Part 4

"Fine." Roysland lifted his finger and turned to the typer on his desk. He wasn't used to the makeshift office, and he found himself wishing he was back on Kandoris VI, in his own office.

He shrugged and began running his fingers over the typer. It took him only a few minutes to put down what he wanted to say. When he finished, he pulled the sheet from the printer tank and put it on his desk, in plain sight. At the top, he scrawled: "To Kiffer Samm." His own signature went at the bottom.

Then he put on his spacesuit and headed out, toward the outside air lock.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Kiffer Samm was reading the note. He had stepped into Roysland's office and seen that it was empty. Assuming that his superior would be right back, he had sat down to wait. Then he'd seen the note.

He was halfway through it before it became perfectly clear what Roysland was doing.

"... So you may have to take over for the next twenty-five to thirty days. Naturally, I couldn't ask anyone else to take the risk.

"I think it may be a good idea if Bilford starts experimenting with subetherics in an effort to snap the rest of the boys out of this feedback loop thing. Maybe he can do it in less time.

"By the time you read this and get in a spacesuit and get out to the firing area, I will have finished the test; don't let me die of starvation, chum."

Kiffer punched at the communicator button, yelled orders into it, and grabbed a spacesuit out of the locker. By the time he reached the outer air lock, a jeep was waiting for him.

When the second jeep pulled up, Kiffer said: "You men stop at the gun emplacement and take a look at the weapon. We'll go on to the target tower and pick up Roysland."

The men nodded their agreement, and the two vehicles started rolling.

Theoretically, it was "evening," but the great, blue-white blaze of Kandoris still hung in the eternally black sky. The jeep went by the gun emplacement where the Enlissa weapon had been set up for testing. Kiffer noticed that the snout of the ugly-looking tube was aimed at the squat steel tower where the animal subjects had been exposed to its radiations.

"There he is!" said the jeep's driver, pointing.

Kiffer could see a spacesuited figure on the target tower. He twisted the dial on his chest and said to the men in the second jeep: "Check that projector! Make sure it isn't in operation!"

"It's not," said one of the men. "He had a timer connected to the firing mechanism. He got a ten-second burst from it, according to the timer reading."

"Thanks. We'll pick him up, then."

* * * * *

The jeep swerved toward the tower and pulled up underneath it in a swirl of dust that settled slowly and evenly in the low gravity of the airless satellite. Kiffer jumped out of the jeep, grabbed the rungs of the ladder, and lifted himself to the platform at the top of the twenty-foot tower.

He stuck his head up over the edge and saw Roysland. The man was sitting on a small chair with his back to the ladder. Surrounding him were the various recording instruments that had been rigged up on the platform for testing the animals and the effects of the beam on them.

Kiffer climbed on up and twisted his helmet phone control to Roysland's frequency. As he put his hand on Roysland's shoulder, he said: "Stand up, Roysland."

Roysland jerked around. "What? Oh. Hi, Kiffer; I saw you coming in the jeep." He paused then, and though Kiffer couldn't see very well through the heavy darkness of the helmet's glare-filtering polarization, he could have sworn that Roysland was grinning. He would have been right.

"Oh, I get it," Roysland said. "You were expecting to find me sitting up here with a feedback lobotomy. Frankly, so was I, a half hour or so ago, but I'd almost forgotten it."

Kiffer took a deep breath, let it out, and said a few choice, pungent words. "... Who would scare a guy like that," he ended.

"Sorry," Roysland said, still grinning. "But take a look at these readings. I think you'll--"

"Wait a minute!" Kiffer interrupted. "I'm not interested in meter readings right now! What happened or didn't happen to you?"

"_Is he all right?_"

"_What's going on up there?_"

"_Need any help?_"

The voices came almost simultaneously to Kiffer's phones. He could see the second jeep tearing up dust between the gun emplacement and the target tower.

"He's O.K.," Kiffer snapped. "Big false alarm! I think we ought to have an explanation."

The answering burst of catcalling and jeers made Roysland wince. "O.K., fellers! O.K.! Please accept my abject and snivelling apologies."

