Closed System

by Zach Hughes

  had begun to act as his agent onZede II. Mostly, however, during that meal and after­ward, when they danced, just the two of themalone in her apartment, she refused to talk aboutherself, or about coming events. "I want this to be our night, Pat," she whis­pered. "Something to remember, something which I will have

  if anything should go wrong." "What could go wrong?" he asked. "You don't seriously think that we'll accomplish our goal without losses?" Now and then her greeneyes

  could harden to a point where it seemed thatthey could cut glass. "I haven't allowed myself to think about it," hesaid. "You could remain here." She laughed. "No. My place is with my brother." "He says I'm to be with you," Pat said. "Thatmakes me feel as if I'm just extra baggage. I thinkI'd like to

  have a ship, Corinne. At least I'd beperforming a useful function." "So you want to be useful? Then kiss me," shesaid. For a long time Pat did not think of the very real danger to the UP. Man's love for woman, and Pat's

  need for this particular woman, must have been,he thought wryly, the original mind-dominancedrug, for

  with his lips on hers nothing else mattered. She lay on her back on a large, soft couch. Heleaned over her, torso to torso, mouth to mouth.She trembled, clung, seemed to be trying to pressherself so closely to him that she became weldedto his body.

  When she spoke, her voice was husky and un­steady. "I don't want to wait," she whispered. Neither did he. "It doesn't really matter, does it?" Her eyes were wide, and there was a touching look of desire, and

  perhaps just a little innocent fear, on her face.Somewhere deep down in Pat a touch of his old cynicism surfaced. Either she was the most skillfulactress he'd ever known, or she was, as her brotherhad stated, totally inexperienced in love.

  Within minutes, he realized, he would know moreaboutthat, for his need was great, and there wasthe chance thatsomething might happen, because even with an overwhelming weapon the Taratwofleet would not escape without losses. The sheernumber of UP ships assured that. Was she think­ing the same thing? Did she want to seize whatthey had, rather than risk dying without havinganything?

  "It matters to you," he told her, kissing her softlips with little pecking attacks. "It is you thatmatters." "Then make love to me, Pat." Her voice broke,and she closed her eyes. He wanted to make love to her. He let his hands begin to know the smooth curves of her, thoughtsmugly

  that he, old Audrey Patricia Howe, loved and was loved by the most beautiful girl in thepopulated galaxy.

  And he almost, almost, did. Giving up Corinne Tower was the hardest thing he'd ever done. The thought process, running as an undercurrent to the wildness of his need for her, was not a logical process from A to B to C. Histhoughts were chaotic. He remembered that firstnight aboardSkimmer when he saw her in theZede film, and the dream in which she'd come tohim, and he remembered how she'd looked so beau­tiful even while he was drinking the drugged li­quor which put him through seven and a half daysof hell, and the love in her eyes even as she stabbedhis neck with a syringe.

  But that woman wasn't Corinne Tower, thatwoman was Corinne Brenden. The two are the same. They're one. They're inseparable. She's the most desirable woman I've ever known. She has the political morality of a spider. She trusts you, Pat. She trusts you. She's willingto send those naive young Dorchlunt men off tokill

  millions of people, but she trustsyou, and sheloves you. He went so far as to see that her breasts wereperfection. Her reaction to his kiss there was wide-eyed amazement and clinging.

  For a moment, then, she was calm and self-possessed. She pushed his head away, looked athim, those green eyes piercing. "One thing is im­portant to me," she said. "Yes?" "I can never prove, without your trust, that youare the first man ever to see me like this." "I believe," he whispered. "When you know that you are the first to haveme, will you believe that no man has ever seenme?" Well, itwas possible. Not probable, especiallyconsidering that she'd worked in the film industry, but it

  waspossible. "Yes," he said. Her intake of breath, her wide eyes, her tremblings, which could have been fear, touched him—and then

  he was talking to himself again. She trusts you, Pat, and you're just waiting for achance to stop this criminal thing she believes in.And

  even if she's willing to kill millions, and per­haps tear down civilization as you know it, rightnow she's just a girl, just a young woman wholoves you and trusts you. "Corinne, let's talk for a minute," he said, pull­ing the silken material of her gown up to coverher. "Talk?" she asked."Talk?"

