There was a silence. Then, “Only six weeks?”
“That’s right,” said the doctor positively. “Tell you what. Make arrangements to get me to Minsk right away, and let me get on that analysis. At worst we can find out what the ship was made of, and get an idea of how advanced those people are. At the very best, we might find a defense. Tell the ‘proprietors’”—although this was a closed circuit, he was careful—”that my work will be open and above-board. They can put on as many observers as they want to, and I will share my findings completely with them.”
“You can’t do that! That’s just what we want to avoid!”
It was the physicist’s turn to fall silent. How do you like that! he thought. The Board is clinging to some faint hope that the invaders will do their dirty work for them. They think that we’ll find a defense and no one else will. He said, finally, speaking slowly and carefully as if to a child, “Leroy, listen. I’m just as anxious as you are to do something about this matter. I think I can do something. But either I do it my way, or I don’t do it at all. Is that quite clear? Perhaps I’m more resigned than you are. Perhaps I think we deserve this . . . are you there?”
“Yes.” The doctor knew his brother had paused to lick his lips nervously. “You really think you can get something of value out of the analysis?”
“Almost certainly.”
“I’ll check with the Board. Muscles—”
“Yes, Leroy.”
“Don’t go mystic on us, hah?”
“Go see the Board,” said Dr. Simmons, and hung up.
He went to Russia.
~ * ~
The colonel met him on his return, two weeks later at a West Coast field. The unarmed long-range jet fighter, and its bristling escort, which had accompanied it from Eniwetok, skimmed to the landing strip. The colonel had a two-place coupe sport plane waiting. Dr. Simmons, inordinately cheerful, refused a meal and said he wanted to take off right away for his laboratories. The colonel wanted him to appear before the Board for a report, but he smiled and shook his head, and the colonel knew that smile better than to argue.
When they reached traveling altitude, and the colonel had throttled down to stay under the sonic barrier, and they had the susurrus of driving jets to accompany them rather than the roar of climbing jets to compete, they talked.
“How was it, Muscles?”
“Oh, I had a ball. It was fine.”
The colonel shot a look at him. He disapproves, thought the doctor. War is grim and businesslike, and for anyone to enjoy the business of war seems to him a sacrilege.
“It looked pretty touchy at first. They all acted as if I had an A-bomb in my watch pocket. Then I ran into Iggy.”
“Iggy?”
“Yup. I could recite his whole name if I tried hard, but it’s a jawbreaker. We used to drink forbidden sherry together in the dorm at the University of Virginia when I was a kid in school. We thrashed out all the truths of the cosmos together. He was a swell guy. I remember once when Iggy decided that the rule forbidding women in the dorm was unreasonable. He rigged up a—”
“What happened in Minsk?” asked the colonel coldly.
“Oh. Minsk. Well, Iggy’s come a long way since college. He specialized in aerodynamics, and then got tired of it. For years he’d been fooling around with nuclear physics as a hobby, and during the Second War he got real high up in the field. Naturally he was called in when this ship nosed in at Minsk.”
“Why naturally?”
“Well, the fragment retained much of its shape. That’s aerodynamics. And it was hot—really hot. That’s nuclear physics. He was a big help. According to his extrapolations, by the way, your radar was right. If that was a part of the hull, as it probably was, and if it was a more or less continuous curve, then the ship must’ve been all of fifteen hundred feet long, with a four hundred-foot cross-section at max. Quite a piece of business.”
“I can’t say I’m happy to hear about it. Go on.”
“Well, the high brass there apparently expected me to smell the fragment, taste it, and come up with a trade name. There was a lot of pressure to keep me away from testing equipment, if any. That’s where Iggy came in. He apologized for my carelessness in not bringing my betatron and some distillation apparatus. They saw the point, and got me to a laboratory. They have some nice stuff.” He shook his head appreciatively.
Eagerly the colonel asked: “Anything we haven’t got? Can we duplicate any of it? Where is this place? Did you see any defenses?”
“They have lots of stuff,” said the doctor shortly. “Do you want me to finish? You do? All right. Well, we volatilized pieces of it, and we distilled it. We subjected it to reagents and reducers and stress analyses and crystallographic tests. We put it in magnetic fields and we tested its resistance and conductivity. We got plenty of figures on it.” He laughed. Again the colonel looked impatiently at him.
“Well, what is the stuff?”
“There is no name for it, yet. Iggy wants to call it nichevite—in other words, ‘never mind.’ Leroy, it looks like dural, only it’s harder and it’s tougher. But it oxidizes very easily. It’s metallic, but it has such a low conductivity that it makes like porcelain. It has heavy-isotope aluminum in it, and light copper, and it isn’t an alloy. It’s a compound. It’s a blasted chemical compound, very stable, made of nothing but elements with a positive valence. It’s stronger than any steel, and can withstand temperatures so high that you can forget about them. The atomic blast broke it; it didn’t fuse it. We volatilized it only by powdering it and oxidizing it in an electric furnace, and then subtracting the oxygen from our calculations. That got us near enough to where we wanted to go. One thing is certain; no place on earth you ever heard about was the source of that stuff. Iggy has sworn to his bunch that the material is of extra-solar origin. They’re propagandizing it in Russia now. A good thing, too. The Russians were all ready to call the whole thing a Yankee trick.”
