Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “But I really don’t want to see this,” Rabula was saying pettishly as the scoutship moved through Luminos’s upper atmosphere and then into the darkness of space.

  It took Frank only one FTL jump to get to the location he wanted. It was a system of one planet and three moons circling around a red dwarf.

  As they came within visual range, Rahula could see that the place had an oxygen atmosphere and possessed the deep green-blue colors of living matter. But as they came closer though, he saw that most life had almost been expunged from the surface of this place. Sweeping low over the planet, Rahula saw that no birds flew in the sky. They passed over dry ocean bottoms; the very water had been sucked away and put into tanks for Ichton use in other places. The land had become mainly desert, and there were miles-deep scrapes where the surface had been strip-mined, ruthless machinery tearing apart the fundamental rocks to get at the valuable minerals and rare earths. A vast cloud of smoke lay over the land, hugging the mountain contours in great, greasy coils. Here and there were shallow ponds that had not been entirely sucked up by the Ichton salvaging and reclamation operations. Higher magnification revealed that these ponds were pustulant with noisome lower life-forms.

  They swept over the land at what would have been treetop level, had there been any trees left standing. Beneath them, miles and miles of rocky devastation sped hypnotically past their eyes. And this scene, monotonous and horrifying, repeated itself endlessly as they traversed the planet, until Rahula finally cried, “Enough, Frank, you have made your point. What is this place?”

  “This planet is called Gervaise. It is a sister planet to the Gerson world that received similar treatment at the hands of the Ichtons.”

  Rahula was silent during most of the flight back to Luminos. His soft, shiny brown eyes seemed turned inward. His blink rate was up; he seemed to be thinking very rapidly indeed. When they came down on the landing field at Delphinium, capital city of Luminos, Rahula turned to Frank and said, “How many of those ship’s engines do you have to sell?”

  “Thirty-one,” Frank said.

  “And what do you want for them?”

  Frank took a deep breath. “My partner and I want to get ten fire gems per engine.”

  “So many? But it would take us years to find a quantity like that.”

  “Well, make it five per engine, then. If you all worked together, your people could probably get that together in a matter of weeks.”

  “Perhaps we could,” Rahula said. “But meantime, we can’t kid ourselves any longer, the Ichtons are coming toward us and there’s no time to waste.”

  “Nor any need to waste it. I will let you have the engines now, if you give me your promise to pay the agreed-upon price of five stones per engine.”

  “Yes,” Rahula said, “I agree to that. Now bring us back to Delphinium. I must arrange transport for the engines.”

  “Are you sure you can speak for your people?” Frank asked. “Will they agree with you about the engines?”

  “I believe what I’m doing is correct,” Rahula said. “Therefore the others will also think it correct. They will do what I do. It is our system.”

  Frank had to admit that having all the people believe what you believed was a political advantage few races ever possessed. Overnight, and as though by magic, all of the Saurians were aware of the menace that confronted them from space, and, rather than being blasé and evasive about it as before, were, like Rahula, suddenly and deeply concerned. Within minutes after Frank’s talk with Rahula, through a sort of racial telepathy, which was immediately reinforced by unprecedented coverage in the newspapers and television, the Saurians all knew they were about to be attacked by the Ichtons, a six-limbed insect species of unparalleled ferocity. Everyone also knew and approved of trading fire gems for spaceship engines.

  The Saurians sent several heavy trucks to carry off the thirty-one L5 engine components. The trucks brought them to an industrial complex in a park not far from the capital city. On radio and TV, Frank heard about the organizing of the search for fire gems. Expeditions were quickly organized and sent out to the little-visited regions of the planet near the polar caps, where fire stones had been discovered in the past. Great numbers of Saurians were enlisted into this search, which was supported by all the considerable resources of the planet. Soon the first fire gems began to arrive. Rahula made himself personally responsible for ensuring that Frank got what had been promised him. That meant that all the Saurians considered themselves responsible. It was one of the best-secured debts in the history of loaning.

