A Thunder Of Stars

by Dan Morgan;John Kippax

  "Slightly? How the hell much is that?" Bruce demanded with sudden savagery.

  "We're working on it now," Helen said. "But it doesn't look good."

  "Let me know as soon as you've got anything definite," Bruce said. Turning his attention back to his own communications set, he began to talk to Scout Ships Two and Three.

  *11*

  Never forget that Man in space is an intruder, vulnerable at all times, faced by immeasurable hostile odds, entirely dependent on the maintenance of the artificial environment of the ship in which he travels.

  (MANUAL FOR SPACE CORPS OFFICERS.

  P 167. Revised Ed. 2160)

  If Helen Lindstrom had not been tough she would never have reached her present rank, but as she listened to the operators on Moon and Mars arguing, she found her eyes smarting with suppressed tears, not because of the colourful language of the operators, but because she was watching the screen that showed the transmission from Athena. The picture changed every ten seconds, as it automatically switched from one internal scanner to the next, a procedure originally intended to give a captain on his bridge a composite picture of what was going on all over his ship. As it changed, faces appeared, suddenly individualized—men, women, children, gray with tension, their eyes haunted by fear of the unknown and knowledge of their own helplessness. She tried to force herself to look elsewhere, but always her eyes swung back, however unwillingly.

  Moon and Mars argued, matched figures, and argued again. And as she listened to them, Helen Lindstrom was forced closer and closer to the conclusion that she was trying to avoid. She was the observer on the spot, and the data she got from the command scout, out there in space, was more accurate than anything that could be seen from any planetary tracking station. In the end, the casting vote in the matter of determining Athena's new course vector must be hers.

  Turning her head so that the vid screen was out of sight, she made an attempt to close up on all emotion, to think herself into the course-and-speed computer. She wanted to be nothing but part of the machine, part of the complex that supplied Tom Bruce with operational information. At the same time she consoled herself with the thought that, however difficult her task might seem, she was still only the penultimate arbiter. The decision about what action should be taken on the data she provided would be his. It was a dreadful responsibility.

  She fought against recognizing the truth as the figures flashed up on the screen of the computer, cancelled out and began again, using her own data. Hoping against hope that the Mars operator had made some error, that the conclusions of the Moon observers were nearer the truth. But Moon was in a bad position, the angle and distance were both against the likelihood of their being correct.

  The results came up, confirming Mars so closely as to leave no doubt in her mind.

  "How long?" asked Tom Bruce.

  She turned to face him gratefully. He already knew this terrible thing that she could not put into words.

  "Approximately six hours. Oh, God, Tom!" She felt the hysteria closing in on her mind as she imagined what it must be like aboard Athena. She found herself struggling with her safety harness, tearing at the straps.

  "Lindstrom!" Bruce's voice was like a whiplash, cutting through her confusion.

  "Sir!"

  "Call Scout Ships Two and Three and tell them to return to base. There's nothing for them to do here now."

  World Admiral Joe Hoffner was still wailing in the anteroom. He looked up as the surgeon-general entered.

  "Well?"

  "It will take all the skill we've got," Hurwitz said. "Also a bit of luck, and a couple more prayers wouldn't hurt. Perhaps the old chap doesn't want to live any more. Perhaps we are the ones who are forcing him."

  Hoffner was aghast. "But he must! Look at all he's got to live for. The way he cares about people, and the way people care about him!”

  Hurwitz shook his head sombrely. "It's sort of crept up on him as he's got older. He's been shielded more and more, smothered with love and care. Once, when he was younger, he had raw decisions to make. He was part of life, of the whole business of Earth, the solar system and the colonies beyond. But he's loved more now as—as a museum piece—by many people ..."

  Hoffner strode the length of the silent carpet and came back. "What do I tell the news services?"

  "Nothing."

  Hoffner swung his arms helplessly. "All right. If you say so."

  A knock at the door. An orderly entered, carrying a portable vidphone set.

  "Yes?"

  "May I plug this in, sir?"