"Explain yourself," Kiffer said in a monarchial tone. "You were supposed to be out here testing this thing on yourself; you wrote a very heart-rending note to that effect. I don't blame you for getting cold feet, but you could at least have notified us."

"I didn't get cold feet," Roysland said. "Look at the cerebrograph reading and compare it with the firing record."

Kiffer looked and then said: "Then you _did_ take it! But according to this, all it did was cause a very faint _petit mal_ convulsion. You probably didn't even notice it."

"I didn't," Roysland said. "I don't know what that projector is supposed to do, but it sure isn't a mindjammer!"

Kiffer looked again at the records. "Maybe you weren't far enough away from the projector," he said doubtfully. "Maybe the distance--"

"Impossible," said Roysland. "The beam doesn't disperse appreciably over a distance of half a light-year; you know that. And the wave form is exactly the same.

"No, I'm afraid we've just run up against another blind alley."

Kiffer shook his head slowly. "I don't believe it," he said. "The Enlissa didn't have their ship armed with this thing for nothing. We must have connected it up wrong, somehow."

"Maybe," Roysland said. "But it doesn't work as is. Let's get these records into the jeep; I want to see what we're getting here, anyway."

They took the recordings out of the instruments and dropped them to the three men who were waiting by the jeeps parked underneath the tower.

A few minutes later, they were heading back toward the dome.

* * * * *

Four days later, Roysland was back on Kandoris VI, ensconced firmly in his office. Kiffer Samm stayed on Syndor, still working on the Enlissa projector.

The first thing Roysland did was to call another staff meeting. He also included Bilford and Commander Allerdyce.

He outlined briefly the data they had so far on the Enlissa mindjammer, then asked for comments.

Bilford grabbed the floor first. "I did the correlation you wanted, and I came up with some answers, but they're not the right ones as far as I can tell.

"As far as the backwash on the _aJ_ gun is concerned, I think you can rule that out. After converting to electromagnetic equivalents, I find that the frequency of the backwash is much too low to have any effect on the brain. That is, assuming that subetherics have any effect on the mind at all--and, of course, assuming that there is any analogy at all between the function of subetheric vibrations and electromagnetic vibrations. After all, analogue reasoning has its limitations, too, just as logical reasoning does.

"The captured Enlissa projector is another problem. Unlike the _aJ_'s backwash, it isn't a noise; it's a definite, although complex, tone. I say complex because--and again my reasoning is analogical--because the frequency is not a pure sine wave, but a combination. It's analogous to the difference between the vibration of a tuning fork sounding middle C and, say, a violin sounding the same note.

"Even so, I think we can say that the captured projector is _not_ the mindjammer; the frequency is much too high. It's on the order of hard X-rays. If the analogy holds, the subetheric beam should be capable of disrupting certain molecules, but it most certainly couldn't have the mindjamming effect on the human brain."

He sat down and rubbed his hands together nervously.

Commander Allerdyce stood up. Normally, the fleet commander did not kowtow to anyone, but his automatic respect for the big man in the chair at the head of the table came to the fore. As a matter of fact, the commander didn't think of it as kowtowing; he merely acknowledged the superior abilities of the man he was facing.

"All I've got is statistics, Roysland. I wouldn't have noticed it without your hint, but we've worked out a new strategy that has reduced casualties by better than sixty per cent." He reached down and picked up a pile of report sheets.

"It stacks up this way: About thirty per cent of the Enlissa ships that attack have the habit of coming in without firing anything. What the reason is, I don't know, but they do it. Therefore, we have a good chance of getting the enemy with torpedoes alone if he doesn't fire first.

"A ship equipped with _aJ_ projectors has about a seventy per cent chance of winning. The other thirty-odd per cent of the time, they're mindjammed.

"The chances of a conventionally armed ship coming through is better than sixty-two per cent.

"But here's the gimmick: In taking the action of the Enlissa fleet into account, we can reduce the casualties tremendously. About thirty-two per cent of them come in without firing. By taking that into account, we can increase our own chances of survival tremendously."