  For a few days Frank could take some time off from the concerns of war. He visited the best-known wonders of the Saurian world. These included the upside-down waterfall at Forest Closet, the Twisted Volcano at Point Hugo, and the Glass Dance Floor at Angelthighs. These were not the spectacular sights for which some of the worlds in the region were known. But they were very special, and carried a load of sentiment. Frank especially liked Forest Closet with its ranks of whispering willows. It was disagreeable to realize that the Ichtons were about to cancel all possibilities, good or bad.

  It took the Saurians eight days to collect all of the promised fire stones. There were 155 stones in all, and the presence of so much concentrated mood essence in crystalline form was more than a little overwhelming. There was a special ceremony in which Frank accepted the fire stones on behalf of himself and Owen Staging.

  Next day, Rahula took Frank out in one of the surface cars and brought him to the main factory where the engine components were being built into fighter bodies. Frank was a little surprised to find that the Saurians were planning an active defense of their planet. He had somehow assumed that a government group would try to save their own lives, escaping to another world in the ships they could build before the onslaught of the Ichtons. He had seen this happen before. It was typical behavior.

  But not for the Saurians. With rapidity and efficiency, they were putting their planet into the best state of defense possible. Under the goad of this emergency, they produced great quantities of jet fighters and equipped them with improved models of the basic jet fighter engine. These were for defense in the atmosphere. To fight between the worlds they had constructed separate bodies to house the thirty-one spaceship engine components purchased from Frank. Their ship designs had been purchased from reliable off-planet sources. Looking these plans over when he was taken for a tour of the factory, Frank could spot some mistakes. Luckily, they were matters he could correct on the spot.

  A voice tube torpedo arrived for him. Captain Charles Mardake, head of his section, wanted to know when Frank would be back. Frank sent back a reply in which he explained that the situation on Luminos was still fluid, and that although the Saurians were now working actively in their own defense, they still had a ways to go and therefore Frank could still be useful here. The Ichton attack was still not imminent and so he was exercising his discretion and staying on a while longer.

  That morning another message rocket was recovered and brought to Frank in his ship. It was from the office of the Fleet observation corps. They reported that the Ichton fleet had diverted slightly because the big insects had to take care of a larger planet that lay close to their invasion path. It was a planet where high gravity beam installations had been causing problems to some of the outlying Ichton ships. “So the main horde is going to miss you,” the report went on, “and that’s the good news.”

  However, the message went on, the bad news was, some Ichton squadrons were being sent to check the flanks for overlooked worlds that could be usefully stripped. One such squadron was coming directly toward Luminos. It consisted of between five and ten cruisers and would be there in about a month or three weeks. They appeared to be Stone-class cruisers and were judged very dangerous.

  The message was a blow to Frank’s hopes. He had begun to believe that the world of Luminos might be overlooked, but this news dashed that possibility. A group of even five Ichton battle cruisers was potentially as devastatin
g to Luminos as the arrival of the entire battle fleet. The Ichton ships were of a technology far superior to anything the Saurians had been able to put together. Not only that, there was also the matter of battle savvy. The Saurians had never fought a modern space war. Their own wars against each other would have to be considered the equivalent of the bow and arrow struggles of primitives.

  But the Saurians were prepared to fight, and the raw youngsters piloting the thirty-one ships built around Owen’s L5 units had a lot of esprit de corps. They had memorized some of the fighting tactics as taught by the standard training manuals. But they were a long way from being prepared to face up to the reality of a murderous opponent. They needed more training.

  Frank decided abruptly that he would take the situation in hand himself. He announced through Othnar Rahula that starting that very day he was giving classes in spaceship tactics as they pertained to planetary defense. There was no lack of enlistees for his crash course. The Saurians picked up the main concepts with great rapidity. Soon Frank was able to lead the thirty-one new ships in simulated battles in Luminos’s troposphere. By rapid shuffling of personnel, and keeping the ships occupied all of the time, Frank was able to train a good number of Saurians in spaceship tactics. The civilian population, meanwhile, made its own preparations, working day and night to get guns of appropriate mass and shocking power online in an attempt to defend the cities against the onslaught that now might be no more than days away.

