Shards of Space

by Robert Sheckley

  “Nielson!”

  The lieutenant was looking at his fingers now, with the stare of a puzzled child.

  “Nielson! Snap out of it!” General Branch loomed sternly over him. “Do you hear me, lieutenant?”

  Nielson shook his head dully. He started to look at his fingers again, then his gaze was caught by the glittering array of buttons on the gunfire panel.

  “Pretty,” he said.

  General Branch stepped inside the cubicle, grabbed Nielson by the shoulders and shook him.

  “Pretty things,” Nielson said, gesturing at the panel. He smiled at Branch.

  Margraves, second in command, stuck his head in the doorway. He still had sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve, having been promoted to colonel only three days ago.

  “Ed,” he said, “the President’s representative is here. Sneak visit.”

  “Wait a minute,” Branch said, “I want to complete this inspection.” He grinned sourly. It was one hell of an inspection when you went around finding how many sane men you had left.

  “Do you hear me, lieutenant?”

  “Ten thousand ships,” Nielson said. “Ten thousand ships—all gone!”

  “I’m sorry,” Branch said. He leaned forward and slapped him smartly across the face.

  Lieutenant Nielson started to cry.

  “Hey, Ed—what about that representative?”

  At close range, Colonel Margraves’ breath was a solid essence of whisky, but Branch didn’t reprimand him. If you had a good officer left you didn’t reprimand him, no matter what he did. Also, Branch approved of whisky. It was a good release, under the circumstances. Probably better than his own, he thought, glancing at his scarred knuckles.

  “I’ll be right with you. Nielson, can you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said in a shaky voice. “I’m all right now, sir.”

  “Good,” Branch said. “Can you stay on duty?”

  “For a while,” Nielson said. “But, sir—I’m not well. I can feel it.”

  “I know,” Branch said. “You deserve a rest. But you’re the only gun officer I’ve got left on this side of the ship. The rest are in the wards.”

  “I’ll try, sir,” Nielson said, looking at the gunfire panel again. “But I hear voices sometimes. I can’t promise anything, sir.”

  “Ed,” Margraves began again, “that representative—”

  “Coming. Good boy, Nielson.” The lieutenant didn’t look up as Branch and Margraves left.

  “I escorted him to the bridge,” Margraves said, listing slightly to starboard as he walked. “Offered him a drink, but he didn’t want one.”

  “All right,” Branch said.

  “He was bursting with questions,” Margraves continued, chuckling to himself. “One of those earnest, tanned State Department men, out to win the war in five minutes flat. Very friendly boy. Wanted to know why I, personally, thought the fleet had been maneuvering in space for a year with no action.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Said we were waiting for a consignment of zap guns,” Margraves said. “I think he almost believed me. Then he started talking about logistics.”

  “Hm-m-m,” Branch said. There was no telling what Margraves, half drunk, had told the representative. Not that it mattered. An official inquiry into the prosecution of the war had been due for a long time.

  “I’m going to leave you here,” Margraves said. “I’ve got some unfinished business to attend to.”

  “Right,” Branch said, since it was all he could say. He knew that Margraves’ unfinished business concerned a bottle.

  He walked alone to the bridge.

  The President’s representative was looking at the huge location screen. It covered one entire wall, glowing with a slowly shifting pattern of dots. The thousands of green dots on the left represented the Earth fleet, separated by a black void from the orange of the enemy. As he watched, the fluid, three-dimensional front slowly changed. The armies of dots clustered, shifted, retreated, advanced, moving with hypnotic slowness.

  But the black void remained between them. General Branch had been watching that sight for almost a year. As far as he was concerned, the screen was a luxury. He couldn’t determine from it what was really happening. Only the CPC calculators could, and they didn’t need it.

  “How do you do, General Branch?” the President’s representative said, coming forward and offering his hand. “My name’s Richard Ellsner.”

