by Ian Miller
The low air pressure theory tended to be confirmed later through a study of the muscles and bone structure. In particular, the back of the nasal passages had what appeared to be a muscular pump, with the function of sucking in and pressurizing a large volume of thin air. The thickness and consequent rigidity of the skin would restrict mobility, and with dry skin the creatures would be naturally slow moving.
This explained why the inside of the suit was wet: the M'starn had to moisten their skin to achieve good mobility. This raised an interesting evolutionary hypothesis; the extreme power in their hands and feet would allow them to move rapidly by leaping, exerting the thrust through their fingers and toes. This would seem to indicate that they originated from a planet with lower gravity, with lower air pressure, but with plenty of water.
Shelley spent several hours carefully dissecting, recording her findings, and taking samples. During this time, most of the others became bored and left. Harry decided to go into the next room, and nobody noticed that he took the alien power pack and weapon with him. He would do his dissection.
This was a little more difficult, mainly because there was a shortage of instruments, or even tools. Nevertheless, he soon found that the power pack was nothing more than a very highly efficient direct current generator with quite a significant voltage. The cable connecting to the weapon clearly indicated that the weapon was driven by electricity. Some of the weapon could be readily dismantled: a simple bayonet socket allowed the rear to be lifted out, and this permitted some vials to be exchanged. A check on the alien's belt showed several more, so this was clearly some form of 'ammunition', but it was far from clear what the ammunition did. The face of the next part was screwed in, and, Harry noted with amusement, unscrewing was clockwise. The faceplate came off but what happened next was far from clear. There was a cluster of what appeared to be printed circuits, a cavity of some sort that looked not unlike a wave-guide, and . . . Harry had to reluctantly agree that this had to be examined in a laboratory. He screwed everything back together, but he did secrete a sample of ammunition in his pocket.
* * *
Alpha squad was the toast of Defence, although the Commissioner refused to allow any media coverage, and gave only a cryptic comment that the attack had been anticipated and the appropriate action taken. NewsCorp flashed what little it had across Earth, then it searched and searched for a story, and eventually found one, of sorts. Somehow it learned that Mike Pennlington had been on the command centre at the time of the attack, had authorized the attack, and had controlled the storm that crashed the alien craft. Courtesy of a leak in the British Defence Corps, it got enough background information to somehow last three days, which was enough to force an interview.
"I really didn't do much," Pennlington said in a self-effacing way. "It was the rest of the squad who actually beat the enemy."
"But you controlled the storm?"
"Well, yes, but . . ."
"And that led to the crashes?"
"Well, yes, it probably confused their navigation, but . . ."
"And you authorized the troops to attack?"
"Well, yes, but . . ."
"And you had planned the routes the troops should take?"
"Well, yes, but that was for an exercise, and we weren't to know the enemy craft would take that route."
"So your storm, and tactics must have guided the enemy to the right place? After all, that wouldn't have happened at random?"
"Well, I suppose that could be right," Pennlington said in surprise. The thought had clearly not occurred to him.
'Brilliant British General' ran the headlines. 'No Need For Modesty', 'Wellington Reborn'. Such was the volume of the attention that Pennlington had to hide himself for days. To Pennlington's surprise, the Commissioner said nothing. There was no surprise from alpha squad; Pennlington was the subject of non-stop jokes and mock reverence, and he quickly acquired the nickname Welly. But in some ways an even more embarrassing response came from the other squads, and from many of the professional soldiers themselves. They believed NewsCorp, and treated Pennlington with a genuine reverence.
Inevitably, the Commissioner was forced to speak. The defence of Columbus went according to plan. Her plan. Pennlington's assignment was one considered to be within his skill level. The key to a good plan, she noted, was to have the right people doing the right job. "Those that can will do in secret; those that cannot will be paraded." Now let Streckov get over that! But if this was a plan, then that implied Defence knew the alien's plan? "Let me say," Natasha replied enigmatically, "that we are not entirely without intelligence." Was she the right person to command the Defence forces? "I think so," Natasha replied, "but everybody should judge by the results."
The interview was a total success. There was such patriotic fervour generated, and such support for her, her position was unassailable. For Defence, the exercise was a gold mine. Suddenly, they had examples of at least some of the alien's weapons. A scientific study showed that some of these were based on principles they understood, at least to some degree. Eventually they could build similar weapons. That most of the enemy were Martian collaborators was kept from the media.
Military intelligence also concluded this had not been a minor attack. On the side of the leading alien was an unusual staff, with a parabolic type reflector at one end. It was almost as if it was designed to transmit, but there was no clue as to what it could transmit. It had no known function, it seemed indestructible, and it had no moving parts. In other words it was, to all intents, useless. But the word from Mars indicated this was a staff carried by only the highest-ranking M'starn officers. If that were true, they had killed the equivalent of a general.
