3001 The Final Odyssey

chapter 37 Operation Damocles
Poole never had much contact with the team who assembled the weapon everyone hoped would never have to be used. The operation - ominously, but aptly, named Damocles - was so highly specialized that he could contribute nothing directly, and he saw enough of the task force to realize that some of them might almost belong to an alien species. Indeed, one key member was apparently in a lunatic asylum - Poole had been surprised to find that such places still existed - and Chairperson Oconnor sometimes suggested that at least two others should join him.

'Have you ever heard of the Enigma Project?' she remarked to Poole, after a particularly frustrating session. When he shook his head, she continued: 'I'm surprised - it was only a few decades before you were born: I came across it while when I was researching material for Damocles. Very similar problem - in one of your wars, a group of brilliant mathematicians was gathered together, in great secrecy, to break an enemy code... incidentally, they built one of the very first real computers, to make the job possible.'

'And there's a lovely story - I hope it's true - that reminds me of our own little team. One day the Prime Minister came on a visit of inspection, and afterwards he said to Enigma's Director: "When I told you to leave no stone unturned to get the men you needed, I didn't expect you to take me so literally".'

Presumably all the right stones had been turned for Project Damocles. However, as no one knew whether they were working against a deadline of days, weeks or years, at first it was hard to generate any sense of urgency. The need for secrecy also created problems; since there was no point in spreading alarm throughout the Solar System, not more than fifty people knew of the project. But they were the people who mattered - who could marshal all the forces necessary, and who alone could authorize the opening of the Pico Vault, for the first time in five hundred years.

When Halman reported that the Monolith was receiving messages with increasing frequency, there seemed little doubt that something was going to happen. Poole was not the only one who found it hard to sleep in those days, even with the help of the Braincap's anti-insomnia programs. Before he finally did get to sleep, he often wondered if he would wake up again. But at last all the components of the weapon were assembled - a weapon invisible, untouchable and unimaginable to almost all the warriors who had ever lived.

Nothing could have looked more harmless and innocent than the perfectly standard terabyte memory tablet, used with millions of Braincaps every day. But the fact that it was encased in a massive block of crystalline material, criss-crossed with metal bands, indicated that it was something quite out of the ordinary. Poole received it with reluctance; he wondered if the courier who had been given the awesome task of carrying the Hiroshima atom bomb's core to the Pacific airbase from which it was launched had felt the same way. And yet, if all their fears were justified, his responsibility might be even greater.

And he could not be certain that even the first part of his mission would be successful. Because no circuit could be absolutely secure, Halman had not yet been informed about Project Damocles; Poole would do that when he returned to Ganymede.

Then he could only hope that Halman would be willing to play the role of Trojan Horse - and, perhaps, be destroyed in the process.