  Branch shook hands, noticing that Margraves’ description had been pretty good. The representative was no more than thirty. His tan looked strange, after a year of pallid faces.

  “My credentials,” Ellsner said, handing Branch a sheaf of papers. The general skimmed through them, noting Ellsner’s authorization as Presidential Voice in Space. A high honor for so young a man.

  “How are things on Earth?” Branch asked, just to say something. He ushered Ellsner to a chair, and sat down himself.

  “Tight,” Ellsner said. “We’ve been stripping the planet bare of radioactives to keep your fleet operating. To say nothing of the tremendous cost of shipping food, oxygen, spare parts, and all the other equipment you need to keep a fleet this size in the field.”

  “I know,” Branch murmured, his broad face expressionless.

  “I’d like to start right in with the President’s complaints,” Ellsner said with an apologetic little laugh. “Just to get them off my chest.”

  “Go right ahead,” Branch said.

  “Now then,” Ellsner began, consulting a pocket notebook, “you’ve had the fleet in space for eleven months and seven days. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “During that time there have been light engagements, but no actual hostilities. You—and the enemy commander—have been content, evidently, to sniff each other like discontented dogs.”

  “I wouldn’t use that analogy,” Branch said, conceiving an instant dislike for the young man. “But go on.”

  “I apologize. It was an unfortunate, though inevitable comparison. Anyhow, there has been no battle, even though you have a numerical superiority. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know the maintenance of this fleet strains the resources of Earth. The President would like to know why battle has not been joined.”

  “I’d like to hear the rest of the complaints first,” Branch said. He tightened his battered fists, but, with remarkable self-control, kept them at his sides.

  “Very well. The morale factor. We keep getting reports from you on the incidence of combat fatigue—crack-up, in plain language. The figures are absurd! Thirty percent of your men seem to be under restraint. That’s way out of line, even for a tense situation.”

  Branch didn’t answer.

  “To cut this short,” Ellsner said, “I would like the answer to those questions. Then, I could like your assistance with negotiating a truce. This war was absurd to begin with. It was none of Earth’s choosing. It seems to the President that, in view of the static situation, the enemy commander will be amenable to the idea.”

  Colonel Margraves staggered in, his face flushed. He had completed his unfinished business; adding another fourth to his half-drunk.

  “What’s this I hear about a truce?” he shouted.

  Ellsner stared at him for a moment, then turned back to Branch.

  “I suppose you will take care of this yourself. If you will contact the enemy commander, I will try to come to terms with him.”

  “They aren’t interested,” Branch said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve tried. I’ve been trying to negotiate a truce for six months now. They want complete capitulation.”

  “But that’s absurd,” Ellsner said, shaking his head. “They have no bargaining point. The fleets are of approximately the same size. There have been no major engagements yet. How can they—”

  “Easily,” Margraves roared, walking up to the representative and peering truc
ulently in his face.

  “General. This man is drunk.” Ellsner got to his feet.

  “Of course, you little idiot! Don’t you understand yet? The war is lost! Completely, irrevocably.”

  Ellsner turned angrily to Branch. The general sighed and stood up.

  “That’s right, Ellsner. The war is lost and every man in the fleet knows it. That’s what’s wrong with the morale. We’re just hanging here, waiting to be blasted out of existence.”

  The fleets shifted and weaved. Thousands of dots floated in space, in twisted, random patterns.

  Seemingly random.

  The patterns interlocked, opened and closed. Dynamically, delicately balanced, each configuration was a planned move on a hundred thousand mile front The opposing dots shifted to meet the exigencies of the new pattern.

  Where was the advantage? To the unskilled eye, a chess game is a meaningless array of pieces and positions. But to the players—the game may be already won or lost.

  The mechanical players who moved the thousands of dots knew who had won—and who had lost.

  “Now let’s all relax,” Branch said soothingly. “Margraves, mix us a couple of drinks. I’ll explain everything.” The colonel moved to a well-stocked cabinet in a corner of the room.

