Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Foreign Hand Tie
BY DAVID GORDON
Just because you can "see" something doesn't mean youunderstand it—and that can mean that even perfect telepathyisn't perfect communication....
illustrated by barberis
From Istanbul, in Turkish Thrace, to Moscow, U.S.S.R., is only a couple ofhours outing for a round trip in a fast jet plane—a shade less thaneleven hundred miles in a beeline.
Unfortunately, Mr. Raphael Poe had no way of chartering a bee.
The United States Navy cruiser Woonsocket, having made its placid wayacross the Mediterranean, up the Aegean Sea, and through the Dardanellesto the Bosporous, stopped overnight at Istanbul and then turned around andwent back. On the way in, it had stopped at Gibraltar, Barcelona,Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, and Athens—the main friendly ports on thenorthern side of the Mediterranean. On the way back, it performed the sameritual on the African side of the sea. Its most famous passengers were theAmerican Secretary of State, two senators, and three representatives.
Its most important passenger was Mr. Raphael Poe.
During the voyage in, Mr. Raphael Poe remained locked in a stateroom, allby himself, twiddling his thumbs restlessly and playing endless games ofsolitaire, making bets with himself on how long it would be before theship hit the next big wave and wondering how long it would take a man togo nuts in isolation. On the voyage back, he was not aboard theWoonsocket at all, and no one missed him because only the captain andtwo other Navy men had known he was aboard, and they knew that he had beendropped overboard at Istanbul.
The sleek, tapered cylindroid might easily have been mistaken for a Navaltorpedo, since it was roughly the same size and shape. Actually, it was asort of hybrid, combining the torpedo and the two-man submarine that theJapanese had used in World War II, plus refinements contributed by suchapparently diverse arts as skin-diving, cybernetics, and nucleonics.
Inside this one-man underwater vessel, Raphael Poe lay prone, guiding thelittle atomic-powered submarine across the Black Sea, past Odessa, and upthe Dnieper. The first leg, the four hundred miles from the Bosporous tothe mouth of the river, was relatively easy. The two hundred and sixtymiles from there to the Dnepropetrovsk was a little more difficult, butnot terribly so. It became increasingly more difficult as the Dniepernarrowed and became more shallow.
On to Kiev. His course changed at Dnepropetrovsk, from northeast tonorthwest, for the next two hundred fifty miles. At Kiev, the riverchanged course again, heading north. Three hundred and fifty miles fartheron, at Smolensk, he was heading almost due east.
It had not been an easy trip. At night, he had surfaced to get hisbearings and to recharge the air tanks. Several times, he had had to taketo the land, using the caterpillar treads on the little machine, becauseof obstacles in the river.
At the end of the ninth day, he was still one hundred eighty miles fromMoscow, but, at that point, he got out of the submarine and preparedhimself for the trip overland. When he was ready, he pressed a specialbutton on the contro