Roysland nodded. "Good; I'd like to see the statistics on that. Would you mind sending over the full report?"

"Not at all," said Commander Allerdyce. He sat down.

Taddibol stood. "I think I can speak for Vanisson, Mardis, and myself. According to the evidence we have, the Enlissa are capable of picking out a ship with _aJ_ guns _before_ they fire. We think that there must be some residual emanation from the _aJ_ that is detectable by the enemy. No other hypothesis fits the facts."

Vanisson was standing before Taddibol had finished. "I'd like to make it clear that, although I agree with Taddibol Vlys, the evidence is still a necessary part of the hypothesis. We've--"

The emergency buzzer sounded, and everyone at the table turned to look at Roysland as he swore roundly and jabbed the stud. General Director Eckisster had barely begun to solidify before Roysland said: "Can't I have any peace? Must you continually and forever be looking over my shoulder?"

"No," said Eckisster calmly. "Yes. If that answers your questions, may I say something? I'm sorry I had to interrupt a staff meeting, but I felt that this would be the perfect time to inject this bit of data.

"As I see it, you weren't satisfied with human volunteers for the Enlissa weapon; you asked that two of the aliens also be subjected to the beam from their own gun."

"That's right," Roysland said. "According to Bilford, two of them have been rendered sane by the treatment of the microwave frequencies. I didn't think you'd reject using the Enlissa captives on humanitarian grounds."

"I didn't," Eckisster said. "Your man, Kiffer, claimed that further information could be gained by subjecting the alien brains of the enemy to the radiation from their own projector. Since the psychological department has now discovered a method of bringing back the functional ability of the brain after exposure to the mindjammer effect, I didn't think it would be harmful to allow two of the aliens to be subjected to it again. Unfortunately, they died."

"They _what_?" Bilford shouted the question.

"Died, Bilford, _died_," Eckisster said. "They are both as dead as the surface of Syndor."

"Good God!" Bilford said. "Perhaps a second exposure--" Suddenly he jammed a finger down on his cutoff, and his image vanished from the conference room.

"What was the reason for that?" Eckisster wanted to know.

"He's just released the first batch of men from the hospital for active duty," said Fleet Commander Allerdyce. "If that thing _is_ the mindjammer, and those men are exposed again--Excuse me." His own finger touched the cutoff, and his image flickered out.

Eckisster looked at Roysland. "Well, sir?"

Roysland shook his head. "I didn't expect that," he said. "I honestly didn't expect that."

"I know you didn't," Eckisster said softly. "I know you didn't. But look at it this way: It's data. And we need data."

"I know," Roysland said. "It's not that. Excuse me; I've got to think." He slammed his hand down, and the whole group collapsed into nothingness.

* * * * *

"_What?_" asked Commander Allerdyce.

"I said," Roysland repeated, "that I think I have the answer to something that was brought up in the meeting last night. And I want you to give me permission to take the X-69 into enemy territory."

"I will," Allerdyce said, "if you'll give me a good reason for going."

"All I want is a sample of alien animal life. I think I know what's going on, but I'm not sure."

Allerdyce shook his head. "We can't do it. We don't know where the enemy bases are, any more than the Enlissa know where our own planets are. We keep our subetheric devices shielded, and so do they. If we didn't, this would have ceased to be a spatial war long ago--you know that."

"I know," Roysland admitted; "but we have prisoners; members of the enemy's armed forces. We can get our information from them."

Allerdyce was still shaking his head. "How? They've been treated mentally against probing. They won't tell us where their home planets are, any more than our own men would--or _could_--tell them."

Roysland, in turn, shook his head. "That's not what I'm looking for. I'm not a military man; I'm a scientist--at least I think I am. I'm not looking for military bases; I'm looking for a planet where the Enlissa have planted their flora and fauna. That's what we do with a planet, isn't it? Seed it long before we colonize. If they've done as much colonization as we have--and their war potential shows that they must have--then they'll have a lot of planets that aren't inhabited by the Enlissa themselves, but will have been seeded by Enlissa-type life.

