by Various
"Well nothing has altered that, only now the values look different to you because you are tired and worried and probably missed breakfast, too."
Brother some speech, I wonder what got into me? M'Clare is wondering, too, or maybe gone to sleep sitting, it is some time before he answers me.
"Miss Lee, you are deplorably right on one thing at least. I don't know whether I was fit to make such a decision when I made it, but I'm not fit now. As far as you personally are concerned...." He trails off looking tireder than ever, then picks up again suddenly. "You are again quite right, I am every bit as responsible for the other people on board as I am for you."
He climbs slowly to his feet and walks out without another word.
The door is left open and I take this as an invitation to freedom and shoot through in case it was a mistake.
No because Ram is opening doors all along the corridor and ten of Russett's brightest come pouring out like mercury finding its own level and coalesce in the middle of the floor.
The effect of release is such that after four minutes Peter Yeng Sen's head appears at the top of a stairway and he says the crew is lifting the deck plates, will we for Time's sake go along to the Conference Room which is soundproof.
* * * * *
The Conference Room is on the next deck and like our cabins shows signs of hasty construction; the soundproofing is there but the acoustics are kind of muffled and the generator is not boxed in but has cables trailing all over, and the fastenings have a strong but temporary look.
Otherwise there is a big table and a lot of chairs and a small projection box in front of each with a note-taker beside.
It is maybe this very functional setup or maybe the dead flatness of our voices in the damped room, but we do not have so much to talk about any more. We automatically take places at the table, all at one end, leaving seven vacant chairs near the door.
Looking round, I wonder what principle we were selected on.
Of my special friends Eru Te Whangoa and Kirsty Lammergaw are present but Lily Chen and Likofo Komom'baratse and Jean LeBrun are not; we have Cray Patterson who is one of my special enemies but not Blazer Weigh or the Astral Cad; the rest are P. Zapotec, Nick Howard, Aro Mestah, Dillie Dixie, Pavel Christianovitch, Lennie DiMaggio and Shootright Crow.
Eru is at the end of the table, opposite the door, and maybe feels this position puts it up to him to start the discussion; he opens by remarking "So nobody took the opportunity to withdraw."
Cray Patterson lifts his eyebrows ceilingwards and drawls out that the decision was supposed to be a private one.
B says "Maybe but it did not work out that way, everyone who learned Morse knows who was on the ship, anyway they are all still here so what does it matter? And M'Clare would not have picked people who were going to funk it, after all."
My chair gets a kick on the ankle which I suppose was meant for B; Eru is six foot five but even his legs do not quite reach; he is the only one of us facing the door.
M'Clare has somehow shed his weariness; he looks stern but fresh as a daisy. There are four with him; Ram and Peter looking serious, one stranger in Evercleans looking determined to enjoy the party and another in uniform looking as though nothing would make him.
M'Clare introduces the strangers as Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. They all sit down at the other end of the table; then he frowns at us and begins like this:
"Miss Laydon is mistaken. You were not selected on any such grounds as she suggests. I may say that I was astonished at the readiness with which you all engaged yourselves to take part in such a desperate gamble; and, seeing that for the last four years I have been trying to persuade you that it is worth while, before making a decision of any importance, to spend a certain amount of thought on it, I was discouraged as well."
Oh.
"The criterion upon which you were selected was a very simple one. As I told you, you were picked not by me but by a computer; the one in the College Office which registers such information as your home addresses and present whereabouts. You are simply that section of the class which could be picked up without attracting attention, because you all happened to be on holiday by yourselves or with other members of the class; and because your nearest relatives are not on Earth at present."
Oh, well.
All of us can see M'Clare is doing a job of deflation on us for reasons of his own, but it works for all that.
He now seems to feel the job is complete and relaxes a bit.
"I was interested to see that you all, without exception, hit on variations of the same idea. It is of course the obvious way to deal with the problem." He smiles at us suddenly and I get mad at myself because I know he is following the rules for introducing a desired state of mind, but I am responding as meant. "I'll read you the most succinct expression of it; you may be able to guess the author."
Business with bits of paper.
"Here it is. I quote: 'Drag in some outsider looks like he is going for both sides; they will gang up on him.'"
Yells of laughter and shouts of "Lizzie Lee!" even the two strangers produce sympathetic grins; I do not find it so funny as all that myself.
"Ideas as to the form the 'outsider' should take were more varied. This is a matter I propose to leave you to work out together, with the assistance of Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. Te Whangoa, you take the chair."
Exit M'Clare.
* * * * *
This leaves the two halves of the table eying one another. Ram and Peter have been through this kind of session in their time; now they are leaning back preparing to watch us work. It is plain we are supposed to impress the abilities of Russett near-graduates on the two strangers, and for some moments we are all occupied taking them in. Colonel Delano-Smith is a small, neat guy with a face that has all the muscular machinery for producing an expression; he just doesn't care to use it. Mr. Yardo is taller than any of us except Eru and flesh is spread very thin on his bones, including his face which splits now and then in a grin like an affable skeleton. Where the colonel fits is guessable enough, Mr. Yardo is presumably Expert at something but no data on what.
