Time Will Run Back

Chapter 16

YOU’VE come to arrest us?”

The O’Gradys seemed not only resigned but relieved. “We’ll pack immediately.”

It had been Peter’s first opportunity to call on the Maxwells since his election to the Politburo. He gathered finally from this couple, with whom the Maxwells had shared the room, the appalling news that Edith and her father had been arrested in the middle of the night two weeks before.

That was all they knew. Ever since that night they had expected to be arrested themselves—for the crime of not having reported to the police the “treachery” of the Maxwells (whatever it may have been) before the police themselves suspected it. In Wonworld the guilt of any man disloyal to the state was shared not only by his family, but by anybody billeted with him who had failed to betray him in advance.

Through some oversight the O’Gradys had not yet been arrested. Peter returned to his limousine. “To Security Police Headquarters,” he ordered.

The files at Security Police Headquarters revealed nothing. They did not even record the fact that Maxwell or Edith had been arrested. The arrest, Peter concluded, could only have been ordered secretly by Bolshekov.

He told the chauffeur to drive to his father’s office. When he got there he found the secretary pale and grave.

“I’ve been trying desperately to reach you,” said Sergei. “His Supremacy has just had a stroke. The doctor is with him now.”

Peter was led into the bedroom. His father was in bed. His eyes were closed, his cheeks puffed out, his face flushed; there was froth around his lips.

The doctor was bending over him.

“How serious is it, doctor?” Peter asked.

“Very.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“In a few hours he may come out of this. But even if he does, he may remain paralyzed on his right side. I’m not sure he will have control of his tongue muscles—or, in fact, that he will be able to speak at all.”

The dreaded moment had arrived. Peter must act, and now.

Bolshekov, he knew, had spies everywhere. Perhaps he had already learned of the situation. Whom could Peter trust? The sense of his immense responsibility fell on him like a ten ton weight. Blessed are they without responsibilities. Blessed are they who do not have to make decisions, who have all their decisions made for them. No wonder so many were content to have no liberties. Liberty meant responsibility. It compelled decisions. Liberty was compulsion. To be free to decide meant that you had to decide. And you had no one to blame for the result of bad decisions but yourself.

He turned slowly and heavily to Sergei. “Find Adams,” he ordered. “Get him over here immediately. Tell him it’s urgent—but don’t tell him why.”

The record!

That was his first duty. If he lost time on that, he would lose everything. He must postpone even the effort to discover and release Edith and her father until the record had been broadcast.

He ran back from the bedroom to his father’s office. His hands were trembling slightly as he turned the combination of the safe. He took the closely guarded key from an inside pocket, opened the small inside steel door, and carefully drew out the record marked X.

Sergei entered. “His Highness Comrade Adams is on his way over.”

Peter told Sergei about the arrest of Edith and Maxwell. “Find where they are, who is holding them, and who ordered their arrest. And send a message down for my car to stand by.”

He paced nervously up and down. The wait seemed interminable. At last Adams arrived. Peter rushed him immediately down to the car.

“To the Central Radio Station,” he called to the chauffeur.

He had the record and the script in his brief case. On the way over he told Adams what had happened. Adams looked stunned. “Yet I had noticed something wrong with No. 1’s health,” he said.

“I am trusting you completely,” said Peter. “I’m lost without your help.”

“You can count on it. You know I’m an American anyway, and haven’t a ghost of a chance of ever becoming Dictator of Wonworld myself. That job is a Russian monopoly. The real danger is Bolshekov. If he becomes Dictator his first act will be to slit my throat. You can count on me absolutely.”

They mapped out what their procedure would be when they got to the radio station.

Once inside the building Peter had double cause to congratulate himself on his decision to take Adams. Everyone recognized Adams immediately, but in spite of the worldwide publicity attending Peter’s promotion to the Politburo, very few seemed to recognize Peter or know who he was.

“Interrupt the program,” Adams ordered the announcer. “Introduce me.”

Adams was brief: “I am speaking to you from the Central Radio Station of Moscow. With me in the studio are His Supremacy, Comrade Stalenin; and his son Peter Uldanov. His Highness Comrade Uldanov, as you know, was elected a member of the Politburo three weeks ago. His brilliance, and the consequent speed of his advancement since his return from America, have created a Wonworld sensation. And now you are about to hear a message of the utmost importance from His Supremacy, Comrade Stalenin, No. 1 citizen and Leader and Dictator of Wonworld.... His Supremacy!”

