Collected Short Fiction, page 241
“Look at your indicator band,” Gardner said, surprised.
“Of course. All five are here. Now, my instructions from Earth Central require me to have a full recapitulation of the nature of our mission from your lips before we can act.”
“What the hell for?” Archer smiled apologetically. “As—pardon me—a check on your stability. Karnes has some misgivings about—about—”
“I know,” Gardner grunted. “He uttered them to me before I left. Okay, here’s your summary: we’ve been sent here as a team with the assignment of destroying Lurion. It takes five of us to do it, each equipped with a sonic generator that will set up a vibratory pattern when turned on in the proper geographic locality. I’m in charge.”
“Who picked you for the job?”
“Karnes. Chief of Security at Earth Central. With the aid of the computer, of course.”
“And—why is it necessary to destroy Lurion?”
“The computer prognostics have it that Lurion will launch a destructive attack on Earth some time in the next seventy years or so. We have to strike first.”
Archer sat back, smiling quietly. “All right. You’ve got it all down well enough. I guess we can proceed on schedule, then.”
“I pass the test?”
“You do. When’s the event due to take place?”
“As soon as you get up north where you belong,” Gardner said. “Give me a call when you get there, and I’ll send the signal.” He realized now that he had no more doubts, no hesitation whatever about bringing the project to its culmination.
“Very well. I’ll leave at once,” Archer said.
He rose, tugging his jacket-snaps together and sealing them. Gardner watched him, brows furrowed.
The visi-screen chimed again.
Gardner snapped it on and a round, bearded face appeared—that of Kully Leopold, the only member of the team Gardner had yet to hear from.
“I guess I’ll be going,” Archer said, a little hurriedly.
“Stick around,” Gardner told him. “Let’s hear what Leopold has to say.” He returned his attention to the screen. “You are Leopold, aren’t you?”
“That’s right—hey! He’s leaving!”
GARDNER whirled and saw Archer, suitcase in hand, fumbling annoyedly with the intricate Lurioni doorlatch. A number of seemingly irrelevant but actually interrelated facts suddenly fitted themselves together.
“Where are you going, Archer?”
“I’m—” He got the door open at last, and without bothering to finish the sentence started to go through.
Gardner jumped.
He grabbed Archer by the shoulder and spun him back into the room; the door slammed shut.
“What’s your hurry?” Gardner demanded. “I told you to stick around.”
Instead of answering, Archer crashed a fist into Gardner’s stomach. Gardner gasped and doubled up, but as Archer brought his fist round for another blow Gardner grabbed it suddenly and flipped Archer over his shoulder.
The thin man landed heavily and scrambled to his feet, but by that time Gardner was on top of him. Archer’s eyes were glaring desperately; he strained to roll over, clawed at Gardner’s arms, tried to force the heavier man off him.
Gardner slapped him twice, just to loosen him up, then thumped his head against the floor hard. Archer’s eyes closed.
Gardner turned back to the screen. Leopold was still watching, eyes wide in the oval face.
“That was Archer, wasn’t it?” Leopold asked. “What in blazes is happening?”
“I don’t know,” said Gardner. “But he made me take the doorseal down, and then he had me dictate what amounted to a full confession of—of the company’s trade secrets. Now he tried a quick getaway. I’m going to look through his suitcase. Call me back in ten minutes or so, will you?”
He broke the contact. He didn’t care to have the contents of Archer’s suitcase sent out over public beam.
Archer was still unconscious. Good. Gardner slit the suitcase open with a penknife and looked inside.
Much clothing. A small package containing the sonic generator. And—
What’s this?
A pocket recorder!
Gardner depressed a stud and heard his own voice say, “We’ve been sent here as a team with the assignment of destroying Lurion. It takes five of us—”
Gardner smiled grimly and pressed the erase stud. Then he drew a glass of water and tossed it in Archer’s face. The man on the floor sputtered, coughed, and opened his eyes.
