Broken Wing: A million deaths were not enough for Cassandra!

by Konig, Artor

  I thought of sending a signal after the Doctor, almost dropping the last baffle as the thought struck me. I resolutely finished fastening the baffle into place before hastening over to the radio link of lower control. I told the Doctor of my fear, asking him to keep an eye out for another of the alien craft; I had finally twigged about the spider having eight legs. I told him that there may be one other alien craft lagging behind the rest of the fleet we had destroyed; for reasons best known to themselves. However fast the Doctor had made the Wren go, he was still within conversant radio range. He was impatient, dismissing my worries irritably.

  “Oh, fiddlesticks.” He told me, before snapping off the link and getting on with whatever he was getting on with. I looked at the legend of the flight; he was already a good way beyond the moon and the radio signal was already showing a few seconds lag in response.

  Whatever he had done to the ramjet super-stage of the Wren it was a good forty times faster in its rate of final acceleration than it had been before we started. I shut down the radio a bit sadly, leaving the flight monitor on. At last I sat down for a moment and decided exactly what I must pack and where I would find it.

  It took me two full days to get the stores brought down and loaded by myself, working twenty hours a day and managing on only two meals, one after I woke, the second just before I went to sleep. Twice a day as well I would go up to upper control and check the record of the far-ranging radio-telescope for any new developments. The tiny dot that was the signal emitted by the Wren made astonishingly good time, it was apparently accelerating flat out all the way. Each time I checked upper control I cast out to the stupendous limit of the scanner to see if that other trace I knew was there was yet in range.

  At ten ‘o’clock on the evening of the second day after the Doctor had departed, I cast myself down to catch six hours sleep before getting ready to follow him, as I then knew I must. At half-past-four the next morning I stared into the monitor of the radio-telescope in upper control, my face ashen in the reflection of the glass screen. For the eighth craft I had feared all along was there, creeping around the shadow of Jupiter; they had detected what had happened to the other seven craft and were being understandably cautious. They were well behind the huge planet; they were apparently having a look at the spot where their cronies had met their Nemesis. They were flying on the planetary disc, intent on using the planets themselves to occlude their intrepid voyage. Thus had they managed to get so close into the system without the telescope catching wind of them.

  The Doctor, on the other hand, was high above the planetary disc, almost at the asteroid belt. He had apparently decided that fast was fast enough and had eased up before he found himself in whatever mess there was in that dangerous Taurus. I took little comfort in the fact that the aliens would not be able to detect him with radar; it occurred to me rather sharply that he wasn’t looking for them, being intent on his own thoughts and was likely to blunder into them when he arrived at Jupiter. Then they would see him if for no other reason because he would be slowing down rather fiercely and he didn’t have those flare baffles installed on his craft.

  Knowing it to be an exercise in futility I radioed a strong warning to him, giving the exact location of the enemy as seen from Earth. I knew it was futile because of his strange new mood; it was as if some subtle toxin left by that spider I thought of as the Master had robbed the Doctor of caution. He was so infatuated with his mission to Jupiter it was as if any other consideration had ceased to exist. It occurred to me then that only something going beyond the speed of light could possibly get there in time to avert this upcoming altercation and that something would have to be Wren Number Three. And the only way I could possibly hope to get her to that speed in a short enough margin was by somehow further augmenting the power to be fed through the ramjets.

  Even then I didn’t rush down to the Wren and start cranking her up; I took the time to consult the disc of Jim’s diagrams of the ramjet and inertialess drive, then the Doctor’s last record of how he had altered the drive of Number One. Once I understood what had been done; and had seen that there was still space for a final, dangerous augmentation, I beamed another radio warning to the Doctor; then went down to the kitchen to get some mobile breakfast and to say goodbye to Byrtle.

  21. Final Reckoning

  I was in a terrible hurry; but Number Three didn’t seem to be too keen with me fiddling about with her innards. She responded slowly when I asked her to open up the reactor access hatch and the two turbine hatches. Finally I was able to inject myself into the cavity beneath the reactor where I spread out my tools, poking here and there as the manual had suggested that I should. I was clumsy and nervous, knowing full well that I really wasn’t qualified to muck around with either the inertialess drive or the reactor, both of those were very dangerous pieces of delicate equipment.

  I dropped tools, I dropped screws and bolts, I turned dials the wrong way and tried to turn things that wouldn’t turn, finding myself sweating and shivering; the more I tried to hasten myself the worse blunders I found myself making. It resolved itself abruptly when I sent a jolt of current from the inertialess drive power supply through my fingers, enough to stun me for I knew not how long; but when I finally came back to my senses the terrible panic had left me.

  I was calm and rational, my fingers once more co-ordinated and dexterous. Swiftly now I undid my errors, easing up the feed for both the ramjets and the inertialess drive to their specified limits. The words that Jim had told me when he had heard I’d had the craft into the red before, and I had asked whether or not there was a safety margin, came back to me; “You don’t cut the margin that fine with nuclear reactors, my girl.” He had told me, “That gauge gives you a wishful-thinking scenario; how we’d like the reactor to behave.”

