To the Stars Trilogy Part 45

Music exploded from the loudspeaker, and on the screen a mighty s.p.a.cer flashed by. It had turrets and windows, gun emplacements and energy guns. Close be-hind was its pursuer, an even larger s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

Mighty rays and beams lashed out from the s.h.i.+ps, lights flashed and there was the constant roar of engines, the zapping and cras.h.i.+ng of the rays, There was a quick cut to a man in a turret, wheeling it about to fire his ray guns as the other s.h.i.+p swooped close. Luckily the smaller s.h.i.+p darted aside in time and fled for safety behind a nearby moon. Then the screen went blank and the roars and music died away.

"What do you think about that?" Curtoni asked.

"Very little. Seemed like fun, though."

"Merda! Fun for infants in arms perhaps. But techni-cally it is a monstrosity. Not one fact-not a single one-is scientifically correct. There is no sound in s.p.a.ce, s.h.i.+ps do not stop or turn suddenly, human reflexes are worthless in s.p.a.cecraft maneuvering or warfare, ray guns do not work..."

"I'll give you all that. I suppose I never really thought about it before. But don't dismiss the rays so quickly. I've worked with fusion cannon. They turn rock to lava in a few seconds."

"Of course!" Curtoni held his hands out in the air, about a hundred centimeters apart. "When the rock is this far away. What about a hundred meters away? Would it set fire to a piece of paper? Or a thousand kilometers, which is practically touching in s.p.a.ce, when it would probably look like a light bulb if you could see it at all. The propagation of light, the propagation of any form of energy...

"Of course, varies in proportion with the inverse square of the distance. I wasn't thinking."

"Exactly! No one ever does until they are face to face with the problem. Which is why I show everyone my little training film first. It makes a point. Another point is that s.p.a.ce war is so close to impossible that it can be called highly improbable."

"But we're fighting one now, aren't we?"

Curtoni switched on the apparatus on onelong bench and shook his head no. "We are fighting a rebellion, with Earth s.h.i.+ps standing up to Earth s.h.i.+ps. A real war, with s.h.i.+ps from different civilizations coming from distant stars. Bunk.u.m, like that thing we just saw. Even Earth's s.p.a.ce Force never planned for a war. When hostilities began only a few of their s.h.i.+ps had weapons. Installed but never used since the Commonwealth had absolute control of s.p.a.ce and all of the s.p.a.cers. They thought one or two might be seized some time, so prepared their weapons just in case. And all of the same simple design. And what would that be?"

"Missiles obviously, adapted from those already de-signed for use in the atmosphere."

"Perfectly correct. And how long do you think it would take us to design, develop and test our own missiles?"

"Years. Even if you captured some and copied them, the manufacture of circuitry, control systems, ..... .

probably just about as long."

"Perfectly correct. It is a pleasure to speak with an intelligent man-that is of course someone who agrees with me. So we dropped the missile approach, though of course we have some on the s.p.a.ce Force s.h.i.+ps that we took over. It was more important to develop defenses first which we did by copying and modifying the Earth detec-tion systems. We see the missiles coming, then generate electronic fields to mislead their guidance systems. For offense we have taken a more simple line. Like this."

He picked up a small finned piece of metal from the bench and bounced it in his hand.

"That's a slug from a rocket pistol," Jan said.

"Perfectly true. And a better weapon in s.p.a.ce than it ever can be on a planet. No gravity to drop it, no air to slow it.

"Or guide it. The fins are useless."

'Again you are right, Jan. It had to be redesigned with the thrust ahead of the center of gravity. Very simple. Even simpler to mount a number of firing tubes on a turret and have the whole thing controlled by the naviga-tion computer. Put a flock of these things into s.p.a.ce in front of a s.p.a.cer and you have a wreck. Speed equals ma.s.s and a few grams of metal will impact with tonnes of force. Good-bye enemy."

Jan turned the tiny rocket over and over in his fin-gers. "I do see one or two problems. Distance and speed, or rather they're both the same thing. You can't pack enough thrust into something this tiny."

"Of course. These are mostly for defense. For attack we have developed this."