“I’ve just listened to your little recording,” Gardner said. “Who are you working for, Archer?”
“What? How—?”
“Don’t bluster your way out of it. Who paid you to wriggle a confession out of me?”
Archer grinned. “No one, yet. But I imagine the Confederacy of Rim Stars will be interested in the way Earth lives up to its high ethical pronouncements.”
Gardner was ready this time. He sidestepped as Archer sprang.
The spy was quick on his feet. He ducked back and lunged at Gardner. Gardner left his guard open, took a soft punch below the heart, and sent Archer rocking backward with a stiff jolt to the chin.
Gardner followed it up with a barrage of light punches and a swift crack across Archer’s exposed throat. It was dirty fighting, but that didn’t matter now.
Archer gagged and started to topple. Gardner caught him neatly, propped him up, and hit him again.
The spy shot backward three feet and cracked sharply against the wall. Gardner winced involuntarily at the sound of the impact. Archer slid slowly to the floor and sprawled there twistedly, his mouth sagging open, his tongue protruding oddly to one side.
Gardner knelt and examined him. He wasn’t breathing.
Very carefully now, Gardner took the dead man’s recorder and touched the playback stud. The reel had been completely erased. Just to make sure, he opened the mechanism, took out the microtape, and stuffed it thoughtfully into the disposal chute.
So much for Archer. But a new problem presented itself.
Archer had been the fifth man on the team. There were only four of them, now. Smee, Leopold, Weegan, and himself, It took five to set up the generator system so it would be effective.
Archer’s generator was in the suitcase—unless the spy had gimmicked it, which was doubtful. But how were they going to work it?
Suppose—
The thought was interrupted. The door opened, and Gardner glanced up, startled, to see Lori Marks enter the room.
“It isn’t like you to leave your door open,” she said in a soft voice. “And I think you owe me some explanations, Loy.”
CHAPTER VI
TOGETHER, they stuffed Archer’s body in the closet, and together they restored the room to order.
Gardner put the seal on the closet. They’d have to rip up the walls to find Archer.
“I checked the records in the Customs Office,” Lori said. “I told them I wanted to know if you were married. They didn’t like the idea of showing me your papers, but when I told them you—you had—when I told them, and gave them some money besides, they let me look. Your entrance papers say you’re not married. Why did you say you were, Loy? To get rid of me?”
“How much of the conversation between Archer and me did you hear?” he asked.
“Only the very end. When he said something about the Confederacy of Rim Stars paying highly for information—but what has that to do with—”
“Quiet, and listen to me.”
Gardner’s face was set in a stern mask. “Archer was part of a team of five sent out by Earth Central to do a job on Lurion. Only he sold out, or was planning to as soon as he had the confession from my lips. But I caught on.”
“What kind of job?” she asked.
“We were sent here to destroy Lurion.”
Her eyes widened for a moment, then focussed on him in a bewildered glare. “What?”
He told her. He told her about Karnes and about the computer, and about the necessity for the mission. And why he had pretended he was married.
When he was all finished, he watched her reaction. She forced a little lopsided smile and said, “And I was studying cruelty on Lurion! I could have stayed at home and done a better job.”
“No. You’re dead wrong,” he said. “There’s nothing cruel about what Earth’s doing to Lurion. We’re killing three billion people, sure. But we’re removing a filthy plague-spot from the universe. We’re saving Earth and we’re protecting the rest of the galaxy.”
She shook her head numbly. “You’re just acting in cold blood. You can’t deny that.”
“We don’t want to deny it.” He felt oddly calm now, as if he had believed these things all his life and not merely come to grasp them recently. “We know we’re acting in cold blood—to save ourselves the trouble of acting in hot blood when Lurion springs its war on us. Lori, this world is rotten. You know that.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“Well, then, eventually some of that rottenness is going to flare up into a galactic war. Billions may be killed; the economies of hundreds of worlds may be disrupted. We can avoid that now.”
