War. War with anybody, war in the field and war on the diplomatic front.
Traces even remained of the work done within the enemy nations, bitter
anti-Ingersoll propaganda from within the ranks of Russia herself,
manipulated to strengthen Ingersoll in America, to build him up, to
drive the nations farther apart, while presenting Ingersoll as the
pathetic prince of world peace, fighting desperately to stop the
ponderous wheels of the irresistible juggernaut--
And in America, the constant, unremitting literary and editorial
drumbeating, pressuring greater war preparation, distilling hatreds in a
thousand circles, focussing them into a single channel. Tremendous
propaganda pressure to build armies, to build weapons, to get the
Moon-rocket project underway--
Shandor sat back, eyes drooping, fighting to keep his eyes open. His
mind was numb, his body trembling. A sheaf of papers in a separate
folder caught his eye, production records of the Dartmouth Bearing
Corporation, almost up to the date of Ingersoll's death. Shandor
frowned, a snag in the chain drawing his attention. He peered at the
papers, vaguely puzzled. Invoices from the Chicago plant, materials for
tanks, and guns, and shells. Steel, chemicals. The same for the New
Jersey plant, the same with a dozen subsidiary plants. Shipments of
magnesium and silver wire to the Rocket Project in Arizona, carried
through several subsidiary offices. The construction of a huge
calculator for the Project in Arizona. Motors and materials, all for
Arizona--something caught his mind, brought a frown to his large bland
face, some off-key note in the monstrous symphony of production and
intrigue that threw up a red flag in his mind, screamed for attention--
And then he sipped the fresh coffee at his elbow and sighed, and looked
up at the girl standing there, saw her hand tremble as she steadied
herself against the desk, and sat down beside him. He felt a great
confusion, suddenly, a vast sympathy for this girl, and he wanted to
take her in his arms, hold her close, _protect_ her, somehow. She didn't
know, she _couldn't_ know about this horrible thing. She couldn't have
been a party to it, a part of it. He knew the evidence said yes, she
knows the whole story, she _helped_ them, but he also knew that the
evidence, somehow, was wrong, that somehow, he still didn't have the
whole picture--
She looked at him, her voice trembling. "You're wrong, Tom," she said.
He shook his head, helplessly. "I'm sorry. It's horrible, I know. But
I'm not wrong. This war was planned. We've been puppets on strings, and
one man engineered it, from the very start. Your father."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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