  “I’m waiting,” Ellsner said.

  “First, a review. Do you remember when the war was declared, two years ago? Both sides subscribed to the Holmstead Pact, not to bomb home planets. A rendezvous was arranged in space, for the fleets to meet.”

  “That’s ancient history,” Ellsner said.

  “It has a point. Earth’s fleet blasted off, grouped and went to the rendezvous.” Branch cleared his throat.

  “Do you know the CPCs? The Configuration-Probability-Calculators? They’re like chess players, enormously extended. They arrange the fleet in an optimum attack-defense pattern, based on the configuration of the opposing fleet. So the first pattern was set.”

  “I don’t see the need—” Ellsner started, but Margraves, returning with the drinks, interrupted him.

  “Wait, my boy. Soon there will be a blinding light.”

  “When the fleets met, the CPCs calculated the probabilities of attack. They found we’d lose approximately eighty-seven percent of our fleet, to sixty-five percent of the enemy’s. If they attacked, they’d lose seventy-nine percent, to our sixty-four. That was the situation as it stood then. By extrapolation, their optimum attack pattern—at that time—would net them a forty-five percent loss. Ours would have given us a seventy-two percent loss.”

  “I don’t know much about the CPCs,” Ellsner confessed. “My field’s psych.” He sipped his drink, grimaced, and sipped again.

  “Think of them as chess players,” Branch said. “They can estimate the loss probabilities for an attack at any given point of time, in any pattern. They can extrapolate the probable moves of both sides.

  “That’s why battle wasn’t joined when we first met. No commander is going to annihilate his entire fleet like that.”

  “Well then,” Ellsner said, “why haven’t you exploited your slight numerical superiority? Why haven’t you gotten an advantage over them?”

  “Ah!” Margraves cried, sipping his drink. “It comes, the light!”

  “Let me put it in the form of an analogy,” Branch said. “If you have two chess players of equally high skill, the game’s end is determined when one of them gains an advantage. Once the advantage is there, there’s nothing the other player can do, unless the first makes a mistake. If everything goes as it should, the game’s end is predetermined. The turning point may come a few moves after the game starts, although the game itself could drag on for hours.”

  “And remember,” Margraves broke in, “to the casual eye, there may be no apparent advantage. Not a piece may have been lost.”

  “That’s what’s happened here,” Branch finished sadly. “The CPC units in both fleets are of maximum efficiency. But the enemy has an edge, which they are carefully exploiting. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “But how did this happen?” Ellsner asked. “Who slipped up?”

  “The CPCs have inducted the cause of the failure,” Branch said. “The end of the war was inherent in our take-off formation.”

  “What do you mean?” Ellsner said, setting down his drink.

  “Just that. The configuration the fleet was in, light-years away from battle, before we had even contacted their fleet. When the two met, they had an infinitesimal advantage of position. That was enough. Enough for the CPCs, anyhow.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” Margraves put in, “it was a fifty-fifty chance. It could have just as well been us with the edge.”

  “I’ll have to find out more about this,” Ellsner said. “I don’t understand it all yet.”

  Branch snarled: “The war’s lost. What more do you want to know?”

  Ellsner shook his head.

  “Wilt snare me with predestination ‘round,” Margraves quoted, “and then impute my fall to sin?”

  Lieutenant Nielson sat in front of the gunfire panel, his fingers interlocked. This was necessary, because Nielson had an almost overpowering desire to push the buttons.

  The pretty buttons.

  Then he swore, and sat on his hands. He had promised General Branch that he would carry on, and that was important. It was three days since he had seen the general, but he was determined to carry on. Resolutely he fixed his gaze on the gunfire dials.

  Delicate indicators wavered and trembled. Dials measured distance, and adjusted aperture to range. The slender indicators rose and fell as the ship maneuvered, lifting toward the red line, but never quite reaching it.

  The red line marked emergency. That was when he would start firing, when the little black arrow crossed the little red line.