He turned to the work bench and picked up a small metal ball, then pressed a b.u.t.ton on the control board. Jan could hear a faint humming sound, and when Curtoni held the sphere close to a vertical metal ring secured to the bench it sprang from his hand and hung, suspended, in the center of the ring. There were other rings mounted close together down the length of the bench. When Curtoni pressed a second b.u.t.ton there was a whistling sound and a flash and the sphere vanished. A loud crack echoed from the other end of the compartment as it crashed into the thick plastic sheet, hung there and dropped to the deck.

"Linear accelerator," Jan said~ "Just like the ones on the Moon."

"Exactly the same. The large Lunar models take con-tainers filled with ore and shoot them right out of the Moon's gravity, to the Lagrange satellite colonies for processing. As you see a magnetic field is created in the first electromagnet ring. It suspends the iron sphere. Then, when the series of electromagnets are activated, they act as a linear motor, moving the sphere along faster and faster until it shoots out of the far end." He turned and picked up a larger sphere that nestled comfortably in his hand.

"This seems to be the most practical size we have discovered by trial and error. It weighs a little under three kilograms, which is almost exactly six pounds in one of the more archaic systems of measurement.

When I was researching this project I was helped a good deal by early ballistic texts that dealt with muzzle velocities and like terms. I was fascinated to find out that primitive sea battles were actually fought with solid shot of just this weight. History has many lessons for us."

"How far have you gone with the project?" Jan asked.

"Four deep s.p.a.cers have been converted to cannon s.h.i.+ps. This is one of them. Named after one of the earliest theoreticians of the science who made such incredible drawings of his weapons. Leonardo da Vinci. We have loaded these s.h.i.+ps with hundreds of thousands of cannon-b.a.l.l.s which have been forged in s.p.a.ce from satellite iron. Most easily too. The specified ma.s.s of molten iron is released in free fall, whereupon its surface tension forms it into a perfect sphere. The secret weapons run the length of the s.h.i.+ps and project from each end. The entire s.h.i.+p is rotated to aim the cannon, with aiming and firing con-trolled by the navigation computer. It all works well ex-cept for one small fault."

"What's that?"

"Bugs in the control circuitry. The spheres must be launched within microseconds of each other to be effec-tive. But we haven't been able to do this yet."

Jan threw the cannonball back onto the bench and smiled. "Let me see your doc.u.mentation and your dia-grams and I'll do my best to get rid of your bugs."

"Instantly! You will win this war for us yet!"

Seventeen.

"The fruit is ripe for harvesting," the old man said. "The longer we leave it the more we will lose."

"There are a lot more important things you can lose," his daughter said. "Like your head, maybe. Come on, Tata, the others are all waiting."

The old man sighed with resignation and followed her out to the kibbutz truck. He was the last one to arrive and the others pushed over to make room for him on the crowded wooden benches. The firebox had been loaded with resinous pine logs an hour earlier so there was a good head of steam. As soon as he had the signal that they were all aboard, the driver opened the throttle and they moved out. Past the buildings where the lights still burned warmly and down the winding lane through the orchards and out onto the main road. They drove in darkness, but the smooth surface was easy to see in the dim light from the starfilled sky.

They crossed the Syrian border a little after midnight, the transponder in the truck answering the request from the detection circuits with its identification code; the com-puter in Tel Aviv made a note of its departure. Just before they reached El Quneitra the truck turned in to a deep wadi that wound back from the road. The darkness was intense between its high walls and the driver felt his way along, stopping suddenly when a light blinked ahead. There were camels waiting here and murmured guttural greetings as the pa.s.sengers disembarked. The driver waited in the cab as they went by, some of them reaching up to pat his arm, others murmuring a few words. When they had all vanished in the darkness he reversed out and drove the truck back to the empty buildin~s of the kibbutz, reaching there just before dawn. He was the volunteer who was staying on.

"Like a city of the dead when I came through on the way here," the painter said. 'A very frightening proposi-tion to one of any imagination at all. Streets empty of children, only a few vehicles moving, one or two other pedestrians. It was dusk and the lights were coming on in the houses which at first I found very cheering. That is until I looked into the windows of one as I pa.s.sed and saw that it was empty. It was the computers doing it, and I felt even more uncomfortable. Hold that corner of the stencil tight, if it's not asking too much, Heimyonkel." He swung the spray gun back and forth with practiced skill. "When do you go?"