  "I do believe you," he said truthfully. No woman could be that accomplished of an actress. "Brendensaid you had always been romantic, that you hadalways looked forward to loving one man."

  She giggled. "Someday when we have hours andhours, I'll tell you how damned difficult that was,the ruses I had to use."

  "It was that important to you, wasn't it?"

  "Of course," she said, beginning to look a bit puzzled.

  "Then it's important to me to help you keep thatresolution, Corinne." He rose, pulling away fromher clutching hands. "Honey, you've waited this long. We can wait a little longer."

  Because, although his conscience ordered him tobetray her, to do all he could to stop the Taratwofleet, he could not betray her on a personal level. If he accepted her offer of herself, then he'd be boundto her, for having accepted something which she had valued so much, he could never, then, betrayher in any way.

  "Damn," she whispered. "I told you how I feel.This could be, I pray that it won't be, but it could be our last time alone together before we fight."

  "I know

  "I know, honey, I know. You think about it,though. See if I'm not right. It will be much betterthis way. We'll take the oldSkimmer after we'remarried and get lost in space somewhere for weeksand weeks."

  She came into his arms, weeping. Her kiss relitthe flames in him, but then she was pulling away,talking through tears. "I do love you so much,"she sobbed, "and to think that you value me thatmuch, are so considerate of my feelings, that makesme love you even more."

  He spent the night on theSkimmer. Corinne joinedhim there early in the morning, in a neat blueuniform, all business, and they lifted up to join thefleet. Corinne's flagship was a gleaming new heavycruiser. It had come out of a Zedeian shipyard lessthan one year past, and represented the latest innaval technology.

  The ship's disrupter installation was topside for­ward. The weapon was manned by a young Dorch­luntercut from the same pattern as all the others,a serious, handsome boy of not more than eigh­teen. Fleet communications was handled by anofficer from the Brenden's home planet, a brisk,efficient man who, under Corinne's orders, soonhad her half of the fleet in formation to attack theother half of the fleet under the Brenden's command.

  The last time ships of war had opened the dou­ble fail-safe locks on weapons was when a smallUP fleet wiped out the pirates who had made theHogg Moons their hideway. And yet, with UP X&Aships opening new blink routes constantly, withthe knowledge that at one time there'd been akiller race in the galaxy, ships of war and their crews needed training, just in case. The fleets ofthe UP were always having war games. It wasstandard practice for all ships, including those builtfor Taratwo by the Zedeians, to have a way ofkeeping score accurately in those war games. Eachweapon was equipped with a harmless beam pro­jector, and the ship's sensors were tuned to detectthe light beam's impact, should a ship be hit. Thusthere were two records, one on the ship whichfired the weapon, and one on the ship which was hit. Central fire control gathered the computer dataand, in a war game in space, sent out the word tovictim and victor when a ship was hit.

  It had been, Corinne said, fairly simple to inte­grate the disrupters into the system. By activatingonly the primary power source of a disrupter, a stream of harmless electrons bypassed the closedsystem of the secondary power stage and regis­tered as a hit on the target ship.

  UP naval tactics were well recorded, in hun­dreds of books. Since the Zedeian war, theorieshad not changed. A fleet was most effective wheni
n formation, bringing massed firepower to bear. Anaval engagement, then, would become a struggleof endurance, shield against laser, AMM againstmissile. UP tactics were perfect for the Brenden,for, unlike the UP ships, his ships had to makeonly one hit, on any portion of a ship, to be of deadly effect. Laser weapons, missiles, projectileweapons—all had to make multiple hits on ashielded ship to do significant damage.

  Corinne chose a modified V formation. Fromthat formation, firepower of all ships could beconcentrated. The Brenden came with stackedranks, the screen images showing a square madeup of little dots, the ships stacked line on lineabove each other, but with the ranks falling awayat staggered distances to make for differences in range for the opposing fleet.