  Hurwitz stabbed a finger at the wall plug. "If you must. Who wants to talk? We're busy."

  "Lieutenant Commander Bruce, System Patrols, sir."

  "Bruce!”' Hurwitz looked wonderingly at Hoffner. "All right, leave it," he said to the orderly. Bending over the set, he switched it on. The picture shivered, then steadied.

  "Yes, Commander?" Hurwitz said.

  "Sir, I must speak to the President," Bruce said.

  "Impossible!"

  "That's what I was told, sir. And that's why I'm calling you. It's absolutely essential that I speak with the President personally."

  "Fong?"

  "No, sir. This isn't a political matter."

  "World Admiral Hoffner is right here with me," Hurwitz said.

  "It's no good, sir," Bruce insisted. "Even he can't give me permission for this."

  Hoffner put his head by the side of Hurwitz. "Permission for what?"

  Brace's face was a duty mask, his voice was flat, as though all feeling had been ironed out of it by sheer will power. "I may have to kill five hundred people," he said.

  The picture transmission from Athena could have been a schoolroom or a mission hall somewhere, anywhere. A couple of dozen children sat, listening to a young woman in gray coveralls who was reading to them from the Holy Bible. The woman's voice was steady and clear, but her hands, holding the book, were shaking.

  Lindstrom rounded desperately on Bruce. "Do we have to have that foul thing on?' she demanded. "Won't the recording be enough—without our seeing it?"

  Bruce glanced at her. "All right, cut the picture for the time being. Maybe it's best that we don't see ... everything."

  "Tom ... there has to be some other way." She heard her own voice, like a moan of pain.

  Bruce said harshly: "In just sixty-five minutes from now that ship is going to hit Earth."

  "I... I could be wrong. Tom! If I were wrong."

  "There's not!" His voice crackled. "We're the only ones in a position to stop Athena."

  Her lips trembled. "Five hundred people," she said

  "Against how many?" he said. "Look on it as a mathematical problem—just try. Even if that thing hits Earth in the middle of the Pacific—"

  She shook her head. "No ... not the Pacific. Northeastern United States—New York conurbation."

  "Christ Almighty!" Bruce said. He closed his eyes momentarily.

  "Commander Bruce . . . Commander Bruce . . . Athena calling Commander Bruce," said a loudspeaker.

  "Picture!" he ordered sharply.

  Helen Lindstrom touched the switch and the face of Joe Kolukwe appeared on the screen.

  "Yes, Kolukwe?" Tom Bruce said.

  "Commander, I know you've got a lot to do," Kolukwe said apologetically. "But some of our people back there are mighty nervous—you see, they don't understand what's going on. I’ve tried to explain to them, but, well ... I'm just a simple cloddie myself. I was wondering if maybe I could switch into the PA system and you could talk to them for just a minute or two."

  "Oh, God!” she whispered.

  Bruce flashed her a brief glance, then turned back to the scanner. "I read you, Kolukwe. But right now I'm tied. There's a great deal that has to be done."

  "Just a few words ... a bit of reassurance, Commander," Joe Kolukwe said. "That's all they need ... that, and to see your face, and know there's somebody out there who cares what happens to them."

  Helen looked at
Brace's bony face, weirdly lit from below. Near the left temple she could see the quick throbbing of a vein. Then she looked down at the missile board where two red lights were already glowing.

  "All right, Tom, I'll talk to them," she said. "You do what you have to do."

  "Thanks, Helen." He flashed her a quick smile, and for a moment they were close again, a man and a woman sharing—duty, love ... Here, in this inhuman situation, there was some consolation in remembering one's humanity.

  "Hallo, Joe Kolukwe," she said, smiling into the scanner. "My name is Helen Lindstrom, and I'm Commander Brace's number two. If you'll put me on your internal PA screens maybe I can explain things to your people. You see, what we're going to do is bring in

  Tom Brace flipped the switch that armed the already lowered missiles. Now it was only a matter of lining up the two silver circles of the aiming mechanism. In the background he could hear Helen Lindstrom's voice, cool and efficient, as she explained the procedure for ferrying a crippled ship into orbit. But not this ship, he thought grimly, his hand locking ship control and aiming device together.