"Tonight. The family is already out."

"Kiss your wife for me and tell her to think of a lonely bachelor in her dreams, alone and preparing for destiny among the shadowy hangars of Lod Airport."

"You volunteered."

"So I volunteered. That doesn't mean I have to be laughing with joy does it? All right, take it down."

The painter stepped back and admired his work. On both swelling sides, and the wings, of the Anan-13 heavy transport the six-pointed star of Israel had been painted over. In its place was a starkly black cross.

"Symbolic, and not too nice," the painter said. "If you read history, which you don't, because you're a yould, you would recognize that cross. Do you?"

Heimyonkel shrugged and poured silver paint care-fully into the spray gun.

"It's the cross of Germany, that's what it is, obliterat-mg the Mogen David of Israel. Which is not nice and also, I wonder what the h.e.l.l it is supposed to mean. Does the government know what it's doing? I ask you but you don't know and, P.S., I don't know either."

Large sheets of paper were fastened into place with tape to cover the new insignia. After this had been painted silver there was nothing visible at a distance to indicate that the work had been done.

Amri Ben-Haim was very worried. He sat slumped in his favorite chair, staring at nothing, while the gla.s.s of lemon tea grew cold before him. Only when the sound of an approaching copter drew his attention did he sit up alertly and look toward the door. He sipped some of the tea and wrinkled his lips with displeasure. As he put it down Dvora came through the door with a package.

'Another one, and delivered by a Security policeman as well. Made my flesh crawl. He just smiled when he handed it over and wouldn't say a word."

"Reflex sadism," Ben-H~im said, taking the thick en-velope from her. "He can have no idea of its contents. Those kind of people just enjoy making others suffer." He shook out the familiar sealed metal box and tapped out the combination. When it snapped open he took the disc it contained and put it into the computer. Thurgood-Smythe's unsmiling features appeared in the screen.

"This is our final communication, Ben-Haim," he said. "By now your troops and planes wilL be ready to begin the operation as instructed. The exact date will be given to you later this month, and you have your depar-ture and flight plan. You will be flying in darkness all the way, so that will take care of visual and satellite observa-tion. You have your instructions about the radar nets. Never forget that this is a coordinated attack and exact timing is the only way to prevent disaster."

Thurgood-Smythe glanced down out of sight of the camera and smiled very slightly.

"I have a number of reports here that inform me that you seem to be moving a great deal of your population out of the country at night. Very wise. There is always the chance of a nuke or two, even if things go perfectly. Out of spite you might say. Or perhaps it is that you don't trust me? Nor should you have reason to. Nevertheless you are taking the correct course of action and victory is its own reward.

"I hope to be at s.p.a.ceconcent in Mojave when you arrive. Do arrange with your troops not to have me shot, if you don't mind. Good-bye then, Amri Ben-Haim. Pray for success in our ventures."

The image vanished. Ben-Haim turned away from the screen shaking his head. "Don't shoot him! I'll flay him alive if anything goes wrong with this plan!"

Fryer panted heavily as he dragged his bad leg up the stairs, climbing a single step at a time. He carried the gun over his shoulder in order to leave one hand free to clutch onto the bannister. It was a hot, close day, and sweat cut runnels through the dust on his face. The boy struggled along behind him with the heavy case of grenades.

"In here," Fryer said, opening the door carefully and looking in first to be sure that the curtains were still closed. 'All in order, my lad. Put them there under the window and go on about your business. I'll give you ten minutes to get clear. Go slow and don't get stopped at any checkpoints. If you do it will get into the London comput-er that you were in this area, and that will be the end of you.

"Can't I stay, Fryer? I could help, help you get away too with that b.u.m leg."

"Don't worry, lad, they won't get the old Fryer. They got me once, right and proper, give me this leg and a tour I of the camps in the Highlands. Once was more than enough of that, let me tell you. I'm not going back. But you're getting out, now, and that's an order."

Fryer sat down on the case with a wheeze of relief and is listened to the footsteps retreating back down the stairs.