"At least one of the crewmen from that ship will know where such a planet is located. And I'm willing to bet that he won't be conditioned against telling us."

"Why not?" Allerdyce asked.

"For the same reason you haven't thought of it," Roysland said, grinning. "The Colonization Service and the Fleet Command are two different branches. Unless the aliens think differently than we do, their organization is about the same. And every bit of evidence shows that their reasoning is similar.

"There's no reason to protect an unpopulated planet, is there? Besides, the military don't inspect colonization records. Why should they? And what would it matter if the enemy took over an unpopulated planet? After all, we have as much chance of taking over one of theirs."

Allerdyce thought it over before answering. Finally, he said: "I'll check with Bilford. If he thinks we can get that much information out of an alien, I'll O.K. the trip. I'll have to insist, of course, that the X-69 be fully armed and subject to military orders."

"Naturally," Roysland agreed. "Just let me make the trip; that's all."

"I'll see what I can do," said Allerdyce. "Meanwhile, I'm going to call Colonization Service."

Roysland smiled to himself as he cut the connection.

* * * * *

Three days after that, the X-69 lifted again for space. On board her, locked securely in the brig, was the first officer of the captured Enlissa vessel.

No one had yet determined the nature of the Enlissa language, but Bilford had worked out a method of getting yes-no answers out of him, and had, by the process of elimination, arrived at a star system that contained a planet which had been seeded by the aliens. And all Roysland wanted was a sample of the Enlissa animals.

There's an old saying which goes: "Some people have all the luck." It has echoed down the corridors of human history and human thought for a thousand centuries, in one form or another. It is usually assumed to be the complaint of the unsuccessful against those whose success is greater--but it is to be noted that it is not specified whether the luck is good or bad.

With the same reservations, one might assume that Roysland Dwyn was lucky. On the fourth day out, the alarm buzzers sang their warning through the corridors of the X-69.

As the crew scrambled for battle stations, Roysland headed up the stairway toward the control bridge. Captain Dobrin and the fire control officer were huddled over the spotterscope, conversing in low tones. Roysland walked over behind them, but he kept his mouth shut. In a situation like this, he was only a civilian; it wasn't his business to say anything now. He studied the instruments, instead.

Somewhere out near the limits of the detector's range had come the faint trace of a moving ship. And the identity comparator showed it to be an Enlissa vessel.

"She must have picked us up, too," said the captain. "We'll know in a few minutes."

They watched quietly, tensely, waiting for the Enlissa ship to change course. If it didn't, a battleship would normally change the geodesic of its own flight and follow to engage the Enlissa ship. But not the X-69; she was looking for planets, not ships.

They didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, a trace appeared in the same octant of the scope where the earlier trace had vanished.

"Same ship, all right," said the FCO. "It would take them that long to turn around. They're going to try to come in for a kill."

"Signal Final Alert," said the captain.

As the buzzer sizzled out its message, Roysland flexed his muscles in a subconscious desire for action.

Captain Dobrin seemed to realize for the first time that Roysland was in the control room. His face was hard and tightly drawn, and only very slightly showed the strain that was beneath.

"We're going to operate according to the new tactics," he said. "We'll use the torpedoes first and the _aJ_ guns last. We'll use screenbusters and files."

Roysland nodded. "You're in command here, captain. I know nothing of spatial strategy."

The prime officer turned back to the FCO. "Check maximum volume and englobe. It'll be expensive, but we can't afford to take chances now."

"Yes, sir," said the fire control officer.

Roysland watched the instruments closely as the FCO gave his orders. The first job was to feed into the calculators the exact course and velocity of the enemy ship. Then they waited until the calculators gave the most probable volume of space that the ship would occupy after the screenbuster torpedoes were sent.

Take a solution to the Brownian Movement problem; add everything that is known about spatial strategy; stir well with the enemy's probable interpretation of the signals from the torpedoes--and hope like hell.

The first ingredient is relatively easy to determine, the second very much less so, and the third is almost pure intuition.

Figures began to pop up on the screen. The FCO watched them, unmoving, his face a rigid mask. Then suddenly, he began to punch data into the torpedo-firing robots.

