"Should be here," Staley said. He blasted through an airtight door, then fired a man-sized gap through the outer hull itself. Air whistled out—the miniatures had somehow again enclosed them in the stinking atmosphere of Mote Prime even as they had come aft. Wisps of ice-crystal fog hung in the vacuum.
Potter found the lifeboat inflation controls and smashed the glass cover with his pistol butt. They stepped out of the way and waited for the lifeboats to inflate.
Instead the flooring swung up. Stored beneath the deck was a line of cones, each two meters across at the base, each about eight meters long.
"The Midnight Brownie strikes again," said Whitbread.
The cones were all identical, and fabricated from scratch. The miniatures must have worked for weeks beneath the deck, tearing up the lifeboats and other equipment to replace them with—these things. Each cone had a contoured crash chair in the big end and a flared rocket nozzle in the point.
"Look at the damn things, Potter," Staley ordered. "See if there's anywhere Brownies could hide in them." There didn't seem to be. Except for the conical hull, which was solid, everything was open framework. Potter tapped and pried while his friends stood guard.
He was looking for an opening in the cone when he caught a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye. He snatched a grenade from his belt and turned. A space suit floated—out of the corridor wall. It held a heavy laser in both hands.
Staley's nerves showed in his voice. "You! Identify yourself!"
The figure raised its weapon. Potter threw the grenade.
Intense green light lashed out through the explosion, lighting the corridor weirdly and tearing up one of the conical lifeboats. "Was it a man?" Potter cried. "Was it? The arms bent wrong! Its legs stuck straight out—what was it?"
"An enemy," Staley said. "I think we'd better get out of here. Board the boats while we've still got 'em." He climbed into the reclined contour seat of one of the undamaged cones. After a moment the others each selected a seat.
Horst found a control panel on a bar and swung it out in front of him. There were no labels anywhere. Sentient or nonsentient, all Moties seemed to be expected to solve the workings of a machine at a glance.
"I'm going to try the big square button," Staley said firmly. His voice sounded oddly hollow through the suit radio. Grimly he pushed the button.
A section of the hull blew away beneath him. The cone swung out as on a sling. Rockets flared briefly. Cold and blackness—and he was outside the Field.
Two other cones popped out of the black sea. Frantically Horst directed his suit radio toward the looming black hulk of Lenin no more than a kilometer away. "Midshipman Staley here! The lifeboats have been altered. There are three of us, and we're alone aboard them—"
A fourth cone popped from the blackness. Staley turned in his seat. It looked like a man—
Three hand weapons fired simultaneously. The fourth cone glowed and melted, but they fired for a long time. "One of the—uh—" Staley didn't know what to report. His circuit might not be secure.
"We have you on the screens, Midshipman," a heavily accented voice said. "Move away from MacArthur and wait for pickup. Did you complete your mission?"
"Yes, sir." Staley glanced at his watch. "Four minutes to go, sir."
"Then move fast, mister," the voice ordered.
But how? Staley wondered. The controls had no obvious function. While he searched frantically, his rocket fired. But what—he hadn't touched anything.
"My rocket's firing again," said Whitbread's voice. He sounded calm —much calmer than Staley felt.
"Aye, and mine," Potter added. "Never look a gift horse in the mouth. We're movin' away from yon ship."
The rumble continued. They were accelerating together at nearly a standard gee, with Mote Prime a vast green crescent to one side. On the other was the deep black of the Coal Sack, and the blacker mass of Lenin. The boats accelerated for a long time.
Chapter Thirty-two
Lenin
The young Russian midshipman carried himself proudly. His battle armor was spotless, and all his equipment arranged properly by the Book. "The Admiral requests that you come to the bridge," he chirped in flawless Anglic.
Rod Blaine followed listlessly. They floated through the air lock from Lenin's number-two hangar deck to a flurry of salutes from Kutuzov's Marines. The full honors of a visiting captain only stirred his grief. He'd given his last orders, and he'd been the last man to leave his ship. Now he was an observer, and this was probably the last time anyone would render him boarding honors.