Eventually, one function for the staff was found. It could defend itself! All high -energy cutting tools had no effect whatsoever, but eventually someone tried a diamond saw. The staff was put in a vice, and an attempt was made to cut through the back end. A sharp electric jolt threw the operator away. The staff was earthed, and the operator, this time heavily equipped with rubber gloves, tried again. He was thrown back across the room and remained unconscious for two hours. When Natasha heard of this she forbade all further attempts at opening it.
Chapter 6
Four weeks later Defence was to receive a further puzzle in the form of a transmission from Mars. According to the transmission, a revolt had occurred in the Hellas settlement, which had spread in a day to the major settlements of Mars. For a brief period of time, the M'starn were no longer in control. However, the fundamental weakness of the Martian settlers was obvious to all, namely that settlement in domes left the settlers exposed to space attack. Accordingly, an announcement was made to the Mars settlements that those wishing to avoid M'starn domination should make their way to the settlement headquarters in each centre, where they would receive instructions as to where to proceed.
What was particularly frustrating was that the resettlement was seemingly carried out at a leisurely pace. It appeared that the enemy did not control space, at least during the time of the revolt, and a M'starn warship was even reported as having been destroyed. The deep space telescopes confirmed a strange explosion in space near Mars, an explosion that formed two opposing jets, similar in nature although of lower intensity to that which had destroyed the asteroid. There was only one obvious conclusion: the M'starn had enemies with comparable, or even, possibly, superior weaponry. Who were they? And more to the point, where were they?
Whoever they were, it appeared they offered space protection to the Martian settlers, but only for so long, for the major settlements were now being largely abandoned. Great treks began from Hellas, and from Chryse, while settlers who had abandoned the minor settlements to hide in the mountains re-emerged, and all began to make their way to the great caverns built previously by Defence in the Valles Marineris. At the same time, a second trek began. The Brownshirts and the settlers who had been identified as collaborators were given older transporters, and they made their way to a base in Syrtis M
ajor, where, apparently, they would continue to support the M'starn. Meanwhile, the elderly and most farmers remained behind to preserve the infrastructure, apparently under some sort of agreement under which they would remain neutral. The occupation was over, and now Mars had separated into three groups: the two combatants, and neutral non-combatants. A very civilized little war was going on there!
The group who had trekked to the Vallis Marineris were technically fighting on Earth's side. A Captain McDonald was the most senior Defence officer remaining on Mars, and it seemed he had assumed some level of authority, but his authority was only partial, and at least initially he had been under orders from some unidentified person until a settler's Council could be set up.
There was a further question: the settlers had sent messages at great risk to themselves during the M'starn occupation, but now that this occupation appeared to be over, why had the communications dried up? Even Theppot, which had never been occupied, but had presumably remained silent as a condition of neutrality, still remained silent.
The only conclusion that could be drawn was that while the revolt had led to an independent force on Mars, that force did not control Mars. The reason seemed to be that the collaborators had set up a major base on the eastern side of Syrtis Major, on the slope towards Isidis Planitia. Apparently the M'starn space ships landed there, and the drop into the Isidis gave them just enough altitude to get back off again on their supplementary motors, their main motors not being usable until the ship was at a satisfactory distance from the base.
So, the collaborators were at Syrtis Major, and presumably had weapons supplied by the aliens, the settlers were in a cave in the Valles Marineris, and might even be unarmed, Theppot remained neutral, there was some other force around who had provided temporary protection, then . . . Then what? And why?
Natasha Kotchetkova knew that somehow she had to contact this unknown ally, and most definitely she had to find out more about what had happened. But what could she actually do? Arming the settlers seemed desirable, but how could she get a freighter there, unless this unknown ally was prepared to protect the freighter? It was all so difficult. And perhaps the most frustrating difficulty of all was to decide what she could divulge at the next Council meeting?
Essentially nothing. In the first place, she did not know very much. That could be very difficult to explain when, at the same time, the enemy seemed to be sustaining setbacks. The Council did, after all, have the right to know in general what strategies were likely to be effective. There was a second reason for not divulging anything, in the event she actually knew something worthwhile. The Council members could not be relied on to keep a secret. Politicians always communicated, hence she had to assume that anything so divulged could end up in some form of message transmission, and she had to assume the enemy could monitor all Terran transmissions. There was a natural temptation to consider the enemy immensely advanced in weaponry and propulsion, however everyone also had to accept that technical advantage would apply over a very large range of activity.
What did the enemy want? What did their enemy want? Would the enemy of the M'starn be even more dangerous to Earth than the M'starn? It was all such a difficult problem. And she had so little time to solve it.
Chapter 7
At last the individual contests commenced. The first involved placing an officer in a space vehicle with a faulty life support system. The officer either passed or failed; a pass required the candidate to stay in the sealed capsule until invited out. Failure involved using the emergency exit or if resuscitation was required. Points were gained by carrying out the repair in the shortest time. Harry found the repair exercise reasonably easy, thanks to his physics background, and he emerged third overall, being beaten by Mike Pennlington, who had also shown some ability as a mechanic, and, as a surprise, by a Troy Munro, who seemed to have no particular mechanical ability.