Record X was turned on:

“Comrades and citizens of Wonworld,” it began. “I told you on my last public appearance on May Day that the mounting pressure of work upon me would prevent me from making any further public appearances. This pressure has now grown to a point where I am forced to deputize more work than ever. I have therefore asked my trusted son, Peter Uldanov, to sit as my deputy in meetings of the Politburo and on other occasions, and to make public announcements in my name of whatever new policies or decrees I find necessary. I shall, of course, be more active than ever as your leader, working silently, often alone, late into the nights, working for you, the proletariat, working as one of you, as your vicar, as your spokesman, as your servant, working for you, the dictators of Wonworld. For the security of Wonworld depends upon the dictatorship of the proletariat, which must be maintained at all hazards, and I, as your vicar, as your deputy, representing you, mean to maintain it.

“But I cannot do this without your help, without the help and support of every man and woman in Wonworld. Comrades, the future depends on you. We must work harder than ever before. We must all work longer hours. We must all tighten our belts one more notch. The Era of Abundance is before us. But this abundance will be possible in the future only by our further sacrifices in the present. The land of socialist plenty, as you have been told for more than a century, is to be reached only by the path of socialist austerity. There are only a few steps more along that path. We cannot risk or throw away all that we have won by refusal to take those steps now! And through my son, my deputy Peter Uldanov, I will from time to time announce those steps. Meanwhile I can only urge all of you once more to put your shoulders to the wheel. And tonight I ask you, around your tables, in your homes, to drink with me a toast to the Global Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—to Wonworld Forever!”

When the record had finished, Peter stepped up to the microphone:

“Thank you, Your Supremacy. Thank you, my father. I promise you solemnly and faithfully, to the utmost of my ability, to carry out your instructions as your deputy. Every act I take will be in your name and at your command, and I will need the loyal and unquestioning support of every comrade in fulfilling the great trust and responsibility you have placed in my hands.”

A recording was put on of the music of “Marx Save the Dictator.”

Adams stepped before the microphone once more: “A recording of this entire program will be put on a Wonworld hookup at eight o’clock this evening. At the time when His Supremacy’s speech is being rebroadcast, I urge all of you, in your homes, in offices, in factories, in barracks, on farms, in correction camps—wherever you may be—to join me in a solemn toast to Our Great Leader and to his newly appointed Deputy.”

The program was over. Some recorded music was put on. Adams turned to the announcer and the technicians in the recording room.

“We have carried out this program at the orders of His Supremacy. A critical situation came up at the last moment which required his urgent presence elsewhere, so he made this recording. You are all to observe the strictest secrecy about the fact that he was not personally present. This is the beginning of the policy which he laid down in his May Day announcement. You will announce tonight’s forthcoming rebroadcast at half-hour intervals. For the eight o’clock Wonworld hookup, you will order all the direct-wired loud speakers throughout the Global Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to be turned on full blast.”

On Adams’ advice, Peter called an immediate special meeting of the Politburo, in Stalenin’s name. As customary on such occasions, Sergei did the telephoning. This time the members were called in the reverse order of their priority. Bolshekov was notified last, and late. Each member as he arrived was asked whether he had heard the afternoon’s Stalenin broadcast. Giraud, who, Adams knew, disliked Bolshekov, arrived early. Adams took him aside for a few moments.

Adams and Peter declared that they had just spoken with Stalenin and that he would be in at any moment. But when everyone but Bolshekov had arrived, Sergei by prearrangement came in and said that Stalenin had been detained and had asked that Peter conduct the meeting in his absence.

Adams proposed a resolution endorsing the new arrangement. It was seconded by Giraud, and passed just a few minutes before Bolshekov arrived.

Peter excused himself, turned the meeting over to Bolshekov, and said that the only other business His Supremacy had wanted conducted was a reading of the report of a special commission on the causes of the new famine in the Argentine. Adams read the report.

It had all come off perfectly. Peter felt a new admiration for Adams’ shrewdness. The meeting, as Adams had pointed out in advance, would validate the new arrangement before there was time for anyone to plot to overthrow it. It incidentally kept every member of the Politburo, and especially Bolshekov, under Adams’ eye while Peter and Sergei, in the next room, confirmed the new situation over the telephone with the heads of the Security Police and the armed forces, apart from Kilashov and Marshal Zakachetsky themselves, who were both at the meeting.

“Where are the Maxwells?” Peter asked, the moment the most essential telephoning had been done.

Sergei shook his head. “I’ve been able to learn nothing.”

Peter went in again to his father’s bedroom. The doctor was still there. His father’s condition had not changed.