“Then you’d better give me a straight answer, because you’re not going to get another chance. Now, what do you know about the detention center?”
M’tang looked at Billiard for a moment; then, with a rueful smile, he began to talk.
“On top it’s still an abandoned detention center. But underneath, in a fully shielded complex, there is one of the most advanced research facilities on the planet.”
“Doing what?” Billiard prompted.
“Working on a new power source,” the general answered. “A virtually unlimited power source. The high command gave the project top priority some time ago, because they believed that only with this unlimited power could you—that is, the revolution—be stopped. To the best of my knowledge, the few Redhats who are hiding out—and yes, most of them are there in the old detention center—still think that way, even though you’ve taken Lori.”
“What is this new power source?” Billiard asked, already sure he knew the answer but wanting to make absolutely certain he had the right project.
“The power of an entire universe,” M’tang answered, a dreamy expression coming to his features. “Power beyond the wildest imaginings of any man. Power beyond measure. Power literally without limit!”
“Details, man,” Billiard demanded. “Power from what, from where?”
M’tang shook his head, as if clearing out the dreams and making room for reality. “I don’t really have many details on the power source itself. It was all worked out by a study team some time back. But I once did get a general briefing on the subject, and I think I’ve retained some of that.
“Our scientists long ago surmised that there are more than one of what we think of as a universe. Not merely more than one galaxy, but multiple universes! They deduced that each universe contains a certain amount of mass, which creates a “binding” field, subtly different from a simple gravitational field, around that universe—a field which holds the universe together, keeping it apart, as it were, from other universes. Anyway, the mass of the universe determines the strength of that field which pervades and encloses the universe…
“They also theorized that all universes must be expanding in size—since our own was—through what they assumed to be infinite space. However, the rate of expanding of an individual universe, they said, would be determined by the strength of its binding field. That meant that all the various universes—which I guess are also infinite in number—are in sizes, depending upon their age and the amount of mass contained in each universe.
“In the course of trying to prove, or disprove, this expansion theory, it was discovered that energy was disappearing from our universe, into the so-called ‘black holes’ that used to be fairly massive stars. I understand that the holes have all been plotted, and that most spacemen understand the theory behind black holes.”
“They do,” Billiard said. “Go on.”
“Finally, some bright boy got the idea of capturing a universe—an entire encapsulated universe—and punching a hole through it so that we could drain off some of its power through what would appear, to that universe, to be an ordinary—though maybe rather large—black hole…
“It was a wild idea, but someone convinced Command that there was a chance of carrying it off. It took years of effort for the research team assigned to the project to ‘locate’ a universe beyond our own. Meanwhile, a second team was at work to discover a means—a tool of immense manipulative power—by which to capture and hold the universe we were looking for. Which was, of course, a smaller universe than our own. One that would, therefore, have a greater mass than ours. One that would contain, by the same token, great stores of energy!
“Much to our team’s surprise, we located such a universe within our own! And it was only a matter of a few feet across! A complete universe, with stars and clusters and galaxies, but so small that not the strongest instruments at our disposal could make out individual suns through the wall of force which held that universe together and kept it separate from our universe.
“Once the team had actually captured the universe and had anchored it in position in a lab, they began working on the part of the project which would give the whole thing meaning: finding a way to punch through the wall of that universe, to draw off some of that tremendous energy potential locked up in it. At first all such experiments had to be carried out in interstellar space because we couldn’t control the vast amounts of energy unleashed. Only after several years of development were we able to open up white holes small enough to allow us to use the probe on the surface of an inhabited planet.
“General,” Billiard broke in, “did your research team give any thought to what might happen to that universe when you punched a hole in it?”
“Our calculations, or rather the calculations of the research team,” the general answered pleasantly, “showed that even though we would be getting a tremendous amount of energy from the universe, what we would be getting would not be enough to break down totally the wall of binding force encapsulating that universe. We had no fear of an explosion.”
“Yes, I understand that,” Billiard said, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. “But what about what might be happening in the other universe—the one you have created an energy drain in. After all, if it’s a complete universe, there might even be intelligent beings in it. How will your hole in the wall of their universe affect them?”
“Well,” the general said, “I can’t really say I’ve given the problem much thought. In effect we’ve now created a tremendously large “black hole” in that universe, and it will probably have some rather unusual effects there, especially upon entropy and time flow. I can’t see that it’s really all that important, though. After all, whatever effects might occur there will have no real importance here, in the real world.”
Billiard stood for a moment staring at M’tang. The longer he stood there, silent, the more nervous M’tang became. Finally Billiard spoke.
“Very well, General. Now for the important question: What is the code to open the research station’s defensive shell?”
Now it was M’tang’s turn to be silent for a moment. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he obviously wrestled with himself over a course of action.
“The code is really the only thing I have to bargain for my life with, you know,” he said. “My life—and other things.”
“Other things?” Billiard asked. “What other things?”
