Atomsk, by Carmichael Smith
 Atomsk is a clever and engaging spy
novel.... It was written by Paul M. A. Linebarger under
the pen name of Carmichael Smith, shortly before he began
writing as Cordwainer Smith. This book draws on the
principles of Psychological Warfare, a field which he
helped to found. (His book of that title,
written under his own name, is one of the classics of the
field.)
Atomsk is out of print. Copies of it tend to fetch high
prices in the used book market. But it's now available as an
immediately downloadable ebook!
It's always been one of my favorites of my father's
writings, so for those of you who are readers more than
collectors, I spent some time scanning in my copy and making an
ebook. You can read it onscreen or print it out.
Atomsk begins not long after World War II, with the American
military in occupied Japan concerned about a very secret
Russian city in Siberia. General Coppersmith asks Major Michael
Dugan, "the greatest spy in the world," to help.
"I want you to spoil the secret of Atomsk."
"Atomsk?"
Coppersmith spelled it out, adding, "It's the
Russian atomic center. We want them to know that we
know all about it. We want them to guess as to how
we know about it... For that, we need a man as a
weapon."
"To go in, to get out, and after he was out, to
leave traces?"
"Right."
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Here's another bit, to give you more of a taste. This is
from the third chapter. We are looking through the eyes of
Captain Sarah Lomax, who is helping to prepare Major Dugan for
his trip with its impossible odds.
While Dugan was talking, Sarah studied him. He was
of middle height. There was a quaint mobility to
his face, a quickness of expression which made her
suspect that in his early childhood some
warm-hearted quickly responsive woman had taught
him the rudiments of human relationships. He was
acting a role, but it was a role which he enjoyed
acting. He was talking, smiling, agreeing,
dissenting, frowning, smiling again, all in
turn.
Who was she to say that this was not the real, the
true Dugan? People were not their dead selves but
their live selves. Yet in the case of a man like
Dugan, there must be alternative selves, other
personalities patterned to the occasion and the
culture. Dugan-the-Japanese must have been just as
believable as Dugan-the-American; Japanese must
have liked him because he was Japanese; otherwise
he would have been found out and killed. How could
she like a man who existed only by virtue of his
own command, who played perpetually on a stage of
make-believe?
What was he, anyway? Dugan was no name for a man
with black hair, black eyes, olive skin -- or was
it? Was he a Turk or a Greek, an Italian or an
Egyptian, or (wildest chance of all, this) simply
an American?... Swanson had just said, "I knew the
pilot. They killed him. They had a right to, but I
hate them for it just the same." Sarah supposed he
was talking about the photo plane. Dugan responded
by closing his face -- literally shutting out all
expression for an instant -- so that he looked like
a dead man. Or like a Japanese!
Sarah saw, with a flash of intuition, that she had
caught him betraying himself -- for the first
distinguishable second in days of their being
together. For once, Dugan had gone back to his
wartime role and had responded with the manner of a
Japanese, the dead formal silence with which
Japanese men bore news of disaster. He must have
had many friends among the Japanese during his
years of wartime spying; and of them, many must
have died, so that the expression of quick military
sorrow could have become habitual.
But before she could catch her breath or say
anything, Dugan let his face go doleful in the
American manner. He looked Irish again, and
American too.... She picked up the thread of the
conversation again. Dugan was protesting, "You
mustn't hate the Russians. If you do have to fight
them, hating them is no use, medically or
psychologically. It reduces your own
efficiency."
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To order Atomsk as an immediately downloadable
ebook for $9.95 and no shipping, click
here and you will be transported to Clickbank, which
handles our downloadable products.
To read or print out this ebook, you will need the free
program, Adobe Acrobat reader, which reads .PDF files. You
probably have it on your computer, but if not, go to
http://www.adobe.com,
where the link to download the reader is always shown. .(If
you have a website that you would like to sell
Atomsk from, sign up at Clickbank.com and you'll
earn 75% of the price minus the Clickbank fees.)
If you would like to buy Atomsk as a book, you can
often find used copies online. I've seen it at Alibris, a network of booksellers from
various countries.
Amazon.com doesn't sell it directly but often carries copies
from its bookseller network:
Tony Lewis, who wrote the Concordance to Cordwainer Smith,
said of Atomsk:
Atomsk is what we now call a techno-thriller. It was
written twenty-five years too early. Had it been written
later, it would have been acclaimed as well, the sort of
thing that Tom Clancy made millions out of! The seeds fell
on ground that hadn't been ploughed and fertilized yet, as
it were.
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