  Another voice torpedo arrived. It was a message from the trader Owen Staging. “Frank,” it said, “I don’t know what you’re staying around there for, but please get out. Now! You’ve done all you can. Maybe a lot more than you should have. It’s time you got out of there. Remember, you owe me something, too, like half the stones. That’s a joke. But seriously. C’mon back, partner. We’ve got a great future ahead of us!”

  Frank was resting in his bunk aboard his own spaceship when the trader’s message came. Soon thereafter there was a warning signal from a long-distance satellite warning station: first elements of an Ichton battle group had been detected at the fringe of radar receptivity.

  Frank stood up, and with a heavy heart activated the switches that closed the main airlock. Yes, like it or not, it really was time to get out. He had almost cut it too fine. He’d gone right down to the wire with these Saurians. He would have liked to take station with them and have it out against the Ichtons here and now, but he knew that he couldn’t do that. His loyalty was to the Fleet and it was to the Fleet that he had to return.

  Losing no time getting aloft, Frank directed his ship to an asteroid belt that formed a maze of rocky moonlets in space near Luminos. He knew he should be kicking back up again into FTL drive, but he couldn’t resist waiting long enough to see how his protégés did against the Ichton battle group.

  Long-distance radar reported the progress of Ichton spacecraft into the Luminos system. Five cruisers were identified. They were some new class, smaller than Stone class, less well shielded, a sign, perhaps, that some of the Ichton manufacturing units were having to cut back to simpler models. Although they were not Stones, they were still formidable.

  For Frank, it was getting very late indeed. But still he delayed in the asteroid belt, waiting for news of the engagement.

  Five Ichton ships in line-ahead formation suddenly clashed with the thirty-one Saurian ships in three half-moon formations. Beams flared, shields ran up through the spectrum as they staggered under the energy of multiple strikes. In the first five seconds of combat, seventeen Saurian ships were disabled or vaporized entirely. But two of the Ichton ships were out of the fight, and a third looked like it wouldn’t last much longer. The matter seemed to have been decided in that first instant of colliding energies. The Saurians were still hanging in there.

  The surviving Saurian commanders learned fast. There were some things about space combat that had to be learned on the spot. No amount of theoretical reading, and not even well-designed simulation equipment, would do. Learning was greatly stimulated by surviving that first engagement.

  Now the third Ichton ship was down, dissolving into the raging maw of its own wild-running main engine. Two to go! A group of Saurian ships led by Othnar Rahula surrounded the fourth Ichton cruiser. The smaller ships buzzed around the cruiser like maddened flies. Electrical potentials danced off the edges of ships’ shields in wild coruscations of curling force as more energy weapons came to bear. In that confined area space itself heated significantly for a moment. The beleaguered Ichton ship blew out its rearmost shield, tried to rig a temporary one, and was caught without adequate defense when Othnar Rahula swung his ship around and slammed a volley of torpedoes into the stricken cruiser. Brilliant explosions shuddered out into the blackness of space. The Ichton cruiser was still trying to reply with her guns when her FTL equipment vaporized and she was gone as though she’d never been.

  Meanwhile, Frank had been dawdling in the asteroid belt, not wanting to turn on his FTL just yet because he wanted to know what was happening.