Good. One less thing to worry about. He dug out a joint, thin and black and almost pure hash. A few good lungfuls had him feeling better so that he didn't even notice the pain in the leg. He smoked slowly and carefully, and waited until the roach was burning his lips before he spat it out, grinding it under his heel into the plank floor. Then he drew the curtains aside and carefully lifted open the window. A light breeze blew in from Marlybone, carrying with it the sound of heavy traffic. A military convoy was pa.s.sing and he drew back against the wall until it had gone by. When the sound had dwindled and vanished he pulled open the lid of the case. Taking out one of the grenades he bounced the chunky cylinder in his palm. Made by hand from sc.r.a.p metal, shaped and filed and loaded with care. When he had tested the gun out in the wasteland only one in~twenty had misfired. And they had improved the things since then, he had been told. He hoped so. Holding the gun with the base down he let lettheI grenade slide down the tubular barrel. It hit the bottom of I the barrel with a solid chunk. Good. Fryer leaned forward and looked across the road at the gray cliff of Security Central.

Not a window broke the grim facade. The headquar-ters of Security in Britain, and now possibly the whole world. A prime target. If the calculations were correct the launching charge should be just enough to put the thing onto the roof of the first setback on the front of the building, Only one way to find out.

Fryer put the gun to his shoulder, aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger.

The gun cracked and the b.u.t.t smacked him hard in the shoulder. He saw the black speck arc up and over the edge. Perfect. Another grenade dropped down the barrel and when he fired this time he saw white smoke beginning to billow up from the roof of the setback.

"Well done, me old son," he said cheerfully, then put round after round as close to the same place as he could. The thermite in the grenades would burn through anything, that's what the boffin had said. He was absolutely correct.

Alarms were going now and armed men were begin-ning to appear in the street below. Fryer drew back from the window so they couldn't see him, then lay p.r.o.ne on the floor and continued to fire from that position.

The next time he pulled the trigger there was only an angry hiss from the gun.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" he muttered savagely as he rolled over and inverted the gun to bang the muzzle on the floor. The misfired grenade slid out and dropped free, smoking and sputtering. He clutched at it, grabbed it up cursing at his burnt hand, then threw it through the window. There was an explosion just below followed by screams of pain.

Serve the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds right, he thought, getting too close. He scrambled to the door, ignoring the pain in his hand, and fired the next one down the stairwell. There were more shouts and a spray of bullets that pa.s.sed over his head. That would keep them busy for a bit.

There were only two grenades left when they broke the door down. He fired one of them at the attacking men and was reaching for the very last grenade when the bullets tore through him. He died quickly, lying on his back under the windo~~~ looking up at the clouds of smoke blowing by outside.

Eighteen Admiral Comrade Kapustin felt very secure, very secure indeed. He whistled lightly through his teeth while he pulled his high leather boots on, then stood and smoothed down his tunic before the mirror, pulling at it so it bloused out nicely above the wide leather belt. The rows of medals and decorations clinked gently when he strode to the door and threw it open. There was a clatter and a stamp as the marine guard outside drew himself up to attention. The Admiral touched his fingertips idly to the visor of his cap to return the salute as he strode by. The great day was here at last! His heels slammed into the deckplates even more heavily than usual so that his spurs jingled lightly. If anyone saw anything incongruous in boots and spurs in aI s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, 200,000 miles from the nearest horse, they made no comment. The fate of anyone who dared to even smile in the direction of Admiral Comrade Kapustin was too awful to even consider.

When he entered the War Room the Admiral's aide, 3 Onyegin, was ready as always. Clicking his heels and bowing slightly as he held out the silver tray. The Admiral ft downed the little gla.s.s of frigid vodka in a single gulp, 4 then took one of the papirossi cigarettes; the aide produced a burning wooden taper to light it.

"Today is the day, Onyegin," the Admiral said, expel -I ling a cloud of aromatic smoke. "The first s.p.a.ce battle in history will be taking place soon, and I shall be the first officer ever to win one. A place in the history books. Any change in their course?"