Eru rests his hands on the table and says we had better start; will somebody kindly outline an idea for making the Incognitans "gang up"? The simpler the better and it does not matter whether it is workable or not; pulling it to pieces will give us a start.
We all wait to see who will rush in; then I catch Eru's eye and see I am elected Clown again. I say "Send them a letter postmarked Outer Space signed BEM saying we lost our own planet in a nova and will take over theirs two weeks from Tuesday."
Mr. Yardo utters a sharp "Ha! Ha!" but it is not seconded; the colonel having been expressionless all along becomes more so; Eru says, "Thank you, Lizzie." He looks across at Cray who is opposite me; Cray says there are many points on which he might comment; to take only one, two weeks from Tuesday leaves little time for 'ganging up', and what happens when the BEMs fail to come?
We are suddenly back in the atmosphere of a seminar; Eru's glance moves to P. Zapotec sitting next to Cray, and he says, "These BEMs who lost their home planet in a nova, how many ships have they? Without a base they cannot be very dangerous unless their fleet is very large."
It goes round the table.
Pavel: "How would BEMs learn to write?"
Nick: "How are they supposed to know that Incognita is inhabited? How do they address the letter?"
The Crow: "Huh. Why write letters? Invaders just invade."
Kirsty: "We don't want to inflame these people against alien races. We might find one some day. It seems to me this idea might have all sorts of undesirable by-products. Suppose each side regards it as a ruse on the part of the other. We might touch off a war instead of preventing it. Suppose they turn over to preparations for repelling the invaders, to an extent that cripples their economy? Suppose a panic starts?"
Dilly: "Say, Mr. Chairman, is there any of this idea left at all? How about an interim summary?"
"In brief, the problem is to provide a menace against which the two groups will be forced to unite. It must have certain characteristics.
"It must be sufficiently far off in time for the threat to last several years, long enough to force them into a real combination.
"It must obviously be a plausible danger and they must get to know of it in a plausible manner. Invasion from outside is the only threat so far suggested.
"It must be a limited threat. That is, it must appear to come from one well-defined group. The rest of the Universe should appear benevolent or neutral."
He just stops, rather as though there is something else to come; while the rest of us are waiting B sticks her oar in to the following effect.
"Yes, but look, suppose this goes wrong; it's all very well to make plans but suppose we get some of Kirsty's side-effects just the same, well what I mean is suppose it makes the mess worse instead of better we want some way we can sort of switch it off again.
"Look this is just an illustration, but suppose the Menace was pirates, if it went wrong we could have an Earth ship make official contact and they could just happen to say By the way have you seen anything of some pirates, Earth fleet wiped them up in this sector about six months ago.
"That would mean the whole crew conniving, so it won't do, but you see what I mean."
There is a bit of silence, then Aro says, "I think we should start fresh. We have had criticisms of Lizzie's suggestion, which was not perhaps wholly serious, and as Dilly says there is little of it left, except the idea of a threat of invasion. The idea of an alien intelligent race has objections and would be very difficult to fake. The invaders must be men from another planet. Another unknown one. But how do the people of Incognita come to know that they exist?"
More silence, then I hear my own voice speaking although it was my intention to keep quiet for once: it sounds kind of creaky and it says: "A ship. A crashed ship from Outside."
Whereupon another voice says, "Really! Am I expected to swallow this?"
* * * * *
We had just about forgotten the colonel, not to mention Mr. Yardo who contributes another "Ha! Ha!" so this reminder comes as a slight shock, nor do we see what he is talking about but this he proceeds to explain.
"I don't know why M'Clare thought it necessary to stage this discussion. I am already acquainted with his plan and have had orders to co-operate. I have expressed my opinion on using undergraduates in a job like this and have been overruled. If he, or you, imagine that priming you to bring out his ideas like this is going to reconcile me to the whole business you are mistaken. He might have chosen a more suitable mouthpiece than that child with the curly hair--"
Here everybody wishes to reply at once; the resulting jam produces a moment of silence and I get in first.
"As for curly hair I am rising twenty-four and I was only saying what we all thought, if we have the same ideas as M'Clare that is because he taught us for four years. How else would you set about it anyway?"
My fellow students pick up their stylers and tap solemnly three times on the table; this is the Russett equivalent of "Hear! Hear!" and the colonel is surprised.
Eru says coldly, "This discussion has not been rehearsed. As Lizzie ... as Miss Lee says, we have been working and thinking together for four years and have been taught by the same people."
"Very well," says Delano-Smith testily. "Tell me this, please: Do you regard this idea as practicable?"
Cray tilts his chair back and remarks to the ceiling, "This is rather a farce. I suppose we had to go through our paces for the colonel's benefit--and Mr. Yardo's of course--but can't we be briefed properly now?"
"What do you mean by that?" snaps the colonel.
"It's been obvious right along," says Cray, balancing his styler on one forefinger, "so obvious none of us has bothered to mention it, that accepting the normal limitations of Mass-Time, the idea of interfering in Incognita was doomed before it began. No conventional ship would have much hope of arriving before war broke out; and if it did arrive it couldn't do anything effective. Therefore I assume that this is not a conventional ship. I might accept that the Government has sent us out in a futile attempt to do the impossible, but I wouldn't believe that of M'Clare."
