when it touched Professor Kempfer on his bench it brought him only the scent of the Parisian perfumes and the sight of gaily colored frocks swaying around the girls' long, healthy legs.
Doctor Professor Kempfer straightened his exhausted shoulders and raised his heavy head. His deep, strained eyes struggled to break through their now habitual dull stare.
It was spring again, he realized in faint surprise. The pretty girls were eating their lunches hastily once more, so that they and their young men could stroll along Unter Den Linden, and the young men in the broad-shouldered jackets were clear-eyed and full of their own awakening strength.
And of course Professor Kempfer wore no overcoat today. He was not quite the comic pedant who wore his galoshes in the sunshine. It was only that he had forgotten, for the moment. The strain of these last few days had been very great.
All these months--these years--he had been doing his government-subsidized research and the other thing, too. Four or five hours for the government, and then a full day on the much more important thing no one knew about. Twelve, sixteen hours a day. Home to his very nice government apartment, where Frau Ritter, the housekeeper, had his supper ready. The supper eaten, to bed. And in the morning; cocoa, a bit of pastry, and to work. At noon he would leave his laboratory for a little while, to come here and eat the slice of black bread and cheese Frau Ritter had wrapped in waxed paper and put in his pocket before he left the house.
But it was over, now. Not the government sinecure--that was just made work for the old savant who, after all, held the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his work with the anti-submarine radar detector. That, of course, had been fifteen years ago. If they could not quite pension him off, still no one expected anything of a feeble old man puttering around the apparatus they had given him to play with.
And they were right, of course. Nothing would ever come of it. But the other thing....
That was done, now. After this last little rest he would go back to his laboratory in the Himmlerstrasse and take the final step. So now he could let himself relax and feel the warmth of the sun.
Professor Kempfer smiled wearily at the sunshine. The good, constant sun, he thought, that gives of itself to all of us, no matter who or where we are. Spring ... April, 1958.
Had it really been fifteen years--and sixteen years since the end of the war? It didn't seem possible. But then one day had been exactly like another for him, with only an electric light in the basement where his real apparatus was, an electric light that never told him whether it was morning, noon, or night.
I have become a cave-dweller! he thought with sudden realization. I have forgotten to think in terms of serial time. What an odd little trick I have played on myself!
Had he really been coming here, to this bench, every clear day for fifteen years? Impossible! But....
He counted on his fingers. 1940 was the year England had surrendered, with its air force destroyed and the Luftwaffe flying unchallenged air cover for the swift invasion. He had been sent to England late that year, to supervise the shipment home of the ultra-short wave-length radar from the Royal Navy's anti-submarine warfare school. And 1941 was the year the U-boats took firm control of the Atlantic. 1942 was the year the Russians lost at Stalingrad, starved by the millions, and surrendered to a Wehrmacht fed on shiploads of Argentinian beef. 1942 was the end of the war, yes.
So it had been that long.
I have become an indrawn old man, he thought to himself in bemusement. So very busy with myself ... and the world has gone by, even while I sat here and might have watched it, if I'd taken the trouble. The world....
He took the sandwich from his coat pocket, unwrapped it, and began to eat. But after the first few bites he forgot it, and held it in one hand while he stared sightlessly in front of him.
His pale, mobile lips fell into a wry smile. The world--the vigorous young world, so full of strength, so confident ... while I worked in my cellar like some Bolshevik dreaming of a fantastic bomb that would wipe out all my enemies at a stroke.
But what I have is not a bomb, and I have no enemies. I am an honored citizen of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Hitler is thirteen years dead in his auto accident, and the new chancellor is a different sort of man. He has promised us no war with the Americans. We have peace, and triumph, and these create a different sort of atmosphere than do war and desperation. We have relaxed, now. We have the fruit of our victory--what do we not have, in our empire of a thousand years? Western civilization is safe at last from the hordes of the East. Our future is assured. There is nothing, no one to fight, and these young people walking here have never known a moment's doubt, an instant's question of their place in an endlessly bright tomorrow. I will soon die, and the rest of us who knew the old days will die soon enough. It will all belong to the young people--all this eternal world. It belongs to them already. It is just that some of us old ones have not yet gotten altogether out of the way.
He stared out at the strolling crowds. How many years can I possibly have left to me? Three? Two? Four? I could die tomorrow.
He sat absolutely still for a moment, listening to the thick old blood slurring through his veins, to the thready flutter of his heart. It hurt his eyes to see. It hurt his throat to breathe. The skin of his hands was like spotted old paper.
Fifteen years of work. Fifteen years in his cellar, building what he had built--for what? Was his apparatus going to change anything? Would it detract even one trifle from this empire? Would it alter the life of even one citizen in that golden tomorrow?
This world would go on exactly as it was. Nothing would change in the least. So, what had he worked for? For himself? For this outworn husk of one man?
Seen in that light, he looked like a very stupid man. Stupid, foolish--monomaniacal.
Dear God, he thought with a rush of terrible intensity, am I now going to persuade myself not to use what I have built?
For all these years he had worked, worked--without stopping, without thinking. Now, in this first hour of rest, was he suddenly going to spit on it all?
Doctor Professor Georg Tanzler guffawed heartily. "Oh, Jochim, Jochim!" he chuckled, shaking his head. "What a type you are! A thousand times I've found you here at noon, and each time it seems as if it surprises you. What do you think about, here on your bench?"
Professor Kempfer let his eyes stray. "Oh, I don't know," he said gently. "I look at the young people."
"The girls--" Tanzler's elbow dug roguishly into his side. "The girls, eh, Jochim?"
A veil drew over Professor Kempfer's eyes. "No," he whispered, "Not like that. No."
"What, then?"
"Nothing," Professor Kempfer said dully. "I look at nothing."
Tanzler's mood changed instantly. "So," he declared with precision. "I thought as much. Everyone knows you are working night and day, even though there is no need for it." Tanzler resurrected a chuckle. "We are not in any great hurry now. It's not as if we were pressed by anyone. The Australians and Canadians are fenced off by our navy. The Americans have their hands full in Asia. And your project, whatever it may be, will help no one if you kill yourself with overwork."
"You know there is no project," Professor Kempfer whispered. "You know it is all just busy work. No one reads my reports. No one checks my results. They give me the equipment I ask for, and do not mind, as long as it is not too much. You know that quite well. Why pretend otherwise?"
Tanzler sucked his lips. Then he shrugged. "Well, if you realize, then you realize," he said cheerfully. Then he changed expression again, and laid his hand on Professor Kempfer's arm in comradely fashion. "Jochim. It has been fifteen years. Must you still try to bury yourself?"
Sixteen, Professor Kempfer corrected, and then realized Tanzler was not thinking of the end of the war. Sixteen years since then, yes, but fifteen since Marthe died. Only fifteen?
I must learn to think in terms of serial time again. He realized Tanzler was waiting for a response, and mustered a shrug.
"Jochim! Have you been listening to me?"
"Listening? Of course, Georg."
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