“Well, one thing I want to do is to make you the most powerful man in the empire.”
“I already am the most powerful man in the empire,” Billiard said dryly, “so what you want, what you are offering me, is really nothing.”
“All you have is political power,” the general said with a slight sneer. “What I am offering you is unlimited physical power—the power to destroy planets, the power to make planets into gardens, the power to do whatever you wish with this universe.”
“Very well,” Billiard said impatiently, “I accept the power you’re offering. Now what is that code?”
“Well, now,” M’tang said slowly, a crafty expression appearing on his face. “I’m not offering this power as a gift, you know…”
Billiard looked at the old man for a moment; then with one smooth motion he stepped forward and pulled out his laser, jamming the node between M’tang’s lips.
“You have a choice, General,” he said in a deadly voice. “Give me the code for the defensive shell, or lose what few brains you have. Remember, we can always overpower the shell, if we have to. I have the men and ships to do that, but I’d rather not. I’d rather take over the complex intact… But the work of your research team can be duplicated, if I have to destroy the original!”
Billiard eased the gun back out of M’tang’s mouth, and the old man spat out a bit of broken tooth before speaking.
“I’ll program it for you,” he said, a thoroughly frightened expression now distorting his features.
He turned to a small desk, took out a pock
et programmer, then began punching buttons. Thirty seconds later, it ejected a small tape capsule into his hand, which he handed to Billiard.
“Okay, General,” Billiard said. “If this works, if this opens the shell, you’re a free man. You have my promise of a pardon and retirement on full pay. But you’re coming along to the station. If this tape doesn’t work, I guarantee you won’t live long enough to regret trying to cross me!”
Minutes later, Billiard and M’tang, accompanied by Fentara and a hastily assembled squad of soldiers, were airborne in a police floater commanded by Billiard. Billiard took the controls and headed the floater inland from Zilamat, toward the plateau and desert which filled two-thirds of the continent.
In forty-five minutes, Billiard saw smoke ahead, near the spot where Fentara’s slide map had indicated the abandoned Redhat base. Billiard triggered the code program that M’tang assured him would get them through the defensive shell, then threw every erg of power in the collectors into the drive nodes. Five minutes later, they were circling a massive smoking ruin—what was left of the hidden Redhat research station.
A few Redhat troops were still left in the station, primarily the controllers for the defensive shell, and Billiard found himself taking some small-arms fire as he grounded the floater. His squad of soldiers quickly took care of what little resistance there was, however, leaving only one man alive—to answer questions.
And answer he did, when he found out what was in store for him if he tried to remain silent.
Without advance notice, he told his interrogators, several heavy floaters had arrived at the research station a short time before, with a release program for the defensive shell. They had been filled with armed men dressed in Redhat uniforms, who had orders to move everything of value out of the station, destroying what they could not move. While some of them, he said, under the command of two Redhat generals, had moved out the heavy equipment in the main research lab, the others had planted explosives and rounded up all scientists and technicians. When they had loaded everything into the heavy floaters, including the technicians, they had set off explosives, then taken off toward the west.
Billiard had been listening to the interrogation from near the back of the common room, where his men had dragged the Redhat. Now he turned quickly and ran out to his police floater, hitting the switch of the command com set, which had been patched through the police net to the palace.
As the screen cleared, showing the face of a young warrant officer, Billiard barked: “Get me Captain Garth! Immediately!”
The young man’s face vanished from the screen and. was replaced in less than thirty seconds by Santha’s.
Billiard did not wait for her to ask him anything. “Red alert!” he screamed.
Before he could say any more, Santha spun around in her seat and slapped the alarm switch, then swung back to face him again.
“There was a secret Redhat research lab near Pelli city,” he told her. “They pulled out of it less than an hour ago, and they’ll probably be trying to get off-planet. Notify the monitor, planetary defense, and Bahsum. They must be stopped. But they must not be destroyed. We have to get back that equipment they stole. It’s vital!”
“I’m sorry,” Santha said, “but I’m afraid you’re too late, sir.”
“What?” Billiard yelled.
“They’ve already gotten off-planet. I was trying to reach you when you called. I didn’t know about the research station, but I’d had a report of a Redhat attack on the spaceport and docking complex at Nirbala. They stole a commercial freighter just minutes before it was scheduled to lift. Neither planetary defense nor the monitor paid any attention to it, since it did have flight clearance.”
“And?” Billiard asked.
“And I managed to get a flight of flit-boats into space and locked on to them. We know where they are now, and have a good idea of where they’re heading.”
The pent-up breath whooshed out of Billiard’s lungs as he sighed with relief. “Where?” he asked.
“To V’noon,” Santha said. “What we originally thought was just a mining planet now appears to be a secret Redhat base.”
“Okay,” Billiard said. “Have the flit-boats maintain contact, but order them not to engage. And get your squadron ready for space. I have a squad of soldiers with me; bring Stevru and at least a squad with you. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes, and I want us to lift in forty-six.”