"None, Comrade Admiral. You can see for yourself:' He snapped orders at the Tank operator who activat-ed the hologram field to show the course of the approaching enemy fleet. The Admiral stamped over to stand before the glowing display. It occupied a s.p.a.ce of almost thirty cubic meters, taking up the entire center of the War Room. The display was of course three dimensional and could be viewed from any side. A group of glowing symbols sprang into view in the Tank, terminating in a dotted white line that ran up and out of sight.

"Their course so far," Onyegin said, "and the eprojec-I tion into the future." A second broken line of light, this time red, extended down from the enemy fleet to end at floor level.

"Good," the Admiral grunted. "Now where will this take them?"

The small blue sphere of the Earth snapped into existence, surrounded by her captive satellites and orbiting Moon. The line of the course pa.s.sed them all by.

"That is the projection as of this moment, not taking into consideration any future changes," Onyegin said. "However there are still course alterations possible. Like this."

The red line fanned out into a number of arcs, each one of them terminating at one of the objects in s.p.a.ce. The Admiral grunted again.

"Earth, the Moon, power satellites, colonies, anything. Well that's why we are here, Onyegin, learn that lesson. We defend Earth. Those criminals must pa.s.s us to work their mischief, and that will not be an easy thing to do. And my old friend Skougaard is leading them. What a pleasure! I shall personally execute the traitor when he is captured. Vodka!"

He downed another gla.s.sful, then seated himself in his command chair where he had a perfect view of the Tank, the pickup microphone beside his head swiveling automatically to follow his every move.

"The fighting so far has been sordid, just filthy stabs in the back. Bombs and mines and treachery. They have not only been traitors, but cowards as well who have fled our wrath, then sent us packing with missiles from plane-tary bases. That is all over now. We have had enough time to lick our wounds, to organize and regroup. Now we~are on the defensive and they must come out and meet us. What a shock they will get when they do that. Let me see the latest photographs."

The astronomers on the Earth-orbiting 13-meter opti-cal telescope had protested when ordered to photograph the approaching fleet. Their enormous metal reflecting mirror was designed for completely different purposes, they said. s.h.i.+elded from the sun, with no atmosphere to dim its vision, it could penetrate the mysteries of the incredibly distant galaxies, examine closely the separate star systems thousands of light years beyond our own. Important research was in progress; this was no military toy to spy out invaders. Their att.i.tude had changed abruptly when a score of Security men had arrived on the next shuttle from Earth. Ways were found to look at the attacking The rebel s.p.a.cers filled the tank now. Fuzzy and gray, but still distinct, stretched out in a long arc.

"The flags.h.i.+p, the Dannebrog," Admiral Kapustin ~dered.

The s.h.i.+p in the center of the attacking line swelled up until it was a meter across, fuzzy and unclear, just its outline distinct enough to see.

"Is this the best you can do?" The Admiral was displeased.

"We have been doing some computer enhancing," Onyegin said. He did not add that most of the enhancing had been done by letting the computer see a photograph of the flags.h.i.+p. The three dimensional image blurred, changed and cleared. An apparently solid image now floated there.

"Better," the Admiral condescended. He walked over and stabbed his finger into it. "I have you Skougaard, you and your precious Dannebrog. You shall not escape. Now, let me have a display of our converging courses."

The image changed again-with the symbols of the enemy fleet at one side of the Tank, the Earth forces on the other. First a broken line sprang across the ~Thnk from the invaders, then one from the defenders.

Where the two lines intersected sets of number appeared, one green, one yellow. The last digits flickering and changing constantly. Green represented the distance in kilometers to the inter-section from their present position, yellow the time to get there at their present speed. The Admiral studied the figures closely. Still too far.

"Show mc ten and ninety:'

The computer made the complex calculation in mi-croseconds and two arcs of light cut across their future course, less than a quarter of the way to the enemy fleet. The arc closest to the fleet was the ninety, a range at which ninety percent of their missiles could be expected to strike the enemy-if no evasive or screening action was taken. The ten was further out and represented ten percent of the missiles. There were hours to go before even this impractical range would be closed. s.p.a.ce warfare, like ancient naval warfare, consisted of long journeys punctu-ated by brief encounters. The Admiral sucked happily on his cigarette and waited. He had always been a man of. infinite patience.