“I’ve heard some of those broadcasts,” said the colonel. “I was hoping we could keep that information to ourselves.”
“Don’t be childish,” said the physicist, in as abrupt a tone as he ever used. “We’re not out on maneuvers, sonny. Time and time again one person or another has told the world to wake up to reality. This once the world will wake up or else. You won’t be able to keep it asleep any more. It’s gone too far.”
~ * ~
The threat from Outside finally broke in the papers, but only after long and worried conferences in governmental and military headquarters all over the world. The simple fact that the world would work together or face extinction made, at first, as much impression as it ever had—very little. It was not enough to overcome man’s distrust of himself. Not at first.
But the die-hards yielded, gradually and with misgivings, and acquainted the people with the menace that faced them. There was little dangerous panic—controls were too tight to allow for it—but, after the first thrill of excitement, there came a unanimous demand for a plan of action which was too powerful to ignore.
Bulletins were posted hourly on the amplitude of the Jansky signals. As Dr. Simmons had pointed out, there were three sets of them, and it became increasingly evident that the three sources were in V formation, and coming fast—much faster than the first one had.
“They’ll box us,” said Colonel Simmons. “There won’t be any circling this time. They’ll take up equidistant positions around the planet, out of our range, and they’ll fire at will.”
“I think you’re right,” said his brother. “Well, that gives us two kinds of defense. They’re both puny, but it’ll be the best we can do. One’s technological, of course. I don’t know exactly which direction would be the best to take. We can build ships ourselves, and attack them in Space. We can try to develop some kind of shield against their bombs, or whatever else they use against us. And we can work on seeking torpedoes of some sort that’ll go out and get ‘em—bearing in mind that we might be out there ourselves some time s
oon, and we don’t want to fall prey to our own weapons.”
“What’s the other defense?”
“Sociological. In the first place, we must decentralize to a degree heretofore impossible. In the second place, we must pool our brains and our physical resources. No nation can afford to foot the bill of this kind of production; no nation can afford to take the chance of bypassing some foreign brain which might help the whole earth. Leroy! Stop puckering up like that! You look as if you’re going to cry! I know what’s bothering you. This looks like the end of professional militarism. Well, it is, in the national sense. But you have a bigger enemy than ever before, and one more worthy of the best efforts of humanity. You and your Board have been doing what seemed to be really large thinking. It wasn’t, because its field was too small and too detailed. But now you have something worth fighting. Now your plans can be planetary—galactic—cosmic, if you like. Don’t hanker after the past, soldier-boy. That attitude’s about the only way there is to stay small.”
“That’s quite a speech,” said the colonel. “I . . . wish I could argue with it. If I admit you’re right, I can only admit that there is no solution at all. I don’t believe the world will ever realize the necessity for co-operation until it’s too late.”
“Maybe it will. Maybe. I remember once talking to an old soldier who had been in the First War. In his toolshed he had a little trench shovel about eighteen inches long—a very flimsy piece of equipment it was. I remarked on it, and asked him what earthly good it was to a soldier. He laughed and said that when a green squad was deployed near no man’s land and ordered to dig in, they gabbled and griped and scratched and stewed over the job. And when the first enemy bullets came whining over, they took their little shovels and they just melted into the ground.” He chuckled. “Maybe it’ll be like that. Who knows ? Anyway, do what you can, Leroy.”
“You have the strangest sense of humor,” growled the colonel, and left.
~ * ~
They came.
The first was just a shape against the stars. It could be heard like a monster’s breath in a dark place: wsh-h-h-t wsh-h-h-t wsh-h-ht on the sixty megacycle band, where, before, nothing had been heard but the meaningless hiss of the Jansky noise. But it could not be seen. Not really. It was just a—a shape. A blur. It did not reflect radar impulses very well; the response was indeterminate, but indicated that it was about the size and shape of the mysterious bomber which had dealt the first, terrifying, harmless blow.
The world went crazy, but it was a directive madness. With the appearance of the Outsider, all talk of the advisability of defense ceased. There could be no discussion of priorities.
A Curie Institute scientist announced light-metal fission. A Hungarian broke his own security regulations with the announcement of an artificial element of heretofore unthinkable density, which could be cast into fission-chambers, making possible the long-awaited pint-sized atomic engine. A Russian scientist got what seemed to be a toe hold on antigravity, and set up a yell which resulted in a conclave of big brains in Denver—men from all over the world. He was wrong, but a valuable precedent was set. A World Trade Organization was established, with control of raw materials and manufactured goods, their routes and schedules. Its control was so complete that tariffs were suspended in toto—the regulation read “for the duration”—and, since it is efficient to give a square deal, a square deal was given in such a clear-cut fashion that objectors were profiteers by definition. Russian ores began appearing in British smelters, and Saar coal was loaded into the Bessemers of Birmingham. Most important of all, a true International Police force came into being with hardly a labor-pain. Its members were free to go everywhere, and their duty was to stop anything which got in the way of planetary production. Individual injustice, faulty diet, poor housing, underpaying and such items fell immediately into this category, and were dealt with immediately and with great authority.