“There are innocent people on Lurion. There must be.”
“Some healthy cells have to die when you remove a cancer,” Gardner said.
“You would have let me die,” Lori whispered.
He nodded. “I nearly threw up the whole project because of that. It was a mistake ever getting entangled with you. There was no way to save you—but you were only one person. Billions have to be considered.”
“So you said you were married.”
“Only to keep you away from me, to keep you from breaking down my determination to go through with the job. Well, you’ll live now. Your ship leaves in two or three weeks, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have to send back to Earth for a replacement, now that Archer’s dead. By that time you’ll be off Lurion and safely on the return trip home.”
A frown rippled across her forehead. “You still have Archer’s generator, don’t you? Isn’t it working?”
“I assume so. But the generators have to be widely spaced. I can’t be in two places at once when it’s time to throw the switches. There’ll have to be a replacement.”
“How complicated is the generator?” she asked.
“Not very. Why?”
“Maybe I could be the replacement,” she said.
HE BLINKED and said, “Should I take that at face value or not?”
“I made an offer, I think you need my help. If you don’t want it—”
“Lori, are you serious? Why do you want to—to help murder this planet?”
“Maybe I love you, you idiot. Maybe I’ve spent enough time here to begin thinking it wouldn’t be murder, that it would be more like an execution—or a mercy killing.” There was a tear at the edge of her eye. Angrily she flicked it away. “Well? Don’t you believe your own sales talk, Loy?”
He had no immediate answer. The visi-screen chimed, taking him off the hook.
He expected that it would be Leopold, calling back. But it was Smee. The agent looked agitated.
“Gardner, what’s holding things up? All of us are here now. I want to go home, dammit!”
Gardner took a deep breath. “I’ve got good news for you, Smee. The project’s getting under way immediately. And make sure you stay by your generator until I’m there to pick you up.”
“I’ll be there,” Smee said. “Don’t worry about that.” Gardner broke the contact and looked at the girl. She was pale and tense, but without any indication of wavering. “Your offer’s accepted,” he said curtly.
“Where’s the generator, and how does it work?”
He unsealed the closet and produced both generators, Archer’s and his. Archer’s had been modified somewhat; it looked now like a twin-turreted microscope, but the familiar instruments were all in their proper places.
“Briefly, it’s a sound-generator,” he told her. “It sets up an inaudible vibration; and when we get that vibration going from five different places on Lurion—crack!”
“And how do we all escape afterward?”
“Each generator transmits a characteristic signal that I’ll be able to home in on. I’ll make a quick trip to the pickup points and get everybody. We ought to have enough time.”
“You’d better be very clear about the part I play in this,” Lori said. “Explain it all carefully.”
He grinned nervously. “It doesn’t take much intelligence to run the thing. In order to set it into action, you depress this lever.” He took her hand and touched it to the lever. She drew it back instantly, as if the stud were radioactive.
“You don’t have to be afraid of it,” he said. “It takes all five to blow up the works. Besides, none of them will work unless mine is activated first. I’m the control man for the circuit.”
“How will I know when yours is working?” she asked.
“The moment I flip the lever on my generator, yours is going to start humming. As soon as that hum begins, you and Weegan and Leopold and Smee are going to activate your individual generators. Then we’ve got six hours to run for it before the planet caves in, which means I go zooming all over Lurion grabbing team members.”
“Where should I be?”
“At the spaceport, of course. I can’t land my ship in the middle of the street out here. Pack up any notes you want to take along, take the generator with you, and get down to the spaceport. After the generator’s in operation, rent a locker and hide it in there. Those lockers can’t be opened in a hurry.”
She smiled. “Okay. Let me repeat it to see if I’ve got it straight.”
IT WAS ALL so simple, Gardner thought, as he left his ship and headed for the spaceport, cradling the deadly generator under his arm. Just push the buttons, and run for it. And at the push of a finger, a world dies.
