The Rings of Tantalus Read Free Page A

smile. “Somebody wants to bust up de party, and we don’t know who it is.”
    “We must not take it for granted that there is a saboteur in the cooler,” said Conrad. “For all we know, the four recruits still on ice may be first class Expendables. The training programme showed that they were all outstanding.”
    “It would,” retorted Kwango. “Anybody planted would have to prove that he—or she—was damn good… No, Commander. They didn’t send you that message just to make you nervous. If we assume that one or more of our cool friends is going to remain cool towards us when brought up to room temperature, we may live a little longer.”
    “Have you had a chance to look at their files again?” asked Lieutenant Smith.
    Conrad nodded. “It didn’t make me any wiser. In theory, Alexei Pushkin, being Russian, should be above suspicion. He was convicted for murdering his wife. Oddly, she was a U.N. delegate. Even more oddly, at a press conference, she went on record as saying that Third World countries were already getting too much aid and doing little to help themselves. She said that unless various South American and Arab countries accepted a strict programme of birth control, they ought to be left to fend for themselves. Incidentally, the motive for murder established at Pushkin’s trial was jealousy. It seems the late Mrs. Pushkin was pretty generous with her favours— particularly where they might help her political career.”
    Kwango gave a low whistle. “So Alexei, our friend and brother, might have knocked her off not for laying but for saying?”
    Conrad gave a faint smile. “Precisely. We have a similar difficulty with Lisa Uhlmann. Though she is American, her particular crime consisted of holding the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico for ransom. She wanted the U.S. to increase its aid to Latin-American countries by fifteen per cent . And how do you like that?”
    “Not greatly, Boss.” Kwango laughed. “But, as your resident genius, I now proclaim that a pattern is going to emerge. We are going to find reasons for suspecting all four. Right?”
    “Right.”
    “Wrong,” said Lieutenant Smith. “Ruth Zonis is an Israeli. I got to know her fairly well on the training programme. She is absolutely dedicated to the programme of extra-solar colonisation. Also, she comes from a small but highly efficient country that solved all its own problems the hard way and now has a highly integrated and independent economy. She has no motive for aiding and abetting Third World blackmail.”
    “Ruth Zonis,” said Conrad drily, “is a very idealistic woman. She was one of a team of Israelis sentenced to twenty years hard labour by an Egyptian court for trying to lift just about half the treasures of the Pharaohs from Cairo Museum. The aim was a subtle one. They were not trying to gain anything directly for Israel. That would have brought about yet another Arab-Israeli conflict. They simply wanted to blackmail U.N. into giving the Arab countries the know-how and the resources for turning their deserts into fertile agricultural lands. That way, they thought, it would be possible to cool the old Arab-Israeli feud for good.”
    Lieutenant Smith shook her head. “I still think Lisa would not dream of sabotage. She is not stupid. She knows that the colonisation programme is set apart from any political manoeuvres on Earth. It isn’t dominated by American or Russian or Third World thinking. She knows that the long-range issue is simply racial survival.”
    “And I bet she also knows,” said Kwango drily, “that if ExPEND folded, the Arabs would get a lot more aid. Idealists are very dangerous people.” He grinned. “Especially if they happen to be women.”
    Lieutenant Smith said nothing, merely contenting herself with gazing at Kwango coldly.
    “The Number One Suspect, of course,” resumed Conrad, “is Ahmed Khelad. Ironically, he was on the same kick as Zonis. Only Khelad tackled it the Ar a b way. He and three