The Penultimate Truth

"I'm going to Wheeling Hall." He strode to the door.

"What does it matter--"

He did not take time to answer; he sprinted down the hall, to the ramp.

A moment later, with perhaps no more than a fifth or sixth of the citizens of the tank, Nicholas St. James entered Wheeling Hall. Catching sight of Joseph Adams he made his way over to him, seated himself rapidly beside him.

The giant floor-to-ceiling TV screen was lit and active; it pulsed but showed nothing.

Adams, briefly, said, "We're waiting. There has been what the a

"Jesus," Nicholas said, and felt his heart beat, retrieve its rhythm, at last continue to labor on after a fashion. "So they're still fighting it out."

"We'll know," Adams said, speaking coolly, professionally. "It won't be long." His tension seemed deliberately technical. And kept so.

"Was he at his big oak desk? With the flag behind?"

"Couldn't tell. Too fragmentary; it lasted--they were able to keep it on--just a split second. I think--" Adams' voice was low but quite clearly audible as, around them, tankers leisurely, with no particular concern, took their seats, yawned, murmured, chatted. They did not know; they just did not know what this meant, to them, to their future collective and intimate, personally lived, individual lives. "--to tell you the truth, the showdown evidently did _not_ come at nine o'clock a.m. New York Time. Apparently it's just coming now." He examined his watch. "It's six p.m. at the Agency. So something, god knows what, has been going on all day long." He turned his attention back to the big TV screen, then. And became silent. Waiting.

"The dart," Nicholas said, "missed, then."

"Perhaps. But that wouldn't be the end. Lantano wouldn't give up and die. Let's take this step by step. First of all, that particular weapon assembly, if it fails to meet its target, so notifies its installer owner. So no matter where he may be say a thousand miles away, Lantano would know instantly the bad news. And Foote--he'd be up to something in the meantime anyhow; I hope at Capetown. If he has the brains I know he has, definitely at Capetown. And would have disclosed to Runcible the whole business about the special project. And remember this: there are, in those conapts of Runcible's, thousands upon thousands of ex-tankers who Runcible might already have trained, armed, prepared for--" He broke off.

On the screen appeared the enormous, three-dimensional, full-color familiar ruddy but ta

"My fellow Americans," Yancy said, in his grave and firm, momentous yet considerate, even gracious voice. "I am humble before the sight of God to a

The camera retreated. Now the oak desk. The flag. As always.

Nicholas said to Joseph Adams, "Brose got them. Before they got him." He felt leaden, dulled. It was over.

Well, that was that. And--maybe for the better. Who knew? Who would ever know? And still the great real task lay ahead, for him, for all the tankers. Nothing less than a total, absolute war to the end, to try to break through and stay broken through to the Earth's surface.

On the screen in a trembling, overcome voice Talbot Yancy said, "Today I can inform you, every one of you down beneath the ground where you have for so long labored, year in, year out--"

Adams grated, "_Get to it_."

"--without complaint, enduring and suffering, and always having faith... now, my friends, that faith which has so long been tested can be justified. The war, my friends, is over."

After a moment--Wheeling Hall and the people scattered here and there in it were dead-still--Nicholas turned; he and Adams looked at each other.

"And soon, my friends," Yancy continued in his heavy, solemn way, "you shall come up to your own sunlit world once again. You will be shocked, at first, by what you see; it will not be easy, and this will be slow, I must tell you; slow in coming; it must be done bit by bit. But it is here now. All fighting has ceased. The Soviet Union, Cuba, all members of Pac-Peop, has as an entitey resigned itself, agreed, at last, to--"

"Lantano," Adams said, unbelievingly.

Getting to his feet, Nicholas walked up the aisle, out of Wheeling Hall.

In the corridor, alone, he stood in silence, thinking. Evidently Lantano, with or without Webster Foote, had after all gotten Brose, either early in the morning with the high velocity dart, or, if not then and by that weapon, later on. And in some other but absolutely professional, equally serviceable way. Aimed, of necessity, at the old brain itself, because that alone could not be replaced. When that organ was gone it was over. And it is over.

Brose, he realized, is dead. There is no doubt of it. This was the proof--what we were waiting for. The one, the only sign we down here would receive. The reign of the Yance-man, the fraud of thirteen years, or forty-three if you start with Fischer's documentaries--all over.

For better or worse.

Appearing beside him Adams stood for a moment; neither of them spoke and then Adams said, "It all depends on Runcible and Foote, at this point. Maybe they can drag Lantano into a stalemate. Moderate him. What in the old U.S. Government was called 'balance of power.' Possibly through an appearance before the Recon Dis-In Council; insist on--" He gestured. "God knows. I hope _they_ do. It's a mess, Nick; honest to god--I know without being up there and seeing; it's a terrible mess and it'll be a mess for a long time."

"But," Nicholas said, "we're going to start emerging."

Adams said, "What I'm waiting to see is how Lantano or whoever it is that's ru

"You think," Nicholas said, "that the biggest lie is still to come?"

After a long, visibly tormented pause Adams said, "Yes."

"They can't just tell the truth?"

"The what? Listen, Nick; whoever they are, whatever combination out of all the possible crazy bedfellow co