Security Risk Read online

  Produced by Frank van Drogen, Greg Weeks, and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.

  SECURITY RISK

  BY ED M. CLINTON, JR.

  _Illustrated by Ed Emsh_

  At moments like this, General David Walker always thought fleetingly ofthe good old days when he had hated the army. As usual, he smashed thethought out of his mind with a distinct sense of remorse.

  He looked up again at the seamed face of the Chief of Staff, GeneralMarcus Meriwether. "This could be serious," he said slowly, with a sicksense of the statement's inadequacy. An old tic suddenly returned,tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

  The deadly, unsmiling expression on Meriwether's face did not change ashe slid more tightly into his chair. "You know as well as I that itmeans the Interplanetary Confederation is ready to go to war with us."

  Walker stared at the typed statement on his desk. It was a decodedintelligence message from United Terra's prime agent in theInterplanetary Confederation, and it was very brief: the Confederationhad developed a long-range neural weapon effectively cancelling outevery armament development achieved by United Terra in fifteen years ofa cold war that of late had become bitter cold. The all-but-autonomouscolonies of Mars and Venus, united now for twenty years in an economicleague, had been itching for independence for a quarter of a century.The itch had developed into a mighty burning.

  "You are fully aware," Meriwether continued, his face still set, "of ourfeeling that the Confederation has been eager to take on Terra. They'veclearly been waiting for some positive advantage to offset our purestrength-in-numbers."

  __It was a touchable touching an untouchable. Bothscientist and general were doing their own version of right....__]

  Walker forced his eyes upward and stared at his superior. "Your tonesays that such a war might be--"

  "Unwelcome at this time. Unwelcome at this time." Meriwether shiftedaround in his chair, and scratched at its leather arms with themanicured tips of his gnarled fingers. "Walker, I don't have to tell youthat this weapon, if it is what our agent infers--and there is no reasonto believe otherwise--that this weapon makes it impossible for us to goto war with the Confederation--unless, as Chief of Weapons Development,you can tell me that we have something in our arsenal to combat it."

  Walker rubbed at the tic. "Nothing," he said quietly.

  Meriwether leaned forward, his hands crooked backward against the chairarms like catapult springs. "That answer is unacceptable. There areother questions you must answer, Walker, questions in some ways evenmore important than that basic one. Why haven't we developed this weaponourselves? Why haven't we been aware of its potential existence? Whereare the defensive devices which would naturally develop from suchcognizance? These things are all your department, Walker." His voicepitched upward an hysterical fraction. "It just doesn't make sense, youknow. We've a hundred times the personnel, ten times the facilities,unlimited funds--but they've beaten us to it." He stood up and pushedhis chair back, eyes squinting out of a reddening face that seemed onthe point of bursting. "Why, Walker?"

  Once again Walker thought about how he had hated the army when he was abright young physics student. That was a long time ago--So much hadhappened. The doors had closed around him, one at a time, doors closingon the scientific mind. And so now, instead of a research scientist inwhite smock with textbook, he was a military administrator in smartgreys with glittering stars of military rank.

  "I'll say this, Walker," Meriwether shouted, his voice breaking again."We'd better catch up quick. Mighty quick. Let's put it this way. Itmight mean your rank and your job, Walker. But you won't give a damn.Because we'll have lost the war. We'll have lost the colonies. And youknow what that would mean, Walker?" He bent forward across the desk, hisface exploding into Walker's eyes. "Only a fool believes that UnitedTerra can survive in an economy without tri-planetary hegemony.

  "Walker, you've all the authority within my power to grant. You'll haveno trouble getting money. But--get the answer. _Quick._"

  Walker blinked after him as he strode to the door. "I'll try to hold offa federal investigation as long as I can," Meriwether added, turningfrom the half-opened door. "But I can't guarantee a thing."

  ----

  Walker sat alone in a cubicle of light in the darkened city and gulpeddown his twentieth cup of coffee. It had grown cold in the cup and witha grimace he pushed it aside.

  There was no doubt about it. He thumbed through the sheaf of scribblednotes he had transcribed from stacks of documents and racks of spoolsfrom Security files. Clearly, he had the answer to Meriwether'squestions. But, having it, he did not quite know what to do with it.

  There was, however, no doubt at all: United Terra had been on the trackof the neural weapon--ten years earlier. Could have had it--and had lostthe chance.

  He rubbed his thumbs hard against his tired eyes and tried to rememberback that ten years: at that time he had been Chief of WeaponsDevelopment for perhaps three years. His own name, though, had appearedin none of the files he had examined, so apparently he had not beendirectly involved in the security hearings. But he _should_ remember.

  Dr. Otto Millet. _Otto Millet._ He let the name roll around his brain,until shortly an image began to form--an image of a smiling man, greyingat the temples, wearing a flamboyant sports shirt and affecting a veryclose haircut. A man perhaps forty. In the image, he was a laughing man.

  He remembered now. Dr. Otto Millet: into government service on theinertia of a fantastic reputation as a research physicist specializingin magnetic field studies. A man he had instantly disliked.

  He bent forward and reread what he had scrawled in his last notes, averbatim extract from the report of the security committee.

  "It is clear that Dr. Millet's conversations and letters with ProfessorGreyman, together with his unrepentant attitude, render him a securityrisk. His various security clearances are therefore revoked, and he ishereafter prohibited access to all classified files and to anygovernment research and development laboratory."

  Since virtually all laboratories were government supported, that was toall intents and purposes the end of Millet's career as an experimentalphysicist.

  Where had Millet gone? What had he done since? Walker scraped acigarette out of the half-empty pack in his pocket. More important: whatwas he doing now?

  He inhaled deeply and sent clouds of smoke skewing across the room. Hadthe man really been a traitor? Walker tried to place himself in the timeof Millet's hearing. He'd been not too many years out of school then,with the bitterness of his frustrated ambition to be a researchphysicist still rankling him; perhaps this had colored his view ofMillet. He stared at his desk, almost shocked that this thought shouldhave occurred to him. It shook him, for it told him something abouthimself which he did not particularly care to know.

  Nowhere had he been able to find any evidence as to what had happened toMillet since. Banished, the government seemed to forget him. But onething was clear to Walker, and he pondered it deeply as he sucked on thelast quarter-inch of his cigarette and poured himself another cup ofcold black coffee. One big thing: Millet had been directing developmentalong lines that would have led to the neural weapon; he had even signeda report, early in his project effort, which had referred to thepossibility of "a neural device."

  Had he gone over to the Confederation? It would account for theirpossession of the weapon now. But surely--_surely_, this fact would havebeen observed and reported by Terran intelligence agents.

  Walker, infinitely tired, forgot his coffee and began to tidy up thedesk, filing everything he wanted to keep in an electronically lockedcabinet, shoving everything else into the destr
uction of the vibrator.He pondered for a moment the powdered secrets that were heaped likeblack dust in the bottom of the canister: a symbol of safety to aterrified world.

  Step one: find Millet. _Find Millet._

  ----

  It took the Secret Service exactly twenty-nine hours to locate Dr. OttoMillet. Thirty minutes later, Walker was climbing out of a governmenthelicopter and staring at Millet's small house through squinted eyeswhich he shielded with both hands against the blazing desert sun. Thehouse was fronted by a neat lawn and a white fence entwined with redroses; there appeared to be a rather large garden in the rear. The styleof the house bothered him a little: it had passed out of popularitythirty years before. Its lack of a conventional roofport had forced themto land the 'copter on the desert itself.

  He