  Then the remaining Ichton ship suddenly began to lose power. The blast from its drive jets faltered, the color of its propulsive flame lances changed from golden yellow to cherry-red. It wobbled, yet somehow remained in precarious control, and began to descend into the atmosphere of Luminos. The landmasses of the planet rushed up to meet it, and so did a full squadron of Saurian jet fighters. Colored a metallic liquid black, except for the white markings on their wingtips and tails, these fragile machines clawed up into the stratosphere, higher and higher, until their engines began to flicker and die out through lack of oxygen. They fell back to denser atmospheric levels. The Ichton spaceship now had descended to meet them, still fighting for control, less agile than before, but still moving at a speed no jet ship could match. The fighters replotted their trajectories and flung themselves in for the kill. The high, thin air of Luminos was alive with explosive projectiles from the jets’ wing guns, hammering at the Ichton cruiser’s screens. The projectiles bounced harmlessly off, as did the rocket torpedoes and small guided missiles. The Ichton ship seemed to be recovering its poise and getting more maneuverable by the second. And it seemed that its commander was realizing that the Saurian aircraft could do little or nothing against his screened spaceship.

  The Ichton commander ignored the fighter attack and turned his attention to the planet below him. Explosive rays lanced out from the cruiser’s underbelly. Big chunks were torn from the heart of the large city beneath him. A pall of oily black smoke rose into the air. The Ichton spaceship slowed to a deliberate pace. It seemed determined to do a really good job, destroy anything that crawled or swam or flew, strip out the minerals and other valuable things and take them off to the Ichton fleet.

  The fighters seemed useless against the well-shielded Ichton cruiser. Seeing this, Frank realized he was going to have to do something. He activated the controls, and somewhere inside of himself it occurred to him that he didn’t have to do this, not really, he’d just been sent here to warn these guys, he wasn’t supposed to be getting into the fight, he wasn’t supposed to be dying for them. But that thought had no time to take hold, because Frank was filled with the simple need to take action and preserve a situation that was threatening to go very badly for the side he had decided to fight for. It didn’t occur to him that he had returned somehow to one of his original intentions, formed back when he first joined the Fleet, concerning what to do with his life, how to spend it, what it was for. He knew it was not for making a profit like Owen the trader, but for some other reason, something that bad to do with serving humanity in the broadest sense, against its enemies like the Ichtons.

  Frank found the Ichton ship in range and fired. As he had feared, his rockets bounced harmlessly off the ship’s shields. The Ichton ship fired back. Frank managed to elude the missiles, not trusting his shields to take too heavy a load. When matters quieted down for a moment he saw the Ichton ship coming after him again. He countered. It was stalemate.

  Th
ere was nothing Frank could do. He and the Ichton canceled each other out. He was going to have to try something different if he was to have a hope of putting the Ichton ship out of action before it destroyed the planet Luminos.

  There was one thing still left to try. It was a very old tactic, and it dated back to the days when ships were made of wood and sailed on water. He could ram. It was an almost unheard-of maneuver in the modern world of space combat, but circumstances made it possible now.

  Frank put the controls on manual and aimed his scoutship directly at the Ichton cruiser. He watched, fascinated, as the image of the enemy ship grew in his viewplate from a tiny dot to a vast metal war machine of incredible and still growing proportions. Frank felt himself tense as the moment of impact grew closer and closer. And then . . .

  Before his eyes, he saw what looked like a meteor arc in from the side and impact with the cruiser. To Frank it looked like an act of God. It took his tired brain a moment to figure out that it must have been one of the Saurians in a fighter craft, ramming the Ichton from the side. The Ichton cruiser exploded in a silent blossom of light and energy, a light that bounded up and down the visible spectrum and seemed to light all of space before it died.

  “Nice job, Frank,” Owen Staging said. It was a week later. Frank had returned to the Hawking, filed his report, and was awaiting further orders. He had also taken it on himself to issue urgent requests to Star Central.

  He had told the examining board, “Gentlemen, the Saurians need to be supported in their efforts against the Ichtons. I respectfully request that we send them considerable more military assistance than we have done before.”

  “They’re not a very big power,” one of the admirals on the examining board said.

  “No, sir, they’re not,” Frank said. “But they won’t quit on us. And that’s worth quite a lot in this day and age.”