Everything aboard the battleship seemed too large, yet he knew it was only an illusion. With few exceptions the compartments and corridors of capital ships were standardized, and he might as well have been aboard MacArthur. Lenin was at battle stations, with all her airtight doors closed and dogged. Marines were posted at the more important passageway controls, but otherwise they saw no one, and Rod was glad of that. He could not have faced any of his former crew. Or passengers.
Lenin's bridge was enormous. She was fitted out as a flagship, and in addition to the screens and command posts for the ship herself there were a dozen couches for the Admiral's battle staff. Rod woodenly acknowledged the Admiral's greeting and sank gratefully into the Flag Captain's chair. He didn't even wonder where Commander Borman, Kutuzov's flag lieutenant and chief of staff, had gone. He was alone with the Admiral at the flag command station.
MacArthur was displayed from half a dozen views on the screens above him. The last of Lenin's boats were pulling away from her. Staley must have accomplished his mission, Rod thought. Now she has only a few minutes to live. When she's gone I'll really be finished. A newly promoted captain who lost his ship on her first mission—even the Marquis' influence would not overcome that. Blind hatred for the Mote and all its inhabitants welled up inside him.
"Dammit, we ought to be able to get her back from a bunch of—of goddamn animals!" he blurted.
Kutuzov looked up in surprise. His craggy eyebrows came closer together in a frown, then relaxed slightly. "Da. If that is all they are. But suppose they are more than that? In any event is too late."
"Yes, sir. They triggered the torpedoes." Two hydrogen bombs. The Field generator would vaporize in milliseconds, and MacArthur would— He writhed in pain at the thought. When the screens flared, she'd be gone. He looked up suddenly. "Where are my midshipmen, Admiral?"
Kutuzov grunted. "They have decelerated to a lower orbit and are beyond the horizon. I will send a boat for them when everything is clear."
Strange, Rod thought. But they couldn't come directly to Lenin by the Admiral's orders, and the boats wouldn't provide any real protection when MacArthur exploded. What they had done was unnecessary caution since the torpedoes did not give off a large fraction of their energy in x-rays and neutrons, but it was understandable caution.
The timers twirled noiselessly to zero. Kutuzov watched grimly as another minute, and another, went past. "The torpedoes did not fire," he said accusingly.
"No, sir." Rod's misery was complete. And now—
"Captain Mikhailov. You will please prepare main battery to fire on MacArthur." Kutuzov turned his dark gaze to Rod. "I dislike this, Captain. Not so much as you. But I dislike it. Do you prefer to give order yourself? Captain Mikhailov, you permit?"
"Da, Admiral."
"Thank you, sir." Rod took a deep breath. A man ought to kill his own dog. "Shoot!"
Space battles are lovely to see. The ships approach like smooth black eggs, their drives radiating dazzling light. Scintillations in the black flanks record the explosions of torpedoes that have escaped destruction from the stabbing colors of the secondary lasers. The main batteries pour energy into each other's Fields, and lines of green and ruby reflect interplanetary dust.
Gradually the Fields begin to glow. Dull red, brighter yellow, glaring green, as the Fields become charged with energy. The colored eggs are linked by red and green threads from the batteries, and th
e colors change.
Now three green threads linked Lenin and MacArthur. Nothing else happened. The battle cruiser did not move and made no attempt to fight back. Her Field began to glow red, shading to yellow where the beams converged amidships. When it became white it would overload and the energy stored in it would be released—inward and out. Kutuzov watched in growing puzzlement.
"Captain Mikhailov. Please take us back a klick." The lines on the Admiral's brow deepened as Lenin's drive moved her gently away from MacArthur.
MacArthur shaded green with faintly bluish spots. The image receded on the screens. Hot spots vanished as the lasers spread slightly. A thousand kilometers away she glowed richly in the telescopes.
"Captain, are we at rest with respect to MacArthur?" Kutuzov asked.
"Da, Admiral."
"She appears to move closer."
"Da, Admiral. Her Field is expanding."