Propaganda unified itself and came to a focus in the hourly bulletins concerning the Outsiders. And every radio station on earth included that dread triple hiss in its station-breaks.
And the Outsider just stayed where it was, just lay there in the spangled black, breathing, waiting for its two cohorts.
“It’s makeshift,” said Dr. Simmons, “but it might do. It just might do.”
The colonel stepped past him and looked at the cradle, on which rested a tubby, forty-foot object like a miniature submarine.
“A satellite, you said?”
“Uh-huh. Loaded to the gills with direction-finders and small atomic rockets. It’ll keep a continuous fix on the Invaders during its transit, and relay the information to monitor stations on Earth. If one of the ships fires a torpedo, it will be detected immediately, reported, and the satellite will launch an interceptor rocket. If the bomb or torpedo dodges, the interceptor will follow it. In the meantime, big interceptors can be on their way from Earth. If a torpedo comes close to the satellite, the satellite will dodge. If it comes too close, the satellite will explode violently enough to take the torp with it. We plan to set out three layers of these things, nine in each stratum, twenty-seven in all, so spaced as to keep a constant scanning in every direction.”
“Satellites, hm-m-m ? Muscles, if we can do this, why can’t we go right out there and get the ships themselves?”
The physicist ticked the reasons off. on his fingers. “First, because if they bracket us, as in every likelihood they will, they’d be foolish to come any closer than the one that’s already here, and he’s out of any range which we can certainly handle just now. We can assume that his ships, if not his bombs, will be prepared against our proximity devices. We’ll try, of course, but I wouldn’t be too hopeful. Second, we still haven’t a fuel efficient enough to allow for escape velocity maneuvers without a deadly acceleration, so our chances of sending manned rockets up for combat are nil at the moment.”
The colonel looked admiringly at the satellite and the crowd of technicians which swarmed around it. “I knew we’d come up with something.”
His brother gave him a quizzical glance. “I don’t know if you fully realize just how big a ‘we’ that is you just used. The casing of that satellite is Swedish steel. The drive is a German scientist’s adaptation of the Hungarian baby fission engine. The radio circuits are American, except for the scanning relay, which is Russian. And those technicians—I’ve never seen such a bunch. Davis, Li San, Abdallah, Schechter, O’Shaugnessy—he comes from Bolivia, by the way, and speaks only Spanish—Yokamatsu, Willet, Van Cleve. All these men, all these designs and materials, and all the money that make up these satellites, have been found and assembled from all over the earth in only the last few weeks. There were miracles of production during the Second War, Leroy, but nothing to match this.”
The colonel shook his head dazedly. “I never thought I’d see it happen.”
“You’ll see more surprising things than this before we’re done,” said the scientist happily. “Now I’ve got to get back to work.”
That was the week the second Outsider arrived. It took up a position in the celestial South, not quite opposing its fellow, and it lay quiet, breathing. If there was converse between them, it was not detectable by any known receiver. It was the same apparent size, and had the same puzzling effect on radar and photographic plates as had its predecessors.
~ * ~
In Pakistan, an unfueled airplane took off from a back-country airstrip, flew to twenty-thousand feet, and came in for a landing. The projector which was trained on it had no effect on the approaching aircraft in the moment it took the plane to disappear behind a hillock and reappear on the other side. There was a consequent momentary power loss, and the plane lost too much altitude and had to make another pass. The wind direction dictated a climbing turn to the north, and the beam from the projector briefly touched the antenna of an amateur radio operator called Ben Ali Ra. Ben Ali Ra’s rig exploded with great enthusiasm, filling the inside of his shack with spots and specks of fused metal,
ceramic, and glass. Fortunately for him— and for the world—he was in the adjoining room at the time, and suffered only a deep burn in the thigh, where it was struck by a flying fragment of a coil-form.
This was the first practical emergence of broadcast power.
Ben Ali was aware of the nature of the experiments at the nearby field, having eavesdropped by radio on some field conversations. He was also aware of certain aims and attitudes held by the local authority. Defying these, he left the area, at night, on foot, knowing that he would be killed if captured, knowing that in any event his personal property would be confiscated, and in great pain because of his wound. His story is told elsewhere; however, he reached Benares and retained consciousness long enough to warn the International Police.
The issue was not that broadcast power was a menace; it had a long way to go before it could be used without shouting its presence through every loud-speaker within miles. The thing that brought the I.P. down in force on this isolated, all but autonomous speck on the map was the charge that the inventors intended to keep their development to themselves. The attachment of the device and all related papers by the Planetary Defense Organization was a milestone of legal precedent, and brought a new definition of “eminent domain.” Thereafter no delays were caused by the necessity of application to local governments for the release of defense information; the I.P. investigated, confiscated, and turned the devices in question over to the Planetary Defense Organization, acting directly, and paying fairly all parties involved. So another important step was taken toward the erasure of national lines.
Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02] Page 11