“We’ll be ready,” Captain Garth said, leaning forward to cut the connection.
II
Billiard led Santha’s squadron of combat boats into orbit around V’noon on a tight polar orange-peel pattern. The computers aboard the lead ship made sure the squadron did not come into range of the planetary-defense lasers mounted around the Redhat fortress.
On his long-range screens Billiard could see the scattered wreckage of several flit-boats which had attempted to follow the escaping Redhats right down into their fortress. Their orders had been to follow and observe—not attack—but Billiard made a mental note to have the combat records of each of them pulled and to make sure that they got every honor and medal it was possible for the revolutionary government to bestow.
“Captain Garth, what do you think?” Billiard asked.
Santha’s voice came thinly over the radio from her position a hundred miles behind Billiard’s lead ship. “No way are we going to take them from space. Not without a battleship, anyway.”
“And the only way we could do it with a battleship,” Billiard sent back, “would be to reduce the fortress completely, then take possession of the ruins. But I must have that equipment they stole from the laboratory.”
“You really don’t have much choice, then,” Santha said, the tone of resignation coming clearly over the circuit. “We’re going to have to land and take them by ground action, and that’s going to be slow and bloody. Remember how hard it was for them to get us off that ledge on Thopt? Well, that’s how hard it’s going to be to get to them in that fortress. Can you get a regiment or two of ground troops in on this?”
“Not in time.”
“In time… ?” Santha inquired.
“As soon as they’re set up—you may not know they’re carrying a universe with them—they’ll undoubtedly draw even more power out of that universe, to counter our attack, and, well…”
Billiard could hear Santha’s long drawn-out gasp over the circuit between them; he’d not had time to explain the equipment’s full implications to her.
“I want to save both universes,” he said simply. “There’s a monitor with a company of ground troops and their equipment at Sharstar that we can get here in say, twelve hours, but that would probably be too late,” he sighed.
“Then we don’t have much choice,” Santha said.
“No, I guess not,” Billiard answered with reluctance in his voice. “Let’s put ’em on the ground.”
III
At a small camp improvised at a great distance from the Redhat fortress, Captain Stevru, who would command the two squads of soldiers and some combat-boat crewmen who could be spared from the boats, studied—with Billiard and Captain Garth—a stereo tank showing the territory between their position and the fortress. A nearly airless world of basalt and gray ash, V’noon would surely be a rough planet to travel on, and they had nearly a hundred miles to cover before they even came within fighting range of the fortress. Billiard could have set his forces down closer, but to do so might have put them in range of ballistic torps from the fort.
Although the Redhat defense was the only place with any life on the planet, signs of mankind were scattered about. Though the mining-operations had turned out to be a cover for a secret Redhat base, there had indeed been mining going on. As a result, roads ran here and there, mostly going nowhere, between exploration shafts. By using these roads Billiard hoped to be able to get his forces more easily up to the fortress. Looking into the stereo tank, he traced the roads that led from his position east, noting the small yellow dots that
were Redhat armored vehicles.
“When was this taken?” he asked, motioning to the inch-square stereo cube that was being projected into the tank.
“An hour ago,” Stevru answered. “We sent a flit-boat over in a tight cometary, and the pilot got the shot without being hit. He ran out of fuel before he could brake into a planetary orbit, but he sent the picture back. We’ve got a combat boat chasing him down to refuel his ship.”
“Any surprises on this thing that I should know about?” Billiard asked.
“Not as far as I can see,” the captain answered. “Obviously, they haven’t planned for a ground assault on the fortress, so what defenses they do have up there are bound to be pretty makeshift. It won’t be easy, but with some luck we should be able to storm the place with the men and equipment we have on-planet now.”
Billiard hesitated for a minute, staring at the stereo tank; then he spoke with a firm voice. “Okay, let’s get going. Your two squads will handle the armor we have, and the boat crewmen will serve as infantry for you. I’ll put up what air support I can, but we won’t be able to move the boats in too close. Those enemy lasers wouldn’t give us a chance of hitting the walls or the Redhat vehicles before they blew us out of the sky.”
Captain Stevru nodded and started to salute; but when Billiard held his hand out he changed the salute to a handshake. Then he looked at Captain Garth, gave her a thumbs-up signal, and turned and stepped into the combat-boat airlock, swinging down the faceplate of his combat suit.
Billiard and Santha followed him out. By the time they were on the ground they could feel the vibrations from the armored “turtles” which their monitor had off-loaded during the staff conference.
Billiard and Santha climbed into the turtle which Stevru had assigned to them as a command vehicle. The machine was lightly armored, mounting a UHV magnetic cannon and a medium laser. Vehicles of its class had been designed more for exploration than for anything else, but they were usable as light tanks—as long as Billiard’s force did not run up against any really heavy armament.
Through the Reality Warp Page 14
