Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "Far-Search talking. Contact previously reported now range one five oh. Bearing, four one dash one seven. Course, approaching. Speed, six nine. Estimated twenty-three ships, dreadnought type, plus small ship screen. Battle formation. That is all."

  "Advise at range one one oh."

  "Wilco."

  The Commander turned to his staff. "Sound a general alert." His words were clipped and clear. He flipped a second switch on his desk. "Radio, this is the Commander. Get me a direct beam to the Chief of Staff. Highest urgency. Scramble with sequence Charlie."

  His office had emptied by now, with officers running to their posts as the siren of the general alert wailed through the corridors. As its urgent call died off, a green light showed on his desk, indicating contact with earth. "Morgan, Commander, Base Q, requesting direct line to Chief of Staff. Highest urgency."

  "Go ahead, Morgan." The Old Man's voice sounded peculiar after passing through the scrambling and unscrambling machines that twisted the sounds into queer pieces and distributed them among several frequencies and methods of modulation. But, even so, it had a note of strain in it that was not artificial.

  "Sir, when you gave me my orders, here, you directed me to obey them to the letter, without question or cavil. Is that right, sir?"

  "Yes, it is." There was a threat in the Old Man's voice.

  "Then, sir, would you tell me if there has been any change in those orders since my arrival? Aside from administrative details, of course?"

  "No. Absolutely not."

  "Very good, sir. Sorry to have bothered you."

  "Not at all. Quite right. Good luck. Signing out."

  Morgan thought the Old Man sounded relieved at the end. And he could not be quite sure, but he thought he heard the Admiral mutter "And good hunting," as the connection broke.

  He summoned his aide to take over the office while he went down to the center of the asteroid where I.C., the information center, was located, where he would assume direct command of the base.

  * * * * *

  As he entered I.C., the Ships Supply Officer reported all ships fully loaded and fueled with gamma-matter, ready for flight. The Missile Officer reported all ships equipped with war-head missiles. The Lock Officer reported all locks manned and ready. Base Q was ready.

  As he climbed to his chair over the plotting tank, he noted with satisfaction the controlled tautness of the men's faces. They too, were ready.

  As the glowing points of yellow light that represented the enemy fleet crossed the dimly lit sphere in the tank that indicated the one hundred thousand mile radius marking the edge of the primary zone, he took a microphone from a man waiting, nearby.

  "Base Q to unknown fleet. I have you bearing four one dash one seven. Range one oh oh. Identify yourself. Identify yourself. Over." His words were spaced out with painful clarity. A hush had fallen over I.C.

  The loud-speaker on the wall came to life with a squawk, after a few seconds.

  "Fleet Four to Base Q. This is Fleet Four, operating under orders from the Jupiterian Combine. Over."

  "Base Q to Fleet Four. According to the Treaty of Porran, space within a radius of one hundred thousand miles of Base Q has been designated a primary defense zone of the Federation. I therefore order you to leave this zone within one hour. Failure to comply will make you liable to full action on our part. I have the time, now, as one three four seven. You have until one four four seven to comply. I further warn you that an approach within twenty thousand miles will make you liable to immediate action, regardless of time. Over."

  The men in the room stared, open-mouthed. All had dreamed of hearing these words spoken in these tones to the Combine. A cheer might have been given, had it not been for discipline.

  In a few seconds, the loud-speaker squawked again. "Fleet Four to Base Q. Our orders are to assume a position at twenty-five thousand miles radius pending renegotiation of the Treaty of Porran. I suggest you contact your headquarters before doing anything rash. Over."

  The Commander sat with a smile on his lips. Quietly he handed the microphone back to the radioman. In a minute, the loud-speaker squawked, again. "Fleet Four to Base Q. Did you receive my last transmission? Acknowledge, please. Over."

  The radioman looked at the Commander, questioningly, but he only shook his head.

  "Can't you turn that damn squawk-box off? It's distracting."