  Taratwo men manned the conventional weap­ons. Missiles would not be used. They were too expensive, and too easily countered with AMMs. Ina real action, the main purpose of using missileswas to divert the enemy's attention, to keep aportion of his computer capacity engaged, and tokeep men busy. In an exercise, missiles were simu­lated by computer, and the men at the AMM sta­tions would be engaged in sending out not actualkiller missiles but little electronic blips on a com­puter screen.

  Two exercises were running simultaneously. Eachhalf of the fleet was doing its best to make enoughlaser and missile and projectile hits on the other half to keep from being tagged with the electronstream from a disrupter.

  The results were overkill.

  Pat had gone to stand near the young Dorch­lunter. Laser range and disrupter range were al­most equal, so that even as Pat saw the blinkings from the Brenden's fleet, the disrupter gunner wasspraying simulated death, taking out ship aftership in a display of swiftness and efficiency whichwas awesome. Only scattered laser hits registeredon Corinne's fleet, not enough to strain the screens.The swarm of simulated missiles were engaged bya swarm of simulated AMMs from Corinne's firecontrol; projectile weapons were never used, forthere was not time before multiple disrupter hitshad left the Brenden's fleet dead in space.

  The action lasted less than five minutes. It took a quarter hour for the computers to gather and tabulate. Not one ship in either fleet had beenseriously damaged by conventional weapons.Everyship, in each fleet, had been killed, and killed againand again by the deadly, swift, emotionless gun­ners behind the disrupters.

  The Brenden joined them on Corinne's flagship."Makes me almost feel sorry for the poor bas­tards," the Brenden gloated. "I'd say it'll take just about three engagements to have them yelling fornegotiations, and maybe two more after that forunconditional surrender."

  "What if they change tactics?" Corinne asked.

  The Brenden laughed. "Military thinking wasfrozen in place a thousand years ago."

  "Still," Corinne said.

  The big man mused. "All right, the day is young.Let's have another go at it. This time you changeto any tactic you care to use."

  "I'm not very imaginative in that way," she said.She smiled, brightened. "And besides, you know me too well, so well you'd be able to figure outwhat I was going to do in advance. Let Pat direct the fleet."

  "How about it, future brother-in-law?" the Bren­den asked.

  Pat had been trying to think up some way oflessening the effectiveness of the disrupters. "Fine,"he said. "I have got a couple of ideas I want to tryout. The situation is that there have been at leasttwo engagements, in which all UP ships were de­stroyed without loss to...us." He started to say"you," amended it just in time.

  "How much time do you need?" the Brendenasked.

  "Give us an hour after we withdraw to maxi­mum detection distance," Pat said.

  Pat gave his orders to the fleet communicationscontroller. Corinne's ships formed, started awayfrom Dorchlunt's sun.

  "How good are your pilots?" Pat asked Corinne.

  "Not as quick as you, but well trained. They canfollow orders," she said.

  "Get me Brenden," Pat told the communicator,and when he heard the big, rowdy voice, "Brenden,I'm going to give orders to my boys on intershipchannel nine, in the open because we don't want to take the time to set up scramblers. Tell yourships to stay off that channel."

  "Right," Brenden said.

  "And no cheating," Corinne said, over Pat'sshoulder.

  Brenden laughed. "If I cheated that would de­stroy the effectiveness of the exercise," he said.

  Pat went to work, giving orders to the computer operator, and to the control officer. The Brenden'sfleet was just at detection distance, a distance whichcould be measured down to an accuracy of a fewfeet. He had already scouted that area of space, forBrenden had not moved from the site of the for­mer exercise, so it was perfectly safe to blink hisfleet.

  It took a while to program all computers oneach individual ship, to set blink coordinates, to brief the pilots and crews on what Pat expected.

  On the Brenden's flagship, men were tense, not knowing exactly what to expect. The dictator was pleased, because there was a feeling of real emer­gency in the air, just as there would have been hadthat fleet out there been UP. He figured he wasgetting a pretty smart brother-in-law, after all,and then suddenly alarms began to clang and theship's shield sizzled with multiple laser hits andthe computers began to sing out warnings of anincoming swarm of missiles from 360 degrees.