  I knew that I was taking a risk but it was the only way I could make up the time I had spent in getting the Wren ready. At last I put my tools away, emerged from the inner hatch and closed everything up behind me. I keyed in the light-up sequence for the Wren, slipping into a space-suit and strapping myself into place. I radioed the activation sequence for the laser stations then locked everything electronic in the Crag. The rotors lifted me up, took us out of the Nest and deposited us on the end of the runway, now sadly neglected, at the foot of the Crag. I wasn’t intent on wasting time using the rotors right up through the atmosphere. I set her down, braked the rotors first with the pitch stick then with the retro-thrust. I spent a fumbling few seconds wracking the rotors before I was ready to key in all the thrust stages, one after the next. It occurred to me then that I wasn’t sure of the surface; that I had never taken any fixed wing craft up on a runway, that maybe I shouldn’t be experimenting at this late hour.

  Then with all four jet stages activated I snuggled back in my comfortable couch, keyed in the inertialess drive precursor, knowing that it would turn on the inertialess drive automatically when I had reached a sufficiently high altitude. Carefully, with my visor down and my neck braced, I pressed the thrust-button on the joystick.

  I hadn’t a hope of following those first stages of the flight; there were too many details, too close. I simply hung onto the joystick; keeping it pulled slightly back; and feeling with that initial explosion of thrust that I had been converted into a sticky red paste somewhere on the back wall of the craft. That feeling, the monitor told me, lasted three-hundredths of a second before the inertialess drive keyed in, the craft having reached the prescribed two-hundred feet above the ground. At once I eased the controls back into neutral and had a look around me at the starry dimness of space; then at the flight monitor; this was marking out the relative positions of both me and the Doctor.

  I was on the route I had mapped, that high, swooping curve over the plane of the planets, its terminus close to Jupiter. Thirty seconds into the flight and the airspeed had already given up figuring in miles per hour. The reactor readout was at eighty gigawatts, more or less where it was supposed to be; although it was four times the
normal maximum drain. The inertialess drive was consuming three gigawatts of those, the ramjets the rest. But at least the flare-baffles were working; or at least it seemed that way, for there was only a sullen red glow behind us rather than miles-long tongues of white flame. I wondered whether or not they would last the trip; or if they would crack up and fall off somewhere along the way.

  The monitor also told me that the laser stations were now armed and monitoring, ready to make neat little perforations in anything which didn’t look like it came from Earth. I checked the speed and the systems once more, set the autopilot to awaken me at proximity or after four hours; and to alert me if anything untoward happened. I armed the combat system in the pre-emptive war mode; then allowed myself to lean back and finish my breakfast sandwiches. Shortly after that I drifted off to sleep, seeing that the craft was already deep into the void between Earth and Mars.

  The alarm chirruped me to wakefulness; and there I was much happier than I had been amongst my dreams. I looked around me, first looking to where the Doctor had arrived at; then looking to see the latest posted position of the alien craft. They were converging slowly and surely. I estimated that the aliens were about five hours out of the Doctor’s combat range; should it occur to him that he had a fight on his hands. I at once radioed my warning to him but there was nothing on Earth that could have made those little radio waves go fast enough. The Doctor was halfway through the void between the asteroids and Jupiter, having made the trip through that river of rock successfully. He was obviously slowing up; but just as obviously going at a very fierce lick.

  The aliens were hovering close to the radioactive puddle of hot gas that was all there was left of their roasted cronies. They seemed to be having a jolly good look at things; though they were not slowing down too terribly much. I didn’t dare launch a salvo of beams along their path because the Doctor could do any stupid thing and get in the way. In fact there was nothing at all that I could do other than watch and wait and hope that I could get to the Doctor before the aliens noticed him pottering around. There seemed to be a chance of that, because the distance I had to cover was just over twice the distance that the aliens had to cover, taking into account that the Doctor was on his way to Jupiter. I was already getting close to the orbit of Mars, high above that planet’s track and my speed was already more than twice the Doctor’s apparent speed. I had a look at the airspeed indicator; it stood at seven percent C. The little sub-digits were wheeling up faster than I had anticipated and the percent changed to eight as I watched. It seemed that Number Three had got into her stride.

  I allowed myself to relax at the controls, knowing full well that even at ninety-nine percent C I wasn’t going to get to battle proximity for a good long while. And beyond light speed was something I didn’t want to think about, not just yet. It occurred to me that I could slip beyond light-speed, disappear for good and find myself way beyond everything, chatting to space-bandits from outer Andromeda or something. Or something; I was beginning to feel rather fuzzy-headed and tired. I looked at the reactor monitor, but that seemed happy and constant, all things considered. I had a look at everything else, watched the speed indicator for a little while, working out my acceleration.

  I saw that if everything remained constant I would be at light speed within five hours. I decided to have a nap until an hour before that, just to be on the safe side. I set the chronometer’s alarm for that time and for a speed of eighty-nine percent of C, so that I would be doubly sure about things. Once more I had a look at the two dots approaching each other on the screen, once more I sent out another radio warning. Once more I looked at the spider ring and at the orb of gold that the Gods had given me; or was it the Gods who had given me the ring? A suspicion came to my mind as I recalled how little notice the Master had taken of me. It occurred to me then that the ring may be more than I had thought of it, as if it had been purposely placed where I could find it by somebody who knew my movements.