  As the minutes crept by, the bright dots in the tank moved closer. The Commander took the Public Address microphone.

  "Attention, all personnel, this is the Commander talking. The Fourth Fleet of the Combine entered the Zone twenty minutes ago. They were given an ultimatum but are showing no indication of compliance. Therefore, we are going to blast hell out of them." The echoes from his voice rolled back from speakers all over the base. "The people at home do not think we can do it. I know we can. I have not asked their permission. It is not needed. My orders are explicit and fully cover the situation. My orders to you are equally explicit. Go out there and teach the bloody bastards a lesson." He turned back to the men in I.C. "Scramble flights one, two, three, and four. Others to follow at intervals of five minutes until all are in space. Flight plan King Baker. Initial Time, one four five oh. Execute."

  The talkers took up the chant.

  "Flight one. Flight one. Scramble. Scramble. Execute."

  "Flight two ..."

  Etc.

  In the tank, green points of light moved out. The first four came into position and stopped in the four quadrants of the circle of which the center was the point at which the enemy would be at Initial Time. The following flights moved out to other points on the circle.

  Time seemed to stop. In I.C., the Flight Directors gave the orders that moved their flights into position and briefed them on future tactics in quiet voices. The electronic computers and other devices moved silently. The clock made no noise as its hands moved towards the final moment.

  The Commander moved some dials under his hands. He pushed a button and a red light showed on the lead dreadnought of the enemy column.

  "This is the initial target." The designation was relayed to the flights.

  The second hand of the clock was making its final sweep. All voices quieted. The Commander raised his fist. As the clock's hand came to the top, his fist slashed down.

  "Execute!" The battle was on.

  * * * * *

  Flight Commander Dennis, Flight One, heard the final word as he sat in the small bubble on top of the dense package of machinery that was a P-ship. Swiftly, his hands closed switches. The course had already been chosen and fed into the automatic computers under him. He merely gave the signal to execute. In response, the ship seemed to pick itself up and hurl itself down the radius of the circle to the waiting enemy fleet.

  He could not see them, but he knew that, behind him, lay the other nine ships of the flight, in column, spaced so close that an error in calculation of but a few millionths of a second would have caused disaster. But the automatic and inconceivably fast and accurate calculators in the ships, tied together by tight communication beams, held them there in safety.

  As he came within range of possible enemy action, Dennis pressed another button, and the Random Computer took command. Operated by the noise a vacuum tube generates because electrons are discrete particles, it gave random orders, weighted only by a preference to bring the ship's course back to the remembered target.

  The column behind obeyed these same orders. The whole flight seemed to jitter across space, moving at random but coming back to a reasonably good course towards the target, utterly confusing any enemy fire-control computers.

  To the men in the ships, one to each, it seemed as if their very nerve cells must jar apart. They felt themselves incapable of coherent action, or, even, thought. But they did not need coherency. Their function was done until the ship was out of danger, when a new formation would be made, a new target designated, and a new order to execute given.

  Because the electronic computers took
care of the attack. They had to. No human could react as fast as was needed. Out from the enemy ships reached fingers of pure delta-field, reaching for gamma-matter. The touch of a finger meant death in a fiery inferno as the gamma-matter that fueled the ship and formed the war-heads of their lethal eggs would release its total energy. There was only one defense. The delta-field could be propagated only in a narrow beam, and at a rate much slower than the speed of light. By keeping the enemy computers confused, they kept those beams wandering aimlessly through space, always where the little ships might have been, but were not. Unless their luck ran out.

  Flight One kept moving in, with constantly increasing speed, except for random variations. Once through the outer screen of small ships, a relay closed and the link was broken between the ships of the column. Each then moved in independent manner. The designated target was an area to the computers, rather than a ship. Radar beams reached out to find specific targets. As they found them and moved close, the random computer switched off for a small moment of time, while the missiles were dispatched on a true bearing. And then the ships moved on, leaving their eggs behind them.

