The Sword and the Net полностью

He left the blue suit behind him, but each piece of the stout and serviceable and well-used seaman’s clothing he wore was crudely marked with the name N. Jorgensen in indelible ink and a calligraphy which he himself might have thought was his own.

More, he had a well-loaded duffel bag—and in it, besides spare clothing, a sizeable locked strong-box of battered metal. In this box, besides many other necessary things such as his official Identity Card and his seaman’s papers, was a whole background, meticulously compiled, for Nils Jorgensen, comprising such precise and likely data as yellowed old photographs and snapshots of Nils’ father and mother; of Nils himself (it was astonishing how closely the infants and boys resembled Otto Falken); and of their farmhouse in northern Norway. There were also such matters as a beribboned lock of blond hair, a small tattered Bible signed by Jorgensen père et mère—and much more. . . .

As he contemplated these things, Otto was again overcome by awe-stricken admiration for the godlike thoroughness of the great Machine which now, for Germany’s sake, controlled him. And he wondered increasingly, with each passing hour of this monotonous voyage towards Lisbon, what subtle and intricate steps would be taken to secure the unobtrusive entrance of Nils Jorgensen to Britain: he was more certain than ever, now, that this must be his destination.

For no one had told him, yet, that he was going to America!

They did not, in fact, tell him until he was in Lisbon, and already—by a curious and amazingly fortuitous-seeming set of circumstances—on the way to becoming a crew-member of the fifteen-thousand-ton Vulcania, which flew the red ensign of Britain and was New York bound and had only touched at Lisbon, it seemed, for twenty-four hours of minor repairs.

It had all been very curious, extremely exciting—and further proof of the incredible, minute precision with which the hidden Machine did its work; a precision so delicate that even he himself had not sensed the first link in the chain as being anything but an uninspired and extremely annoying trick of chance. It was not, indeed, until his course was crossed by the third of the planned events that he realized the chain for what it was and became at ease in his troubled mind.

The first thing was the interview, just as they sighted Lisbon, with fat old Captain Svensen of the Lars Bjolnar. Svensen had told him of orders from his owners, received by radio, to the effect that his crew must be cut down. He had even shown the message, to prove that his forthcoming dismissal of Otto was none of his fault. He was very kindly, and appeared genuinely distressed.

Then, just as Otto, ashore and shipless, was desperately worrying as to what he should do next in view of this unexpected intrusion of Fate into the plans of the Reich in so far as they concerned Otto Falken, had come the chance meeting in the tavern with the grizzled Norwegian bos’un of the Lars Bjolnar. And then the hailing of the bos’un by the little English quartermaster; and the round of drinks—and then, as the Englishman, upon hearing that Nils Jorgensen was without a ship, became suddenly interested, the realization that the Machine had been at work the whole time!

The Englishman left soon, and before anything was settled—but Otto, in his new-found knowledge, did not worry. He just waited. He was learning fast, and knew that it was worse than useless to search for the Machine: when it was ready, and when it wanted him, it would stretch out a long steel tentacle and find him.

It did, within an hour of his leaving the tavern. It found him in the street as he was making for the unsavoury sailors’ dormitory where he had a bed. Out from a low, sagging little doorway over which, with that haphazard interchangeability of B and V which distinguishes the Portuguese language as it is written, appeared the sign ‘Bom Bino,’ a man staggered across Otto’s path. He was a large man, fat and tall and heavy and very drunk. Otto sidestepped to avoid him; then nearly fell over the bulk as it collapsed at his feet, a great belch coming from its throat and a cascade of papers from its coat pocket.

Otto might have moved on—he was not kindly disposed towards sottishness. But he could not move, for the fallen sot had a strong arm wound about his ankles. So Otto stooped to disengage the arm—and saw, lying atop of the scattered papers, a cheap little pencil of the propelling kind whose metal top had been replaced by a crudely fitted piece of wood. . . .

He did not disengage the arm and go on his way. Instead, he became very busy in helping the fallen, picking up his belongings, setting him up on unsteady feet and restoring a semblance of order to his clothes.