To The Stars

“Citizens of the world. We are in the midst of a terrible war brought to us by anarchist elements among the body of faithful citizens of the planets of the great Commonwealth of Earth. But I am not here to discuss that now, that great battle that our citizen-soldiers are waging and winning for the freedom of mankind. I am here to tell you of an even greater threat to our security. Certain individuals in the United Nations Conclave of Israel have been holding back vital food supplies for their own benefit. They are war profiteers, making money out of the starvation of others. This will not be permitted to continue. They must be made to understand the error of their ways. Justice must be done before others try to follow their example.”

Doctor Mahant sighed; the weight of responsibility for the world was upon his shoulders. But he accepted the burden and went on.

“Even as I talk our soldiers are moving into Egypt, Jordan, Syria and all of the other important food-producing countries in this area. No one of you will go hungry, that I promise you. Food shipments will continue despite the efforts of the selfish minority. Rebellion will be put down and we will march on together to victory.”

The President faded from view to the accompaniment of jubilant recorded applause and his image was replaced by the blue and white flag of Earth cracking in the wind. The brass band played enthusiastically. Ben-Haim turned off the set.

“I don’t understand,” Jan said.

“I do, only too well,” Ben-Haim answered. “You are forgetting that the rest of the world does not even know that our nation exists. They will be only too happy to see these countries occupied to make sure their bellies stay full. These are lands of peasant farmers for the most part, shipping out their produce through their cooperatives. But we are the ones who taught them how to irrigate and fertilize the desert to grow these crops, and we are the ones who set up their marketing boards as well. And our country has handled all of the external shipments with our fleet of air transports. Until now. Now do you see what he is doing to us? We are being pushed out, sent back within our own borders. And more attrition will follow. This is all Thurgood-Smythe’s doing. No one else cares about the fate of this tiny corner of the world, not at this time. And see what a good student of history he is. With what care he revives those sneering twentieth century terms of approbation, those anti-semitic labels that surely date back to medieval Europe. Profiteers, usurers, getting rich while others starve. His message is very clear.”

Jan nodded. “Forcing your hand. If you don’t do as he ordered, the country is going to suffer.”

“Either way we suffer. We lose or we lose. As long as the big powers of the world paid no attention to us we survived. Our tiny balance of terror, our few atom bombs in exchange for their myriad atom bombs made us not worth bothering about. As long as we kept peace in the Far East, stayed humbly in this area — and saw that they had continuous supplies of fresh oranges and avocados in the winter time, why then we just weren’t worth bothering about. Now Thurgood-Smythe is tightening the clamps and this war gives him a perfect excuse. Their troops will move in slowly, up to our borders. We can’t stop them. They’ll occupy all of our external missile sites. When that is done they can drop their bombs or send in the tanks. It makes no difference. We lose either way?”

“And Thurgood-Smythe will do it,” Jan said angrily. “Not out of revenge for your not helping him — that would be a show of emotion, and an emotional person can always be appealed to, possibly convinced to change his mind. But Thurgood-Smythe will proceed calmly to do this, even if all of his plans fail. What he begins he finishes. He wants you to be sure of that.”

“You know him. very well,” Ben-Haim said, looking closely at Jan. “Wheels within wheels. I can see why he sent you as emissary. There was really no need to have you carry his message in person. But he wanted us to be absolutely sure of his resolve, to know exactly what kind of man he really was. So you are the devil’s advocate, God help you whether you like it or not. We are back once again to the father of lies. Best not to let the rabbis get hold of this theory or they will have us all believing it.”

“What are we to do?” Dvora asked, her voice empty and lost.

“The Knesset must be convinced that our only chance now is to proceed along the lines Thurgood-Smythe has laid out. I will have the radio message sent that we will cooperate, whether the Knesset has agreed or not by that time. They’ll come around in the end. They have no alternative. And then there will have to be a second Diaspora.”

“Why? What do you mean?”