  Brenden roared with pleasure. Pat had blinkedhis fleet, positioning his ships in a containingsphere, and Brenden's half of the fleet was beingattacked from all directions, the attacking ships so carefully positioned that misses did not strike afriendly ship but sizzled harmlessly through gaps in Pat's formation.

  Brenden lost twenty ships before his cool, effi­cient gunners decimated Pat's fleet, leaving lessthan four hundred ships to blink, after an initialflurry of fire, back to safety. Brenden's fleet washit again, and again, by the waves of simulated missiles which were still registering on his com­puter screens, and then, with his losses at justunder one hundred ships, he sighed with relief andstarted to get on the communicator to congratu­late Pat. He didn't have a chance to speak.

  They came back, the survivors, the flagship with Pat and Corinne aboard, in a wild melee of cork­screwing, hot-dog, individual attack, the pilots yell­ing in delight, experiencing a freedom of actionthey'd never known before, slamming into the midst of the Brenden's ships and taking a toll.

  Gorben, at the disrupter aboard Brenden's flag­ship, also acting as coordinator for the fleet gun­ners, was giving calm, swift orders as he jerked hisweapon from target to target, taking out ship aftership, knowing that his own ship was disabled by enemy laser fire, but still alive and fighting, andthen there was quiet, all ships in the attackingfleet tagged by the disrupter beams, all their men dead.

  "My God, boy," Brenden roared, when he was,once more, back aboard Corinne's flagship, "where'd you get such ideas? You took out almost two hun­dred of my ships. Some of them can be repaired,but the computer estimates that we lost over ahundred and fifty for good, along with about fif­teen hundred men."

  "I just put myself in the position of a UP fleetcommander," Pat said, "and wondered what I'ddo if I'd lost a couple of fleets without doing anyreturn damage. They're not stupid, Brenden. They'lladapt."

  "Well, thanks to you, we'll be more ready for surprises when the real thing starts," Corinne said.

  "Pat," Brenden said, "I hereby appoint you, butonly temporarily, the official enemy. I want you tospend the time between now and day after tomor­row putting yourself in UP shoes. Think up somemore surprises for us."

  "I'll do my best," Pat said.

  "Well, let's gather up the scattered chicks andhead for home," Brenden said. "Oh, I want you onthe reviewing stand tomorrow with us, Pat." Pat nodded.

  "You did well, darling," Corinne said, when theywere alone, back aboard theSkimmer on the padbehind the temple. He had told her that he didn'tthink it was a good idea for him to go to herapartment with her, that he wasn't sure his will­power would be strong enough a second time.

  "Coward," she'd said.

  "You bet," he had told her.

  She
was tired. She admitted that the strain ofbeing in command of half the fleet drained her.She told him she was pleased that he'd be in com­mand during the final training exercise. She was,he thought wryly, willing to give him all the battleglory, so long as she had her throne, her worlds,with him beside her.

  He walked her to her apartment, kissed her, justonce, and pushed her inside. Then, back on the Skimmer,he searched among the spare parts andtools stored in the mate's cabin until he found asmall hand-held cutting tool. Time was runningout, and the only plan he'd been able to come up with was a far-fetched, hare-brained one which, ifit succeeded, would have some drastic effects thathe didn't even want to think about. He didn't thinkhe'd have to worry about it working, however,because it depended upon his setting the scene properly and then getting a chance to speak privately with Gorben, and if he was lucky with a fewof the other Dorchlunters.

  He didn't know exactly how he'd be able tomanage that, but there was a step which had to becompleted before he'd be in a position to talk withGorben and the others anyhow, and if he gotthrough that one alive he'd worry about the restlater.

  TWELVE

  Pat set a wake-up alarm for three a.m. He'd thoughthe'd have difficulty falling asleep, but he didn'teven finish his drink before his eyes became heavy,and then the soft bell of the wake-up was in hisears and he was dressing.

  The temple doors were never locked. He went inthrough the back door and made his way towardthe interior. The corridors were well lit, but allwas quiet. Within five minutes he stood in frontof the golden door to the priests' inner sanctuary,the most secret of places, the sanctuary of the god whose name was so sacred it could not be spoken,except within the confines of the sanctuary itself.