  The eggs moved in with fantastic acceleration to their targets. Half their energy went into that acceleration, to get them there before the delta beams could find them. The other half was given up in incandescent heat when they found their targets. Becoming pinpoints of pure star matter, they seared their way into the enemy vitals. But, even with their fantastically concentrated energy, it was not enough. For the dreadnoughts were armored with densely degenerate matter, impervious to any but a direct hit, and compartmented to require many hits.

  The flights moved in and passed on through. And other flights came in. And others followed them. The first flights halted, found each other, turned, and drove in again. Pass and repass. A myriad of blue-white flashes gave measure of the struggle.

  * * * * *

  On Base Q, in the I.C. room, the Commander watched the tank. Curt orders designated new target areas as the enemy fleet broke up under the whiplash. Slowly, one by one, the points of light that marked the enemy vanished, leaving only the void.

  Finally, as must any fleet that faces annihilation, they turned and fled. The battle was over. All that remained was to give the orders to bring the flights home. And that was soon done.

  The Commander got up. He stretched. He was tired. He glanced at the clock. Two hours and forty minutes. Very quick, indeed, as space battles usually went. But, then, he thought grimly, this had been the first battle ever fought under the whiplash of Plan K.

  But, now, there was a report to be made. And he did not know how to do it. As he walked back wearily to his office, he tried out phrases in his mind. None seemed to fit.

  His aide was bending over the facsimile machine as he came in. "Priority orders from the General Staff, just coming in, sir."

  The Commander looked at the machine. "General Staff to Commander, Base Q, Urgent, Immediate Action," he read. "You are hereby advised that a protocol has been signed at Washington, D.C., with representatives of the Combine, revising the Treaty of Porran to the extent that Base Q shall be jointly administered by yourself and the Commander, Fourth Fleet, Jupiterian Combine, until such time as its further dispensation shall have been agreed. You will, therefore, admit said Fleet upon demand, permitting it to take up such stations as it may desire, in either zone, or to land, in whole or in part, and to disembark such of its personnel as its commanding officer may direct. You will make arrangements with its commanding officer for the joint administration of the base. You will be held responsible for the smooth operation and successful accomplishment of this undertaking. These orders are effective immediately."

  Commander Morgan smiled.

  "Send this reply immediately," he said to his aide. "Open code. Commander, Base Q, to General Staff, Highest urgency. Acknowledge receipt recent orders regarding protocol revising Treaty of Porran. Regret unable to comply. Due to recent argument over interpretation of Treaty of Porran, Fourth Fleet, Combine, no longer exists. Request further orders."

  He laughed.

  On earth, the officer who took the message gaped at it. Seizing a telephone, he dictated it to the Old Man's aide. But when the Old Man saw it, he only smiled, coldly.

  And his smile was bleak and cold, too, when he laid it before the President and the Cabinet an hour later. Shortly afterwards, when the President broadcast it to the people, they sat, stunned. It was not until the next day that they finally read its significance and started celebrating. But the Old Man had ceased smiling by that time, and was planning possible future battles.

  * * * * *

  A month later, Morgan sat again in the Old Man's office. Having presented his report and swallowed the unpleasant pill that, as he was now a hero, there were speeches to make and banquets to be bored at, he was talking informally.

  "What I can't understand, sir, is why they came in. They only had to wait a couple of hours and the whole kit and caboodle would have been dumped in their laps. Yet they come barging in and give us exactly the opening we want. I don't get it."

  "That is an interesting question," the Old Man replied with a shadow of a twinkle. "You might almost think they had intercepted an order I sent to our Intelligence Officer, on Q, to sabotage the Converter if the protocol was signed."

  The Commander jumped. "Was that order given, sir?"

  "Yes, it was. But it was countermanded an hour later. Different channel, however. I remembered they had broken the code of the first channel."