Cray is the only Terry I know acts like an Outsider's idea of one; many find this difficult to take and the colonel is plainly one of them. Eru intervenes quickly.
"I imagine we all realized that. Anyway this ship is obviously not a conventional model. If you accept the usual Mass-Time relationship between the rate of transition and the fifth power of the apparent acceleration, we must have reached about four times the maximum already."
"Ram!" says B suddenly, "What did you do to stop the Hotel scope registering the little ship you picked up me and Lizzie in?"
Everybody cuts in with something they have noticed about the capabilities of this ship or the hoppers, and Lenny starts hammering on the table and chanting! "Brief! Brief! Brief!" and others are just starting to join in when Eru bangs on the table and glares us all down.
Having got silence, he says very quietly, "Colonel Delano-Smith, I doubt whether this discussion can usefully proceed without a good deal more information; will you take over?"
The colonel looks round at all the eager earnest interested maps hastily put on for his benefit and decides to take the plunge.
"Very well. I suppose it is ... very well. The decision to use students from Russett was made at a very high level, and I suppose--" Instead of saying "Very well" again he shrugs his shoulders and gets down to it.
"The report from the planet we decided to call 'Incognita' was received thirty-one days ago. The Department of Spatial Affairs has certain resources which are not generally known. This ship is one of them. She works on a modified version of Mass-Time which enables her to use about a thousand channels instead of the normal limit of two hundred; for good and sufficient reasons this has not been generally released."
Pause while we are silently dared to doubt the Virtue and sufficiency of these reasons which personally I do not.
"To travel to Incognita direct would take about fifteen days by the shortest route. We shall take eighteen days as we shall have to make a detour."
But presumably we shall take only fifteen days back. Hurrah we can spend a week round the planet and still be back in time for Commemoration. We shall skip maybe a million awkward questions and I shall not disappoint Dad.
It is plain the colonel is not filled with joy; far from it, he did not enjoy revealing a Departmental secret however obvious, but he likes the next item even less.
"We shall detour to an uninhabited system twelve days' transit time from here and make contact with another ship, the Gilgamesh."
* * * * *
At which Lennie DiMaggio who has been silent till now brings his fist down on the table and exclaims, "You can't!"
Lennie is much upset for some reason; Delano-Smith gives him a peculiar look and says what does he know about it? and Lennie starts to stutter.
Cray remarks that Lennie's childhood hobby appears to have been spaceships and he suffers from arrested development.
B says it is well known Lennie is mad about the Space Force and why not? It seems to have uses Go on and tell us Lennie.
Lennie says "G-Gilgamesh was lost three hundred years ago!"
"The flaw in that statement," says Cray after a pause, "is that this may be another ship of the same name."
"No," says the colonel. "Explorer Class cruiser. They went out of service two hundred eighty years back."
The Space Force, I remember, does not re-use names of lost ships: some says Very Proper Feeling some say Superstitious Rot.
B says, "When was she found again?"
Lennie says it was j-just thirty-seven revolutions of his native planet which means f-f-fifty-three Terrestrial years ago, she was found by an Interplanetary scout called Crusoe.
J
udging by the colonel's expression this data is Classified; he does not know that Lennie's family come from one of the oldest settled planets and are space-goers to a man, woman, and juvenile; they pick up ship gossip the way others hear about the relations of people next door.
Lennie goes on to say that the Explorer Class were the first official exploration ships sent out from Earth when the Terries decided to find out what happened to the colonies formed during the Exodus. Gilgamesh was the first to re-make contact with Garuda, Legba, Lister, Cor-bis and Antelope; she vanished on her third voyage.
"Where was she found?" asks Eru.
"Near the p-p-pole of an uninhabited planet--maybe I shouldn't say where because that may be secret, but the rest's History if you know where to look."
* * * * *
Maybe the colonel approves this discretion; anyway his face thaws very slightly unless I am Imagining it.
"Gilgamesh crashed," he says. "Near as we can make out from the log, she visited Seleucis system. That's a swarmer sun. Fifty-seven planets, three settled; and any number of fragments. The navigator calculated that after a few more revolutions one of the fragments was going to crash on an inhabited planet. Might have done a lot of damage. They decided to tow it out of the way.
"Grappling-beams hadn't been invented. They thought they could use Mass-Time on it a kind of reverse thrust--throw it off course.
"Mass-Time wasn't so well understood then. Bit off more than they could chew. Set up a topological relation that drained all the free energy out of the system. Drive, heating system--everything.
"She had emergency circuits. When the engines came on again they took over--landed the ship, more or less, on the nearest planet. Too late, of course. Heating system never came on--there was a safety switch that had to be thrown by hand. She was embedded in ice when she was found. Hull breached at one point--no other serious damage."
"And the ... the crew?"
Dillie ought to know better than that.
"Lost with all hands," says the colonel.
"How about weapons?"
We are all startled. Cray is looking whitish like the rest of us but maintains his normal manner, i.e. offensive affection while pointing out that Gilgamesh can hardly be taken for a Menace unless she has some means of aggression about her.