Roysland narrowed his eyes as he watched. The _aJ_ projectors didn't require that much computation. If the _aJ_'s were fired now, the Enlissa ship wouldn't have a chance to fire. And yet, statistics showed that--

_Why?_

The FCO's masklike face began to acquire a sheen of perspiration in the glowing lights of the control room as he watched the screen and punched methodically at the fire control board. It was work that no robot could do; it required the shrewdness, intuition, and foresightedness that is a peculiar quality of the human mind.

Without warning, the FCO jabbed violently at the white stud that stood at the edge of his panel. He jerked his finger off, and his hand seemed to freeze for a second. He had done the irrevocable; he had fired every torpedo in the ship.

The X-69 now possessed no armament except the _aJ_ guns.

* * * * *

The first volley of screenbusters left the ship and slammed suddenly into the ultravelocity that only an unmanned torpedo is capable of. Even an antiacceleration field isn't one hundred per cent perfect. In no-space drive, a ship can accelerate at the spatial equivalent of better than a hundred thousand gravities without hurting the crew. But the tremendous acceleration of a war torpedo would crush any human body to a monomolecular film.

The torpedoes had to be small; only a very small no-space generator could achieve such velocities in so short a time. But their small capacity was capable of carrying enough subnuclear explosive to smash through the energy screens of the enemy ship.

They could not, however, breach the vodium hull itself or kill personnel within. That was where the "flies" came in. Their job was to smash through the breach in the energy screen, open the hull, and destroy life within.

The only trouble was that the enemy could detect the torpedoes. If the Enlissa could act fast enough, they might be able to avoid them. The hope of the human ship was that the englobement would be too much for the robot computers of the Enlissa.

The first wave of torpedoes left the X-69, spearing in the general direction of the Enlissa vessel. For a fraction of a second, they maintained their original course. Then they became erratic--purposely so. They flashed on and off in the detector screens as their no-space generators cut in and out, and they switched courses with dizzying rapidity. They had been on their way only for hundredths of a second when the second volley let go. Then the third blasted out. The whole thing was over before an eyelid could flicker.

Roysland glanced at the chronometer; the whole operation had taken slightly over ninety seconds.

The silence lasted only for a moment. One of the observers called out: "Torpedo at twelve thirty-seven!"

The data had already been picked up by the robot pilot, and the X-69 shifted course. Roysland could feel the slightly sickish feeling in his stomach under the heavy acceleration as the angular acceleration of the ship changed.

There was nothing to do now but wait. It was up to the robot defenses and the screens to make sure that no enemy torpedo hit the X-69.

The ship lurched again.

Because of their tremendous acceleration, a war torpedo couldn't possibly be a homing type weapon; it moved too fast. Before even a subelectronic relay could operate, the target would be well out of range. The X-69 was in the position of a man ducking thrown stones; the only fatal move would be an inaccurate judgment.

* * * * *

Again the floor jerked beneath them as another enemy torpedo sizzled through the place where the ship might have been.

"_Explosion at fifteen-sixty!_" shouted two observers at once.

The FCO's face suddenly broke into a grin. "We did it," he said softly.

Then the intercom flickered on. An excited Space Marine said: "Captain Dobrin! There's something funny going on down here; that Enlissa officer we've got in the brig just dropped dead!"

It was at that instant that Roysland Dwyn found his answer. The pieces of the whole jigsaw puzzle fell into place and made a beautiful picture. And he realized that the Enlissa, too, had changed their battle tactics.

And that was when the explosion hit.

Four torpedoes had come in on the X-69 at once, and the robot had been a fraction of a second too late in computing the trajectories all at once and figuring a safe path.

The screenbuster's detonation jarred the whole ship violently. Then there were two thumps as a pair of flies came into the hole through the screen and blasted the interior of the cruiser.

Roysland wasn't sure what had happened; the whole control room had suddenly seemed to turn upside down. When he picked himself up from one wall--which had now become "down"--his nose was bleeding, and his right arm was dead to the shoulder. Broken clavicle.