  He paused a moment. "That illustrates a good point to remember, Morgan. You intercept enemy messages and break their code. A very useful trick. Also very dangerous, if the enemy discovers you have broken it, and you don't know that he knows. Very dangerous, indeed."

  The young man laughed. The older one smiled, bleakly.

  As Morgan looked out the window, he saw the public news-casters spelling out the full mobilization of the Federation. A glow filled his heart as he realized the people were now willing, if they had to, to fight to defend their freedom.

  * * *

  Contents

  THIS ONE PROBLEM

  by M. C. Pease

  The shortest distance between two points may be the long way around--and a path of dishonor may well turn into the high road to virtue.

  Marc Polder, Resident Comptroller of Torran, strolled idly down the dusty littered path that passed for a street. In the half-light of the pint-sized moon overhead the town looked almost romantic. One day, when civilization had at last been brought to these Asteroid bases, memory would make Torran heroic. But now, with the fact before the eyes, it was merely dirty and squalid. Only the scum of the Solar System called it home.

  Idly Marc Polder pushed a swinging door aside and entered what passed on Torran for a restaurant. Pushing his way through the tables until he saw his only aide, Female Personnel Manager Lee Treynor, he sat down.

  "What's new?" he asked.

  "Not a thing." But for a certain softness of voice and curve of unmade-up lips, Lee could have passed for a boy. Her light hair was short, she wore a man's coveralls. She added, "Only the usual murder, arson and brigandage that you don't want to hear about."

  "Don't let such trifles get you down," said Marc with a crooked half-smile.

  "I'm fed up," the girl said shortly. "I must have been still wet behind the ears when I agreed to come out here two months ago. I thought I was going to help establish a place where decent people could live and work. So far I've just watched my boss swig Venerian swamp beer with the worst elements in town, and do nothing about the lawlessness that runs riot all over the place."

  "Look, lady," Marc answered gently, "I certainly admire those lofty sentiments of yours. I admit they are maybe what ought to be. But the way I see it they just don't fit the facts. Out here the Federation space fleet is supposed to be the big stick. Only right now it's off playing mumbly-peg with the Venerians.

  "The Big Wheels seem to think there'll be a shooting w
ar in a couple of months. There's only three or four destroyers left in the whole damn Asteroid Belt. And without the big stick behind me I'm not hankering to commit suicide by looking for trouble."

  Marc smiled again ruefully. "What I can do I try to do," he added with sudden earnestness. "I figure the most important thing is to protect the Asteroid Development Company so they can buy the nuclear ore the Astrodites bring in. Without that ore the Federation's going to be in a hell of a fix if it actually does come to war. And along with that there's the matter of guarding the stuff the Navy's got stored here." He waved toward the Navy warehouse that could be seen outside the window.

  "Listening to and fraternizing with the characters you call the biggest crooks in town," the comptroller went on with a shrug, "I've a chance at getting tipped off in advance to anything that may make trouble for our interests. As long as I ignore their rackets they accept me in their midst, talk freely with me around. And it's a hell of a lot easier to stop something when you know the score beforehand."

  The young woman's lips parted as if she seemed about to say something. Then they closed in a thin line. Obviously she was not happy with Marc Polder's explanation. She was too young to be willing to compromise her ideals, no matter how potent the logic of necessity.

  She was about to leave the table when the shrill screams of a distant whistle sliced through the noise of the crowd. Voices broke off in mid-sentence and bodies froze into immobility. As the siren's piercing tones faded the restaurant's customers looked at one another in silent terror. Then, as the shock wore off and unanswered questions were beginning to fly, a man suddenly ran in through the revolving doors.

  "Raiders!" he gasped. "The listening gear's picked up a signal that's not from any Astrodite or destroyer. Signal Corps figures it's a pirate!"

  There was a mad rush for the doors and seconds later the place was empty except for Marc Polder, still sitting calmly at the table drinking his beer, and Lee Treynor who sat watching him.