  He had been waiting almost a year now, for that little arrow. Little arrow. Little narrow. Little arrow. Little narrow.

  Stop it.

  That was when he would start firing.

  Lieutenant Nielson lifted his hands into view and inspected his nails. Fastidiously he cleaned a bit of dirt out of one. He interlocked his fingers again, and looked at the pretty buttons, the black arrow, the red line.

  He smiled to himself. He had promised the general. Only three days ago.

  So he pretended not to hear what the buttons were whispering to him.

  “The thing I don’t see,” Ellsner said, “is why you can’t do something about the pattern? Retreat and regroup, for example?”

  “I’ll explain that,” Margraves said. “It’ll give Ed a chance for a drink. Come over here.” He led Ellsner to an instrument panel. They had been showing Ellsner around the ship for three days, more to relieve their own tension than for any other reason. The last day had turned into a fairly prolonged drinking bout.

  “Do you see this dial?” Margraves pointed to one. The instrument panel covered an area four feet wide by twenty feet long. The buttons and switches on it controlled the movement of the entire fleet

  “Notice the shaded area. That marks the safety limit. If we use a forbidden configuration, the indicator goes over and all hell breaks loose.”

  “And what is a forbidden configuration?”

  Margraves thought for a moment. “The forbidden configurations are those which would give the enemy an attack advantage. Or, to put it in another way, moves which change the attack-probability-loss picture sufficiently to warrant an attack.”

  “So you can move only within strict limits?” Ellsner asked, looking at the dial.

  “That’s right. Out of the infinite number of possible formation, we can use only a few, if we want to play safe. It’s like chess. Say you’d like to put a sixth row pawn in your opponent’s back row. But it would take two moves to do it. And after you move to the seventh row, your opponent has a clear avenue, leading inevitably to checkmate.

  “Of course, if the enemy advances too boldly the odds are changed again, and we attack.”

  “
That’s our only hope,” General Branch said. “We’re praying they do something wrong. The fleet is in readiness for instant attack, if our CPC shows that the enemy has over-extended himself anywhere.”

  “And that’s the reason for the crack-ups,” Ellsner said. “Every man in the fleet on nerves’ edge, waiting for a chance he’s sure will never come. But having to wait anyhow. How long will this go on?”

  “This moving and checking can go on for a little over two years,” Branch said. “Then they will be in the optimum formation for attack, with a twenty-eight percent loss probability to our ninety-three. They’ll have to attack then, or the probabilities will start to shift back in our favor.”

  “You poor devils,” Ellsner said softly. “Waiting for a chance that’s never going to come. Knowing you’re going to be blasted out of space sooner or later.”

  “Oh, it’s jolly,” said Margraves, with an instinctive dislike for a civilian’s sympathy.

  Something buzzed on the switchboard, and Branch walked over and plugged in a line. “Hello? Yes. Yes.... All right, Williams. Right.” He unplugged the line.

  “Colonel Williams has had to lock his men in their rooms,” Branch said. “That’s the third time this month. I’ll have to get CPC to dope out a formation so we can take him out of the front.” He walked to a side panel and started pushing buttons.

  “And there it is,” Margraves said. “What do you plan to do, Mr. Presidential Representative?”

  The glittering dots shifted and deployed, advanced and retreated, always keeping a barrier of black space between them. The mechanical chess players watched each move, calculating its effect into the far future. Back and forth across the great chess board the pieces moved.

  The chess players worked dispassionately, knowing beforehand the outcome of the game. In their strictly ordered universe there was no possible fluctuation, no stupidity, no failure.

  They moved. And knew. And moved.

  “Oh, yes,” Lieutenant Nielson said to the smiling room. “Oh, yes.” And look at all the buttons, he thought, laughing to himself.

  So stupid. Georgia.

  Nielson accepted the deep blue of sanctity, draping it across his shoulders. Bird song, somewhere.