"Expanding?" Kutuzov turned to Rod. "You have explanation?"
"No, sir." He wanted nothing more than oblivion. Speaking was pain, awareness agony. But—he tried to think. "The Brownies must have rebuilt the generator, sir. And they always improve anything they work on."
"It seems pity to destroy it," Kutuzov muttered. "Expanded like that, with that great radiating surface, MacArthur would be match for any vessel in Fleet. . ."
MacArthur's Field was violet now, and huge. It filled the screens, and Kutuzov adjusted his to drop the magnification by a factor of ten. She was a great violet balloon tethered by green threads. They waited, fascinated, as ten minutes went by. Fifteen.
"No ship has ever survived that long in violet," Kutuzov muttered. "Are you still convinced we deal only with animals, Captain Blaine?"
"The scientists are convinced, sir. They convinced me," he added carefully. "I wish Dr. Horvath were here now."
Kutuzov grunted as if struck in the belly. "That fool. Pacifist. He would not understand what he saw." They watched in silence for another minute.
The intercom buzzed. "Admiral, there is a signal from the Mote embassy ship," the communications officer announced.
Kutuzov scowled. "Captain Blaine. You will take that call."
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Answer the call from the Moties. I will not speak to any alien directly."
"Aye aye, sir."
Its face was any Motie's face, but it sat uncomfortably erect, and Rod was not surprised when it announced, "I am Dr. Horvath's Fyunch(click). I have distressing news for you, Captain Blaine. And by the way, we appreciate the warning you gave us—we don't understand why you wish to destroy your ship, but if we had been alongside—"
Blaine rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We're fighting a plague. Maybe killing MacArthur stopped it. We can hope. Listen, we're a little busy now. What's your message?"
"Yes, of course. Captain, the three small craft which escaped from MacArthur have attempted reentry to Mote Prime. I am sorry, but none survived."
Lenin's bridge seemed to fog. "Reentry with lifeboats? But that's plain silly. They wouldn't—"
"No, no, they tried to land. We tracked them part way— Captain, we have recordings of them. They burned up, completely—"
"God damn it to hell! They were safe!"
"We're terribly sorry."
Kutuzov's face was a mask. He mouthed: "Recordings."
Rod nodded. He felt very tired. He told the Motie, "We would like those recordings. Are you certain that none of my young officers survived?"
"Quite certain, Captain. We are very distressed by this. Naturally, we had no idea they would attempt such a thing, and there was absolutely nothing we could do under the circumstances."
"Of course not. Thank you." Rod turned off the screen and looked back at the battle display in front of him.
Kutuzov muttered, "So there are no bodies and no wreckage. Very convenient." He touched a button on the arm of his command couch and said, "Captain Mikhailov, please send cutter to look for the midshipmen." He turned back to Rod. "There will be nothing, of course."
"You don't believe the Moties, do you, sir?" Rod asked.
"Do you, Captain?"
"I—I don't know, sir. I don't see what we can do about it."
"Nor I, Captain. The cutter will search, and will find nothing. We do not know where they attempted reentry. The planet is large. Even if they survive and are free, we could search for days and not find them. And if they are captives—they will never be found." He grunted again and spoke into his command circuit. "Mikhailov, see that the cutter searches well. And use torpedoes to destroy that vessel, if you please."
"Yes, sir." Lenin's captain spoke quietly at his post on the opposite side of the big bridge. A score of torpedoes arced out toward MacArthur. They couldn't go through the Field; the stored energy there would fuse them instantly. But they exploded all at once, a perfect time-on-target salvo, and a great ripple of multicolored light swept around MacArthur's violet-glowing surface. Bright white spots appeared and vanished.
"Burn-through in nine places," the gunnery officer announced.
"Burn-through into what?" Rod asked innocently. She was still his ship, and she was fighting valiantly for her life . . .
The Admiral snarled. The ship was five hundred meters inward from that hellish violet surface—the bright flashes might never have reached her, or might have missed entirely.