  Now the silver circles impinged. Time stretched and stretched and stretched.

  He thought, She has a beautiful voice.

  The circles merged, became one. Brace's hand was on the firing stud.

  "... very often find that with a few simple repairs a ship ..." Helen Lindstrom's voice, calm, reassuring. The statue face of Joe Kolukwe in the vidscreen was joined by another now, an African woman, who must be his wife.

  Tom Bruce pressed the firing buttons. Came two thudding kicks as the missiles launched; he began to swing the scout ship into a turn.

  He became aware that Helen had stopped talking. She was staring silently at the faces of the two people in the screen.

  And they, in their turn, were staring back at her, the beginnings of real fear, of uncertainty, clouding their faces.

  "All right, that's enough!" Bruce snapped. Leaning across, he switched off the transmitter.

  Helen made no response. She sat rigid, staring at the blank screen.

  Bruce was watching the picture from the exterior scanners. It showed Athena, faintly glowing, set against a frame of star shot blackness.

  Two needles of fire threaded their way across the screen. They touched the ship. For a tiny moment, nothing happened. Then, a great orange, purple-edged flower of flame blossomed out, silent, horrible, total, final.

  The flower wilted, disintegrated into a billion fading particles. Soon, only the stars remained.

  *12*

  It's wonderful how your beauty grows,

  When you're three months out in space,

  And handsome become the most ord'nary Joes,

  Apollos in figure and face. . . .

  (SONG OF THE CREWWOMEN).

  Helen Lindstrom blinked as the sunlight glared on the vast, mirror-polished egg of Venturer Twelve. Noticing that her companions on the antigrav lift, Admiral Carter and Chief Petty Officer Panos, had slipped on the dark goggles that came with the protective clothing the three of them were wearing, she followed suit, grateful as much for the masking effect they had on her features as for the protection they afforded against glare. Here in the shipyard, in the middle of his own cabbage patch, Admiral Junius Carter was as tractable as a well-fed bulldog, clearly pleased with himself and what he was doing, and enjoying the task of showing the newly appointed 2 i/c and warrant officer over the ship. But she still found herself wary of the man, and unable to forget the hard time he had given her during the Commissioning Board interview.

  "Well, what do you think of her?"

  Helen came out of her private thoughts and became aware that Admiral Carter, squat and slightly clown like in his red-and-white-striped coveralls, and a bright red helmet with two stars of rank, was addressing her. "Magnificent, sir," she said. 80

  "You're damned right she is!" Carter said, grinning. "The biggest and the best!"

  Panos, a dark, Mediterranean type in early middle age, built like a barrel, nodded his agreement. She liked what she had seen of this swarthy-faced man. He was undemonstrative, but filled with a restrained enthusiasm, and she had a feeling that she would be able to work well with him.

  The a/g lift hovered in midair, about six meters from the outermost bulge of the ship's skin. Standing at its edge, near the safety rail, they watched the welders, moving about the hull.

  "That silly sod thinks he's walking on air—look at him!" barked Carter, as one of the steelmen, negotiating a piece of scaffolding, swung over backward. The man made a kicking motion, attempting to engage both his magnetic boots, and missed. There was a yell, and he fell some twenty meters before his safety line brought him up with a wrench that must have come close to unsocketing his arms. He dangled some distance from them, wriggling like an angry marionette as he was pulled up toward the jury-rigged platform on top of the hull.

  Carter looked upward. "Foran's up there. You met him yet?"

  "No, sir," said Panos. "But I've heard about him."

  "Great feller!" Carter said. "You’ll either like him or want to fight him on sight, but he's the best foreman in the business." He turned, and told the driver to take them up.

  The a/g lift bucked and weaved as it climbed the air currents. The platform on top of the hull was built partly across the great gap which would eventually house the control and bridge area of the ship. Looking down, Helen caught her breath as she saw clear through the centre of the massive structure to the ground beneath, where distant men scurried about like ants. She hung onto the safety rail as the lift fought against gusty winds, feeling the joints of her fingers cracking. Finally the driver managed to settle his craft and lock it onto the metal plate set into the platform for that purpose.