The spaceport at Delison, halfway across the planet, looked much like the one at City. Gardner made his way into the jostling crowd, trying to keep his eyes from meeting the eyes of any of the Lurioni. In six hours, he thought—six hours . . .
The generator looked as innocent as a camera. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, standing there alone in the midst of the crowd. Then, quietly, he placed his finger on the actuator button—and pushed.
There was a faint droning noise. The white bulb in the generator’s panel lit.
He waited. After a moment, the red bulb lit. That was Smee, ever anxious. Then, the green. Weegan.
Someone was peering at him curiously—a tall Lurioni in official uniform. Gardner began to sweat. The blue bulb lit. Leopold.
Just one generator remained inactive—Lori’s. The yellow bulb was still dim. He pictured her in an agony of indecision, holding back at the last moment, unable to push the button at the crucial moment.
Come on, Lori, he thought savagely, wishing he were telepathic. Push the button. Push it, kid.
His hands were quivering, and he realized he was holding the generator too tightly. The locker door hung open, ready to receive its deadly contents.
“Hey, you!” a voice called, harsh, thick, threatening. “What’s that gadget you got? A bomb?”
The guard was a hundred feet away and advancing rapidly. Come on, Loril
He froze, unable to move, staring at the unlit bulb on the panel.
And at the last instant the yellow bulb lit.
Good girl, he thought. He jammed the now-activated generator into the locker, shut it, slapped his seal on the door. They weren’t going to get that off in six hours—or sixty!
“Come here, you! What was that thing?”
Gardner put his head down and dashed into a swirling mob. The guard would never dare to fire—not even on Lurion. He pushed and trampled his way back toward his ship, climbed the catwalk at about three lights, and feverishly punched out his first destination. Back to City, to pick up the girl.
SIX HOURS LATER, the tiny ship hung three quarters of a billion miles from Betelgeuse and three hundred million miles from Lurion. Five pairs of stony eyes stared at the ship’s single viewplate.
“It ought to happen just . . . about . . . now,” Gardner said.
As he spoke, the black dot that was Lurion suddenly—crumbled!
Gardner turned away from the viewplate. The others were still staring, in horror, in fascination, at the fragments that had been Lurion.
“We’re on our way home,” he said tonelessly. He jabbed down hard on the controls and the ship flickered out of normal space and into warp. Lurion was only a memory; Earth lay ahead.
The job was done.
Three Survived
At first Roy thought his two companions were going to be just dead weight in the fight to survive from the spaceship wreck. They had no scientific skills at all
ABOARD the spaceship Clyde Bohmer, en route from Rigel IV to the Capella Orbiter via transspace hop, all hell had broken loose. The ship had blinked suddenly out of ultra-drive with an eyeballjarring wrench and had drifted slowly into the system of a small golden-yellow G-type sun. A moment later, whatever it was that had given up the ghost in the drive compartment expired noisily, blasting away the nose of the ship.
Efficiently, the cybernetic governors slid the emergency partitions over the wounded section, but not before two ruptured bulkheads had yielded up the air they had penned in. In his cabin just below Navigation Deck, Spatial Engineer Roy Kilbourne dialed Info and waited while the audio banks of the ship’s computer fed him a precise account of the accident as reported by the scanning pickups.
“. . . failure in main drive generator, leading to destruction of nose section in total” The computer always had had a fondness for Latin, Kilbourne, thought irrelevantly.
The computer hummed for an instant and went on: “Air loss serious in Sections 8 and 9; compensation has been made but human inhabitants are suffering acute anoxia. Eight men in extremis there. Officer’s bridge destroyed; no survivors known. Engine room destroyed; several survivors. Passengers generally unharmed, though deaths are observable. Radon clouds causing hazard in lower levels of ship. Lifeships 3, 7, 8 are unusable. Computer section functioning and—”