"Guns will continue to fire. Launch another torpedo attack," Kutuzov ordered.
Another fleet of glowing darts arced out. They exploded all across the violet shimmering surface. More white spots rippled across, and there was an expanding ripple of violet flame.
And then MacArthur was as she was. A violet fire balloon a full kilometer in diameter, tethered by threads of green light.
A mess steward handed Rod a cup of coffee. Absently he sipped. It tasted terrible.
"Shoot!" Kutuzov commanded. He glared at the screens in hatred. "Shoot!"
And suddenly it happened. MacArthur's Field expanded enormously, turned blue, yellow—and vanished. Automatic scanners whirred and the magnification of the screens increased. The ship was there.
She glowed red, and parts had melted. She should not have been there at all. When a Field collapses, everything inside it vaporizes . . .
"They must have fried in there," Rod said mechanically.
"Da. Shoot!"
The green lights stabbed out. MacArthur changed, bubbled, expanded, fuming air into space. A torpedo moved almost slowly to her and exploded. Still the laser batteries fired. When Kutuzov finally ordered them off, there was nothing left but vapor.
Rod and the Admiral watched the empty screen for a long time. Finally the Admiral turned away. "Call in the boats, Captain Mikhailov. We are going home."
Chapter Thirty-three
Planetfall
Three smallish cones, falling. A man nested in each, like an egg in an egg cup.
Horst Staley was in the lead. He could see forward on a small square screen, but his rear view was all around him. Except for his pressure suit he was naked to space. He turned gingerly, to see two other flame-tipped cones behind him. Somewhere, far beyond the horizon, were MacArthur and Lenin. There was no chance that his suit radio would carry that far, but he turned to the hailing frequency and called anyway. There was no answer.
It had all happened so fast. The cones had fired retrorockets and by the time he had called Lenin it had been too late. Perhaps the signal crew had been busy with something else, perhaps he had been slow— Horst felt suddenly alone.
They continued to fall. The rockets cut off.
"Horst!" It was Whitbread's voice. Staley answered.
"Horst, these things are going to reenter!"
"Yeah. Stick with it. What else can we do?"
That did not call for an answer. In lonely silence three small cones fell toward the bright green planet below. Then: reentry.
It was not the first time for any of them. They knew the colors of the plasma field that builds before a ship's n
ose, colors differing according to the chemistry of the ablation shield. But this time they were practically naked to it. Would there be radiation? Heat?
Whitbread's voice reached Staley through the static. "I'm trying to think like a Brownie, and it isn't easy. They knew about our suits. They'd know how much radiation they'd stop. How much do they think we can take? And heat?"
"I've changed my mind," Staley heard Potter say. "I am not going down."
Staley tried to ignore their laughter. He was in charge of three lives, and he took it seriously. He tried to relax his muscles as he waited for heat, turbulence, unfelt radiation, tumbling of the cone, discomfort and death.
Landscape streamed past him through plasma distortions. Circular seas and arcs of river. Vast stretches of city. Mountains cased in ice and cityscape, the continuous city engulfing the slopes to the snowy peaks. A long stretch of ocean; would the damn cones float? More land.
The cones slowing, the features getting larger. Air whipping around them now. Boats on a lake, tiny specks, hordes of them. A stretch of green forest, sharply bounded, laced by roads.
The rim of Staley's cone opened and a ring of parachute streamed back. Staley sagged deep into the contoured seat. For a minute he saw only blue sky. Then came a bone-jarring Thump. He cursed in his mind. The cone teetered and toppled on its side.
Potter's voice rang in Staley's ears. "I hae found the hover controls! Look for a sliding knob near the center, if the beasties hae done the same to all. That is the thrust control, and moving the whole bloody control panel on its support tilts the rocket."
Too bad he hadn't found it sooner! Staley thought. He said, "Get near the ground and hover there. The fuel may burn out. Did you find a parachute release, Potter?"
"No. 'Tis hanging under me. Yon rocket flame must hae burned it away by now. Where are you?"
The Mote In God's Eye Page 34