Munro was known to be a corporate man and there was a suspicion of bribery. Munro admittedly had an easy problem to fix; the problem was finding it, and he claimed to have been lucky. There was no evidence to the contrary, and since Pennlington would get the trophy, nothing further was said.
Marisa Robeiro closed the folder that contained the plans of the capsule, and approached the hatch with trepidation. She seemed to be jinxed. It was true that she was not a particularly good shot, but her efforts at the trophy shooting competition had been embarrassing: she had not even hit the support for the target. She would have been rejected on the spot, except for one piece of luck. A Russian officer had laughed his head off at this terrible performance, then grabbed a clip, grabbed her rifle, dived onto the ground and pumped off the clip at a ferocious pace. There were titters of laughter when he too missed the target.
The language that followed was, fortunately, in Russian, and no Russian offered to translate for her. He took the rifle away, and said that somebody would hear about this. Nothing had happened, however.
Marisa heard the hatch close, and, as expected, a warning light began flashing, indicating that there was a problem with the air supply. As required, she turned on the computer to bring up the diagnostic protocols. The computer turned on, then suddenly the screen went dead. There were no diagnostic tools available. With no diagnostics, it was impossible to pinpoint the leak.
Fortunately, the carbon dioxide scrubbers seemed to be still working. She took a screwdriver, and after spending about five minutes trying to dig the paint out of the screws she began unscrewing the rear panel. The screws seemed to have never been shifted in their life. She was sweating somewhat as she pushed as hard as she could with the screwdriver into the screws, and with large pliers she turned the screws.
With pronounced relief, Marisa pulled the panel off. Her breathing seemed to be harder as she crawled into the cavity and as she grasped a pipe, she eased her way along towards the oxygen tank. She found the main valve, and turned it off, then backed along the pipe until she found a coupling.
Breathing was now becoming difficult, a rather small capsule having been chosen for this exercise so that the time constraint was important. Marisa crawled out of the cavity, and pulled off another cover. Here was a pressure-reducing valve behind another valve with a hose attached. She disconnected the hose from its other end, turned off the flow of whatever this system carried, and took a wrench to it. After five minutes of heaving, she had the valve free. Back to the cavity, the air now becoming quite foul, she quickly began screwing the valve on. It would not quite fit: the threads were different. It was then she decided she had no choice: she took a large wrench and puffing furiously she forced the steel valve onto the brass thread. When she could not turn it any more, she opened the main valve, and slowly opened the second valve. Out the end of the hose, oxygen flowed.
The computer had two functions: first to provide the diagnostic information, and secondly to key in a message that you had completed the task. The other form of exiting was to hammer furiously on the hatch, which meant failure. So Marisa decided to sit back, and await developments.
Eventually a highly concerned Defence officer opened the hatch to see Marisa wave at him, and claim success. This started an immediate furore. That was not a repair, and indeed the plain pipe now needed to be replaced. The Captain in charge of scoring the exercise announced that Marisa had failed.
"As a matter of interest," came a voice from the back, "if that happened to you, exactly what would you have done?" Everybody turned to see a Russian Colonel standing there with a broad smile on his face, but it was a rather mirthless smile. "I'll tell you what," he continued harshly. "Why don't we repair the capsule to what it was like when this young lady started, I'll put you in, and you are forbidden to use that method. And believe me, I won't open the hatch until you are well and truly dead, unless you've repaired it."
"Er, sir . . ."
"Two options!" the Colonel grinned. "You pass her or show her what should have happened."
The captain thought a moment, and gave Marisa a grade three
pass.
"Typical," the Colonel grunted. "Someone actually shows survival instincts, and gets clobbered for exceeding budgetary guidelines."
* * *
Harvey Munro turned on the Comscreen. It was an infuriatingly early start to the day, but he had to concede that communication was not easy, and Troy had to be believed when he had claimed it was difficult to find time to transmit without attracting attention.
The image appeared on the screen. Initially, the news was good. The Brazilian appeared to be failing the course, and the next test was the simulated combat. Troy had arranged for her to fight an unknown Australian, and he had arranged for her craft to fail to execute manoeuvres at the key point; not only would she lose, but she would lose ineptly to a nonentity.
Also, Troy, after an indifferent start had, through lubricating the correct sources, made a quite unexpected recovery, and he was one of the high scorers in one test.
"Not so fast," said an infuriated Harvey. "If you're going to buy an edge in a contest, don't even think of winning."
"Why not? I rather fancy . . ."
"Thick-head! If you come in at fifty-five per cent, nobody cares. Come in with a score of ninety-nine, and someone's going to start asking questions."
"Yes, sir," came a subdued reply.
Chapter 8
Max Reiner arrived late that evening, and pushed aside secretaries who attempted to stop him. One secretary did get a warning through to Harvey Munro, and was surprised to find that even Harvey Munro was not prepared to order him to be stopped. As Reiner stormed into the office, Harvey quickly grabbed the files in front of him, closed them, and put them in a heap on the side of the desk.
