A whole factory in the Donbas was converted to manufacturing these little mental controllers as fast as they could be produced—and that was fast, for they were simple in design to begin with and were quickly refined to a few circuits. Even the surgical wiring to the brain became unnecessary as induction coils tapped the encephalic rhythms. Only the great amplifying hookup was really complicated. Only one of those was necessary, for a single amplifier could serve as re-broadcaster—modulator for thousands of the headsets.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Hsi demanded.
Chandler put down his fork, lit a cigarette and beckoned to the waiter. "I'm all right. I just want another drink."
He needed the drink. For now he knew what he was building for Koitska.
The waiter brought two more drinks and carried away the uneaten food. "We don't know exactly who did what after that," Hsi said, "but somehow or other it got out of hand. I think it was the technical crew of the factory that took over. I suppose it was an inevitable danger." He grinned savagely. "I can just imagine the Party workers in the factory," he said, "trying to figure out how to keep them in line—bribe them or terrify them? Give them dachas or send a quota to Siberia? Neither would work, of course, because there isn't any bribe you can give to a man who only has to stretch out his hand to take over the world, and you can't frighten a man who can make you slit your own throat. Anyway, the next thing that happened—the following Christmas—was when they took over the world. It wasn't a Party movement at all any more. A lot of the workers were Czechs and Hungarians and Poles, and the first thing they wanted to do was to even a few scores.
"So here they are! Before they let the whole world go bang they got out of range. They got themselves out of Russia on two Red Navy cruisers, about a thousand of them; then they systematically triggered off every ballistic missile they could find ... and they could find all of them, sooner or later, it was just a matter of looking. As soon as it was safe they moved in here. Best place in the world for them.
"There are only a thousand or so of them here on the Islands, and nobody outside the Islands even knows where they are. If they did, what good would it do them? They can kill anyone, anywhere. They kill for fun, but sometimes they kill for a reason too. When one of them goes wandering for kicks he makes it a point to mess up all the transport and communications facilities he comes across—especially now, since they've stockpiled everything they're likely to need for the next twenty years. We don't know what they're planning to do when the twenty years are up. Maybe they don't care. Would you?"
Chandler drained his drink and shook his head. "One question," he said. "Who's 'we'?"
Hsi carefully unwrapped a package of cigarettes, took one out and lit it. He looked at it as though he were not enjoying it; cigarettes had a way of tasting stale these days. As they were. "Just a minute," he said.