  But it was at school, I told myself, nobody paid any attention to me there; not serious attention, at least. As the star of the basketball team and as one of the studious pupils who always achieved top marks, I had caused a little bit of a stir; but not that much.

  I look up, hearing the silence the storm has left behind it, seeing little in this darkness on the balcony, yet so much brighter than the merciless dark of the void. The stars are dim, I see, no mean of their splendour when seen from aloft. Everything is so much gentler here, protected within the warmth of this world's civilised and knowing face. Up there things are harsh; we must take our safety with us, or not pass there at all. Only He walks there, high in the dark and bitter cold, He who showed me his face and knew I would tell no other. But He was wrong; this once He misjudged, and that cold, sharp scythe this once fell wide. For me at least.

  A new alarm awoke me at an hour and a half before the five hours was up, the note in its tingling little buzz rather urgent but rather confused as well. The sound was distorted, I thought, or maybe my perception of the sound was distorted. The alarm wasn’t trying to tell me about light-speed or even about unexpected rocks or an early arrival at battle-proximity. It was worried about the distortion of the signal it was receiving from the great out-doors and could I do a bit of adjusting so Wren Three could see where she was going? Or if that was too much to ask, maybe we should slow down a bit; or do some slight thing other than this harebrained loping off into the murky nothingness of where. I saw that the C-percentage was at eighty-four and the craft was right out in the void between the asteroids and Jupiter. The signal that marked the Doctor’s position was within clear range now, tempting me to try for a radio-link-up, though I knew that was futile. I set about adjusting the dials, managing to distort the images back to near comprehensibility; as the indicator crept up into the mid-nineties.

  I was covering space far faster than I understood was possible at sub-light speeds, this confusion unsettling my mind and at last causing me to disengage the ramjets. At ninety-eight percent of the speed of light the main drive was disengaged; but the craft didn’t slow down; it was as if I had pushed myself into some sort of spiral that wasn’t going to let go now.

  In a sudden unreasoning panic, I keyed in the retro-thrust at its absolute maximum, feeling now that I had overdone things. The craft was sluggish in her responses, the stick and the throttle seemed to be jammed with some clingy sort of goo. The inertialess drive was drawing more and more, its independent energy system getting hotter as the needle crept up from three gigawatts into the Petawatt range. The speed, with the craft bellowing out its braking fire as hard as she could, crept up to ninety-eight point nine. I tried turning off the inertialess drive but the Wren wouldn’t allow that. Nor would she respond when I keyed off the reactor. The needles crept higher, the retro-thrust only seeming to augment the speed, the draw on the reactor creeping far into the red.

  The stars that I could see began to lose their definition, becoming hazy around the edges. The signal from the war-system monitor faded into complete incomprehensibility, the panorama of stars froze for a glittering instant, to shine so fierily blue and bright before my eyes. As they began to surge forward, I saw the speed indicator at ninety-nine point nine of C, suddenly go blank. Everything went blank; there was no seeing to be done but for that relentless paean of fire, those blue streaks that conveyed nothing to my mind but utter pain and desolation. With the last of my strength I hurled the stick forward as fast and as hard as I could.

  There seemed to be a hammering in my head, a remorseless drumming of blood through my mind. There was pain; pain on every inch and every sense of my being. Slowly it eased into a dull throbbing, an ache and an ague that told me that whatever else had occurred, I was still alive. The streams of astral blue fire stilled, gradually coalescing into points of adamant flame, points that seemed to convey some deep significance to me.

  Automatically I looked about me, as the information on the monitors came back into focus. The war-system monitor was focussed on
a definite point; but it did not in any way correspond with the view of the stars before me. For a moment I kept still before heaving the stick forwards again. This time she did respond, dipping her nose into the black soup that made up the Universe. As soon as the view on the screen and the war system monitor corresponded, I levelled her out. I looked at last at the speed indicator; it stood at eighty-three percent of C, dropping as I watched. But the war-mode told me I was hopelessly out of range; could I not buck up a bit? In response to that I keyed off the retro-thrust, allowing the craft almost to leap forth as the relentless braking was released.

  Finally I had a look about me to see just where I was. That I had overshot the mark was quite clear to me; but I hadn’t expected to be so far beyond the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, so high above the disc that my distance from the sun was eighty times that of Saturn’s. Down below, like little crawling insects, the planets trotted along on their boring and lonesome roads, minding their business as they had forever and forever would.

  But the war-system wasn’t interested in them; it was focussed on the two points of tangible emission that were moving purposefully towards each other. The chronometer seemed to think nothing had happened; but it was apparent to me that the two craft had moved a good long way since I had last looked and the signals I was receiving were older than the signals that I had been picking up before. I saw that they were both at a moderate percentage of C, and they were both heading directly at each other as if each could clearly perceive where the other fellow was.

  As I watched, the terrible play reached its climax; as I hurtled down towards them at more than twice the speed the doomed pair were making; but still not fast enough to intervene. I watched in horror as the two came closer; faster than ever I could move.