  Foran came to meet them. He was about one meter eighty five, big built and gray haired, with a face like tanned leather, and bright blue eyes,

  "Afternoon, Admiral."

  "Afternoon, Dan. Meet Lieutenant Commander Lindstrom and Chief Petty Officer Panos."

  They shook hands.

  "Give me a minute, will you, Admiral?" said Foran, as the steelman who had lost his footing was hauled to the top. Foran strode across the platform, his face grim set.

  "Let's see your boots, Poliakov."

  "I'm okay."

  "Show me your boots!" roared Foran.

  The steelman complied meekly. Foran took the battery out of the big square toe of the boot and held it up for inspection.

  "Just as I thought—yesterday's date!" bawled Foran. "You're fined a day's pay, Poliakov. Now get to hell out of here and draw yourself a new set; git!"

  Dan Foran was not a man with whom you argued, in this or any other mood. Poliakov picked up his boots and high-tailed it for the temporary lift, which ran by the hoist down through the hole in the centre of the hull. Foran watched him go, then walked back to join Helen and her two companions.

  "They never change," he said, with a big grin. "They're on piece work, so they won't even use time to make sure that their boots'll hold 'em. Just take a chance on the safety harness. Got steelmen here who take home as much a week as a Lieutenant Commander. Now, Admiral; anything particular on your mind, or is this just a general look-see?"

  Carter was flipping through the pages of a large notebook. "I'm a bit behind with my homework. It's been a busy two days."

  "Yeah, I figured it had been." Foran looked sympathetic. "That inquiry is going to be a big circus."

  Carter nodded gloomily.

  "I sure hope Bruce comes out of it okay," Foran said. "Like you said last week, he's the only man for the job. But if they tie a can to his tail..." he pursed his lips seriously.

  Helen stiffened at the sound of the name, but said nothing.

  "The whole Corps is behind him," Carter said, with a sudden gruffness. "Now, Dan, about the housing of the bridge section—I'd like you to have a look at these stress figures." He and Foran walked away across the platform, deeply immersed in a highly technical discussion, and
Helen was left alone with CPO Panos.

  "Is the Admiral really in favour of Tom Bruce for command of Venturer Twelve?" she asked.

  Panos shrugged his heavy shoulders. "There have been rumours. It would suit me. He's a fine officer."

  Helen eyed the CPO sharply, but there was no sign of anything other than sincerity on his round, swarthy face. "You know him?" she asked.

  "I was with him on Venturer Ten. Panos explained. "He was a Lieutenant then, but you could tell he had the stuff in him. Even then he was a man who didn't hesitate to make a difficult decision, whatever the consequences to himself. That time down on Minos IV, plenty of officers would have . . ." Panos stopped talking suddenly, his face going a shade darker. "Sorry, Commander, I'm afraid I'm talking too much."

  "No, Panos, go on," Helen said. "I'd like to hear."

  Panos looked down at his feet, and shuffled slightly. "Better not, if it’s all the same to you. The Admiral would have my balls if he caught me talking about it."

  Helen made no attempt to restrain her smile. "All right, Panos; some other time, eh? Now, what shall we talk about—the view? Or maybe you'd like to give me some of your preliminary thoughts on the matter of crew discipline?"

  "The way it looks to me, we shouldn't hit any difficulty there," Panos said seriously. "Med/Psyche have done a first-class selection job. We shall be getting nothing but the cream."

  "Glad to hear it," Helen said. "Although, if they're that good, they're going to take some living up to."

  "Two years second in command to Tom Bruce, you shouldn't have any trouble," Panos said.

  "Thanks for the kind words, Panos." Helen spoke with deliberate lightness, but her own reservations still remained.

  She could not rid herself of the feeling that she was like some amputated limb, no longer part of the larger organism, and yet without the self-sufficiency required to carry on an independent existence.